Around 30,000 more troops being considered

WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama is wrapping up deliberations on war strategy in Afghanistan and is considering final Pentagon options that include sending about 30,000 more troops, officials said on Saturday.

A deployment of that size would be less than the 40,000-troop increase recommended by Gen Stanley McChrystal, the commander of US and Nato forces in Afghanistan, but more than many of Obama’s Democratic allies may support.

Record combat deaths have eroded US public support for the war, and a decision to expand troop levels could become a political liability for the president ahead of congressional elections next year.

Currently, there are about 67,000 US troops and 40,000 allied forces in Afghanistan.

Under one of the final Pentagon options presented to the White House, three additional combat brigades would be deployed and a division headquarters set up near Kandahar in southern Afghanistan, as part of a 30,000-troop increase.

US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Mr Obama had settled on a troop increase but has yet to make up his mind about its size.

Brigades generally include 3,500 to 4,000 troops, though they can swell to over 5,000 troops if other units are attached. Marine brigades can be larger.

Mr Obama, who will visit Asia from Nov 12-19, is expected to announce his decision within a few weeks, possibly after Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s inauguration. Mr Karzai was re-elected in a controversial poll tainted by fraud.

The timing may hinge on the extent to which Mr Karzai embraces US and European calls for a pact under which his government would commit to taking concrete steps to fight corruption and improve governance, including the delivery of public services.

Washington believes a successful counter-insurgency strategy against the Taliban hinges in large part on winning Afghan public support for the government in Kabul.

But Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the US military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, said earlier this week that the re-elected president’s legitimacy among the Afghan people was ‘at best, in question right now and, at worst, doesn’t exist.’

Options on table

Senior Obama administration officials have stepped up consultations with key allies, laying the ground for an announcement on strategy and troop levels.

In his confidential troop request, Gen McChrystal said 40,000 additional troops were needed to help secure Afghan population centres and to give Nato some additional resources to take on Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters in outlying areas.

Another option, deemed more risky by Gen McChrystal, calls for between 10,000 and 15,000 more troops, which would enable the commander to focus on securing population centres but provide few additional resources to broaden the anti-Taliban campaign.

A third option – to send an additional 80,000 troops to mount a more robust counter-insurgency campaign against the Taliban across the country – was widely seen as a non-starter from the onset of the White House review.

Support for continuing a counter-insurgency strategy with a greater focus on protecting major Afghan population centres has been growing within the Obama administration.

Counter-insurgency advocates include Defence Secretary Robert Gates and military leaders, including Gen McChrystal. Officials said this strategy could be combined with a stepped up counter-terrorism campaign, advocated by Vice President Joe Biden, using unmanned aerial drones and special operations forces to combat Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters in the Afghan countryside and near the border with Pakistan. — Reuters.

US House passes sweeping health care overhaul

WASHINGTON: The US House of Representatives late Saturday approved the broadest US health care overhaul in a half-century, handing President Barack Obama a major victory on his top domestic priority.

After hours of bitter debate and an appeal from Obama to ‘answer the call of history,’ lawmakers voted 220-215 for a 10-year, trillion-dollar plan to extend health coverage to some 36 million Americans who lack it now.

The chamber’s Democrats erupted in loud cheers and triumphant applause the moment the bill had the 218 votes needed for passage, about 11:07 pm (0407 GMT), a happy din that grew deafening when a gavel made it official.

The president had paid a rare visit to Congress to lobby for unity among his Democratic allies and reinforced it with a public speech, but 39 still joined 176 of the chamber’s Republicans in opposition to the proposal.

One Republican broke ranks, nominally fulfilling, in the barest terms, Obama’s vow to secure bipartisan support.

‘This is our moment to deliver. I urge members of congress to rise to this moment, answer the call of history and vote yes for health insurance reform for America,’ Obama said in the White House’s Rose Garden hours before the vote.

The fight to remake health care in the world’s richest country shifted to the US Senate, where its fate remained unclear amid a intra-party dispute among Democrats anchored on what role the US government should play.

Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, struggling to pull together the 60 votes needed to ensure passage, has hinted that the chamber may not act until next year.

That would put the issue front-and-center in the 2010 mid-term elections, when one third of the Senate, the entire House of Representatives, and many US governorships are up for grabs.

If, as expected, the two chambers pass rival versions of health care legislation, they will need to thrash out a compromise version and approve it in order to send it to Obama to sign into law.

Final House passage came after a flurry of votes, including a 240-194 vote to sharply tighten restrictions on government monies paying for abortions, seen as critical to cementing support from a group of anti-abortion Democrats.

The House then voted 176-258 to defeat the Republican alternative to the overall plan — with one lone Republican, Representative Timothy Johnson of Illinois, joining the Democrats in opposition.

The United States is the only industrialized democracy that does not ensure that all of its citizens have health care coverage, with an estimated 36 million Americans uninsured.

And Washington spends vastly more on health care — both per person and as a share of national income as measured by Gross Domestic Product — than other industrialized democracies, but with no meaningful edge in quality of care, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

The bill would create a government-backed insurance plan, popularly known as a ‘public option,’ to compete with private firms and would end denial of coverage based on preexisting medical problems.

Under the White House-backed bill, Americans would have to buy insurance and most employers would have to offer coverage to their workers — though some small businesses would be exempt and the government would offer subsidies. —AFP

Lawmakers split on timing of Afghan decision

WASHINGTON – Top lawmakers sparred Sunday over the timing of President Barack Obama’s decision on how to move ahead in Afghanistan, with Republicans urging a quick move to boost troop levels and Democrats counseling patience.

In partisan displays, senators generally agreed on the need to support whatever Afghan government emerges from a Nov. 7 run-off election between President Hamid Karzai and challenger Abdullah Abdullah. But they differed on exactly how to do that and when.

Republicans said Obama must sign off soon on a recommendation from the top commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, to substantially increase the number of American troops there by as many as 40,000 or more. Democrats warned against a hasty decision on any increase.

“Clearly, time is of the essence here,” said Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, the second-ranking Republican. “I’m afraid that with every passing day we risk the future success of the mission.”

“I think it’s taken too long,” added Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. “Why not follow the advice of his hand-picked general?”

Arizona Sen. John McCain, the GOP nominee for president last year, said that “every day we delay will be a delay in this strategy succeeding.” The deteriorating situation “argues for a rapid decision,” he said.

Obama has had McChrystal’s recommendation for weeks but has yet to decide on putting it in place even after numerous strategy sessions with senior aides. The White House has said the president will not be rushed, but suggested a decision will be made soon.

None of the Republicans would second a claim made last week by former Vice President Dick Cheney that Obama is “dithering” in making a decision, but they agreed that continued delay would endanger the 68,000 U.S. soldiers now on the ground in Afghanistan.

“I would never want to call my president dithering,” Hatch said. He stressed, though, that “they need these troops, there is no question about it. We’re exposing them without the proper help that they have just got to have. … I think it’s a mistake.”

Distancing himself from Cheney, McCain also said he “wouldn’t use that language.” But, he added, “The sooner we implement the strategy the more we will able to ensure their (troops’) safety.”

Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, lashed out at Cheney’s criticism, which came in a speech on Wednesday while accepting an award from a conservative national security group.

“I thought that comments of the former vice president were totally out of bounds,” said Levin, D-Mich. “I don’t think he has any credibility left with the American people in any event. But I think it is really wrong. … The president needs to make the right decision.”

Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., another member of the Armed Services Committee, also disagreed.

“The process that this administration is using is, I think, is a very proper and smart process,” he said. “This deliberative process is what we need because we’re going to end up living with the results for some time.”

In addition to differing on the timing of the decision, lawmakers were divided by party over on what it should be. Republicans wholeheartedly endorsed McChrystal’s appeal while Democrats were more skeptical.

Levin, who has urged that the Afghan security forces be built up before any increase in U.S. combat troops, said “it would be a mistake to have any significant number of additional combat forces because I would like to see a large increase in the Afghan army be the major way in which this is successful.”

Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., was more strident, saying he is against a build up of American forces.

“It is time to start thinking about bringing troops out of Afghanistan and reducing our commitment there,” he said. He pledged to oppose a decision to send more.

“There will be resistance to this if necessary,” Feingold said. “If necessary, we will act to prevent this mistake.”

Kyl and Levin spoke on “Fox News Sunday,” Hatch and Webb were on CNN’s “State of the Union,” and Feingold and McCain appeared on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

US note dilutes some conditions in Kerry-Lugar bill

WASHINGTON: The requirement for an effective civilian control over promotions and strategic planning in the Pakistani military is not mentioned in a new joint explanatory statement of the US Congress issued on Wednesday.

‘There is no intent to, and nothing in this act in any way suggests that there should be, any US role in micromanaging internal Pakistani affairs, including the promotion of Pakistani military officers or the internal operations of the Pakistani military,’ said an explanatory note attached to the Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act of 2009.

The explanatory note also dilutes the requirement that needed Pakistan to interrogate any Pakistani national involved in nuclear proliferation and to allow US officials access to such a person.

A new clause included in the explanatory note now ‘reflects our understanding that cooperative effort currently being undertaken by the governments of Pakistan and the United States to combat proliferation will continue.’

Section 302 of the act Congress passed late last month required the Secretary of State to submit annual reports to appropriate congressional committees to justify the continuation of security and military assistance to Pakistan. A failure to issue such a report could cause the aid to be discontinued.

There’s no such requirement for economic assistance. The secretary’s report shall include an assessment of the extent to which the Pakistan government exercises effective civilian control of the military.

This report should also include ‘a description of the extent to which civilian executive leaders and parliament exercise oversight and approval of military budgets, the chain of command, the process of promotion for senior military leaders, civilian involvement in strategic guidance and planning, and military involvement in civil administration,’ said the original document.

Pakistani diplomats, however, explained to the media on Wednesday that while the above clause could not be deleted from the bill, the explanatory statement would make it ineffective. The administration will no longer be asked to issue such a report.

Missing from the explanatory note are words like ‘civilian executive leaders and parliament’ exercising the power of ‘oversight and approval’ and the requirement that the military will not get involved in civil administration.

The explanatory note also states that even the remaining requirement can be ‘waived if the determination is made by the Secretary of State in the interest of (US) national security that this was necessary to continue’ military assistance to Pakistan.

Interestingly, the requirement for ‘effective civilian control’ over the military was also absent from the original Senate version of the Kerry-Lugar bill.

The earlier bill said that the US intended to work with the government of Pakistan to ensure that Pakistan had strong and effective law-enforcement and national defence forces, under civilian leadership, with sufficient and appropriate security equipment and training to effectively defend Pakistan against internal and external threats.

In this clause, there was no mention of civilian control over chain of command or the process of promotion in the Pakistan army or any thing else hair-raising about the armed forces.

The explanatory note was issued jointly by the US House of Representatives and the Senate, clarifying their intent behind the aid to Pakistan bill.

The statement stresses that the US neither seeks to micromanage Pakistani affairs nor impinge on its sovereignty.

Senator John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Congressman Howard Berman, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, read out part of the statement inside Capitol Hill, standing beside Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi.

‘This document today is I think a historic document, a step forward in our relationship,’ Qureshi told a joint news conference with Senator Kerry and Congressman Berman.

‘I am going back to Pakistan to tell my parliament and conclude the debate on the note that our relationship can move forward , we will deepen it and we will strengthen it,’ he said.

