Conflicts are waning in much of the continent, thanks to the efforts of the African Union.

Europe s temporizing approach to the crisis cannot work indefinitely. It is not just confidence in Europe s periphery that is waning.

The refugees often feared that the Agency's financial difficulties indicated that the international community's commitment to the refugee issue was waning.

The claim of unlawful discrimination is maintained even though Portugal's influence and control within Angola in this time period was waning, if not eclipsed.

The ICTY must wrap up new indictments this year, and disband by 2008. It enters this end game facing diminished resources and waning political will within the international community.

With the defeat of Scotland s independence movement not to mention Québécois voters stunning rejection of the province s largest separatist party in last April s election that hope may be waning. And with good reason.

The US, on the other hand, continues to dominate militarily, while its economic influence is waning. In any case, China will invariably respond harshly to US efforts to step up its military presence in the region.

Japan is particularly concerned with Russian expansionism, because it is the only G 7 country that currently has a territorial dispute with Russia, which has occupied its Northern Territories since the waning days of World War II.

The political and economic significance of all the mid sized European powers is waning, and they are shrinking relative to the US and the rising giants of Asia. Only a strong Europe can provide the necessary counterweight.

DUBLIN Europe s needs and Europeans desires are at odds. At a time when strong, coordinated action is needed to stave off financial collapse in the European Union, the popular support that drove European integration over the last six decades is waning.

This negative trend shows no sign of waning. While international treaties, national laws, more and stronger institutions, improved education, and efforts by organized religious groups to foster respect for minorities can help to ameliorate the problem, collective efforts have so far fallen woefully short.

The refusal of today s elites to promote an effective balance of the three powers to recognize a larger purpose beyond maximizing each individual power has visibly translated into a waning regard for the public good. This has dramatic consequences for liberal democracy and open societies.

But the European pole s power of attraction is waning. Even as the EU continues to struggle with economic malaise, it finds itself in the midst of a growing geopolitical maelstrom, with crises in Ukraine, Russia, North Africa, and the Middle East each presenting important challenges.

Europe s politicians are by and large proud of the EU and the way it has both grown and deepened. But it is also the EU s growing complexity that is at the root of voters waning enthusiasm, so their indifference is a matter for serious concern.

The second reason for waning attention to the proposed partnership speaks to a broader issue A seemingly endless stream of short term political dramas has made it extremely difficult for both Europe and the US to focus for long on any secular and structural initiative.

We believe that the recently observed waning of interest in the work of the Tribunals, reflected particularly by the difficulty in finding candidates for ad litem judges, shows the importance of the timely implementation of the tasks incumbent upon the ICTY and the ICTR.

Despite his numerous achievements as president, Lee is trumpeting his nationalist anti Japanese credentials in the waning days of his term, which ends in February 2013. Indeed, so strident has he become that he refused to accept a message from Japan s prime minister about his island visit.

Russian leaders confidence in their economic and military resurgence is waning and both countries are increasingly frustrated by the lack of progress in nuclear talks with North Korea and Iran. Meanwhile, faced with a large federal budget deficit, many American voters would welcome reduced spending on nuclear weapons.

The final question is whether Europe and Japan will recover their animal spirits. Given Europe s current malaise and the waning impact of so called Abenomics in Japan, it is difficult to believe that their economies, which fueled global output growth for several decades, will regain their former stature.

Each is reinforcing the other and interacting with other negative parameters, including, inter alia, weak and or waning social protection systems, non participatory modes of governance, segmentation, modest growth and a shock therapy approach to economic reform, resulting in worsening social conditions that affect large parts of the population.

In short, we may be headed toward a less Germanic economic policy in the eurozone. While that might enhance the EU s popularity in the periphery, it could increase resistance to EU membership in Germany a country that, despite its waning economic strength, remains an important piece of the integration puzzle.

BERKELEY In the political impasses that recently paralyzed the world s two largest democracies, India and the United States, both countries usually clear sighted leaders, to paraphrase William Butler Yeats, lacked all conviction, while the misguided and the shallow were full of passionate intensity. Indeed, that passion shows little sign of waning.

