Blair offers way back to the table
Tony Blair said that a conference next March would help the Palestinians set up the political, economic and security structures necessary for them to become valid interlocutors in the "road map" to peace. The death of Yasser Arafat has raised hopes that a new leadership will be able to contain terrorism and open the way to Palestinian statehood. Following his White House meeting with President Bush, Blair is acting as a runner for the Americans in steering the Palestinians towards the negotiating table. Full-scale commitment will depend on whether Mahmoud Abbas can wean the Palestinian Authority from its corrupt and autocratic past; it will be worth watching the degree to which he liaises with Ariel Sharon over the withdrawal from Gaza. Washington's priorities could prove different to those of Blair. But Blair has set the ball rolling. (Daily Telegraph)
Putin and Russia's reputation
Decrying American efforts to help ensure a free election in Ukraine, Putin said Washington's influence abroad amounts to a "dictatorship." Putin has similarly overreached on the domestic front, but he is less likely to back down. His vendetta against Yukos and its founder, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, is destroying Russia's good name among foreign investors, and that does not bode well for the nation's economic future. Putin has cracked down on press freedoms, turned the Russian Parliament into a rubber stamp, stripped local governors of power, interfered in Ukraine elections and begun to gut even a semblance of free enterprise. When she replaces Powell, Condoleezza Rice should strive not only to condemn Putin's behavior abroad but to be a forceful advocate of democracy and economic freedoms within Russia. (Los Angeles Times)
The year of the blog
Merriam-Webster, the U.S. dictionary, recently declared the "blog" the most looked-up term on its Internet site this year. Blog, now happily free of quotation marks, denotes "a Web site that contains an online personal journal." A blog is the modern person's soapbox. According to a blog-watching dot-com named Technorati, the number of blogs in existence is 5 million. The wonder is how lively, informative and influential many of those blogs are. Regular browsers speak of needing their daily opinion fix and say they prefer the informality of the blog to the format of the traditional newspaper column or editorial. The word itself piqued the general public's curiosity as much as the politics du jour; hence its rapid elevation. "Blog" is bigger than a single election cycle. A tool that gives so many private people a public voice is not likely to disappear soon. (Japan Times)
© International Herald Tribune and cited sources
No comments:
Post a Comment