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ATLANTA (AP) — Jimmy Carter is sometimes called a better former president than he was president. Nodding to Carter’s decades of work as a globe-trotting humanitarian but with a glaring reminder of his landslide defeat in 1980, the backhanded compliment rankles Carter allies and, they say, the former president himself. Yet now, 40 years removed from the White House, the most famous resident of Plains, Georgia, is riding a new wave of attention as biographers, filmmakers, climate activists and Carter’s fellow Democrats push to recast his presidential legacy, even as Republicans sometimes try to remind voters of the volatile economy...

Way back in 1991, when I availed myself of a chance to visit North Korea, the stridently guided tour included a look at gifts given by visiting delegations to the Kim regime — displayed as the trophies the North Korean government evidently perceived them to be. Since then, the American portion of the collection must have swelled considerably. In 2000, when then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright went to Pyongyang, she brought Kim Jong Il a basketball autographed by Michael Jordan. In 2008, a group of congressional staffers brought Kim a plate with the congressional seal. How many more such gifts...

Like some horror movie that just won’t end, Jimmy Carter’s love affair with North Korea keeps rolling along. Now on his third pilgrimage to the Kim dynasty’s totalitarian state, Carter arrived Tuesday in Pyongyang, with a trio of fellow ex-leaders in tow, from Finland, Ireland and Norway. From Pyongyang, he’s now blogging away, under the down-home caption, “Jimmy Carter’s blog from North Korea.” At least, I assume it’s really Jimmy Carter writing this cant, though it reads like copy fresh out of Pyongyang’s own propaganda mill. There’s an attempt at cracker-barrel diplomacy, in which Carter enthuses about the “warm and...

It would be an act of mercy for the planet were Jimmy Carter to hang up his carry-on bag and devote the rest of his days to annotating his post-presidential grocery lists, or maybe sign up for Dancing With the Stars — anything where he might at least do no more harm. Instead, in some eternal quest to live out that second presidential term which American voters in their belated wisdom snatched from him in 1980, Carter goes on and on, glad-handing thugs and hugging terrorists, from Caracas to Gaza to Havana. According to recent news reports, he’s now planning...

The only American president to publicly support Middle Eastern terrorism has completed a schmooze fest with a communist dictator in a country that appears on the U.S. State Department’s list of terrorist-sponsoring nations. It marks the latest “humanitarian” mission for Jimmy Carter, who just a few years ago became the only American commander-in-chief to participate in a hug fest with the head of the world’s leading Middle Eastern terrorist group. During that highly-publicized Syrian jaunt, Carter met with Hamas Leader Khaled Meshal who runs his violent operation from Damascus to avoid being arrested by the Israeli government. The sophisticated and...

The United States knew about an abortive coup against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in 2002, and may even have taken part, former US president Jimmy Carter has told a Colombian newspaper.

When Fox News reported today from Gaza that former President Jimmy Carter plans to urge President Barack Obama to take the Palestinian militant group Hamas off the U.S. terrorist list in meetings later this week, Washington Democrats and the Obama administration collectively cringed. "The president has addressed Hamas questions, including in the Egypt speech," an administraton official said. "[We] won't have more to say about this." "Just like with President Clinton, Carter is becoming a huge problem and a growing concern for Obama," a Washington Middle East hand said. "They are very pissed with him." After observing Lebanon's elections,...

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Former President Jimmy Carter said on Friday the "atrocious economic policies" of the Bush administration had caused the worst global financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Carter told reporters on a stopover in Brussels that "profligate spending," massive borrowing and dramatic tax cuts since President George W. Bush took office in 2001 were behind the market turmoil and economic crisis.

LONDON — Former President Jimmy Carter caused a stir over the weekend when he claimed that Israel possesses a nuclear arsenal of 150 weapons. While experts have long maintained Israel has a nuclear arsenal, the Jewish state has refused to confirm or deny it. Most estimates, many based on evidence leaked in 1986 by Israeli nuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu, put the number of Israeli nuclear weapons at between 100 and 200. But other experts have said the number is as low as 60 or as high as 400.

Former US President Jimmy Carter urged Washington to establish friendly ties with Tehran, reiterating the need for his country to resume trade relations with Iran, which he described as a "rational" nation. Speaking at the Hay Festival yesterday, Carter also suggested the US should provide nuclear power technology and fuel to Iran as a show of goodwill. "What happens if, in three years' time, Iran has a nuclear weapon," Carter asked. "I'm not sure that is going to happen, but if it does, what do we do? They are rational people like all of us in this room. Do they...

"The US has more than 12,000 nuclear weapons; the Soviet Union (sic) has about the same; Great Britain and France have several hundred, and Israel has 150 or more," he said.

