In his brief address, Mr. Blair sought to underline that tonight's military attacks were part of a broader strategy encompassing diplomatic pressures and relief moves to ease the suffering of Afghan people facing famine.
In September, the administration presented Sudan with incentives ranging from modest steps like the delivery of agricultural equipment to more sweeping measures, including debt relief, normalized diplomatic relations, the lifting of sanctions and the removal of Sudan from the State Department's list of state sponsors of terrorism, which it has been on since 1993.
Even as the administration insists that Mr. Arafat must be replaced, a senior State Department official told a Congressional committee today that the administration opposed bills being pushed in the House of Representatives to punish Mr. Arafat and other Palestinian Authority officials by imposing diplomatic penalties, cutting off relief aid or freezing Palestinian assets.
What began as an act of diplomatic solidarity and temporary relief in the aftermath of the Second World War, by the 1990s had acquired such salience that most industrialised nations had structured aid policies, established aid agencies and joined the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and DEconomic Co-operation
The FAO meeting was part of a flurry of diplomatic activity focusing on the Horn, where relief agencies are in a race against time as the famine is expected to spread in Somalia in the coming months.
The deal, which would be the first substantial agreement on the nuclear program after years of diplomatic wrangling, promises to give Iran limited relief from Western economic sanctions in exchange for some curbs on the fast-advancing nuclear program.
He said that the United States relief effort has been a huge diplomatic success.
Washington will need to wield sticks, such as canceling debt relief talks or suspending normalization of diplomatic relations, if Sudan does not withdraw its forces quickly.
It came in response to years of painful economic pressure through sanctions, along with diplomatic assurances that changed Libyan behavior could bring relief.
He blamed Lord Palmerston and the aristocracy for deluding the British people; British foreign policy and the expensive network of diplomatic appointments constituted "a gigantic system of outdoor relief for the aristocracy".
