Word: agreement
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...since March, when Taiwanese elected Ma Ying-jeou as President, China and Taiwan relations have been improving. Case in point: on June 13, a landmark agreement was reached in Beijing that clears the way for direct chartered flights to the island and back every weekend - and businessmen keen on developing ties to the mainland are breathing easier. "The direct flights would save us a whole work day when we travel," says Samuel Chiu, a Taiwan-based business development manager at electronic instrumentation manufacturer Agilent Technologies. "That's the biggest cost benefit. Traveling to Shanghai will only take two hours...
...agreement is significant to more than the convenience of the estimated 5 million Taiwanese who traveled to China last year, or to the 1 million who now live and work on the mainland. It is expected to aid Taiwan's economy and ease tensions across the combustible Taiwan Strait, the 112 mile (180 km) wide body of water separating mainland China and Taiwan. The direct-flight deal was reached by two semi-official bodies representing Beijing and Taipei in their touchy diplomatic contacts: Taiwan's Straits Exchange Foundation and China's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits...
Prime Minister of Egypt from 1978 to 1980, Mustafa Khalil was instrumental in the negotiations between Israel and Egypt at Camp David that ultimately resulted in a peace accord in 1979, the first such agreement between Israel and an Arab nation. A government official for more than 50 years, Khalil paid a visit to Jerusalem in 1977, which set in motion the later meetings in the U.S. orchestrated by President Jimmy Carter. Following the historic peace process, Khalil stayed politically active until last fall, when he retired from his role as deputy chairman of Egypt's ruling National Democratic Party...
...might discourage investment in new energy resources and would definitely not do much to help motorists), but that's arguably less pandering than McCain's proposal for a gas-tax holiday, which Obama has outspokenly opposed. And while Obama says he wants to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement and other such pacts, he usually makes a point of defending free trade and globalization in the same breath. This can probably be chalked up to a natural penchant for truth-telling--which McCain has at times seemed to possess as well. But however much it appeals to magazine columnists...
...instead of caricaturing diplomacy by invoking the Munich Agreement as code for spinelessness, it is worth studying Chamberlain's failed effort in the Munich talks for lessons in how not to negotiate. He was unprepared, unsophisticated and ultimately unsuccessful in preventing World War II. Having never before boarded an international flight, he flew three times to Germany in 1938, appearing to play supplicant to a violent dictator. Chamberlain sidelined professional diplomats and neglected even to bring his own interpreter, relying instead on Hitler's. Chamberlain's desire to be the man to save Europe blinded him to the impossibility...