Could Seven Dead Monks Upset President Nicolas Sarkozy’s Bold Plans To Remake France’s Legal System?

When the severed heads of seven French Trappist monks were found in a remote mountainous region of Algeria in May 1996, it was natural to assume the murders were the latest gruesome act by jihadists in their long-running and bloody campaign against the Algerian government.

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Ramadi, Iraq on high alert after car bombings

Iraqi authorities on Sunday closed all entrances into Ramadi and imposed a curfew after a series of car bombings killed at least 19 people and injured more than 80 others, according to Interior Ministry officials. The three — who were identified only by initials — were accused of contacts with opposition groups, the semi-official ISNA news agency reported Saturday.

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Iranian opposition leader’s office raided, shut down

Iranian authorities raided and shut down the offices of opposition leader Mehdi Karrubi, an Iranian news agency reported Tuesday, one day after another prominent reformer’s office was raided. Brandishing a court order, representatives of the prosecutor entered the building in the Tehran neighborhood of Jamshidieh at 3 p.m., a spokesman for Karrubi’s party said, according to the Iranian Labor News Agency

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Analysis: Empty seats, silence speaks for protesters

In his inauguration speech at the Iranian parliament, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had something to say for almost everyone — his supporters, his opponents and those he called "enemies" without naming names. He hailed what he called an “epic election” but didn’t go into the turmoil of the past two months that ensued.

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Ex-Iranian president seeks to free detainees

Iranians worried about their loved ones detained in the protests that followed the presidential election got the ear of a former president, who wants the detainees released, an Iranian reformist party newspaper reported on Thursday. Former reformist President Mohammad Khatami met with families of some of the people detained and said that if the courts uphold the civil rights of the detainees, the court would order them freed, reported presidential candidate Mehdi Karrubi’s party newspaper. Spouses of detainees told Khatami they wanted their spouses released and that they worried about their physical and mental health, the paper reported.

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Zakaria: ‘Fatal wound’ inflicted on Iranian regime’s ideology

The decisive margin of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s victory in elections last week stunned many observers and angered his opponents’ supporters, who in the ensuing days took to the streets in protest by the hundreds of thousands. The decisive margin of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s victory in elections last week stunned many observers and angered his opponents’ supporters, who in the ensuing days took to the streets in protest by the hundreds of thousands.

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Iran’s Khatami won’t run for president, state news agency says

Iran’s moderate former president will not challenge President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the upcoming presidential election, the state-run Fars news agency said Monday. Mohammad Khatami said last month that he would run in June, ending weeks of speculation, the state-run IRNA news agency reported February 8. But he now says he will instead support moderate candidate Mir Hossein Moussavi, Fars reported Monday

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