In a speech at a literary festival in Hay-on-Wye, in Wales, the 83-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner said: "There is no reason to treat these people this way," referring to the blockade, in place since the Islamist Hamas movement seized Gaza in June 2007. While president from 1977 to 1981, Carter was the architect of the landmark 1979 peace deal between Israel and Egypt, the first such treaty between the Jewish state and an Arab country. According to Carter, the failure of the European Union to support the Palestinian cause was "embarrassing." He said European countries should be "encouraging the...

Former US President Jimmy Carter breaks nuclear taboo and continues to push for direct negotiations with Iran's leaders Israel has 150 nuclear weapons in its arsenal, former President Jimmy Carter said yesterday, while arguing that the US should talk directly to Iran to persuade it to drop its nuclear ambitions. His remark, made at the Hay-on-Wye festival which promotes current affairs books and literature, is startling because Israel has never admitted having nuclear weapons, let alone how many, although the world assumes their existence. Nor do US officials deviate in public from that Israeli line. Carter, who has immersed himself...

The world must stop standing idle while the people of Gaza are treated with such cruelty The world is witnessing a terrible human rights crime in Gaza, where a million and a half human beings are being imprisoned with almost no access to the outside world. An entire population is being brutally punished. This gross mistreatment of the Palestinians in Gaza was escalated dramatically by Israel, with United States backing, after political candidates representing Hamas won a majority of seats in the Palestinian Authority parliament in 2006. The election was unanimously judged to be honest and fair by all international...

Ex-US president blames Israel for denying Gazans food, water; says Hamas won elections 'fair and square' WASHINGTON – Blaming Israel, again: Former US President Jimmy Carter says that following his meetings with Hamas leaders the group offered a truce in Gaza but Israel rejected the offer. During an interview with NBC, Carter also blamed Israel for denying the citizens of Gaza basic supplies such as water and food. "I think it was productive, because all the things that we asked Hamas to do, they basically agreed to do," Carter said, referring to his recent trip. "One was to have a...

MADRID (AFP) — Last week's meeting between former US president Jimmy Carter and the exiled leader of Hamas militants did not produce any results, Palestinian foreign minister Riyad al-Malki said here Wednesday. "President Carter came to the region thinking he could achieve something. Unfortunately president Carter left without anything concrete," he told a conference in the Spanish capital. "The only thing he achieved was permission on the part of Khaled Meshaal of Hamas to deliver a letter from a detained Israeli soldier to his family. Nothing else," he said. "Hamas offered nothing to president Carter. They reiterated the same positions....

JERUSALEM - Former President Jimmy Carter brokered the first Israeli-Arab peace deal, but he's getting a cool reception in Israel during his latest visit to the Mideast. Israeli leaders are shunning the globe-trotting peacemaker for planning to meet with Khaled Mashaal, the head of Israel's archenemy Hamas, and comparing the Jewish state's policies to apartheid. A schedule released by the Atlanta-based Carter Center showed no plans for the former president to meet any of Israel's key players: Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni or Defense Minister Ehud Barak during this week's visit, which began Sunday. The only high-ranking...

Former President Jimmy Carter said he feels "quite at ease" about meeting Hamas militants over the objections of Washington because the Palestinian group is essential to a future peace with Israel. Carter, interviewed Saturday for ABC News' "This Week," airing Sunday, also said he would oppose a U.S. Olympic boycott and hopes all countries will join in the Beijing games. He spoke from Katmandu, Nepal, where his team of observers from the Carter Center monitored an election that appeared likely to transform rule by royal dynasty into a democracy with former Maoist rebels in a strong position, judging by incomplete...

NEW YORK CITY — Former President Jimmy Carter is reportedly preparing an unprecedented meeting with the leader of Hamas, an organization that the U.S. government considers one of the leading terrorist threats in the world. The Arabic-language newspaper Al-Hayat reported Tuesday that Carter was planning a trip to Syria for mid-April, during which he would meet with Khaled Meshal, the exiled head of the Palestinian terror group Hamas, on April 18. Deanna Congileo, Carter’s press secretary, confirmed in an e-mail to FOXNews.com that Carter will be in the Mideast in April. Pressed for comment, Congileo did not deny that the...

KATHMANDU (AFP) — Former US president Jimmy Carter met the leaders of Nepal's former Maoist rebels Tuesday, even though the group remains classified by Washington as a foreign "terrorist" organisation. Carter, whose democracy and human rights organisation is monitoring this Thursday's landmark elections in the Himalayan nation, was given assurances by the Maoists that the polls would be peaceful. "President Carter wanted to know about the election situation and expressed his concern over whether it will be free and fair," Baburam Bhattarai, the Maoists' second-in-command, told reporters after the meeting. "We assured him that the elections will be held in...