Word: easting
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...time by choosing his newly minted successor, who has been in office for only nine months but has made some of the right noises about rejecting some of his global policies. There will of course be some bogus cover story about Obama's vision for nuclear disarmament and Middle East peace and climate change, but the anti-Bush message couldn't have been clearer if the Nobel had gone to Keith Olbermann...
...accept it as "a call for all nations to confront the common challenges of the 21st century." He then rattled off a laundry list of problems. Beyond nuclear weapons and climate change, he said he hoped the prize would serve as a catalyst to grapple with the Middle East, violence, poverty, disease and racism. "Some of the work confronting us will not be completed during my presidency," he said. "Some, like the elimination of nuclear weapons, may not be completed in my lifetime...
...That's all true. But Obama has been in office eight months. His ambitious plans for a peace deal in the Middle East and a nuclear-free world are just getting started. No doubt the Nobel Committee want this prize to add momentum to those plans. But the award also risks adding to the huge burden of expectations that Obama carried when he entered office. The reality of governing has already proved how ridiculous many of those expectations were. (See pictures of Obama's nation of hope...
Still, in the short term, Abdullah's visit is at least a sign that the leaders of the Arab Middle East have backed away from a regional confrontation. However, with Israel threatening to shut down Iran's nuclear program the old-fashioned way - by military strikes - if an alliance of Western nations can't do so through negotiations, it's unlikely that peace will hold for long...
...which will be announced at next week's international book fair in Frankfurt - and critics there hold her in high esteem, but almost no one considered her a figure of global literary eminence. (See a video with Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison.) "Twenty years after the end of the East-West conflict, Herta Müller has been rewarded for keeping alive memories of the inhumane side of state communism," said Michael Krüger, of the publishing house Carl Hanser, based in Munich. "She is an impressive example of a European committed literature that succeeds in bringing history into...