- New York area port prepares for possible US strike disruption
- Rodri 'irreplaceable' but Guardiola confident Man City will still compete
- Brook 'relieved' as maiden ODI hundred sets up first win as England captain
- Dior's arrows and Amazons as Saint Laurent revives its master
- Mbappe strikes again as Madrid hold off Alaves
- Nkunku hits Chelsea hat-trick, Man City edge into League Cup last 16
- Amnesty calls for commission to probe Kenya protest deaths
- Bolivian government rejects Morales ultimatum for cabinet reshuffle
- US Congress calls on Novo Nordisk to lower drug prices
- Stock markets advance on China stimulus
- Russia 'can only be forced into peace," Zelensky tells UN
- Hundred hero Brook keeps England alive in Australia ODI series
- Biden pleads for democracy in final UN address
- Brook's hundred sees England beat Australia in 3rd ODI
- Alarm grows as Israel and Hezbollah exchange intense fire
- NFL legend Favre reveals Parkinson's diagnosis
- Biden urges world to 'stop arming generals' in Sudan
- Defying experts, Trump vows tariff-driven US economic boom
- Stokes open to England white-ball return
- No peak oil demand 'on the horizon', phaseout a 'fantasy': OPEC
- Sri Lanka's new leftist leader dissolves parliament, calls snap polls
- England scrum-half Mitchell to see specialist on neck injury
- Under-pressure Masood to lead Pakistan in England Tests
- Storm Helene on track to hit Florida as major hurricane
- IOC should reinstate Russia as soon it obeys rules: Samaranch
- Dior unleashes arrows and Amazons at Paris Fashion Week
- San Siro loses 2027 Champions League final due to uncertain future
- Canada's Trudeau faces no-confidence vote
- AI research uncovers 300 ancient etchings in Peru's Nazca desert
- Brazil's Lula calls Security Council makeup 'unacceptable'
- Alarm grows as Israel launches new 'extensive' strikes on Lebanon
- Carey blasts Australia to 304-7 against England in 3rd ODI
- Biden warns against clinging to power in UN farewell
- Alarm grows as Israel launches new strikes on Lebanon
- Biden warns at UN against 'full-scale war' over Lebanon
- 'Monumental step' as Thai king signs same-sex marriage into law
- French lake still riddled with bombs 80 years after World War II
- Alberta Ferretti quits as creative director at brand she founded
- Two killed in Mexico as Hurricane John weakens to tropical storm
- Multiple arrests after US woman uses machine-assisted suicide in Switzerland
- Dubois will next fight Joshua or Usyk, 'whoever pays me the most'
- Stock markets surge on China stimulus
- Lopetegui ready to learn from mistakes as Liverpool loom in League Cup
- US Fed dissenter warns inflation risks remain 'prominent'
- UN chief warns Lebanon on 'brink' as world leaders gather
- Surprise start for Libbok as Etzebeth set for Springboks record
- Ten Hag says expanded schedules make injuries 'almost unavoidable'
- Liverpool boss Slot praises Alexander-Arnold's defensive work
- Barca coach backs Pena but will debate new goalkeeper signing
- UN says tens of thousands flee Lebanon strikes
Biden lauds Madeleine Albright at dignitary-packed funeral
President Joe Biden hailed Madeleine Albright at her funeral Wednesday as a diplomatic giant whose rise from child refugee to first female secretary of state represented the best of the United States.
Albright, who also served as US ambassador to the United Nations, died last month at 84.
Reflecting her status on the world stage, the televised funeral in Washington's National Cathedral was packed with more than 1,400 people and featured tributes from Biden, former president Bill Clinton who appointed Albright to secretary of state, and Hillary Clinton, who likewise served as America's top diplomat.
Among others attending were former Democratic president Barack Obama and his wife Michelle, and a Who's Who of senior Biden cabinet members, including current Secretary of State Antony Blinken, CIA Director Bill Burns, and other leaders in the military and foreign policy branches.
US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Biden's powerful Republican foe Mitch McConnell, who leads the opposition in the Senate, were among the congressional delegation.
Biden praised Albright as someone whose work in the aftermath of the Cold War still echoes as he marshalls the Western alliance confronting Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.
"Madeleine was a big part of the reason that NATO was still strong and galvanized as it is," Biden said, reflecting on an ongoing "severe confrontation between autocratic and democratic nations."
The veteran Democrat said Albright "turned the tide of history" through her understanding of "what American power could achieve."
"Her name is still synonymous with America as a force for good in the world," he said. "Her story was America's story. She loved to speak about America as the indispensable nation."
Bill Clinton echoed this, saying threats to US democracy from within, following attempts by Donald Trump to overturn the 2020 election, also prove what Albright "always knew -- that the advance of freedom isn't either inevitable or permanent."
"Democracy and the rule of law are not permanently enshrined just because we survived 200 plus years," Clinton warned.
- Child refugee to stateswoman -
Albright took the helm of the State Department in 1997, dealing with a post-Cold War world in which the United States had emerged as the sole superpower.
As the top US diplomat, she led crucial discussions with world leaders on arms control, trade, terrorism and the future of NATO. Not since Margaret Thatcher governed Britain had a woman wielded such a position of global influence.
Albright's story was all the more remarkable given her dramatic early life.
Born in Czechoslovakia, she fled with her family to London from the approaching Nazis on the eve of World War II. She then entered the United States as a child refugee in 1948, as Soviet communism spread across post-World War II Eastern Europe.
She said that only later she learned of her family's Jewish roots and that three of her grandparents had died in Nazi concentration camps.
Mourners on Wednesday highlighted Albright's love of dancing while on diplomatic trips and her refusal to keep quiet in a more sexist era when women were rare in top jobs.
Reflecting on her rise to secretary of state, which came after decades of building influence in Democratic Party circles, Albright herself quipped that previously "the only way a woman could truly make her foreign policy views felt was by marrying a diplomat and then pouring tea on an offending ambassador's lap."
P.Anderson--BTB