That led the administration to conclude that there could be more chance of a diplomatic resolution than some Iranian declarations and a battery of missile tests last week suggested.
Fragments of texts by revolutionary leaders, guerrillas, workers and students are sung, shouted and otherwise intoned, countered by taped voices that offer militaristic jargon — "Provocative breaking off diplomatic relations," "Declaration of limited nuclear war" — from a 1965 article in Fortune magazine.
The new president may be attending at least 10 of the balls in his honour but he is planning to work a full day on Wednesday, with an agenda packed with the prayer service, diplomatic talks, declarations on the war in Iraq and a welcoming ceremony for hundreds of visitors at the White House.
A chancellor has also been appointed.Nalanda could be a showpiece of regional diplomatic engagement: a declaration in support of it was signed at a 2009 summit in Thailand by 16 countries, of which Japan and Singapore have shown most interest.
It is the monarch who recognises foreign states (although several statutes regulate the immunities enjoyed by their heads and diplomatic representatives), issues declarations of war and peace, and forms international treaties.
To start with, the Europeans themselves erred in their diplomatic buildup to the declaration and therefore contributed to its rejection.
In an Op-Ed article in The New York Times on Tuesday that analysts interpreted as the diplomatic equivalent of a declaration of war on the status quo, Mr. Abbas said flatly that he would request international recognition of the state of Palestine, based on the borders of Israel before the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
At a meeting on Tuesday of the National Security Council, Mr. Bush and his aides decided to handle the North Korean declarations through diplomatic channels, a senior official said.
Like most of what passes for diplomatic relations in Palestine, the declaration produces a sense of weary déjà vu.