Senator Kerry and Congressman Berman reaffirmed their resolve to forge a long-term relationship with Pakistan, adding that the legislation, now being called as Kerry-Lugar-Berman Act, manifests the American commitment to economic uplift of the Pakistani people.

‘There is nothing in this bill that impinges on Pakistani sovereignty, period,’ said Senator Kerry.

The joint statement says that the reports envisioned in Section 302 are not binding on Pakistan, and require only the provision of information by the executive branch to the US Congress, in furtherance of the proposed legislation’s stated purpose of strengthening civilian institutions and the democratically-elected government of Pakistan.

The final text of the legislation reflects an agreement reached by the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.

‘The purpose of this explanatory statement is to facilitate accurate interpretation of the text and to ensure faithful implementation of its provisions in accordance with the intentions of the legislation,’ said Senator Kerry.

The core intent of the Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act is to demonstrate the American people’s long-term commitment to the people of Pakistan, he added.

Senator Kerry and Congressman Berman said that the United States valued its friendship with the Pakistani people and honoured the great sacrifices made by Pakistani security forces in the fight against extremism, and the legislation reflected the goals shared by the two governments.

The joint statement emphasised that the legislation ‘does not seek in any way to compromise Pakistan’s sovereignty, impinge on Pakistan’s national security interests, or micromanage any aspect of Pakistani military or civilian operations’.

There are no conditions on Pakistan attached to the authorisation of $7.5 billion in non-military aid.
The only requirements on this funding are financial accountability measures that Congress is imposing on the US executive branch, to ensure that this assistance supports programmes that most benefit the Pakistani people.

President Barack Obama has till midnight Friday to sign the Kerry-Lugar bill and he will sign it before that, according to White House spokesman Robert Gibbs.

Obama hosts Passover meal

WASHINGTON, April 10: Barack Obama hosted family, friends and staff on Thursday night for a Passover seder, thought to be a first for a sitting US president.

A photograph released by the White House showed Mr Obama at the head of a cheerful table of 18, including First Lady Michelle Obama and daughters Malia, 10, and Sasha, seven.

An aide said the meal stuck to traditional fare like matzo, bitter herbs, roasted egg and greens in the White House’s family dining room, and that the event included reading of the Haggadah, the religious text of the holiday.

Passover, which celebrates the Jewish exodus from Egypt after 400 years of slavery, began at sundown on Wednesday. White House aides said they believed it was a first for a US president to host it.

About two per cent of the US population of more than 300 million is Jewish. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the event grew out of a seder dinner during the 2008 campaign, held in the basement of a hotel in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

“I did not go, but somebody told me that at the event they said, ‘Next year let’s do this at the White House,’ and here we are,” Gibbs said on Thursday.—AFP

2 months into 2009, US deaths spike in Afghanistan

KABUL – U.S. deaths in Afghanistan increased threefold during the first two months of 2009 compared with the same period last year, after thousands more troops deployed and commanders ramped up winter operations against an increasingly violent insurgency.

As troops pour into the country and violence rises, another sobering measure has also increased: More Afghan civilians are dying in U.S. and allied operations than at the hands of the Taliban, according to a count by The Associated Press. In the first two months of the year, U.S., NATO or Afghan forces have killed 100 civilians, while militants have killed 60.

President Barack Obama recently announced the deployment of 17,000 additional troops to bolster 38,000 already in the country, increasing the U.S. focus on Afghanistan while a drawdown begins in Iraq. The latest casualty toll among U.S. forces could portend a deadlier year in Afghanistan than the U.S. military has experienced since the Taliban’s ouster in 2001.

“I think that because you are going to see that additional engagement, there is a risk of greater additional casualties in the short term, just as there was in Iraq,” Obama told the Pentagon Channel on Friday from Camp Lejeune, N.C. “That is something we will have to monitor very carefully.”

Twenty-nine U.S. troops died in Afghanistan the first two months of 2009 — compared with eight Americans in the first two months of 2008.

Part of the increase is due to the influx of troops. In early 2008 there were about 27,000 forces in the country, some 10,000 fewer than today.

But U.S. troops are also operating in new, dangerous areas. A brigade of 10th Mountain Division soldiers deployed to two insurgent-heavy provinces outside Kabul in January — Wardak and Logar. And American forces are increasingly operating in Taliban heartland in the south.

“It has a lot to do with the fact that we have a presence in places and going into places and disrupting insurgents in area where they haven’t been bothered much,” Col. Greg Julian, the top U.S. spokesman in Afghanistan, said Saturday. That, he said, means more battles and more attacks.

American troop deaths occurred at a much higher rate in Afghanistan than in Iraq in January and February. Thirty-one U.S. forces have died in Iraq so far this year, but there are roughly 140,000 American troops in Iraq, more than three times the number in Afghanistan.

The decreasing U.S. death toll in Iraq coincides with an overall decline in violence largely attributed to a cease-fire by anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and a Sunni decision to join forces with the Americans against al-Qaida in Iraq.

Julian said that troops in Afghanistan have “maintained the pressure throughout the winter months” this season, though in previous years there had been a lull.

About a third of the 29 deaths this year were caused by roadside bombs, including an attack in Kandahar province on Tuesday that killed four U.S. troops. Julian said insurgents are using more IEDs and fewer direct attacks because militants die in large numbers when they fight the U.S. head on.

The number of other NATO soldiers killed so far this year has risen as well, but not at the same rate. Last year 13 soldiers from other NATO countries died in January and February, compared with 18 in the first two months of 2009. Of those 18 deaths, 12 were British.

Gen. David McKiernan, the top U.S. and NATO commander in the country, said he thinks that Taliban militants are “resilient” but not necessarily stronger.

“I’m not with the group that says everything is in a downward spiral, that the Taliban are resurgent and stronger than they were. I think they’re very resilient, but I don’t necessarily think they’re stronger,” McKiernan told the Chicago Tribune in an interview published Friday.

“And I do see some measures of progress in this country. Now I’m not going to say everything is going to improve dramatically in 2009, but I think as a military commander, I am not going to be pessimistic about this. I’m going to be glass-is-half-full.”

Violence in all categories is up in general so far this year. Militant deaths rose from 129 in early 2008 to 308 in early 2009, according to numbers compiled by The Associated Press based on figures from U.S., NATO and Afghan officials.

Civilian deaths from U.S. and NATO operations have also spiked, despite increasingly emotional pleas from Afghan President Hamid Karzai to address the problem.

Last year the Taliban set off several large suicide bombs in crowded areas, killing around 180 Afghan civilians the first two months of the year, while U.S., NATO or Afghan forces killed fewer than 10.

But the numbers have reversed this year. In the first two months of 2009 some 100 Afghan civilians have been killed by U.S., NATO or Afghan forces, according to the AP count, many during overnight missions by Special Operations Forces. Militants have killed around 60.

source : news.yahoo.com

Obama challenges lobbyists to legislative duel

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama challenged the nation’s vested interests to a legislative duel Saturday, saying he will fight to change health care, energy and education in dramatic ways that will upset the status quo.

“The system we have now might work for the powerful and well-connected interests that have run Washington for far too long,” Obama said in his weekly radio and video address. “But I don’t. I work for the American people.”

He said the ambitious budget plan he presented Thursday will help millions of people, but only if Congress overcomes resistance from deep-pocket lobbies.

“I know these steps won’t sit well with the special interests and lobbyists who are invested in the old way of doing business, and I know they’re gearing up for a fight,” Obama said, using tough-guy language reminiscent of his predecessor, George W. Bush. “My message to them is this: So am I.”

The bring-it-on tone underscored Obama’s combative side as he prepares for a drawn-out battle over his tax and spending proposals. Sometimes he uses more conciliatory language and stresses the need for bipartisanship. Often he favors lofty, inspirational phrases.

On Saturday, he was a full-throated populist, casting himself as the people’s champion confronting special interest groups that care more about themselves and the wealthy than about the average American.

Some analysts say Obama’s proposals are almost radical. But he said all of them were included in his campaign promises. “It is the change the American people voted for in November,” he said.

Nonetheless, he said, well-financed interest groups will fight back furiously.

Insurance companies will dislike having “to bid competitively to continue offering Medicare coverage, but that’s how we’ll help preserve and protect Medicare and lower health care costs,” the president said. “I know that banks and big student lenders won’t like the idea that we’re ending their huge taxpayer subsidies, but that’s how we’ll save taxpayers nearly $50 billion and make college more affordable. I know that oil and gas companies won’t like us ending nearly $30 billion in tax breaks, but that’s how we’ll help fund a renewable energy economy.”

Passing the budget, even with a Democratic-controlled Congress, “won’t be easy,” Obama said. “Because it represents real and dramatic change, it also represents a threat to the status quo in Washington.”

Obama also promoted his economic proposals in a video message to a group meeting in Los Angeles on “the state of the black union.”

“We have done more in these past 30 days to bring about progressive change than we have in the past many years,” the president in remarks the White House released in advance. “We are closing the gap between the nation we are and the nation we can be by implementing policies that will speed our recovery and build a foundation for lasting prosperity and opportunity.”

Congressional Republicans continued to bash Obama’s spending proposals and his projection of a $1.75 trillion deficit this year.

Almost every day brings another “multibillion-dollar government spending plan being proposed or even worse, passed,” said Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., who gave the GOP’s weekly address.

He said Obama is pushing “the single largest increase in federal spending in the history of the United States, while driving the deficit to levels that were once thought impossible.”

source : news.yahoo.com

Official: Budget projects $1.75 trillion deficit

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama is sending Congress a budget Thursday that projects the government’s deficit for this year will soar to $1.75 trillion, reflecting efforts to pull the nation out of a deep recession and a severe financial crisis.

A senior administration official told The Associated Press that Obama’s $3 trillion-plus spending blueprint also asks Congress to raise taxes on the wealthy in 2011 and cut Medicare costs to provide health care for the uninsured.

The president’s first budget also holds out the possibility of spending $250 billion more for additional financial industry rescue efforts on top of the $700 billion that Congress has already authorized, according to this official, who spoke on condition of anonymity before the formal release of the budget.

The official said the administration felt it would be prudent to ask for additional resources to deal with the financial crisis, the most severe to hit the country in seven decades. He called the request a “placeholder” in advance of a determination by the Treasury Department of what extra resources will actually be needed.

The spending blueprint Obama is sending Congress is a 140-page outline, with the complete details scheduled to come in mid- to late April, when the new administration sends up the massive budget books that will flesh out the plan.

However, the submission of the bare budget outline was certain to set off fierce debate in Congress over Obama’s spending and tax priorities. The budget document includes additional requests for the current year and Obama’s proposals the 2010 budget year, which begins Oct. 1.

The president wants Congress to extend the $400 annual tax cut due to start showing up in workers’ paychecks in April, and it extends the tax cuts passed in 2001 and 2003 for couples earning less than $250,000 per year. Those tax cuts were due to expire at the end of 2010.

To pay for the middle-class tax relief and the effort to increase health coverage, Obama’s budget makes significant cuts on the rate of growth in other areas of health care and seeks to trim a variety of other government programs, including subsidies earned by farmers with revenue of more than $500,000 a year.

The budget would also seek savings in military weapons purchases. It would raise taxes on wealthy hedge fund managers and corporations, eliminating tax incentives U.S. companies now have to move jobs overseas, something Obama repeatedly mentioned during the presidential campaign.

Even with all the savings, the cost of the $787 billion economic stimulus bill will push the deficit for this year to $1.75 trillion, a level — as a percentage of the economy — not seen since World War II. The deficit is expected to remain around $1 trillion for the next two years before starting to decline to $533 billion in 2013, according to budget projections.

