Taliban leaders waging war in Afghanistan. At a Council on Foreign Relations briefing he warned against linking the large ethnic Pashtun population in western Pakistan with Taliban extremists.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai says Pakistan holds the key to securing Afghanistan five years after the ouster of the Taliban. He told a Council on Foreign Relations meeting that terrorism and Taliban elements rooted in Pakistan were the contributing greatly to his country's security woes.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran sparred with a senior group from the Council on Foreign Relations for ninety minutes Wednesday on virtually every contentious issue between the United States and Iran.

Karen Hughes, who runs America's public diplomacy, says policymakers increasingly are aware that U.S. actions abroad must not undermine America's stated goals and values. Hughes spoke atCFR headquarters in New York on Wednesday.

Supporters of Belarusian opposition candidate Alexander Milinkevich defied bans on public rallies to protest reports of widespread fraud during the March 19 presidential polls that overwhelmingly re-elected Alexander Lukashenka as president of the former Soviet republic. But, as cfr.org's Lionel Beehner reports from Minsk, protesters began streaming back home Tuesday evening as the cold Eurasian night began to fall.

Four former chairmen of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission have welcomed ongoing moves toward greater global convergence on market regulatory standards, saying they are key to the success of U.S. investors.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Friday said the U.S. government, its military, and its news media must face the fact that today's media environment is often hostile to the value of liberal democracies