Word: downer
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...political experts like MacManus fear this sordid episode could drag Florida voter turnout, already low in midterm election years, to new depths. And Foley's resignation, they predict, will resonate well beyond Florida - and could have a downer effect on young people contemplating careers in politics. "With boomers retiring, we need the new generation to come into politics," says MacManus. "But this is the kind of episode that has a chilling effect especially on younger folks because they identify most with the kinds of things involved - the Internet, the power of bloggers and such." In other words, today's brand...
...interfering in local politics and too frequently consulting opposition politicians. Canberra had argued strongly against a proposed inquiry into this year's riots in Honiara. Two M.P.s aligned with the government are in jail facing charges relating to the violence, which razed Chinatown. According to Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, Cole's expulsion was outrageous; he smells a rat. "The real motive of the commission of inquiry," he said, "is to ease the pressure on two of Mr. Sogavare's henchmen." The expulsion has cost Solomons M.P.s one of their most beloved perks?multiple-entry visas to Australia...
Such is the fluidity of Solomons politics (Downer mocks it as a "rather curious world") that well-informed observers expect a change of government in Honiara soon. Sogavare has come to power twice in the wake of violence: following a coup in 2000, and after last April's riots. While some of his government's moves seem erratic, the guiding purpose is clear. Under the slogan of "sovereignty," Sogavare is trying to gain control of donor funds and dominate the bureaucracy again. In New York last week to attend the gathering of the U.N. General Assembly, Honiara's delegation sought...
...that the mission is an Australian initiative. Without Canberra's dollars, troops and expertise, RAMSI would not exist. Having committed so much, Australia cannot pull out. It must stay until the work is done. Nor did it underestimate the task; in fact, six months before the July 2003 deployment, Downer saw intervention as "folly in the extreme." "The fundamental problem," he wrote in the Australian, "is that foreigners do not have answers for the deep-seated problems afflicting Solomon Islands...
...Zealand's Labor-led government has taken quite a different diplomatic and military approach, its impeccable morality matching its near irrelevance as a Polynesian statelet in the broader realm of world affairs. Just on the political surface, never mind what the Sir Humphreys are doing, Australia has Alexander Downer and Kevin Rudd leading the foreign affairs debate. Winston Peters? Say no more...