Obama’s plan proposes achieving $634 billion in savings on projected health care spending and diverting those resources to expanding coverage for uninsured Americans. The $634 billion represents a little more than half the money that would be needed to extend health insurance to all of the 48 million Americans now uninsured.

Americans now spend a total of $2.4 trillion a year on health care.

Obama also will ask for an additional $75 billion to cover the costs of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan through September, the end of the current budget year. That would be on top of the $40 billion already appropriated by Congress, the administration official said.

The administration will also ask for $130 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan in 2010 and will budget the costs of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan at $50 billion annually over the next several years.

Obama’s budget proposal would effectively raise income taxes and curb tax deductions on couples making more than $250,000 a year, beginning in 2011. By not extending former President George W. Bush’s tax cuts for such wealthier filers, Obama would allow the marginal rate on household incomes above $250,000 to rise from 35 percent to 39.6 percent.

The plan also contains a contentious proposal to raise hundreds of billions of dollars by auctioning off permits to exceed carbon emissions caps, which Obama wants to impose on users of fossil fuels to address global warming.

Some of the revenues from the pollution permits would be used to extend the “Making Work Pay” tax credit of $400 for individuals and $800 for couples beyond 2010, as provided in the just-passed economic stimulus bill.

About half of what officials characterized as a $634 billion “down payment” toward health care coverage for every American would come from cuts in Medicare. That is sure to incite battles with doctors, hospitals, health insurance companies and drug manufacturers.

Some of the Medicare savings would come from scaling back payments to private insurance plans that serve older Americans, which many analysts believe to be inflated. Other proposals include charging upper-income beneficiaries a higher premium for Medicare’s prescription drug coverage.

To raise the other half, Obama wants to reduce the rate by which wealthier people can cut their taxes through deductions for mortgage interest, charitable contributions, local taxes and other expenses to 28 cents on the dollar, rather than the 35 cents they can claim now. Even more money would be raised if the top rate reverts to 39.6 percent, as Obama wants.

Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, called Obama’s proposal to tax the wealthy to finance health care reform a starting point. But he wants to also examine taxing some of health insurance benefits provided by employers — an idea rejected by Obama in last year’s presidential campaign.

Budget documents provided to The Associated Press show that Obama will not lay out a detailed blueprint for a health care overhaul, but a set of broad policy principles and some specific ideas for how to raise a big chunk of the money.

Obama’s promise to phase out direct payments to farming operations with revenues above $500,000 a year is sure to cause concerns among rural Democrats.

Even after all those difficult choices, cutting about $2 trillion from the budget over 10 years, Obama’s budget still would feature huge deficits.

The $1.75 trillion deficit projected for this year would represent 12.3 percent of the gross domestic product, double the previous post-war record of 6 percent in 1983, when Ronald Reagan was president, and the highest level since the deficit totaled 21.5 percent of GDP in 1945, at the end of World War II.

At $533 billion, the deficit in 2013 will be about 3 percent of the size of the economy, a level that administration officials said would be manageable.

___

Associated Press writers Andrew Taylor, Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar and Anne Gearan contributed to this report.

source : news.yahoo.com

Obama to address Congress, nation on economy

WASHINGTON – Barreling ahead on a mammoth agenda, Barack Obama is ready to offer a detailed sketch of the first year of his presidency, casting the nation’s bleeding economy as a tangle of tough, neglected problems.

In a prime-time speech to Congress and millions watching at home, Obama will make his case Tuesday that much more has to be done to turn around the economy — a message he knows he must explain.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Tuesday that Obama will provide more details about his financial stability plan and measures to help the economy while delivering “a sober assessment about where we are and the challenges we face.”

“He’ll say we’re on the right path to meeting these challenges, and there are better days ahead,” Gibbs said.

Obama approaches this moment riding a strong, upbeat sentiment among the public. Overall, 68 percent of people approve of his job performance, a new Washington Post-ABC News poll finds. A New York Times/CBS News polls finds that more than three-quarters of those surveyed were optimistic about the next four years with Obama in charge, and similar majorities said they were confident in his ability to make the right decisions about the economy.

Still, the president faces steep challenges. The nation is nearly dizzy keeping up with what’s emerged from Washington during Obama’s first weeks as president, from a staggering $787 billion stimulus plan to a revamped bailout for the financial sector to a rescue plan for struggling homeowners.

And investors are dour. Wall Street took another pounding Monday, with the Dow Jones industrial average tumbling to its lowest close since 1997.

Although Obama is too new in office to be delivering a State of the Union address, his speech will have all the same trappings. It comes two days before he delivers a budget blueprint to Congress. Unlike that detail-driven document, his address will be broad, spelling out what he wants and how he will do it.

The economy, in its worst tailspin in decades, will dominate. Obama will touch on foreign policy, but that will largely be left for other upcoming speeches. This will not be a rollout of one policy initiative after another.

Obama will make clear that the trillion-dollar-plus deficit is one he “inherited.” In other words, he wants to remind people that President George W. Bush and the previous Congress left him a big hole, forcing him to pursue the costly stimulus package.

The president will push for movement on ensuring health coverage for all Americans. He will seek to expand educational opportunities, and diversify the country’s energy sources, and contain sacred entitlements like Social Security, and halve the soaring budget deficit in four years.

His rhetorical mission is to show not only how all those pieces connect to the health of the economy, but why they must be pursued simultaneously.

Gunning for so much at once is complicated, both in terms of the issues themselves and the politics. Senior presidential adviser David Axelrod acknowledged Monday there is a risk in taking on too much.

“I think the bigger concern,” he said, “is to not be aggressive at a time when a tepid approach could really consign us to a long-term economic catastrophe. We believe the times demand vigor and aggressive action, and so we’re having to do a lot of things at once.”

Rep. Darrell Issa of California, the top Republican on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said Obama’s speech amounts to a coming-out party.

“You never know what a salesman’s going to sell you until he shows up at your door,” Issa said of his expectations. “If he gives us a narrow set of priorities that can be executed, and they don’t just involve more spending, then I think it will be refreshing. If he gives us a long laundry list, which most presidents do, then although it will set the agenda … it won’t be as meaningful.”

In many ways, though, Obama will be speaking directly to the American people. Daily followers of Obama’s rhetoric are not likely to be surprised by Obama’s words, some of which will be repeats. He is trying to reach millions of people who don’t get to hear him every day.

So Obama will say that the crises facing the nation are so large they can only be solved in bipartisan ways. He will be blunt about the country’s woes but try to balance that talk with optimism. He will talk about his travels as president so he can focus on the stories of communities outside Washington.

Asked in an MSNBC interview how the president plans to make good on his pledge to cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term, Gibbs said, “The biggest thing we’re going to do is cut the amount of money we spend each year in Iraq.”

He said Obama also planned to talk about necessary investments and about taxes.

“I think the president believes very clearly that we have to be honest about where we are,” Gibbs said. “Tonight, he will tell the country that we’ve faced greater challenges than we face now and we’ve always met those challenges.”

There is sure to be ceremony as Obama arrives in the well of the House. His speech is tentatively at 45 minutes, accounting for applause time.

source : news.yahoo.com

Official: Obama plans to slash deficit in half

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama has committed hundreds of billions of dollars to help revive the economy and is working on a plan to cut the federal deficit in half by the end of his first term.

Obama will touch on his efforts to restore fiscal discipline at a White House fiscal policy summit on Monday and in an address to Congress on Tuesday. On Thursday he plans to send at least a summary of his first budget request to Capitol Hill. The bottom line, said an administration official Saturday, is to halve the federal deficit to $533 billion by the time his first term ends in 2013. He inherited a deficit of about $1.3 trillion from former President George W. Bush.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the president has not yet released his budget for the fiscal year 2010, which begins Oct. 1, said the deficit will be shrunk by scaling back Iraq war spending, ending the temporary tax breaks enacted by the Bush administration for those making $250,000 or more a year, and streamlining government.

“We can’t generate sustained growth without getting our deficits under control,” Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address that seemed to preview his intentions. He said his budget will be “sober in its assessments, honest in its accounting, and lays out in detail my strategy for investing in what we need, cutting what we don’t, and restoring fiscal discipline.”

Republicans were not convinced. They said Obama’s plan would hurt small businesses, including many filing taxes as individuals and possibly facing higher taxes under his plan.

“I don’t think raising taxes is a great idea,” Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday. “And when our good friends on the other side of the aisle say raising the taxes on the wealthy, what they’re really talking about is small business.”

Obama’s budget also is expected to take steps toward his campaign promises of establishing universal health care and lessening the country’s reliance on foreign oil.

Obama has pledged to make deficit reduction a priority both as a candidate and a president. But he also has said economic recovery must come first.

Last week, he signed into law the $787 billion stimulus measure that is meant to create jobs but certainly will add to the nation’s skyrocketing national debt. He also is implementing the $700 billion financial sector rescue passed on Bush’s watch; about $75 billion of which is being used toward Obama’s plan to help homeowners facing foreclosure.

source : news.yahoo.com

Obama backs Bush: No rights for Bagram prisoners

WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama’s Justice Department sided with the former Bush administration on Friday, saying detainees in Afghanistan have no constitutional rights.

In a two-sentence court filing, department lawyers said the Obama administration agreed that detainees at Bagram Air Base could not use U.S. courts to challenge their detention. The filing shocked human rights attorneys.

“The hope we all had in President Obama to lead us on a different path has not turned out as we’d hoped,” said Tina Monshipour Foster, a human rights attorney representing a detainee at the Bagram Air Base. “We all expected better.”

In midyear last year, the Supreme Court gave al-Qaida and Taliban suspects held at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the right to challenge their detention. With about 600 detainees at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan and thousands more held in Iraq courts are grappling with whether they, too, can sue to be released. Three months after the Supreme Court’s ruling on Guantanamo Bay, four Afghan citizens being detained at Bagram tried to challenge their detentions in U.S. District Court in Washington.

After Obama took office, a federal judge in Washington gave the new administration a month to decide whether it wanted to stand by Bush’s legal argument. Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd says the filing speaks for itself. “They’ve now embraced the Bush policy that you can create prisons outside the law,” said Jonathan Hafetz, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union who has represented several detainees. The Justice Department argues that Bagram is different from Guantanamo Bay because it is in an overseas war zone and the prisoners there are being held as part of a continuing military action. The government argues that releasing enemy combatants into the Afghan war zone, or even diverting U.S. personnel there to consider their legal cases, could threaten security.

source : jang.com.pk

Kyrgyzstan set to approve US air base closure

BISHKEK: Kyrgyzstan’s parliament is set to approve a government proposal on Thursday to close a U.S. airbase, which is a vital transit point for U.S.-led troops fighting in nearby Afghanistan.

The closing of Manas, the last remaining U.S. air base in Central Asia, poses a challenge to new U.S. President Barack Obama’s plans to send additional troops to Afghanistan to boost NATO and U.S. military efforts to defeat Taliban insurgents.

Clinton meets Indonesian leader

JAKARTA: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on Thursday as she sets about rebuilding ties with the Islamic world after the Bush years.

The two met at the presidential palace in Jakarta for 45 minutes but neither commented on their talks to the media.

It was Clinton’s first meeting with the leader of a Muslim-majority country since being appointed to the job after the inauguration last month of President Barack Obama, who has promised to mend US ties with the Islamic world.

source : jang.com.pk

Australia could bolster Afghanistan troop numbers

CANBERRA: Australia welcomed a U.S. troop surge in Afghanistan and could also send more soldiers, if European allies agreed to do the same, Defense Minister Joel Fitzgibbon said Wednesday.

