For a man with ambitions that could run to the White House, the last thing Rudy Giuliani needed was to let the world know about his weaknesses: that stormy failed second marriage, that association with a disgraced official and those inconvenient views on the issues of the day.
But that is precisely what happened to the former mayor of New York, who regularly leads the opinion polls of potential contenders for the presidency in 2008, when a 140-page strategy dossier was obtained by the New York Daily News.
Giuliani has said he does not intend to seek the presidency -- a claim exposed by the dossier's ambitious program of raising US$25 million by the end of March by tapping professional athletes as well as corporate titans such as Rupert Murdoch.
To the scarcely concealed delight yesterday of aides for Senator John McCain, Giuliani's biggest rival for the Republican leadership, the document's unknown author also admitted that Giuliani could decide to drop out of the race if faced with "insurmountable" obstacles.
The admission was hardly the message Giuliani would want to send to potential donors in the early days of a campaign.
Giuliani's steady demeanour following the attack on the World Trade Center in 2001 elevated him to the national stage. It also led to a lucrative post-mayoral career as a security consultant.
Those claims to security expertise seemed a little tenuous yesterday after Giuliani's spokeswoman said the dossier was stolen from aboard a private plane, photocopied and then replaced.
She said the mayor was a victim of "dirty tricks."
But while Giuliani continues to lead the opinion polls -- regularly outperforming McCain -- his staff remain uneasy.
False comfort
"False comfort with numbers," said one note written in the margin, according to the New York Daily News.
Giuliani also carries considerable baggage. He is on his third marriage and his former police commissioner, Bernard Kerik, has been hit by financial scandal.
His support for abortion rights, gun control and civil unions for same-sex couples puts him at odds with the religious right, which will have a powerful say during the Republican primaries.
"All will come out -- in the worst possible light," the document says. "US$100 million against us on this stuff."
Far from the violence ravaging Haiti, a market on the border with the Dominican Republic has maintained a welcome degree of normal everyday life. At the Dajabon border gate, a wave of Haitians press forward, eager to shop at the twice-weekly market about 200km from Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. They are drawn by the market’s offerings — food, clothing, toys and even used appliances — items not always readily available in Haiti. However, with gang violence bad and growing ever worse in Haiti, the Dominican government has reinforced the usual military presence at the border and placed soldiers on alert. While the market continues to
An image of a dancer balancing on the words “China Before Communism” looms over Parisian commuters catching the morning metro, signaling the annual return of Shen Yun, a controversial spectacle of traditional Chinese dance mixed with vehement criticism of Beijing and conservative rhetoric. The Shen Yun Performing Arts company has slipped the beliefs of a spiritual movement called Falun Gong in between its technicolored visuals and leaping dancers since 2006, with advertising for the show so ubiquitous that it has become an Internet meme. Founded in 1992, Falun Gong claims nearly 100 million followers and has been subject to “persistent persecution” in
ONLINE VITRIOL: While Mo Yan faces a lawsuit, bottled water company Nongfu Spring and Tsinghua University are being attacked amid a rise in nationalist fervor At first glance, a Nobel prize winning author, a bottle of green tea and Beijing’s Tsinghua University have little in common, but in recent weeks they have been dubbed by China’s nationalist netizens as the “three new evils” in the fight to defend the country’s valor in cyberspace. Last month, a patriotic blogger called Wu Wanzheng filed a lawsuit against China’s only Nobel prize-winning author, Mo Yan (莫言), accusing him of discrediting the Communist army and glorifying Japanese soldiers in his fictional works set during the Japanese invasion of China. Wu, who posts online under the pseudonym “Truth-Telling Mao Xinghuo,” is seeking
‘SURPRISES’: The militants claim to have successfully tested a missile capable of reaching Mach 8 and vowed to strike ships heading toward the Cape of Good Hope Yemen’s Houthi rebels claim to have a new, hypersonic missile in their arsenal, Russia’s state media reported on Thursday, potentially raising the stakes in their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and surrounding waterways against the backdrop of Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The report by the state-run RIA Novosti news agency cited an unidentified official, but provided no evidence for the claim. It comes as Moscow maintains an aggressively counter-Western foreign policy amid its grinding war on Ukraine. However, the Houthis have for weeks hinted about “surprises” they plan for the battles at sea to counter the