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<p>As the old saying goes, "Sometimes even a blind hog roots an acorn." For unknown reasons, the Bush administration may soon have a chance to root one.</p> <p>Following a very tense shootout between North and South Korean naval forces on June 29, Pyongyang surprisingly says it is ready for dialogue with Washington. In response, Secretary of State Colin Powell said last week he was not "not ruling out" a meeting with North Korea's Foreign Minister Paek Nam Sun this week at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) meeting in Brunei. In fact, Mr. Powell and Mr. Paek have already met there briefly and informally over coffee, and there could be another more formal meeting. Let's hope so.</p>

BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, Brunei (AP) — The United States and a bloc of Southeast Asian nations signed a sweeping treaty Thursday aimed at making the region, which has become a second front in the war against terrorism, more responsive to future threats. The signing capped a week of diplomacy that overcame fears from Vietnam and Indonesia that the accord could lead to the basing of U.S. troops in Southeast Asia, where American forces have already helped the Philippines battle the Abu Sayyaf guerrillas. Under the agreement, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and Washington will share information, boost police cooperation...

Pacific Rim Bureau (CNSNews.com) - Secretary of State Colin Powell heads Thursday to Jakarta, where radical Islamic groups have threatened to try to disrupt his brief visit to the world's most populous Muslim nation. The Islamic Youth Movement said it was coordinating plans with other groups to hold protest demonstrations at the U.S. Embassy, the airport, and the presidential palace, where Powell is to meet President Megawati Sukarnoputri on Friday. Extremists in Indonesia have in the past made threats against Westerners and Western interests. For instance, late last year, they held protests against the U.S.-led campaign in Afghanistan, but...

One ongoing story line about the Bush administration is that Colin Powell finds himself in a bind. Conservatives think the retired general is too moderate. The experienced man of the world knows the Mideast requires practicality. And the secretary of state must try to help Europe understand America's preference for action against Saddam Hussein. With Mr. Powell on a long Asia trip this week, The New York Times published an editorial on Sunday titled "D-Day for Colin Powell." The good news for Mr. Powell is that he has company, historically speaking. James A. Baker III faced similar quandaries. Conservatives considered...

<p>BANGKOK, Thailand -- U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell has arrived in Thailand as part of a nine-country Asia tour focussing on reducing tensions between India and Pakistan and continuing the global war on terrorism.</p> <p>The focal point will be an address by Powell to a summit of the Association of Southeast Asia Nations (ASEAN) being held in Brunei later this week.</p>

<p>ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Secretary of State Colin L. Powell yesterday reported reduced tensions between India and Pakistan after a weekend of South Asia diplomacy that yielded little in the way of concrete results.</p> <p>"Thanks to the efforts of the international community, but especially the parties themselves, tensions have been reduced," he told reporters after flying to Islamabad from New Delhi.</p>

It wouldn't be surprising if Colin Powell were daydreaming about the clout once exercised by secretaries of state like John Foster Dulles and Henry Kissinger, men whose sway over American foreign policy was largely uncontested. Mr. Powell has been bested on a number of important issues in recent months by more conservative and ideological figures in the Bush administration. Like the good soldier and loyal adviser that he is, Mr. Powell has swallowed the defeats, defended the party line and turned to the next crisis. The administration, and the nation, would be better served if Mr. Powell's views prevailed more...

Powell play draws a blankNEW DELHI: Talks between visiting US Secretary of State Colin Powell and External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha failed to yield any new ground on the Indo-Pak stalemate. While India reiterated its well-known position on the ‘‘need for Pakistan to deliver on its pledges’’, the US side said it was used to its friends keeping their pledges. Sinha ruled out any further de-escalatory steps saying the ‘‘necessary conditions do not exist at present.’’ Powell spoke of the difficulties in monitoring the situation on the LoC. He also appreciated the movement towards free and fair elections in Jammu...

<p>U.S. NAVAL AIR STATION SIGONELLA, Italy (CNN) --On the eve of his third visit to the subcontinent, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell downplayed expectations that he can achieve a breakthrough and succeed in jump-starting long-stalled talks on Kashmir between nuclear rivals India and Pakistan.</p>

Secretary of State Colin Powell said Thursday that Israel's use of U.S.-made weapons in attacks that kill civilians is under Bush administration review. However, he gave no indication that Israel's use of a U.S.-made F-16 jet fighter to kill execute a Hamas leader violated U.S. law, which specifies the weapons may be used only in self-defense. In the military strike, a one-ton bomb was exploded in a residential area in Gaza city, killing Hamas military wing commander Salah Shehada and 14 others, inlcuidng nine children. Powell said the administration was concerned about the loss of human life. "We are constantly...

