NEWS
October 25, 2007
When President Bush suggests, as he did yesterday, that the Cuban people should rise up against their despotic leader, he conveniently ignores the fact that U.S. policy toward Cuba has done little to spur a revolt. Decades of isolation - and his administration's toughening of the policy - haven't lessened Fidel Castro's hold on power or diminished the influence of his brother Raul, now serving as the de facto president since Mr. Castro took ill a year ago. Indeed, the only Cubans who have benefited from U.S. policy are the thousands of refugees who are given a free pass to live here.
NEWS
By Jonathan Schanzer and Howard Slugh | July 26, 2007
Last month, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist signed a bill ordering his state to divest its pension fund from businesses that work with Iran's energy sector. The legislation, led by Adam Hasner, Republican majority leader of Florida's House of Representatives, passed unanimously in both chambers of the Legislature. Unfortunately, the state legislation is unconstitutional. Only new federal legislation can legally allow states to divest from Iran. In 1996, Massachusetts restricted state businesses from working with companies that dealt with Myanmar, formerly called Burma.
NEWS
By Tracy Wilkinson | February 22, 2007
ROME -- Stung by a bruising foreign policy defeat, embattled Prime Minister Romano Prodi resigned yesterday, his center-left government collapsing after just nine months in power. Prodi failed to win parliamentary endorsement of his decision to maintain Italian troops in Afghanistan, a loss attributed in part to desertions by members of his coalition who oppose continued cooperation with the U.S. military in Italy and abroad. Chants of "quit, quit!" filled the Italian Senate as opposition politicians in business suits jumped up and down and pumped their fists upon realizing Prodi had lost the vote.
NEWS
June 8, 2007
JIM CLARK, 84 Confronted rights marchers Former Dallas County (Ala.) Sheriff Jim Clark, whose violent confrontations with voting rights marchers in Selma in 1965 shocked the nation and gave momentum to the civil rights movement, died Monday at an Elba, Ala., nursing home after years of declining health due to a stroke and heart surgery, Hayes Funeral Home officials said. Mr. Clark was voted out of office in 1966 in large measure because of opposition from newly registered black voters, but throughout his life he maintained he had done the right thing.
NEWS
By TRUDY RUBIN | July 31, 2007
PHILADELPHIA -- While the White House has been focusing its foreign policy attention on Iraq, the rest of the world hasn't been standing still. China has been using a new approach to expand its influence and global appeal. This approach is one at which the United States once excelled but now does badly. Call it "soft power," a term coined more than a decade ago by Harvard's Joseph Nye to describe a country's ability to lead by example and get others to follow because they admire what you are. A new book called Charm Offensive: How China's Soft Power Is Transforming the World looks at Beijing's increasing skill at using diplomacy, trade incentives, cultural and educational exchanges, and other techniques to build an image of a benign global leader.
NEWS
By Rebecca Hamilton and Chad Hazlett | June 18, 2007
Conventional wisdom says that the youth vote is fickle, that in a world of limited budgets, campaign managers are smart to direct resources elsewhere. But new trends in youth political engagement challenge this long-standing belief. And for presidential candidates seeking to exploit these new developments, the message of 2008 may well be, "It's the genocide, stupid." For the past three years, a stunning number of young people have been active at all levels of the democratic process for the sake of civilians in Darfur, Sudan.
NEWS
By Jonathan Weisman | October 13, 1999
WASHINGTON -- President Clinton faced the stinging defeat of a prized foreign policy objective last night, as the Senate moved toward an agreement to delay voting on a nuclear test ban treaty indefinitely.Senate Republican Leader Trent Lott tentatively agreed to withdraw the treaty without a vote after Tom Daschle, the Senate Democratic leader, promised not to push for a ratification vote until after Clinton leaves office.The president's Democratic allies in the Senate are short of the two-thirds majority, or 67 votes, needed for passage of the treaty.
NEWS
March 3, 1999
AFTER the collapse of the Soviet Union, China replaced Russia as the most important bilateral relationship in U.S. foreign policy.This is not a reward for niceness. Rather, it is recognition of China's immense population, great resources, dynamic economic growth, persistent military development, Communist power structure, territorial ambitions, thirst for oil and national pride.This relationship calls for careful dealing, patient dialogue and courteous attention from a strong base of U.S. interests and values.
NEWS
By Paul West | November 20, 1999
WASHINGTON -- Seeking to beef up his foreign policy credentials, Texas Gov. George W. Bush portrayed himself yesterday as a committed internationalist whose administration would ration the use of U.S. military power abroad.In his first foreign policy address, the Republican front-runner sketched out a mainstream vision of the U.S. role in international affairs. He cautioned against the "drift" of an ad hoc foreign policy that moves "from crisis to crisis, like a cork in a current.""America must be involved in the world," Bush said, in a counter to isolationist sentiment in his own party.
NEWS
By Paul West | November 8, 1999
DIXVILLE NOTCH, N.H. -- As he ambles through a deserted hotel lobby, the man the polls say will be the next president spies a solitary hotel worker."Hi. I'm George W.," he says, grabbing the first of many hundreds of hands he will shake by nightfall.It is very early on Election Day, one year before the nation's first presidential votes -- those cast at this very hotel -- will be announced with great fanfare in one of the enduring publicity stunts of American politics.Gov. George W. Bush has come to New Hampshire, after ducking two debates, to put on a dazzling display of one-on-one politicking across the northern part of the state.