Fitzgibbon told Australian television he looked forward to discussing details of the plan to deploy an additional 17,000 U.S. troops to battle al-Qaida and Taliban insurgents with U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates at a NATO forum in Krakow, Poland, this week. President Barack Obama’s administration has not yet requested a larger Australian contribution, but such a request would be considered, Fitzgibbon said.

source : jang.com.pk

States face competing priorities for stimulus cash

NEW YORK – It may sound like a nice problem for states — figuring out how to spend the billions in infrastructure funding they’ll receive as part of President Barack Obama’s economic stimulus plan.

But the task is more complicated than it seems, as state officials try to set priorities while managing competing pressures from communities, watchdog groups and federal regulators over how the money is allocated.

Under the plan Obama is expected to sign into law early this week, states will divide $27 billion to build and repair roads and bridges. That is less than half the $64 billion in projects states told the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials late last year that they had ready to go.

The law also requires that half the money be spent on projects that have been vetted by the federal government and deemed “ready to go” in 120 days, as a way to jolt the economy and create jobs. That means state officials are under pressure to make decisions quickly on which projects to fund and which to bypass.

While many states have made their lists of “ready-to-go” infrastructure projects available online for public review, others have resisted, in part because the limited stimulus funding means only a fraction of the projects will receive money. Watchdog groups say it’s likely that state officials fear angering constituents if a project appears on a wish list and then is struck from the final allocation.

“There will be huge internal battles in states about priorities,” said Phineas Baxandall of the Public Interest Research Group.

In California, for example, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s office rejected a request by The Associated Press for a detailed list of “ready-to-go” projects. The AP sought the information under the California Public Records Act, but the governor’s office last week said the documents were internal drafts, adding “disclosure would chill critical communications to and within the Governor’s Office, thereby harming the public interest.”

The sheer volume of money directed toward state projects has fueled calls for transparency, with journalists, interest groups and others demanding a full accounting of which projects receive the funding, which are rejected, and why.

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick addressed that sentiment last week when he named a local real estate developer to oversee bidding for the stimulus money. Patrick also set up a new Web site with information on every project that receives the money.

“I don’t want to send a mistaken impression there are pet projects,” Patrick said.

The governor appeared with the state’s attorney general, Martha Coakley, who also will help track the stimulus funds.

“An ounce of prevention in handling the money is worth a pound of grand jury investigations and civil litigation down the road,” Coakley said.

Mindful of the accelerated timetable they face, states are moving quickly to develop mechanisms for identifying priority projects and disbursing funding for them.

Some have created oversight commissions while others are leaving decisions to state transit officials. Some are required by law to involve state legislators, while legislators in states that don’t require their participation are pressing to have input.

Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, a Democrat, has retained a former U.S. diplomat as a temporary, unpaid “infrastructure czar.” But the Republican-controlled Senate, concerned that Strickland could try to push stimulus funding through the state’s Controlling Board instead of through the legislature, has drawn up a separate “spending blueprint” for the federal stimulus money.

Alabama Gov. Bob Riley, a Republican, has hired two former state finance officials to oversee the stimulus money. New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch, a Democrat, tapped a former attorney general to manage the funds, while Wisconsin Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle established a state Office of Recovery and Reinvestment led by the president of a local electric utility and a vice chancellor of the University of Wisconsin.

In Virginia, Gov. Tim Kaine, a Democrat, is taking a grass-roots approach, setting up a Web site seeking input from residents, local governments and community groups as to how the money should be spent. Nearly 600 suggestions poured in on the first day alone, state officials said.

In Colorado, 11 transportation commissioners will determine which projects to fund, in part based on recommendations from local governments and city planners around the state. No vote of the legislature is needed to spend the money.

Legislative input also is not required in Maine, but state lawmakers have pressed for involvement and Democratic Gov. John Baldacci says he will seek their guidance. He plans to present a plan for spending the stimulus so that legislative leaders can review it.

Montana’s constitution requires that the state legislature appropriate all spending. Lawmakers there are trying to determine whether to go through the normal appropriations process or accelerate it in some way.

The state’s governor, Democrat Brian Schweitzer, told the AP that lawmakers are likely to make changes to the $3 billion list of projects the state has identified as eligible for the stimulus money.

Gov. M. Jodi Rell of Connecticut, a Republican, created a working group of municipal officials, business leaders, legislators and state agencies to determine the final list of projects.

“The task before us now, ” said Rell, “is to identify the projects that will do the most to get people back to work, get our economy moving again and position us for success when the national business climate improves.”

___

Associated Press writers Michael Tarm, Tom Verdin, Steve LeBlanc, Phillip Rawls, Norma Love, Scott Bauer, Susan Haigh, Jean McNair, Colleen Slevin, Glenn Adams, Matt Gouras and Stephen Majors contributed to this report.

(This version CORRECTS Corrects contributor credits to change to Scott Bauer, sted Steven Bauer. Moving on general news and financial services.)

source : news.yahoo.com

Afghanistan to take part in US review: Karzai

KABUL: US President Barack Obama has accepted Kabul’s request to be part of a major review of US strategy in the “war on terror” in Afghanistan, President Hamid Karzai and a US envoy said Sunday.

Karzai said he asked Obama by letter for Afghanistan to have a role in the review, which is under way amid concerns about worsening security in this country seven years after a US-led invasion ousted the Taliban regime.

US envoy Richard Holbrooke brought the message to Karzai on Saturday that Obama had accepted, the Afghan leader told a joint press conference. A delegation from Afghanistan chaired by Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta would travel to Washington “and will be working jointly with the US government in the review of the strategy in the war on terrorism,” he said.

Holbrooke arrived late Thursday and met with a range of Afghan officials and politicians, international military commanders and diplomats before holding talks with Karzai late Saturday. He has held similar wide-ranging meetings in Pakistan and is due to continue his tour of the region in India.

source : jang.com.pk

Obama honors Lincoln’s vision of strong union

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. – Summoning the pride of a nation, President Barack Obama paid fond tribute Thursday to Abraham Lincoln by challenging people to embrace his vision of a collective union and reject a “knee-jerk disdain for government.”

“He recognized that while each of us must do our part, work as hard as we can and be as responsible as we can — in the end, there are certain things we cannot do on our own,” Obama said of Lincoln at a celebration of the revered president’s 200th birthday.

“There are certain things we can only do together,” Obama said. “There are certain things only a union can do.”

Here in the place that Lincoln called home, and from where Obama launched his presidential bid, the new president’s speech capped his third event honoring Lincoln’s bicentennial.

It was a whirlwind day for Obama. He squeezed in economic comments in East Peoria, Ill., and coped with the abrupt withdrawal of another commerce secretary nominee.

The stories of Obama and Lincoln have become entwined by history, geography and symbolism. Their paths are viewed as not just their own, but the country’s as well — a lineage from the man who freed the slaves to the first black president in U.S. history.

Obama said Lincoln understood that self-reliance was at the core of American life. But Obama said individual liberty is “served, not negated, by a recognition of the common good.”

The pendulum, Obama said, has swung too far toward a philosophy that says government is the problem — a notion that it should be dismantled, with tax breaks for the wealthy that might eventually help out everyone.

“Such knee-jerk disdain for government — this constant rejection of any common endeavor — cannot rebuild our levees or our roads or our bridges,” Obama said. His list of collective examples went on: better schools, modern health care, an economy built on clean energy.

“Only a nation can do these things,” Obama said. “Only by coming together, all of us, and expressing that sense of shared sacrifice and responsibility … can we do the work that must be done in this country. That is the very definition of being American.”

Earlier Thursday, back in Washington, Obama celebrated Lincoln’s resolve at a ceremony in the stately Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol. And he spent Wednesday evening at a performance at the newly renovated Ford’s Theatre, where Lincoln was assassinated in 1865.

Like Lincoln, Obama is a skinny lawyer who rose from obscurity and served briefly in the Illinois legislature before leaping to national office at a time of burgeoning crisis.

Still, the White House is mindful to limit the comparison, whatever the parallels.

Lincoln is a monumental figure who fought to preserve the union, presided over the enormously costly Civil War and signed the Emancipation Proclamation.

Obama has been president for less than a month.

“This president isn’t seeking to compare himself with I think what many believe is one of the two or three greatest presidents that this country’s ever had,” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said.

That Obama often operates in Lincoln’s shadow is largely a matter of choice. He admires the 16th president, reads his language, quotes his speeches and draws on him for inspiration.

source : news.yahoo.com

Gregg withdraws as commerce secretary nominee

WASHINGTON – Saying “I made a mistake,” Republican Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire abruptly withdrew as commerce secretary nominee on Thursday and left the fledgling White House suddenly coping with Barack Obama’s third Cabinet withdrawal. Gregg cited “irresolvable conflicts” with Obama’s policies, specifically mentioning the $790 billion economic stimulus bill and 2010 census in a statement released without warning by his Senate office.

Later, at a news conference in the Capitol, he sounded more contrite.

“The president asked me to do it,” he said of the job offer. “I said, yes. That was my mistake.”

Obama offered a somewhat different account from Gregg.

“It comes as something of a surprise, because the truth, you know, Mr. Gregg approached us with interest and seemed enthusiastic,” Obama said in an interview with the Springfield (Ill.) Journal-Register.

Later, he told reporters traveling with him on Air Force One that he was glad Gregg “searched his heart” and changed course now before the Senate confirmed him to the Cabinet post. He also said Gregg’s withdrawal won’t deter him from working with Republicans and trying to change the partisan ways of Washington.

“Clearly he was just having second thoughts about leaving the Senate, a place where he’s thrived,” Obama added.

The unexpected withdrawal came just three weeks into Obama’s presidency and on the heels of several other Cabinet troubles. The new president is in the midst of expending political capital in Washington — and around the country — for his economic package and is seeking to move forward with an ambitious agenda in the midst of an economic recession while the country continues to face threats abroad.

Now Obama also finds himself needing to fill two vacancies — at Commerce and at the Health and Human Services Department. Former Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle withdrew his nomination for that post amid a tax controversy. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner was confirmed despite revelations that he had not paid some of his taxes on time.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson was Obama’s first choice as commerce secretary. He withdrew in early January following disclosure that a grand jury is investigating allegations of wrongdoing in the awarding of contracts in his state. Richardson has not been implicated personally.

Gregg was one of three Republicans Obama had put in his Cabinet to emphasize his campaign pledge that he would be an agent of bipartisan change.

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said Gregg told the White House early this week that he was having second thoughts and met with Obama about them during an Oval Office meeting on Wednesday. Emanuel said there were no hard feelings and “it’s better we figured this out now than later.”

“He went into this eyes open and he realized over time it wasn’t going to be a good fit,” Emanuel added.

Gregg said he’d always been a strong fiscal conservative and added: “It really wasn’t a good pick.”

In an interview with The Associated Press, Gregg said, “For 30 years, I’ve been my own person in charge of my own views, and I guess I hadn’t really focused on the job of working for somebody else and carrying their views, and so this is basically where it came out.”

Gregg, 61, said he changed his mind after realizing he wasn’t ready to “trim my sails” to be a part of Obama’s team.

“I just sensed that I was not going to be good at being anything other than myself,” he said.

