Free Republic

Broadly speaking, the governments and people which most closely identified with the United States have lost out. In the Middle East, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the Gulf States, Turkey and Israel are feeling sore. Regimes, like Mubarak’s Egypt, which had put all their eggs in the American basket, then found them addled. Many fell. In the Far East, old US allies feel inadequately protected from the rising power of China, and in Africa that same rising power has been left free to buy the place up. The great Obama “pivot to Asia” seems to have pivoted away again. Even western Europe...

(Filed: 15/01/2005) Lifting the EU arms embargo on China, imposed after the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, has been on the cards for a while. European leaders considered it 13 months ago and in December, at a summit with China, declared their "political will" to remove it. On Wednesday, Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, who will visit Beijing next week, said he expected that decision to be taken by the middle of the year. A sanction that China claims is a "product of the Cold War" appears in EU eyes to have outlived its usefulness. In conjunction with their declaration...

The Government of the United States of America is waging an intense behind-the-scenes battle to stop the European Union lifting its 15-year-old arms embargo against China, warning The Blair government that it will not tolerate the prospect of European military technology being used to threaten its soldiers in the Far East. As Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, prepares to travel to Peking next week to discuss ending the arms ban, The Telegraph has learnt that the Bush administration is alarmed by Tony Blair's "cave-in" to French and German pressure. Japan has also expressed dismay over the EU's move dramatically to...

Activists rally against clearcuttingBy MARGO HORNERSEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTERWhen Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., checks her voice mail this morning, she will have to hold the phone a few inches from her ear. In a message left yesterday, more than 1,000 voices from Seattle roared in unison, shouting into a cell phone "1-2-3 Protect Old Trees."     Renee C. Byer / P-I   Leanne Grimsey, 25, leans over a fence for a better view to take a picture of Dave Matthews, who played at a free benefit concert. The message was part of the activists' plan to prevent clearcutting on federal...