Word: mattering
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...should just scratch the surface and see they are not so far-fetched: almost all nations, especially big powers, carry out clandestine activities to promote their strategic interests. Assassinating political leaders, engineering insurgencies and instigating conflict between target states are common - and the U.S. is not innocent in this matter. Tariq Majeed, Lahore...
...Jewish state and put heat on the Palestinians to overcome their political division, which might entail some easing of the U.S. ban on dealing with Hamas. The latter move would spark loud wailing and gnashing of teeth on both the Israeli and American right. But it may not matter. During the campaign, Obama's foreign policy advisers told journalists that unlike past Democrats, he wouldn't be afraid to test the limits of what was politically possible. We're now starting to see what that means. It should be an interesting few years...
...Rumsfeld explained his decision to stay in Washington as a matter of convenience that allowed him ready access to his Pentagon files and facilitated work with the Library of Congress to archive his personal papers. It also kept him near friends and former associates and afforded a close sidelines view of the capital's political scene, although as the Bush administration ran out its term, he purposefully maintained a low profile, giving few public speeches or media interviews and spending large chunks of his time at two other homes outside Washington - the old manor in St. Michaels, Maryland...
Silence is hardly the word to characterize the matter of France and professions of religious piety. Last year the country's highest administrative court denied the naturalization request of an otherwise irreproachable Moroccan woman on the grounds that her wearing a burqa was incompatible with French secularist statutes. On Tuesday, French Scientologists raised complaints of religious intolerance when state prosecutors wrapped up their arguments against the church on charges of organized swindling by requesting that the organization be disbanded and barred in France. (Read an argument against the veil by Azadeh Moaveni...
...Beijing. Whether that's a sign that the numbers are more accurate, or merely better gamed, is still unclear. The city's hot, humid summers and occasional sandstorms mean that air quality can turn bad with surprising speed. Without real-time reporting, the official data are more a matter of historical interest. This afternoon the Ministry of Environmental Protection reported the air pollution index for the 24 hours ending at noon on Friday was 159, or "slightly polluted." That's still pretty bad. But had you gone outside you might have thought things were much worse...