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From the AP, a look at what lines were cut from Obama’s inauguration speech by some mainland Web portals:
Chinese translations of President Barack Obama’s inauguration speech posted Wednesday on popular online portals were missing his references to communism and dissent.
The comments by the newly installed U.S. president veered into potentially sensitive territory for China’s ruling Communist Party, which maintains a tight grip over the Internet and the entirely state-run media.
President Barack Obama huddled with President Hamid Karzai in Chicago on Sunday, urging Afghanistan’s leader to accelerate negotiations with the Taliban over a political solution to the longest war in America’s history. But the prospect for Karzai negotiating successfully with the insurgents is clouded by a question raised by Josef Stalin, on the eve of World War II, in response to the suggestion that he offer concessions to the Pope: “How many divisions does he have?” The Taliban now ask the same question about Karzai. And should the Afghan leader also ask himself the question, he might reach a similarly dispiriting conclusion. Karzai’s independent power base is minimal, as is his ability to influence the outcome of his country’s civil war absent direct U.S. involvement. And that gives neither Karzai nor the Taliban much incentive to cut a deal with the other.
Spillover - Lebanon’s Daily Star reports on escalating violence inside the country after soldiers shot dead a prominent anti-Bashar al-Assad Muslim preacher Sunday. “The gravity of the incident… prompted leaders on both sides of the political divide to call for calm and restraint to prevent the country from sliding into sectarian strife as a result of a spillover of the 15-month-old uprising in neighboring Syria,” it says.
From parades to concerts, and even tea with commoners, 86 year-old Queen Elizabeth II is traversing the United Kingdom to commemorate her Diamond Jubilee.