WASHINGTON, July 25 (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, faced with a fresh question on Thursday about whether he will resign because of policy differences within the Bush administration, dismissed the idea out of hand. Some media outlets interpreted a U.S. decision this week to scrap $34 million in aid to the U.N. Population Fund as a defeat for Powell's moderate stance on family planning and other social issues. U.S. President George W. Bush's effort to sideline Palestinian President Yasser Arafat from the Middle East peace process has also been seen as edging out Powell's view, shared by...

WASHINGTON, July 24 — After a recent meeting, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell was kidding around with the secretaries in the national security adviser's White House office, complaining that their pretzel jar was empty. Then he said: "Okay, that's enough. I've got to get back to work now — and by the way, I'm not resigning." The staff "all took a slight, shallow breath and then broke up," a senior administration official recalled. But the question of Secretary Powell's tenure is no laughing matter in Washington these days. A string of internal policy differences and defeats — most recently...

WASHINGTON (July 12, 2002 7:35 p.m. EDT) - A reporter for National Review magazine said Friday that State Department officials demanded he disclose the source of classified papers he had obtained on the U.S. visa program in Saudi Arabia and detained him briefly for questioning. The reporter, Joel Mowbray, said he called a lawyer on his cell phone and was permitted to leave the building only after copies of the classified material that he had left in the press briefing room were recovered by Diplomatic Security Service officials. Mowbray has written critically of the way visas were issued in Saudi...

Assistant Secretary of State John Turner asked the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to ratify six new environmental agreements. He said, "ratification of these agreements is not controversial and is generally supported by the public and private stakeholders." The reason they are not controversial is that only the "enlightened elite" environmental organizations have ever heard of them. One of the agreements is the SPAW Protocol to the Cartagena Convention. SPAW means "Specially Protected Areas and Wildlife"; the Cartagena Convention" is short for "Convention for the Protection and Development of the Marine Environment of the Wider Caribbean Region." This 1983 treaty was...

Secretary of State Colin Powell tried Sunday to put the kibosh on rumors he's considering resigning, saying he wasn't "weeping in my beer" over a split within the Bush administration over how to handle the Mideast crisis. "I am in no way thinking about resigning. I am not frustrated to the point that I'm weeping in my beer or hiding in my family room," Powell told "Meet the Press" host Tim Russert, when asked about a reported rivalry with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Powell confirmed, however, that disagreements with unnamed others have cropped up. "Are there battles from time...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Secretary of State Colin Powell said Sunday that Israel should loosen its confinement of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to give him a better chance of exercising his authority in support of steps toward easing hostilities with Israel. Powell suggested that Arafat's confinement to his Ramallah compound has inhibited his ability to deliver guidance and instructions to his subordinates. "I think the more access he is given, the opportunity he is given to show whether or not he can control forces or bring this security situation under control," Powell said on NBC's "Meet the Press." Israel has confined...

Two events on Friday reshaped U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell's conception of his peace mission to the Middle East: his tour of Israel's tense northern border region, which he termed "an eye opener," and the suicide bombing attack in Jerusalem just as his helicopter lifted off from the Knesset helipad only a quarter of a mile away, killing six Sabbath eve market shoppers and injuring 89. Landing in the Israel-Lebanese border sector, he was greeted by a group of current and former generals like himself: Defense Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer, Deputy Chief of Staff Maj.-Gen. Moshe Yaalon and OC...

US Secretary of State Colin Powell’s visit here Monday sparked more than just the wrath of an anti-Washington mob, with some parties demanding that he be prosecuted as a war criminal. Despite Powell’s moderate position toward the Middle East crisis and his description by many as a “dove” in comparison with Pentagon hawks, activists here have levelled far-reaching accusations against the US diplomat-in-chief. Two Lebanese lawyers sent State Prosecutor Adnan Addoum an official notification, urging him to strip the visiting Powell of his diplomatic immunity and requesting that he be either arrested or expelled for his alleged role in war...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A senior Bush administration official contacted Pedro Carmona the day the business leader took over as Venezuela's president after Hugo Chavez was temporarily ousted, The New York Times reported in its online edition Wednesday. Otto Reich, the assistant U.S. secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, phoned Carmona Friday and pleaded with him not to dissolve the National Assembly, the newspaper reported. Reich, a Cuban American known for his opposition to Cuban President Fidel Castro told Carmona that such a move would be a "stupid thing to do," and provoke an outcry, the Times reported, citing...

Most Americans believe Secretary of State Colin Powell's trip to the Mideast will fail to bring about peace, according to a Time-CNN poll released Friday. The poll, which surveyed about 1,000 Americans, showed 75 percent of adults thought Powell's trip was a good idea, but only 20 percent believed it would yield any major progress toward peace. Americans are also losing patience with Israel's military offensive. Almost two-thirds of those surveyed said the United States should cut off or reduce economic support if Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon doesn't withdraw troops from Palestinian cities. The poll was conducted on April...