Word: diplomatic
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Tianjin were arrested for corruption. "Corruption arrests are tools [party members] use to launch attacks against each other," says Victor Shih, who teaches political science at Northwestern University and has written a book on élite Chinese politics. Because corruption is so widespread in China, says a Western diplomat in the capital, any senior-level arrest is seen as politically motivated. "You could throw a stone into a crowd of senior cadres in any province and hit someone who could be prosecuted for corruption," the diplomat says. "So when senior guys get taken out, it's time...
...South Asia. "For this, India's foreign policy establishment needs to change," says Dipankar Banerjee, director of the Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies in New Delhi. "There are structural limitations, but that's changing. There is greater realization and willingness to discuss regional issues." Former diplomat Rajiv Sikri agrees: "We need a more activist agenda of our own. Next time, we should not merely react to what the U.S. puts on the table. We must be in a position to say, 'Look, we want to talk about this.' " The irony of the Indo-U.S. strategic partnership remains that...
...Rudd, a Mandarin speaker who once served as a diplomat in Beijing, has pushed for closer relations with China, Australia's biggest trading partner. Until now his government has avoided "megaphone diplomacy" in the Rio Tinto case, but pressure from the opposition has led Rudd to take a much tougher stand as Hu nears two weeks in detention. "A range of foreign governments and corporations will be watching this case with interest and be watching it very closely," Rudd said. "And they'll be drawing their own conclusions about how it is conducted." (Read "China Buys Australia On the Cheap...
...Liberia - the body that oversees the country's recovery - that a company headed by former Justice Minister Philip Banks took out copyright on the new national law code. The U.S. embassy in Monrovia found it had to pay Banks' company $5,000 for its 20 copies, says one Western diplomat; in theory, Liberian courts must do the same. The U.N. panel believes the firm's "grounds for claiming copyright are questionable and ethically dubious." Little wonder that Johnson Sirleaf struggles. "The President's default position is to do the right thing," says the diplomat. "When she makes the wrong decision...
...reputed to be Israel's biggest loudmouth, Avigdor Lieberman speaks softly. His flat, Russian-accented baritone rarely rises above a murmur. He's not a shouter. But when Lieberman talks, people listen - less because he is Israel's top diplomat than because of his knack for saying decidedly undiplomatic things. Lieberman believes that Israel's Arab citizens, who make up nearly 20% of the population, should be forced to sign oaths of loyalty. He has advocated the death penalty for Arab members of parliament who meet with members of Hamas. He calls the Obama Administration's push to curb...