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Around 100 Westerners, including a dozen French citizens, are currently being monitored by intelligence services in Islamabad. Some are joining the "Holy War" in training camps along the Pakistani-Afghan border. Between 2006 and 2010, Pakistan was the destination of choice for these "jihad tourists". Mohamed Merah, the 23-year-old Frenchman who killed seven people in Toulouse, also claimed to have trained in one such camp.
Sri Lanka organised Saturday the first vote since the government forces defeated the Tigers three months ago. However, the situation is still unsecured and the country still ethnically divided with 300 000 Tamils detained in refugee camps.
On August 7 2008, Georgia and Russia went to war over the small breakaway province of South Ossetia. One year on, tensions on the ground remain high, to the point that there are even fears in some quarters of another war.
Over one week after the end of deadly clashes between governmental forces and an obscure cult inspired by Afghanistan's Taliban, the city of Maidiguru in northern Nigeria is still under shock.
Last week, China's Supreme Court said it wished to drastically reduce the number of death sentences handed out each year - reportedly more than the rest of the world put together. But abolishing the death penalty altogether is not on the agenda.
Hernan Castillo, author of a book linking Hugo Chavez to the FARC rebel group, is one of a number of Venezuelan thinkers leaving a hostile country they feel now resembles a police state for fear of persecution for their political views.
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