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China has urged the United States to scrap a planned multi-billion-dollar arms sale to Taiwan - a move that defense experts said would once again likely scuttle ongoing military exchanges with the US.
The Foreign Ministry yesterday also demanded that Washington avoid arranging a meeting between US President Barack Obama and the Dalai Lama.

The Washington Post said the meeting, and the arms sale, may take place early in the year, dealing a heavy blow to relations between the two world powers.

"Taiwan and Tibet are of great significance to China's sovereignty and territorial integrity. They are China's core interests," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said during a regular press briefing. Jiang was responding to a question on whether China-US relations were likely to deteriorate if the US administration went ahead with both plans.

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Fighters in Iraq and Afghanistan have been able to use low cost software downloaded from the internet to hack into live... ...

On December 10 Barack Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize. He used his acceptance speech to defend the US role in Afghanistan, and to argue that the use of force could bring lasting peace to the world. Praised by the Nobel committee for his "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and co-operation between peoples," just 9 days earlier he had announced he was sending 30,000 additional troops to the battlefield in Afghanistan because "war is sometimes necessary." ...