The New Hampshire senator also said he would probably not run for a new term in 2010.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., called Gregg a friend and said, “I respect his decision.” But Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, said he wished Gregg “had thought through the implications of his nomination more thoroughly before accepting this post.”

In his statement, Gregg said his withdrawal had nothing to do with the vetting into his past that Cabinet officials routinely undergo. He told the AP he foresaw conflicts over health care, global warming and taxes.

He also cited both the stimulus and the census as areas of disagreement with the administration.

When the Senate voted on the president’s massive stimulus plan earlier this week, Gregg did not vote. The bill passed with all Democratic votes and just three Republican votes. Asked by reporters whether the White House could have used his vote on the plan, Gregg said “I’m sure that’s true” and he said the administration had asked him to vote for it.

Conservatives in both houses have been relentless critics of the centerpiece of Obama’s economic recovery plan, arguing it is filled with wasteful spending and won’t create enough jobs.

The Commerce Department has jurisdiction over the Census Bureau, and the administration recently took steps to assert greater control. The outcome of the census has deep political implications, since congressional districts are drawn based on population.

Gregg’s announcement also undid a carefully constructed chain of events.

The New Hampshire senator had agreed to join the Cabinet only if his departure from the Senate did not allow Democrats to take his seat.

New Hampshire’s Democratic governor, John Lynch, in turn, pledged to appointed Bonnie Newman, a Republican and a former interim president of the University of New Hampshire.

She, in turn, had agreed not to run for a full term in 2010, creating an open seat for Democrats to try to claim.

In a statement, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said Gregg “made a principled decision to return and we’re glad to have him.”

Lynch, who spoke to Gregg several hours before the announcement, said he respected Gregg’s decision to withdraw and remain in the Senate. He thanked Newman for her willingness to serve.

A day after Gregg’s nomination had been announced, the AP reported that a former staffer, Kevin Koonce, was under criminal investigation for allegedly taking baseball and hockey tickets from a lobbyist in exchange for legislative favors while working for Gregg.

The senator said at the time that he had been told he was neither a subject nor target of the investigation, and would cooperate fully.

___

Associated Press writers Jennifer Loven and Andrew Taylor in Washington, Ben Feller in Springfield, Ill., and Holly Ramer in Concord, N.H., contributed to this report.

source : news.yahoo.com

Obama stimulus plan faces changes in Senate

WASHINGTON – A top Republican called for more mortgage relief and additional tax cuts in President Barack Obama’s massive economic stimulus package as Democrats conceded privately they will drop items that have drawn bipartisan criticism.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told reporters Monday that “a stimulus bill must fix the main problem first, and that’s housing.” He promised that Republicans would offer a plan to have the government step in to reduce mortgage rates to the 4 percent range, which could shore up home prices and lower housing payments for millions of Americans.

At the same time, two questionable items in the plan — $75 million for smoking cessation programs and $400 million to slow the spread of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases — have already been dropped from the most recent draft of the measure.

The Senate planned to begin debate on the legislation Monday and the process was likely to stretch into next week.

Democrats were prepared to offer amendments to add $20-$30 billion more for infrastructure programs such as roads, bridges, mass transit and water projects, according to Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.

Schumer also said Democrats would support a GOP-backed idea to double a home buyers tax credit from $7,500 to $15,000 and make it available to all home buyers instead of those purchasing their first home.

The bill is a major test for Obama and Democrats controlling the Senate. There’s unrest among Democrats such as Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D., and Ben Nelson, D-Neb., who have expressed concern that many of the items in the sprawling measure won’t do much to stimulate the economy.

The price tag is already approaching $900 billion — and it’s likely to grow during Senate debate.

The Senate measure is broadly similar to an $819 billion plan that passed the House last week. It contains almost $350 billion in tax cuts, including a two-year temporary $500-per-worker or $1,000-per-couple tax cut. There’s also a $2,500 college tuition tax credit.

For businesses, there’s a plan to infuse cash into money-losing companies by allowing them to claim tax credits on past profits, as well as incentives for investments in new plants and equipment.

The bill also contains extensive public spending: An extension and temporary increase in unemployment benefits; about $87 billion to help states with Medicaid bills; and aid to schools.

Infrastructure projects would also get a boost under the Senate plan, including $27 billion for road and bridge construction and repair, $20 billion to repair and renovate school and university buildings, and $9 billion for improved access to broadband.

The Senate plan also contains an approximately $70 billion provision to ensure that 24 million tax filers won’t get trapped by the alternative minimum tax. The AMT was designed four decades ago to make sure wealthy taxpayers pay at least some tax, but it never was adjusted for inflation and therefore threatens to trap millions of people for whom it was never designed.

The White House and some Democrats had resisted the AMT provision, arguing that it wouldn’t do much to boost the economy since Congress was virtually certain to address the issue later anyway.

source :

Obama to make first Pentagon visit

WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama will make a short trip from the White House to the Pentagon on Wednesday, for fresh “unvarnished” advice from military brass on his Iraq withdrawal plan and the Afghan war.

In his first week in office, the new US commander-in-chief Obama has already instructed military planners to draw up proposals which would allow him to honor his campaign pledge to get most troops out of Iraq within 16 months.

The meetings on Wednesday were the latest step of a process initiated by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to introduce Obama to all the key players in formulating his war strategy, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.

The president will get to meet “all the people that are involved in these decisions and all the people that are involved in committing the lives of men and women in our uniform,” said Gibbs.

source : jang.com.pk

US ready to cut Karzai adrift

WASHINGTON: The US administration hinted that President Barack Obama would take strong stance about Afghan President Hamid Karzai whereas new US policy for Afghanistan would be based on war rather than development.

US officials said Karzai is considered to be a big hindrance in the way of attainment of US objectives in Afghanistan.

International support for Mr Karzai has waned spectacularly, amid worsening violence, endemic corruption and weak leadership. But until very recently, diplomats insisted there were no viable alternatives even as fighting has intensified and the Taliban insurgency in the south has grown.

Mr Obama has already started getting to grips with the challenge of Afghanistan; he received a briefing on the coming American troop “surge” from General David Petraeus, his first full day in the Oval Office. Last night, Mr Obama appointed the veteran diplomat Richard Holbrooke as his new special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

source : jang.com.pk

Ehud Barak cancels US trip due to Gaza tensions

JERUSALEM: Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak canceled his planned departure on Wednesday for talks in Washington due to renewed tensions in Gaza, a senior ministry official said.

“Barak decided to cancel his trip to the United States during which he planned to meet his US counterpart Secretary of Defence Robert Gates and other senior officials in the administration due to the security events in the south,” he said.

Barak was due to leave for Washington after meeting US President Barack Obama’s new Mideast peace envoy George Mitchell in Jerusalem.

source : jang.com.pk

Ill. governor’s own words to haunt him at trial

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. – A day after Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s loudly proclaimed his innocence during a media blitz, the governor’s more private words are to take center stage at his impeachment trial.

The state Senate was expected Tuesday to hear secretly made wiretaps of Blagojevich allegedly discussing how he could benefit from his appointment power.

Blagojevich never denied the remarks federal prosecutors attribute to him, but insists they were taken out of context and he did nothing illegal.

The impeachment trial — the first for a U.S. governor in more than 20 years — opened Monday with House-appointed prosecutor David Ellis telling senators he will show that Blagojevich “repeatedly and utterly abused the powers and privileges of his office.”

With Blagojevich refusing to be present or mount a defense, Illinois senators could vote within days on whether to oust the 52-year-old Democrat on a variety of charges, including allegations he tried to sell or trade President Barack Obama’s vacant Senate seat for a Cabinet position, a high paying job for himself or his wife or money to bankroll his future campaigns.

In addition to the recordings, Daniel Cain — an FBI agent involved in the governor’s wiretap — was scheduled to appear Tuesday at the trial. He was expected to explain to senators how the statements were verified.

Cain in a previous affidavit swore that Blagojevich talked to aides about how to benefit from his appointment power, saying, “I want to make money.”

The outcome of Blagojevich’s impeachment trial has no legal impact on a separate criminal case against the governor. No trial date has been set on those charges.

Blagojevich spent Monday making the rounds of news shows in New York, declaring his innocence but refusing to discuss the criminal allegations he faces. On ABC’s “Good Morning America” and “The View,” CNN’s “Larry King Live” and more, Blagojevich would say only that the quotes in the criminal complaint were taken out of context.

Pressed on what context would justify using Obama’s Senate seat to land a job for himself, Blagojevich said he didn’t try to make a trade.

“If you do an exchange of one for the other, that’s wrong,” he told ABC’s “Nightline.” “But if you have discussions about the future and down the road and what you might want to do once you’re no longer governor in a few years, what’s wrong with that?”

He was to appear Tuesday on CBS’ “The Early Show.”

The Democratic governor said he refused to take part in his impeachment trial because it was rigged against him. His political enemies, eager to get him out of the way so they can raise income taxes, won’t let him call witnesses to prove his innocence, he complained.

State senators maintained the trial will be fair, despite Blagojevich’s attacks on the process.

“We all took an oath to do justice according to the law. I know that everyone is taking the matter seriously and that no one will stand in the way of justice,” said Senate Minority Leader Christine Radogno, a Republican.

Neither the prosecution nor the defense is allowed to summon any witnesses whose testimony might interfere with federal prosecutors’ criminal case against Blagojevich, although their public statements could be introduced as evidence. But Blagojevich has not asked to call witnesses or present any evidence at all, and said he does not plan to participate in any way.

The impeachment case against Blagojevich also includes allegations he defied the Legislature, circumvented hiring laws and schemed to trade state contracts for campaign contributions.

Seats for Blagojevich and his attorney sat empty in the Senate chamber during the first day of trial. Silence reigned when the presiding judge, Illinois Supreme Court Chief Justice Thomas Fitzgerald, asked if anyone was present to represent the governor.

He ordered the trial to go forward as if Blagojevich had entered a not guilty plea.

No other Illinois governor has been impeached, let alone convicted in a Senate trial. It would take a two-thirds majority — or 40 of the 59 senators — to remove Blagojevich. The Senate also could bar him from ever again holding office in Illinois.

Democratic Lt. Gov. Patrick Quinn would replace him.

Practically the entire political establishment has lined up against Blagojevich. The last of two House votes on impeachment was 117-1, with his sister-in-law the only dissenter.

___

Associated Press writers Sara Kugler in New York, Deanna Bellandi in Chicago and Christopher Wills in Springfield contributed to this report.

source : jang.com.pk

Obama calls for quick action on stimulus

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama says the nation can’t afford “distractions” or “delays” when it comes to the economic stimulus plan working its way through Congress.

Obama pointed to job cuts taking place at companies including Microsoft, Intel, United Airlines and Home Depot. And he said it means more working men and women “whose families have been disrupted and whose dreams have been put on hold.”

Obama told reporters Monday the government owes it to “every American” to act with a “sense of urgency” and “common purpose.”

Senate committees are scheduled to take up the massive economic stimulus package Tuesday and the full House is expected to vote on its version of the $825 billion plan Wednesday. Republicans want the recovery package tilted more toward tax cuts.

Obama said these “extraordinary times” call for “swift and extraordinary action.”

source : news.yahoo.com

Blagojevich: Senate impeachment trial unfair

CHICAGO – Gov. Rod Blagojevich on Thursday called his upcoming impeachment trial a “sham,” saying it would deny him the right to due process because he couldn’t call witnesses.

Blagojevich spoke to reporters outside his Chicago home Thursday morning, a day after he missed a deadline to tell the Senate which people and documents he wanted to subpoena for the trial to remove him from office.

