Word: visiters
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...Obama Administration's latest attempt to kick-start Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations hit an unexpected setback after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, during an Oct. 31 visit, praised as "unprecedented" Israel's efforts to limit construction of settlements on Palestinian-claimed land (above). The comment sparked an outcry from Arab leaders, who accused the Administration of backtracking on previous demands that Israel institute a complete freeze. Though Israelis have agreed to resume peace talks without preconditions, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has refused to return to negotiations until all settlement construction is halted...
...first high-level team of U.S. diplomats to visit Burma in 14 years met with detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi in Rangoon on Wednesday in what some hope may signal the first steps toward breaking the political deadlock that has gripped Burma for more than 20 years. But Burma analysts say any positive developments from the mission will depend on a man the Americans did not meet: Burma's reclusive military leader, General Than Shwe...
...Instead, Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell and his deputy, Scot Marciel, met with Prime Minister Thein Sein, who wields little actual political power, in the inland capital of Naypyidaw on the second day of their two day visit. They later flew to Rangoon to confer with 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner Suu Kyi, who was allowed to travel from the home where she has spent 14 of the past 20 years under arrest to a downtown hotel where the diplomats were staying. (See pictures of Burma's slowly shifting landscape...
...visit is the second meeting between the nations' diplomats since U.S. President Barack Obama announced in September that his Administration would pursue a policy of engaging the generals who rule the country rather than rebuffing them. The first meeting took place several weeks ago in New York City. Burma has been under military rule since 1962, and since the bloody suppression of a democracy uprising in 1988, the U.S. has incrementally reduced contacts with the regime and increased sanctions against it for its record of violating human rights and quashing democracy. Larry Dinger, the chargé d'affaires...
...Debbie Stothard, executive director of ALTSEAN, an activist network involved in Burma issues, urged the two U.S. diplomats to stand firm on democracy and human rights during their visit. "The regime won't like it, but they will respect the U.S. more for it. They will know that the U.S. can't be pushed around or fooled like the Association of Southeast Asian Nations," she says. ASEAN, which admitted Burma as a member in 1997, has advocated a course of "constructive engagement" as a way of moderating the regime's behavior, including expanding economic and business ties. Stothard says that...