Word: key
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...first trip to the Russian capital since taking office, President Obama and counterpart Dmitri Medvedev agreed to slash their nuclear stockpiles more than 25%, marking their lowest levels since the end of the Cold War. Obama hailed the pact, which requires ratification by the U.S. Senate, as a key step toward reducing the risk of nuclear proliferation in unstable nations such as Iran and North Korea. Less progress was made on the thorny issues of Georgia and a proposed U.S. missile-defense system in Eastern Europe. After a face-to-face with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, Obama told a reporter...
...came as more than 4,000 Marines launched an offensive to drive insurgents from southern Helmand province, a Taliban stronghold. The tactic is the latest effort to shift U.S. military might from Iraq--where American soldiers withdrew from urban areas on June 30--to the nation now considered the key front in the war on terrorism...
Michael Mandelbaum of the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University says resistance in the face of adversity is a key quality in a leader. He cites Thatcher, whose sheer bloody determination saw off a hostile intelligentsia, a party that sometimes treated her with all the condescension the British once reserved for clever women, and entrenched interests that fought her economic and social reforms. Before he became Prime Minister in 1996, Australia's Howard had been turfed out as leader of his own party, and when asked if he might ever lead it again, he said such...
...Obama and Clinton have lately stressed that the Administration is seeking new concessions from Arab states to reciprocate for an Israeli settlement freeze, but even Washington's key allies in the region appear reluctant to reward Israel for simply complying with its obligations under the "road map" to peace proposed by President George W. Bush in 2003. Skepticism abounds in Arab capitals over Netanyahu's commitment to Palestinian statehood - a principle he reluctantly and conditionally embraced under heavy pressure from Obama, and which many believe he has no intention of implementing. His latest comments on Jerusalem will reinforce that skepticism...
...Administration is expected to move to the next phase despite the obvious lack of confidence of either side in the other. That would involve defining some sort of process of talks on a timetable aimed at resolving the key questions of where to draw borders between Israel and a state of Palestine, the terms of Palestinian sovereignty, how to share Jerusalem and the fate of Palestinian refugees. But both sides have been through such a process before and failed to conclude a deal. For many Middle East watchers, the key question will be whether Obama sets a deadline for such...