Word: hopeful
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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There are similarities between The Blind Side and Precious, the hit indie film about a pregnant, illiterate teenage girl whose teacher goads her toward self-worth. Both Michael and Precious begin as scholastic failures with awful moms and no hope who are reclaimed and saved by a caring adult woman. Except that, here, we see the awkward teen through the eyes of his white benefactor. Leigh Anne's first visit to Michael's old neighborhood is treated like Margaret Mead landing on Samoa. She delivers tough love to Michael's mother and tough lip to the local drug lords...
...China steps into its role as a global leader, it must be more careful about how it presents itself on the world stage. Technocrats in Beijing can hardly hope to veil their foreign policies as well as they do their domestic ones. Political and economic success story that it is, China is a role model for scores of developing nations. Under the dual threats of setting those nations astray and losing its own international good standing, China therefore needs to change its Africa policy—and fast...
...Jakarta again is a town of joy, booming with steel, glass and shining retail spaces. But Tales of Djakarta, in which the poor bathe in the canal's toxic "yellowish water" and Japanese officers fill Menteng's villas with comfort women, obstructs those pretty views. Though not void of hope, Jakarta for Pram was a town of tough and busy griefs. The bakso sellers in and around Merdeka Square might still agree...
...French President Nicolas Sarkozy welcomed Obama's speech, calling it "courageous." But Sarkozy has already pledged that he "won't send an additional soldier" to bolster the nearly 3,750-strong French contingent. (NATO officials hope he may send more military or police trainers...
Perhaps the highest-risk strategy outlined in Obama's agenda is his hope that within 18 months, Afghan security forces will be able to take a greater role in protecting the country. When Karzai took a new oath of office at his inauguration ceremony in Kabul last month, he promised that by the end of his five-year term, Afghan security forces would be "capable of taking the lead in ensuring security and stability across the country." Accelerating the process in order to achieve the necessary number of well-trained Afghan soldiers - ideally estimated to be 134,000 troops, compared...