The two-term governor is accused of abusing his power by scheming to benefit from appointing a person to fill President Barack Obama’s Senate seat, circumventing hiring laws and defying General Assembly decisions. He was impeached by the state House on Jan. 9, and his trial in the state Senate is set to begin next Monday.

He has denied any wrongdoing.

Federal prosecutors have asked the Senate trial’s prosecution and defense not to call witnesses involved in Blagojevich’s criminal trial.

“The impeachment trial is a sham,” Blagojevich said before going on his morning run.

“What the Senate and the House and Legislature is trying to do is to thwart the will of the people and remove a governor elected twice by the people without a fair hearing, without due process,” he said.

Impeachment prosecutor David Ellis proposed calling only one witness involved in the criminal investigation of Blagojevich — an FBI agent familiar with recordings of the governor’s conversations. But Ellis said he would drop that request if the U.S. attorney objects.

Last week, renown defense attorney Edward M. Genson pulled out of earlier arrangements to represent Blagojevich at the impeachment trial. Two other members of the governor’s defense team, attorneys Sam Adam and his son, Samuel E. Adam, also withdrew, comparing the proceedings to a “lynching.” They said they didn’t have adequate time to prepare or subpoena power.

On Thursday, Blagojevich said he agreed with their actions. He said the lawyers “have chosen not to participate in the impeachment process in the Senate because they believe, rightfully so, that the rules of the Senate that don’t allow me as governor to call witnesses are unfair and deny fundamental due process,” he said.

The governor said he would like to call Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, citing comments Emanuel recently made that he had never gotten the impression that Blagojevich wanted anything improper in return for naming a Senate replacement.

While Blagojevich ignored the filing deadline Wednesday, Ellis continued to pursue the case against him. Ellis filed documents listing the people he wants to call. Most are members of the House committee that recommended impeachment.

source : news.yahoo.com

Senate panel approves Geithner for treasury post

WASHINGTON – The Senate Finance Committee on Thursday cleared the nomination of Timothy Geithner as treasury secretary despite unhappiness over his mistakes in paying his taxes.

The committee approved the nomination on an 18-5 vote, sending it to the full Senate for a vote either Friday or next week. President Barack Obama is hoping for quick approval so that the point man for the administration’s economic rescue effort can begin work.

The committee vote came a day after Geithner appeared before the panel to apologize for what he called “careless mistakes” in failing to pay $34,000 in taxes earlier in the decade, when he worked at the International Monetary Fund.

Geithner paid the back taxes plus interest for the years 2003 and 2004 after being audited by the Internal Revenue Service. But he did not pay taxes he owed for 2001 and 2002, even though he had made the same mistakes for those years, until shortly before he was nominated by Obama last November to be treasury secretary.

The nomination was expected to win approval by the full Senate, with many lawmakers saying that given the serious economic crisis facing the country, the new president deserved to have the services of a man of Geithner’s abilities and experience.

Geithner has been the head of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York for the past six years and was a key participant in decisions made by the Bush administration to deal with the worst financial crisis to hit the country since the Great Depression.

All five of the “no” votes on the committee came from Republicans, including the top GOP member of the panel, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa. Those voting no said that they did not believe Geithner had been candid in his answers on why he failed to pay Social Security and Medicare taxes. They said they viewed this as a serious error for an official who would head the agency that oversees the IRS.

“I am disappointed that we are even voting on this,” said Sen. Michael Enzi, R-Wyo. “In previous years, nominees who made less serious errors in their taxes than this nominee have been forced to withdraw.”

Even Democrats who voted for the nomination said they were disappointed in Geithner’s actions.

Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., said that in normal times he would oppose Geithner but “these are not normal times.”

The committee acted on an expedited basis, voting shortly after Geithner submitted to the panel 102 pages of answers to written questions committee members had posed after Wednesday’s hearing.

In response to one of those questions, Geithner pledged that the Obama administration would carry out reforms in the $700 billion financial rescue program. The Bush administration was widely criticized for distributing the first $350 billion from the fund with not enough attention paid to ensuring that banks receiving the money would use it to increase lending. Former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson had earmarked $250 billion of the first $350 billion to go to purchasing stock in banks as a way of bolstering their balance sheets.

In answer to one of the committee’s questions, Geithner said the new administration planned to require that banks receiving government support “provide detailed and timely information on their lending patterns, broken down by category.” Geithner said that public companies will be required to report this information on a quarterly basis.

Last week, the Senate rejected an effort to block release of the second $350 billion from the rescue fund.

During his testimony on Wednesday, Geithner said the new administration would release a comprehensive plan within a few weeks providing details on how it planned to combat the financial crisis and current recession, which is already the longest in a quarter century.

Geithner did not go into detail on what might be in that program but he acknowledged that the administration is considering buying toxic assets now weighing on the balance sheets of many banks.

In addition to deploying the second half of the $700 billion bailout fund, the administration is pushing Congress to quickly pass an $825 billion-plus economic stimulus program of tax cuts and increased government spending to jump-start the economy.

source : news.yahoo.com

Clinton takes the reins at State Department

WASHINGTON – Hillary Rodham Clinton took charge of the State Department on Thursday, proclaiming the start of a new era of robust U.S. diplomacy to tackle the world’s crises and improve America’s standing abroad.

Before a raucous, cheering crowd of about 1,000 people, the nation’s 67th secretary of state pledged to boost the morale and resources of the diplomatic corps and promised them a difficult but exciting road ahead.

“I believe with all of my heart that this is a new era for America,” she said to loud applause in the main lobby of the department’s headquarters, which President Barack Obama will visit later Thursday to underscore his administration’s commitment to diplomacy and announce the appointment of special envoys to the Middle East and South Asia.

“This is going to be a challenging time and it will require 21st Century tools and solutions to meet our problems and seize our opportunities,” Clinton said. “I’m going to be asking a lot of you. I want you to think outside the proverbial box. I want you to give me the best advice you can.”

“I want you to understand there is nothing that I welcome more than a good debate and the kind of dialogue that will make us better,” she said. “We cannot be our best if we don’t demand that from ourselves and each other.”

In her spirited 10-minute pep talk, she spoke of the importance of defense, diplomacy and development — the “three legs to the stool of American foreign policy” — and noted that the State Department is in charge of two of them.

“We are responsible for two of the three legs,” said the former New York senator and first lady. “And we will make clear as we go forward that diplomacy and development are essential tools in achieving the long-term objectives of the United States.”

Clinton’s mandate from Obama is to step up diplomatic efforts and restore the nation’s tattered image overseas. She has vowed to make use of “smart power” to deal with international challenges.

“At the heart of smart power are smart people, and you are those people,” she told the assembled throng. “And you are the ones that we will count on and turn to for the advice and counsel, the expertise and experience to make good on the promises of this new administration.”

Clinton takes over an agency that was often sidelined during George W. Bush’s eight-year presidency, particularly in his first term over the decision to go to war in Iraq. Although former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice restored some of the department’s influence, diplomats still complained of a lack of access to the top, as well as funding.

In introductory remarks, Steve Kashkett, vice president of the union that represents diplomats, noted that Obama and Clinton had both “decried the neglect that the foreign service and the State Department as a whole have suffered in recent years.”

Clinton, meanwhile, sought to reassure frustrated diplomats that they will be heard.

“This is a team, and you are the members of that team,” she said. “We are not any longer going to tolerate the kind of divisiveness that has paralyzed and undermined our ability to get things done for America.”

She predicted her team would experience “a great adventure. We’ll have some ups and some downs. We’ll face some obstacles along the way. But be of good cheer and be of strong heart, and do not grow weary as we attempt to do good on behalf of our country and the world. … And now, ladies and gentlemen, let’s get to work.”

After her remarks, Clinton made telephone calls to foreign leaders, toured some of the department’s key offices and received briefings before hosting Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and national security adviser James Jones. They are to meet in a closed-door session before Obama addresses the diplomatic corps.

While he is at the State Department, the president is expected to name former Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell, D-Maine, to be a special envoy for the Middle East, and former U.N. ambassador Richard Holbrooke to be a special adviser on Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The posts are the first of several new special envoys the administration plans to create to deal with particularly vexing problems abroad.

source : news.yahoo.com

Obama signs order to close Guantanamo in a year

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama began overhauling U.S. treatment of terror suspects Thursday, signing orders to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center, shut down secret overseas CIA prisons, review military war crimes trials and ban the harshest interrogation methods.

With his action, Obama started changing how the United States prosecutes and questions al-Qaida, Taliban or other foreign fighters who pose a threat to Americans — and overhauling America’s image abroad, battered by accusations of the use of torture and the indefinite detention of suspects at the Guantanamo prison in Cuba.

“The message that we are sending the world is that the United States intends to prosecute the ongoing struggle against violence and terrorism and we are going to do so vigilantly and we are going to do so effectively and we are going to do so in a manner that is consistent with our values and our ideals,” the president said.

The centerpiece order would close the much-maligned Guantanamo facility within a year, a complicated process with many unanswered questions that was nonetheless a key campaign promise of Obama’s. The administration already has suspended trials for terrorist suspects at Guantanamo for 120 days pending a review of the military tribunals.

In the other actions, Obama:

_Created a task force to recommend policies on handling terror suspects who are detained in the future. Specifically, the group would look at where those detainees should be housed since Guantanamo is closing.

_Required all U.S. personnel to follow the U.S. Army Field Manual while interrogating detainees. The manual explicitly prohibits threats, coercion, physical abuse and waterboarding, a technique that creates the sensation of drowning and has been termed a form of torture by critics. However, a Capitol Hill aide says that the administration also is planning a study of more aggressive interrogation methods that could be added to the Army manual — which would create a significant loophole to Obama’s action Thursday.

“We believe that the Army Field Manual reflects the best judgment of our military, that we can abide by a rule that says we don’t torture, but that we can still effectively obtain the intelligence that we need,” Obama said. He said his action reflects an understanding that “we are willing to observe core standards of conduct, not just when it’s easy, but also when it’s hard.”

A task force will study whether other interrogation guidelines — beyond what’s spelled out in the Army manual — are necessary for intelligence professionals in dealing with terror suspects.

But an Obama administration official said that provision should not be considered a loophole that will allow controversial “enhanced interrogation techniques” to be re-introduced. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to speak candidly about the administration’s thinking.

The order also orders the CIA to close all its existing detention facilities abroad for terror suspects — and prohibits those prisons from being used in the future. The agency has used those secret “black site” prisons around the world to question terror suspects.

_Directed the Justice Department to review the case of Qatar native Ali al-Marri, who is the only enemy combatant currently being held on U.S. soil. The directive will ask the high court for a stay in al-Marri’s appeals case while the review is ongoing. The government says al-Marri is an al-Qaida sleeper agent.

An estimated 245 men are being held at the U.S. naval base in Cuba, most of whom have been detained for years without being charged with a crime. Among the sticky issues the Obama administration has to resolve are where to put those detainees — whether back in their home countries or at other federal detention centers — and how to prosecute some of them for war crimes.

“We intend to win this fight. We’re going to win it on our terms,” Obama said as he signed three executive orders and a presidential directive.

The administration official said Obama’s government will not transfer detainees to countries that will mistreat them, including their own home country.

In his first Oval Office signing ceremony, Obama was surrounded by retired senior military leaders. He described them as outstanding Americans who have defended the country — and its ideals

source : news.yahoo.com

No plans to reinforce French Afghanistan force: minister

PARIS: France’s defence minister said Wednesday Paris had no plans to send more troops to Afghanistan, despite plans by US President Barack Obama to step up the pressure on a resurgent Taliban.

