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TwinCities.com - Tensions between Eritrea, Ethiopia on the rise

TwinCities.com - Tensions between Eritrea, Ethiopia on the rise Western diplomats suspect that Ethiopia, the Goliath of the two opponents, is sorely tempted to deliver a killer blow against its smaller rival before the Bush administration, a close Ethiopian ally, leaves office at the beginning of 2009. Last year, Ethiopia invaded Somalia and, with clandestine Pentagon help, toppled an emerging Islamist movement accused of sheltering al-Qaida operatives. And though tiny Eritrea has more to risk in going to war, experts say its deepening isolation from the world doesn't preclude its launching a pre-emptive strike. One bleak scenario: an assault on contested territory in November, when an exasperated boundary commission set up by the U.N. packs up after years of Ethiopian stonewalling, and declares the two countries' border officially mapped. "I don't want to be here if it happens," said Tsegaye Redaye, a sad-eyed merchant in Badme whose tea shop's construction i...

Another Day in the Empire

Another Day in the Empire : "If the resistance in Iraq continues to kill U.S. occupation soldiers, the United States will attack Iran, so declared the decider and commander guy during a news conference yesterday. “President Bush charged Thursday that Iran continues to arm and train insurgents who are killing U.S. soldiers in Iraq, and he threatened action if that continues,” reports McClatchy. “At a news conference Thursday, Bush said Iran had been warned of unspecified consequences if it continued its alleged support for anti-American forces in Iraq. U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker had conveyed the warning in meetings with his Iranian counterpart in Baghdad, the president said.”"