Word: shifted
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Critics who damned Blair as Bush's poodle were eagerly looking for such signs. When Brown took over, they dared to hope that the British bulldog would now cock its leg on neocon policy. Miliband's own appointment hinted at a shift. He is seen as a skeptic on the war in Iraq, though he supported the government line - something he is reputed not to have done when Israel invaded Lebanon last year. "Blair's position was too close [to the U.S.], and now they have to find a way of getting some distance without causing a rift," says Charles...
...dragon's wing has twitched. A tiny shift in China's Africa policy might just lead to peace in Darfur. China is Sudan's largest trading partner, buying 65% of its oil. Until now Beijing has protected Khartoum from the Western world, which was crying genocide and demanding intervention and sanctions. Now China has helped persuade Sudan to accept a new United Nations-led peacekeeping force of 26,000 military personnel and police, subsuming the 7,000 African Union peacekeepers who have failed to have any significant impact on the conflict...
...third reason for the shift is that China desperately wants the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing to go smoothly. That means everyone must come and the hosts must be in control. Threats of boycotts or demonstrations worry China enough to risk a little interference in Sudan. It is all discreetly handled, of course, but China does appear to have played a significant part in getting the Sudanese to accept the U.N.-led force...
...room syndrome," says a Western banker who advises the State Investment Co. "Where does he sit? Anywhere he wants, sure. But he's got to be very careful that he doesn't squash anything when he does." The mere whiff of a rumor that, say, Beijing may shift part of its foreign-exchange holdings from dollars into euros has rattled world currency markets several times in the past year...
...daylight there," says White House National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe, when asked if the Bush Administration was concerned about a change in tone. If anything, the klieg lights on the U.S.-British relationship could mean that little will change on the surface even if there is a shift behind closed doors. "Everyone will be looking for those small signs," says the Brookings Institution's Philip Gordon, author of Allies at War, adding that Brown "will do everything he can not to reveal them...