September 12, 2006 [LINK / comment]
That anachronistic relic from the Cold War known as the "Nonaligned Movement" is regaining some of its former relevance, thanks to the resurgence of radical politics in parts of Latin America and the Third World. A summit of "nonaligned" country leaders is presently convening in Cuba, whose foreign minister Felipe Perez Roque declared, "the movement is more necessary than ever." Some of the major countries in attendance are on fairly good terms with Washington, however (India, Pakistan, and Thailand), so there may be some interesting dynamics coming out of the meeting. See CNN.com. The Nonaligned Movement was founded in 1961 and was a major focus of the foreign policy of the leftist-nationalist Peruvian military government during the 1970s. In practice, most of those "Nonaligned" countries had much closer relations with the Soviet Union than with the United States.