Word: latvian
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...yardstick by which the success of NATO's summit in the Latvian capital of Riga would be measured was always going to be Afghanistan. By engaging 32,000 troops there - its first full-scale military action outside of Europe - against a now resurgent Taliban, the Western alliance had posed itself a cruel test of solidarity in one of the world's most historically ungovernable patches. Last week it effectively failed the test...
Leaders of NATO's 26 member states gather this week in the Latvian capital, Riga, for a summit that will trumpet the solidarity of the world's most successful military alliance. The scripts have been largely written and surprises are unlikely. But as Christoph Bertram, the dean of German security experts, recently noted, the affair will be "like a Christmas service for agnostics, who for most of the year do not pray together or sing from the same hymnbook." The question of what the North Atlantic Treaty Organization should do and become has been a subject of often deep disagreement...
...Winning the U.N. job has required Ban to make nice with both the U.S. and China, a challenge even for a diplomat of Ban's skills. The U.S. preferred either Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga or former Afghan Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani, but both were vetoed by other permanent Security Council members. Washington's reluctance was due in part to South Korea's growing coziness with China and by Seoul's "sunshine policy" of engagement with Pyongyang. The U.S. is skeptical that Ban, long careful to avoid stepping on toes, would really be willing to challenge the entrenched interests inside...
Pursuing the U.N. job has required Ban to make nice with both the U.S. and China, a challenge even for a diplomat of Ban's skills. The U.S. preferred either Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga or former Afghan Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani, but both were vetoed by other permanent Security Council members. Washington's reluctance was due in part to South Korea's growing coziness with China and by Seoul's "sunshine policy" of engagement with Pyongyang, which some Administration officials say has hindered efforts to get tough with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. The U.S. is skeptical that...
...former jail near the Baltic Sea resort of Liepaya. Originally built as a military hospital in 1900, it began housing prisoners during the early days of the Russian Revolution and continued to do so throughout the Nazi occupation, during the Soviet era and right up until 1997, when Latvian authorities released the last detainees. Today, for less than $10 a night, you can sleep on real prison bunks, eat prison food and be harangued by local drama students dressed as wardens. If you tire of these power games, apply for day release: Karosta organizes walking and driving tours of Liepaya...