US President George W. Bush faces tricky diplomatic terrain during a whirlwind European tour that takes him from a solemn remembrance at an American veterans cemetery in the Netherlands to a boisterous World War II victory celebration in Moscow's Red Square. It's the rare presidential foreign trip with a single theme: democracy's onward march, past and present.
Bush faces many issues as he hits four countries in five long days. Meeting in Riga, Latvia today with the leaders of the Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, he'll get questions about an American visa policy that makes it difficult for Central and Eastern Europeans to travel to the US.
Tomorrow, he visits the Netherlands, where he is deeply unpopular because of his decision to go to war in Iraq -- and later because of the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal and the indeterminate detention of terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Georgia's president will want to know on Tuesday if Bush made good on his promise to intervene with Russian President Vladimir Putin on getting Russian troops and military bases out of Georgia and halting support to Georgian separatist leaders.
With Putin, there is a long list of things that bedevil the Washington-Moscow relationship, including democratic backsliding in Russia, Moscow's arms sales to Syria and Venezuela and crackdowns on businesses, Iran, North Korea, the Middle East, and Russian fears that the US seeks to supplant its regional influence.
But the two leaders are meeting for just an hour tomorrow night at Putin's dacha, followed by a social dinner with their wives, so aides downplayed expectations for progress on every front.
Everywhere Bush goes, Iraq is likely to come up. All but one -- Russia, a leading war opponent -- of the six countries whose leaders Bush is meeting have contributed troops to Iraq. His speech at the Netherlands American Cemetery and Memorial in Margraten will honor the sacrifice of the Dutch people and the 8,301 US soldiers buried there.
Then in Georgia, Bush delivers a speech in the capital's Freedom Square. In Moscow, where Bush has no plans for a public speech, the Moscow military parade will be the centerpiece of the president's trip.
Bush is to return to Washington on Tuesday.
China yesterday held a low-key memorial ceremony for the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) not attending, despite a diplomatic crisis between Beijing and Tokyo over Taiwan. Beijing has raged at Tokyo since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last month said that a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could trigger a military response from Japan. China and Japan have long sparred over their painful history. China consistently reminds its people of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, in which it says Japanese troops killed 300,000 people in what was then its capital. A post-World War II Allied tribunal put the death toll
‘NO AMNESTY’: Tens of thousands of people joined the rally against a bill that would slash the former president’s prison term; President Lula has said he would veto the bill Tens of thousands of Brazilians on Sunday demonstrated against a bill that advanced in Congress this week that would reduce the time former president Jair Bolsonaro spends behind bars following his sentence of more than 27 years for attempting a coup. Protests took place in the capital, Brasilia, and in other major cities across the nation, including Sao Paulo, Florianopolis, Salvador and Recife. On Copacabana’s boardwalk in Rio de Janeiro, crowds composed of left-wing voters chanted “No amnesty” and “Out with Hugo Motta,” a reference to the speaker of the lower house, which approved the bill on Wednesday last week. It is
FALLEN: The nine soldiers who were killed while carrying out combat and engineering tasks in Russia were given the title of Hero of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea North Korean leader Kim Jong-un attended a welcoming ceremony for an army engineering unit that had returned home after carrying out duties in Russia, North Korean state media KCNA reported on Saturday. In a speech carried by KCNA, Kim praised officers and soldiers of the 528th Regiment of Engineers of the Korean People’s Army (KPA) for “heroic” conduct and “mass heroism” in fulfilling orders issued by the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea during a 120-day overseas deployment. Video footage released by North Korea showed uniformed soldiers disembarking from an aircraft, Kim hugging a soldier seated in a wheelchair, and soldiers and officials
Cozy knits, sparkly bobbles and Santa hats were all the canine rage on Sunday, as hundreds of sausage dogs and their owners converged on central London for an annual parade and get-together. The dachshunds’ gathering in London’s Hyde Park came after a previous “Sausage Walk” planned for Halloween had to be postponed, because it had become so popular organizers needed to apply for an events licence. “It was going to be too much fun so they canceled it,” laughed Nicky Bailey, the owner of three sausage dogs: Una and her two 19-week-old puppies Ember and Finnegan, wearing matching red coats and silver
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