The nuclear deal unveiled today in Beijing to freeze North Korea's plutonium-yielding reactor and readmit inspectors is, as a smiling Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said, "the result of patient, creative, and tough diplomacy." True as that is, her statement masks the range of difficulties that had to be overcome in reaching this point. They include not only the obvious North Korean obstinacy but also the nagging policy disputes within a Bush administration that, at times, has seemed ambivalent about doing diplomatic business with a troublemaking communist regime.
America's drug habit – the world's largest – is making Mexican and Canadian dope dealers rich. Filthy rich, according to the latest data from U.S. counternarcotics analysts.
AP - In the next three years, 13,000 Chrysler workers will lose their jobs under a wrenching restructuring announced Wednesday that eventually may lead to a DaimlerChrysler divorce.
AP - Sleet stung the faces of pedestrians and snow and ice coated windshields Wednesday as the Valentine's Day blizzard shut down schools and air travel and turned streets and highways into dangerous skating rinks.
AP - The Iraqi government formally launched a long-awaited security crackdown in Baghdad on Wednesday, with U.S. and Iraqi troops stepping up patrols, establishing new checkpoints and randomly searching cars to stop the violence in the capital. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said the sweep, code-named Operation Imposing Law, would target those "who want to continue with rebellion."
President Bush said today he doesn't know if orders to use Iranian-made weapons to kill U.S. troops came from the highest levels of Tehran's government, but he's certain Iran's Quds Force is involved. "I do not know whether or not the Quds Force was ordered from the top echelons of government," he said.
Chrysler, whose year-long slump has dragged it down to fourth place among U.S. automakers, announced plans today to cut 13,000 jobs through 2009 as it tries to stem widening losses. The cuts represent 16 percent of the staff at the North American unit of DaimlerChrysler.
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