Word: standoff
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...marvel at local politicians, appointed by outside forces, wielding almost no power at all but still able to find ways to make things worse. Case in point: on Sunday, President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed announced that he had fired the Prime Minister, and 24 hours later, parliament rebuffed him. The standoff has further hardened the political paralysis that has denied any prospect of peace to the country's long-suffering people...
...Medvedev’s position on this missile-shield standoff has been deliberately provocative. That posturing worked: many in America have argued that the United States should not allow this development to threaten diplomatic relations by upsetting the Russians. These arguments, however, seems to want it both ways—they insist that the United States can neither back down and seem weak, nor prioritize a controversial missile shield over calm negotiation. Diplomacy can often work, and President-elect Obama will hopefully engage more countries in level dialogue than his predecessor. The Russians, however, constitute a special case...
...pressure on Tehran to suspend its uranium-enrichment activities. On the campaign trail Obama both advocated direct talks with Iran and vowed that Tehran would not be allowed to attain a nuclear weapon. Iran is not close to constructing a nuclear weapon, according to U.S. intelligence assessments, but the standoff right now is over whether Iran should be allowed to enrich uranium on its own soil - a right it would typically enjoy under the Non-Proliferation Treaty for peaceful nuclear energy purposes, but which would also give it the means to produce nuclear weapons fuel...
...next standoff between the two camps is likely to be over the country's constitution. The government said earlier this week that it would begin selecting members of an assembly to rewrite the current constitution within 120 days. The government's original announcement in April that it would change the charter, drafted by a military-appointed assembly and approved in a national referendum in 2007, brought the PAD back out on to the streets after it had been dormant for a year-and-a-half. Thaksin's opponents are worried the government is trying to rewrite the constitution in ways...
...Force major, Heyser flew the U-2 spy plane that took the famous pictures. Those photos prompted President John F. Kennedy to announce in October 1962 that the Soviet Union was building secret missile sites 90 miles (about 150 km) from Florida's coast. A tense standoff with the Soviets ensued. Heyser later won three Distinguished Flying Crosses and a Bronze Star...