“As far as France is concerned, we have made the necessary efforts and there is no question, for now, of considering extra reinforcements,” Defence Minister Herve Morin told French radio Europe 1. France is the fourth-largest contributor to the international military force in Afghanistan with more than 2,600 troops deployed in the region, mainly around Kabul and in forward bases in the east of the country. Paris has also stationed six Mirage 2000 fighter jets outside the southern city of Kandahar to support US and NATO-led troops on the ground. Last month Morin denied a report that France planned to increase its contingent in the country, but said it would move its troops currently in Kabul as Afghan forces took responsibility for security of the capital. French public opinion is opposed to the mission: more than half of respondents to an opinion poll carried out in August, after 10 paratroopers were killed in combat, called for a withdrawal. The Taliban have threatened attacks in France unless the troops are brought home, and in the run-up to Christmas an unidentified individual demanded a withdrawal after hiding a bundle of dynamite in a Parisian store. The French government is to make a policy statement next Wednesday in parliament on its foreign military operations outside Afghanistan.

source : jang.com.pk

Leave Afghanistan, Taliban militants tell Obama

KABUL: The insurgent Taliban said Wednesday that US President Barack Obama should learn from the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan and pull his troops out of the country to allow Afghans to decide their own fate.

“We have no problem with Obama,” a spokesman for the extremist Islamist movement told after the inauguration of the new US president. However, “he must learn lessons from (former US president George W. Bush and before that the Soviets,” Yousuf Ahmadi said by telephone. Afghan mujahedeen (holy warriors) drove out Soviet occupiers in 1989 after a 10-year war, which the Taliban says has parallels with its fight against the US-backed Afghan government and its international allies. After a difficult 2008, Washington is expected to send up to 30,000 more US soldiers to Afghanistan, shifting the focus from Iraq in its “war on terror”.

source : jang.com.pk

Joe Biden sworn in as US Vice President

WASHINGTON: Joe Biden has been sworn in as the 47th vice president of the United States.

Biden raised his right hand and took his oath of office Tuesday from Associate Justice John Paul Stevens.

In that moment, he became second-in-command to both Barack Obama and to a nation eager for change. The swearing-in came shortly before Obama was to take his own oath on the West Front of the Capitol.

source : jang.com.pk

Obama takes the stage to be sworn-in as 44th US president

WASHINGTON: Barack Obama arrived Tuesday on the stage on the steps of the US Capitol to be sworn in as the first African-American US president before a crowd of well-wishers estimated at more than one million.

Obama strode onto the dias to greet colleagues including his future vice president Joe Biden and secretary of state-to-be Hillary Clinton, before taking a seat in front of his wife, Michelle Obama.

source : jang.com.pk

Obamas arrive at White House for Bush farewell coffee

WASHINGTON: US president-elect Barack Obama arrived at the White House Tuesday barely two hours before his historic swearing-in, for a brief, symbolic goodbye coffee hosted by outgoing President George W. Bush.

Bush and First Lady Laura Bush met Obama and wife Michelle Obama, who brought a gift for her predecessor, under the storied presidential mansion’s North Portico.

All four greeted each other warmly with handshakes and kisses and posed for photographs in the bitter cold.

The Obamas arrived at the White House in an armored presidential limousine after a brief motorcade drive from church two blocks away, preceded by vice president-elect Joe Biden and his wife Jill who arrived in their own limousine.

Michelle Obama gave Laura a kiss on the cheek and a white box with a red ribbon tied in a bow. Barack Obama also gave his hostess a quick kiss, while the outgoing president did the same with the new US first lady.

They were to enjoy a private coffee together, with Vice President Dick Cheney and his wife Lynne joining them, before heading to the Capitol at 10:45 am (1545 GMT) for Obama’s inauguration as the first black US president.

Following the ceremony, Bush was to leave the Capitol by helicopter for Andrews Air Force base just outside Washington and from there head back to his native Texas aboard a US Air Force jet.

source : jang.com.pk

Obama takes oath as 44th US President today

WASHINGTON: Amid high expectations of a change in some controversial policies pursued in the last eight years, Barack Hussein Obama assumes power today as the first ever African-American of the United States.

Crowds streamed into the U.S. capital Tuesday, jamming subway cars and packing the National Mall from the Capitol building to the Washington Monument hours before President-elect Barack Obama was to be sworn in.

For weeks, officials urged people to arrive early for the historic inauguration of the first black U.S. president and throngs of revelers heeded that advice, streaming onto the Mall hours before daybreak.

By 7 a.m. (1200GMT), some 207,000 people had entered Washington’s Metro transit system, transit officials said. Huge lines formed outside subway stations; many parking lots filled up and had to be closed.

“Platforms are extremely crowded,” Metro spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein said. Lines were six to 10 deep at fare machines.

Meanwhile, thousands of people gathered near the parade route on Pennsylvania Avenue, occasionally erupting in spontaneous cheers and chants of “open the gates!”

The large crowds made it difficult for many to figure out where checkpoints into the secure area were. Police have projected crowds ranging between 1 and 2 million for the inauguration.

It is possible that attendance could top the 1.2million people who were at Lyndon Johnson’s 1965 inauguration, which is the largest crowd the National Park Service has on record.

The unprecedented enthusiasm on the historic occasion both domestically and globally rests on the 47-year old Obama’s campaign promises to set America in a new direction aimed at restoring its prestige that especially suffered in the aftermath of the US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.

On top of the legal, moral and political questions connected to the two wars, US economic recession is bound to test his skills in the backdrop of the Bush Administration’s unpopular policies.

President George W. Bush leaves office Tuesday with an approval rating of 22 percent as Obama moves into the White House as the 44th president with unrivaled high rating of 83 percent.

The Americans also hope for the beginning of a new era of a better sense of national unity as they see too much division along party lines. So far, Democratic Obama has shown bipartisanship by seeking cooperation from a number of Republicans.

But for those who have converged on Washington to witness the historic moment, the occasion is too big to let the burden of expectations override their joy. Besides a host of American celebrities, hundreds of foreign diplomats, government representatives and members of Congress will attend the inauguration ceremony on the Capitol Hill.

On the eve of inauguration, Washington has been wearing a festive look with a series of concerts and a staggering two million people from across the country and several parts of the world gathering to see the history happen when Obama takes oath. In the process Obama will also becomes the first African American to lead the free world; a day after America marked Martin Luther King day, whose famous “I have a dream” speech is said to be a major inspiration behind Obama’s success.

Vice President-elect Joseph Biden, who recently visited Pakistan and Afghanistan, will also take oath of office.

source : jang.com.pk

The Worst Inaugural Addresses Ever

A choice few inaugural speeches are remembered in the annals of history, some for particularly stirring turns of phrase and others for striking just the right note for the nation at the time.

Others are totally forgotten, or at best remembered for how bad they were.

These worst inaugural addresses in U.S. presidential history represent a laundry list of what not to do on your big day, from boring the crowd with administrative details to droning on for two hours in the bitter cold, ultimately killing yourself in the process. They may serve as lessons for President-elect Barack Obama’s talented speechwriters in the run-up to his address Jan. 20.

Warren Harding – 1921

His maligned inaugural address was a sign of things to come for Warren Harding, who was dogged by scandals in his cabinet, became famous for odd speech patterns and finally died of a heart attack while still in office in 1923. More boring than brilliant, his 1921 address spoke, at length, of his ideologies:

“I speak for administrative efficiency, for lightened tax burdens, for sound commercial practices, for adequate credit facilities, for sympathetic concern for all agricultural problems, for the omission of unnecessary interference of Government with business, for an end to Government’s experiment in business, and for more efficient business in Government administration.”

Thomas Jefferson – 1805

After a soaring first address in 1801, Thomas Jefferson was reelected and offered a sophomore effort that was an angry, monotone dud, historians say. Bitter at the “licentious” media and four years of attacks on his administration, the president was on the defensive and not as his inspirational best:

“During this course of administration, and in order to disturb it, the artillery of the press has been leveled against us, charged with whatsoever its licentiousness could devise or dare. These abuses of an institution so important to freedom and science, are deeply to be regretted, inasmuch as they tend to lessen its usefulness, and to sap its safety; they might, indeed, have been corrected by the wholesome punishments reserved and provided by the laws of the several States against falsehood and defamation; but public duties more urgent press on the time of public servants, and the offenders have therefore been left to find their punishment in the public indignation.”

Ulysses S. Grant – 1869

It would have been a tough act to follow for anyone, but Ulysses S. Grant – speaking on the inaugural podium just four years after Lincoln’s famous address – still squandered his opportunity, most historians agree. At a time when the government should have been celebrating the passage of a few years of peace, the Civil War hero chose a strictly business tone, musing about the nation’s debts and laws:

“To protect the national honor, every dollar of Government indebtedness should be paid in gold, unless otherwise expressly stipulated in the contract. Let it be understood that no repudiator of one farthing of our public debt will be trusted in public place, and it will go far toward strengthening a credit which ought to be the best in the world, and will ultimately enable us to replace the debt with bonds bearing less interest than we now pay.”

James Buchanan – 1857

One of the worst speeches of all time was doled out by one of the worst presidents, according to historians. With the United States already on the road to civil war, a “clueless” James Buchanan essentially ignored the impending conflict, downplayed the growing rifts between North and South over slavery and urged Americans to focus on more important matters:

“May we not, then, hope that the long agitation on this subject is approaching its end… Most happy will it be for the country when the public mind shall be diverted from this question to others of more pressing and practical importance.”

William Henry Harrison – 1841

At more than 8,000 words, the address of distinguished military vet William Henry Harrison was and still is the longest in inaugural history by a comfortable margin. It took two hours to deliver in a snowstorm, boring the crowd and possibly even killing Harrison, who wore no overcoat and contracted pneumonia soon after. He ended his address on this note and died a month into office:

“Fellow-citizens, being fully invested with that high office to which the partiality of my countrymen has called me, I now take an affectionate leave of you. You will bear with you to your homes the remembrance of the pledge I have this day given to discharge all the high duties of my exalted station according to the best of my ability, and I shall enter upon their performance with entire confidence in the support of a just and generous people.”

source : news.yahoo.com

Inaugural Pastor: The Two Faces of Rick Warren

Rick Warren has spent his entire career building a reputation as an Evangelical who doesn’t cause the kind of outrage and protests that have greeted his selection to deliver the invocation at Barack Obama’s Inauguration. Warren wasn’t a polemicist like Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson; he was the one who talked about a loving Jesus, who promised that God had a purpose for your life. “Pastor Rick” took on progressive causes like third-world poverty and sex trafficking, and implored Evangelicals to care about HIV/AIDS. Both Obama and John McCain were comfortable enough with Warren that they agreed to join him for a presidential forum at his Saddleback Church in Orange County, Calif.

But there has always been the other Rick Warren, who sounds for all the world like the new leader of the Religious Right. The one who proclaimed a week before the 2004 election that the five “non-negotiable issues” for Christian voters were abortion, gay marriage, human cloning, euthanasia and stem-cell research. The one who bragged about taking Obama and other Democrats to task over abortion but said he “didn’t have the opportunity” to ever talk with George W. Bush about his opposition to torture. (See TIME’s cover story “The Global Ambition of Rick Warren.”)

