Eurasia Press & News

In a move aimed at creating a friendlier investment climate and making the economy more competitive, the Albanian government approved a fiscal package last week that includes implementing a 10% flat tax — the lowest level in Southeast Europe. Corporate taxes will also be slashed to 10%.

MANCHESTER, New Hampshire (AFP) — Top Democratic presidential hopefuls traded their sharpest barbs yet of the 2008 White House race, as differences over Iraq burst into the open during their second televised debate.

TEHRAN (AFP) — Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Monday warned that Iran was prepared “to pay a price” and “resist” to realise the aims of its contested nuclear programme amid an intensifying standoff with the West.

LONDON (AFP) — Israel has plunged the Palestinians into unprecedented levels of poverty and despair through 40 years of occupation, yet failed to ensure its own security, Amnesty International said Monday.

KHARTOUM — Business leaders managing Sudan’s economic boom predict the new US sanctions imposed because of Darfur will have little impact on this country’s oil-based economy, mostly because they avoid targeting key Chinese interests here.

MOGADISHU (AFP) — Violent attacks and retaliation by security forces led to the deaths of two police officers and five civilians in Mogadishu Monday, a day after Somali Prime Minister Ali Mohammad Gedi escaped a suicide car bomb attack.

ISTANBUL — Turkish women are on the street protesting as never before as the fight to preserve Turkey’s secular status gives them a louder political voice that could translate into parliamentary seats in this summer’s elections.

TUNCELI, Turkey (Reuters) — At least eight Turkish paramilitary police were killed when Kurdish rebels attacked their headquarters in eastern Turkey on Monday, security sources said, in the worst attack of its kind in a year.

CAMP ANACONDA (Reuters) — The US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, said on Monday it was too early to judge whether a Baghdad security crackdown was successful because the last of five extra brigades had yet to be deployed.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM (AFP) — Israeli and Palestinian peace groups are staging demonstrations this week to protest at 40 years of Israeli occupation following the 1967 war that changed the shape of the Middle East.