According to Chirac, France s exports are lagging not because France is losing its international competitiveness although it is, especially to Germany but because of the strong euro. Likewise, France s economic growth is waning not because France has failed to undertake necessary structural reforms, but because European interest rates are too high.

CAMBRIDGE Since 1976, the US dollar s role as an international currency has been slowly waning. International use of the dollar to hold foreign exchange reserves, denominate financial transactions, invoice trade, and as a vehicle in currency markets is below its level during the heyday of the Bretton Woods era, from 1945 to 1971.

Monetary tightening, administrative measures introduced by various municipal governments to stem the run up in the housing market, and the waning effect of the government s 4 trillion ( 642.3 billion) stimulus package resulted in a gradual economic slowdown. While inflation should have eased in early 2011, rising food prices and commodity prices thwarted expectations.

The current decline in home prices is associated just as clearly with waning speculative enthusiasm among investors, which is likewise largely unrelated to monetary policy. The world s monetary authorities will have trouble stopping this decline, and much of the attendant problems, just as they would have had trouble stopping the ascent that preceded it.

Throughout the eurozone, rising income inequality has created an underclass that is increasingly suspicious of the monetary union. As the post war generation ages with most of its members now at least 60 years old and its leaders either in senior leadership positions or acting as senior statesmen the remaining support for integration is waning.

A former adviser to Deng Xiaoping and confidante of former President Jiang Zemin (whose political influence is now waning), Li was among the first to invest in China after the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989. He long touted the motto, I don t do anything against China s interest, and I don t say anything that may hurt China s reputation.

Six years after the crisis, some prominent economists are asking whether insufficient investment and or waning gains from technological innovation have pushed the global economy into a new normal of lower growth and slow, if any, gains in living standards. Some economists call this secular stagnation a fancy way of saying that the good times are gone for good.

Europe s consumers should be able to buy online songs, watch online video, and shop online for whatever products they choose, and Europe s businesses should be able to benefit fully from the EU s giant market. Indeed, letting the Internet blossom not only makes good business sense it might also help to restore voters waning faith in the European project.

At the same time, the Saudi leadership is facing significant domestic challenges, including vast economic disparities, inadequate services, growing frustration with the lack of political freedom, and a difficult succession process within the royal family. Nevertheless, though Saudi Arabia s soft power is waning, its massive oil wealth will likely ensure that it remains a regional heavyweight.

The second reason is more fundamental the waning sense of purpose and conviction that characterizes Western democracies today. Whereas, say, Presidents John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan clearly confronted the Soviet Union in their speeches at the Berlin Wall, a succession of Western leaders has spoken in nods and winks about the crisis in Ukraine and China s aggressive stance toward its neighbors.

The predominance of the right in the future European Parliament calls for some explanation. The main reason might be the poor fortunes of social democratic parties, which now head only eight governments in the EU, despite their efforts since 2000 to minimize their waning influence within their traditional electorate blue collar workers and white collar public sector employees, middle managers, and civil servants.

He it is Who gave the sun radiance and the moon light, and determined the stages (for the waxing and waning of the moon) that you may learn the calculation of years and the reckoning of time. Allah has created all this with a rightful purpose (rather than out of play). He expounds His signs for the people who know.

He it is Who gave the sun radiance and the moon light, and determined the stages (for the waxing and waning of the moon) that you may learn the calculation of years and the reckoning of time. Allah has created all this with a rightful purpose (rather than out of play). He expounds His signs for the people who know.

In last October s municipal elections in the West Bank the first in six years the largely secular Fatah party technically retained its authority but voter turnout of only 55 , following Hamas s call for a boycott, reflected waning support for the party. Hamas is now widely seen as the true representative of Palestinian national ambitions, and is set to unite the Palestinians under its flag.

Such long term unpredictability is why the former European Union foreign policy high representative Javier Solana and former NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer assert that talks in Geneva are the only viable way out of the Syrian morass. An agreement last month between US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov to launch a new political process for Syria, Geneva II, marked a possible opportunity but hope is waning even before the talks begin.