LONDON — British Prime Minister Gordon Brown might have been excused for savoring the sweetest moment of his political career yesterday evening. By the time the final slaps on the back had been delivered and the G-20 world leaders had left London, Brown’s stock had never been higher. It had been his crisis summit. And at first glance, it was a success, as summits go. For 24 hours, Brown had enjoyed what for him has become the unusual comfort of high praise, luxuriating in the warm words of fellow leaders. And none were warmer than those of the undoubted superstar [...]
The 2012 London Olympics may still be several years away, but yesterday, the city played host to a different type of games altogether — the G-20 summit on the global economic crisis. This time, the competitors were not the world’s premier athletes but rather political leaders representing the world’s most powerful economies. By the end of the conference, though, no single country emerged atop the podium. Instead, the clearest winner appears to be the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which received another boost in its quest to reassert itself as the protector of global economic stability. Still, if the world’s rising [...]
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Najib Razak was sworn in as Prime Minister of Malaysia today, replacing Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who resigned yesterday in a move that had been widely anticipated for weeks. Razak promised to re-energize national politics and to end a nagging challenge to his party’s long-standing rule by opposition nemesis, Anwar Ibrahim. However, many fear that the arch-conservative former defense minister, who has served as deputy prime minister for the last six years, will crack down on dissent at a time when opinion polls show that many Malaysians are yearning for change. Central to those fears is the [...]
