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What's in the News
With the backing of New York's senior senator, William Hochul has been nominated to serve as the United States Attorney for the Western District of New York. Hochul was recommended by Sen. Charles Schumer, who is a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee that has jurisdiction over all United States Attorney confirmations. Schumer submitted Hochul's name to President Obama. Hochul is currently an assistant United States Attorney and head of the Western District's National...
WASHINGTON -- The Environmental Protection Agency says that corn ethanol -- as made today -- wouldn't meet a congressional requirement that ethanol produce 20 percent less greenhouse gas than gasoline. But the agency said it is still more climate friendly than gasoline. The EPA in its analysis said that even if worldwide land-use changes are taken into account, ethanol would still produce 16 percent less greenhouse gases than the gasoline it is replacing. EPA Administrator...
WASHINGTON -- The chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben S. Bernanke, said on Tuesday that the economy appeared to be stabilizing on many fronts but cautioned that a recovery was still months away and that "further sizable job losses" will continue even after an upturn begins. Skip to next paragraph NYT_VideoPlayerStart( { playerType : "article", videoId : "1194840002236" } ); "We continue to expect economic activity to bottom out, then to turn up later this...
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia -- As the Obama administration prepares for talks this week with senior leaders from Afghanistan and Pakistan, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates flew to Saudi Arabia on Tuesday to seek help in pushing back Taliban advances in Pakistan that, he said, threaten the very existence of the government in Islamabad. Skip to next paragraph Related Times Topics: Robert M. Gates Mr. Gates said Saudi Arabia "clearly has a lot of influence throughout...
Russia has dismissed as "insane" claims that it was behind a mutiny at a military base in Georgia on the eve of Nato war games planned in the former Soviet state. Moscow's response on Tuesday came hours after dozens of Georgian tanks and armoured vehicles surrounded the Mukhrovani base in the Gori region, bringing a mutiny among 500 soldiers to an end. The commander of the tank base had been arrested and other soldiers were being questioned, Georgia's...
WASHINGTON, May 5 (Reuters) - Pakistan must demonstrate its commitment to defeating al Qaeda and other militants on its soil, a top U.S. official said on Tuesday, reflecting U.S. concern about Taliban influence in the nuclear-armed country."Pakistan must demonstrate its commitment to rooting out al Qaeda and the violent extremists within its borders," U.S. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, the U.S., special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, said in testimony prepared for delivery to a congressional committee."Security...
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About Us
The Policy Forum for International Security Affairs was launched in November 2002, as it became clear that the US risked a serious erosion of its alliances in the absence of any real effort to explain its policies to European audiences.
American foreign policy and its goals and motivations in undertaking the War on Terror were increasingly subject to caricature and worse in the European media, and to outright misrepresentation in the broader public debate.
Based in London, the Policy Forum began hosting a series of roundtable discussions, often off-the-record, with key American policymakers and leading columnists, editors, writers, and producers from the UK, European and Arabic press corps.
Our aim is to create an open channel of dialogue between those who create the international news and those who report it, in an effort to articulate more clearly and accurately the animating forces behind American foreign policy.
The response to our efforts, among the media, has been both prompt and enthusiastic – editors of The Financial Times, The Daily Telegraph, The London Times, The Economist, The Sun and The Spectator have all participated in our discussions.
Leading columnists and members of editorial boards have at various times been included, and visiting participants have written to us emphasizing how important our gatherings have been in elevating the level of discourse in the British press about American politics and diplomacy.
The site that you now see reflects our effort to expand our original mission beyond the narrow confines of the journalistic profession, and to engage with the wider European community. In reaching out to the active, curious, and engaged public, we seek to provide a resource for those looking to challenge the dominant European discourse about foreign policy matters, and to establish an online home for Britain's leading thinkers on international affairs.
We hope that you find our content enjoyable and thought-provoking, and that your visits here will leave you better informed about the issues that touch all of our lives.
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Opinion/Analysis
To that end, Mr. Thompson said the next president should have the courage to talk straight with the American people and bluntly say that Americans will have to confront both the soaring cost of entitlements and the need to remain committed in the war on terror, even when Iraq is "in the rear-view mirror." "This is a battle between the forces of civilization and of evil," he said, noting that reports over the weekend of...
Though he never answered the question directly, Edwards said -- unconvincingly -- he would use every means available to "find terrorists where they are" and "stop them." But he is sticking by his position that the "war on terror" has just been a bumper sticker and political slogan used by President Bush to justify every nefarious act he has committed, from "the ongoing war in Iraq, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, spying on Americans, torture. " How...
The news of the Shakeri arrest came down from the State Department days after the United States held talks with Iran for the first time in 25 years. While I don't have easy answers ready for how to solve the problem that is a nuclear, jihadist Iran, I also have the hardest time squaring these negotiations with President George W. Bush's brave and morally clear insistence of "you're either with us or against us." He...
You remember the young electronics store clerk whose tip led the FBI to the six men plotting to murder American soldiers at Fort Dix. While copying a video tape onto DVD, he saw images of men firing guns and shouting Islamic slogans. For a while after the story broke, he kept his head down. Now Brian Morgenstern has come forward -- and his story is eye-popping. For a full day after seeing the evidence, he...
The bill's supporters simply should say, "The vast majority of these illegal immigrants are people here to work, and they aren't going to be forced to go home; therefore there is no humane and moral option besides giving them an amnesty." That would be admirably straightforward and obviate the need for complex, obfuscatory lawmaking. The bill gives pretty much every illegal alien here immediate legal status in the form of a probationary Z visa. That's...
Those blessed with common sense know there is a huge difference between public and private use of expletives. While the holiest among us might never utter an obscenity, most decent, even pious, individuals will use an occasional expletive in private under circumstances that can make its use morally, if not religiously, justifiable (as when using an expletive to describe some evil figure or after a heavy weight fell on one's toe). But higher civilization has...
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