This makes the likelihood of joint intervention, African or regional, extremely remote.

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Ministry officials have instead been privately mulling the possibility of joint currency-market intervention with America.

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And he has a decent foreign-policy record, from taking France back into NATO's military structure to his intervention in the 2008 Russian-Georgian war and his joint leadership of the campaign against Libya.

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Nevertheless, a final joint statement set out several points of agreement, including the rejection of foreign intervention in the conflict-stricken country.

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