In short, Warren wants to be both the universally admired pastor who speaks to the nation and the influential leader who mobilizes religious conservatives for political ends. But those are two inherently conflicting roles, and he cannot be both, no matter how hard he tries.

Warren would say there is no tension between his goals, that he never pretended to be anything other than a conservative. It’s not his fault, after all, if people forget that he is a theologically conservative Southern Baptist whose concern about issues like abortion and gay marriage has not been displaced by a recent focus on certain progressive causes.

But Warren himself encourages the confusion about his politics and agenda. When the Saddleback presidential forum was announced in July 2008, the pastor seemed eager to emphasize that he was not an old-school Evangelical leader obsessed with social issues. “There is no Christian religious test,” he told TIME in the days before the event, vowing that questions would center on four areas: poverty, HIV/AIDS, climate change and human rights. On the night of the forum, however, Warren hewed closely to a conservative script, asking the candidates about gay marriage, judges and abortion, and only briefly touching on poverty and climate change.

The next day at Saddleback’s Sunday services, Warren tried to reclaim his postpartisan reputation, telling his congregants that he would not endorse a presidential candidate nor tell anyone whom he was going to vote for. But that same day, he gave an interview to Naomi Schaeffer Riley of the Wall Street Journal that left very few questions about his leanings. The Democratic Party’s new platform calling for a reduction in the abortion rate was, he said, “window dressing” and “too little, too late.” When Riley asked Warren about some of Obama’s Evangelical supporters, he dismissed the significance of Evangelical liberals.

Many critics who are outraged by Warren’s role in the Inauguration have unfairly painted him as a leader in last fall’s campaign for Proposition 8, the controversial California ballot initiative that outlawed same-sex marriage. It’s not as if Warren cut commercials for Prop. 8 or traveled the state urging its passage. But neither was he the silent bystander that some of his defenders have claimed. Less than a month before the election, Warren e-mailed a statement to his 30,000 members declaring, “There is no doubt where we should stand on this issue,” and urged them to “vote yes on Proposition 8 – to preserve the biblical definition of marriage.”

After the election, Warren sowed more confusion about his support for Prop. 8. First he compared homosexuality to incest, pedophilia and polygamy, and then he tried to walk back from those comments by insisting that the real reason he backed the initiative was to protect the free-speech rights of pastors to decry homosexuality. It was an argument made by some other Prop. 8 proponents during the campaign, but it is a phony one.

Many believe the Obama campaign was naive about Warren’s political agenda heading into the Saddleback forum. “They hadn’t done their research on Warren,” says one progressive religious figure. “Obama wasn’t prepared for the Saddleback thing at all, and Warren bushwhacked him.” Likewise, Obama’s senior staff was not aware of Warren’s most recent controversial comments – including his comparison of homosexuality to incest and his belief that the President of Iran should be assassinated – when they signed off on his selection for the Inauguration.

When Obama asked Warren to take part in the Inauguration, he thought he would get Pastor Rick. And on Tuesday Warren will undoubtedly deliver a blandly optimistic – if explicitly Christian – prayer of the sort that has made him popular with the tens of millions of Americans who have purchased his books. But the uproar that has accompanied his selection suggests that Obama would do well to get to know the other Rick Warren, particularly if his Administration intends to continue an ongoing relationship with the pastor.

source : news.yahoo.com

Plane’s recorders support hero pilot’s account

NEW YORK – The black box recorders recovered from the US Airways jetliner that splashed down in the Hudson River captured thumping sounds, the sudden loss of engine power and the pilot’s calm “Mayday” call, evidence that seems to back up the crew’s account of hitting a flock of birds shortly after takeoff.

The National Transportation Safety Board gave an account of its interview with the pilot, Chesley B. “Sully” Sullenberger, and dispatches from the cockpit voice recorder emerged over the weekend.

Meanwhile, in snowy weather Sunday night, tugboats pulled the barge carrying the Airbus A320 from a seawall a few blocks from the World Trade Center site on a 90-minute trip to the Weeks Marina in Jersey City, N.J.

Investigators on Monday want to look more closely at the cockpit, the attached right engine, and the interior of the cabin, said safety board member Kitty Higgins.

The dispatches on the cockpit voice recorder were described as “a very calm, collected exercise,” veteran safety board investigator Robert Benzon said Sunday. Higgins added: “It was very matter of fact.”

Sullenberger, credited with helping save the lives of all 155 people aboard Thursday, reported that the plane had hit birds and lost both engines shortly after investigators heard “the sound of thumps and a rapid decrease in engine sounds,” Higgins said.

Sullenberger then discussed airport landing sites before deciding to attempt a river landing, she said. Ninety seconds before ditching the plane, he told passengers “brace for impact” and informed controllers “they will be in the Hudson River,” Higgins said.

The pilot, who has not publicly talked about the crash, canceled what was to be his first interview Monday, on NBC’s “Today” show. The show said it would interview Sullenberger in a couple of days.

Stephen Bradford, president of the U.S. Airline Pilots Association, said he asked Sullenberger not to talk to the media to avoid jeoparding the association’s “interested party” status with the NTSB, which allows it to participate in the investigation.

“If the NTSB perceives that we are in any way compromising the objectivity of the investigation by innocuously releasing information to the media, our status will be rescinded and we will be unable to help determine the causal factors leading up to this very positive and well-documented outcome,” he said.

Instead, Sullenberger released a statement through a family spokesperson. “The Sullenbergers continue to thank their many well-wishers for the incredible outpouring of support,” it said. The pilot was invited to attend President-elect Barack Obama’s inauguration on Tuesday, according to the mayor of his hometown, Danville, Calif.

Also Monday, the entire crew — Sullenberger, first officer and co-pilot Jeff Skiles, and flight attendants Sheila Dail, Doreen Welsh and Donna Dent — said in a joint statement they want the media to respect their decision not to give interviews during the investigation.

The crew members said they “wish to offer their sincere thanks and appreciation for the overwhelming support, praise and well wishes they have received from the public around the world since the events of last Thursday.”

They said they are willing to do media interviews “when the time is right.”

Investigators have seen significant damage to the tail and to compartments at the bottom of the plane that opened on impact. The right engine was severely dented but its fan blades were intact, Benzon said.

The search for the plane’s missing left engine was suspended until Tuesday because ice floes in the river make it too dangerous to put divers or special sonar equipment in the water, Higgins said.

In Washington, safety board spokesman Peter Knudson said preliminary indications from radar data of the plane’s takeoff Thursday from LaGuardia Airport “did not show any targets” that might be birds. But investigators will keep looking, he said.

“We are going to go and get all the electronic data necessary to get a complete picture of what was on his screen. It’s possible there was more being displayed than we initially understood. We just don’t know definitively at this point — we don’t know exactly what was shown on that radar screen,” Knudson said.

Higgins heaped praise on Sullenberger and the flight crew, noting they all had 20 or more years experience and were trained to do their jobs.

“Miracles happen because a lot of everyday things happen for years and years and years,” she said. “These people knew what they were supposed to do and they did it and as a result, nobody lost their life.”

Benzon said the probe may ultimately focus more on what went right than what went wrong Thursday. “This accident and this investigation are going to be studied for years and years and years,” he said. “Why did everything work so well?

“We need to know that so we can apply it to other phases of aviation, other aircraft, perhaps newer aircraft. It’s going to be fun.”

The area where the plane was moored in New York was closed to the public Sunday, but before it was moved it attracted hundreds of people who snapped pictures of the plane wreckage.

Kelsey Higginbotham, a 20-year-old student at East Tennessee State University, looked at the damaged aircraft Sunday from behind police barricades.

She and a friend had been to Times Square, Central Park and the site of the World Trade Center, where nearly 2,800 people were killed in the Sept. 11 attacks. She said she was struck by the contrast between one disaster in which so many people died and another in which everyone survived.

“It’s a miracle,” she said. “I guess New Yorkers can’t take any more tragedy.”

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Associated Press writers Victor Epstein in Jersey City, N.J.; Harry Weber in Atlanta; Jason Dearen in San Francisco; and Lou Kesten and Joan Lowy in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.

source : news.yahoo.com

Obama visits troops, volunteers on King holiday

WASHINGTON – On the eve of his inauguration, President-elect Barack Obama talked with wounded troops at a military hospital and then visited an emergency shelter for homeless teens, grabbing paint roller to help give the walls a fresh coat of blue. He appealed to the nation he will soon lead to honor the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. through service to others.

“As we honor that legacy, it’s not a day just to pause and reflect — it’s a day to act,” Obama said on King’s national holiday. “I ask the American people to turn today’s efforts into an ongoing commitment to enriching the lives of others in their communities, their cities, and their country.”

Large crowds thronged to the capital city on the eve of Obama’s elevation to the presidency. “Tomorrow, we will come together as one people on the same Mall where Dr. King’s dream echoes still,” Obama said.

A day away from becoming the nation’s 44th president, Obama visited Walter Reed Army Medical Center to talk with troops injured in battle.

Then he visited Sasha Bruce House, a shelter for homeless teens in the District of Columbia, chatting with volunteers who were helping to repaint rooms and then pitching in himself.

Obama once was immersed in such work as a community organizer in Chicago.

Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., told CNN that Obama will be able to use “the bully pulpit” of the office to press for a heavier commitment to public service. Clyburn said that he “speaks with authority on that subject. … He has been validated by his own life experiences.”

Michelle Obama and Vice President-elect Joe Biden’s wife, Jill, were visiting RFK Stadium where people were at work wrapping care packages and writing letters to troops overseas.

President George W. Bush, with just a day left in his term, made phone calls from the White House to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and a dozen other world leaders to thank them for their work with him over the last eight years. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, meanwhile, was designated by the Bush administration to stay away from Tuesday’s inaugural festivities “in order to ensure continuity of government,” said Bush spokeswoman Dana Perino.

One official traditionally stays away when others in the line of presidential succession are gathered together, in case of a calamitous attack.

On the streets, live news broadcasts displayed on large-screen televisions attracted swarms of onlookers, and behind the scenes people made final preparations for a slew of parties, balls and other celebrations that will follow Obama’s oath-taking and the inaugural parade.

Obama and Biden, fresh off a rollicking concert at the Lincoln Memorial on Sunday, planned to spend their final day before the inauguration with activities keyed to the celebration of King’s life, cut short by an assassin’s bullet in 1968.

The Obama and Biden families were part of a community renovation project in honor of King on the federal holiday established in his memory.

“Today, we celebrate the life of a preacher who, more than 45 years ago, stood on our national mall in the shadow of Lincoln and shared his dream for our nation. His was a vision that all Americans might share the freedom to make of our lives what we will; that our children might climb higher than we would,” Obama said in his statement.

Obama said King’s “was a life lived in loving service to others.”

“As we go forward in the work of renewing the promise of this nation, let’s remember King’s lesson — that our separate dreams are really one,” Obama said.

Meanwhile, two wreaths were erected around the future site of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial on the tidal basin between the Jefferson Memorial and the Lincoln Memorial. Groups of school children gathered around retired school teacher Kirk Moses as he talked about King’s legacy of nonviolence and the civil rights leader’s connection to Obama.

“The cadence and syntax of Obama, it comes directly from Dr. King,” said Moses, 60, as his group took pictures of the bronze plaque that sits where the memorial will be built.

“He’s such an important figure it’s important that children understand the connections from then up until today,” Moses said.

The run-up to Obama’s inauguration, like his election itself, has been defined by enormous public enthusiasm, carefully choreographed events and a lofty spirit of unity. What awaits, as Obama often reminds the nation, is many months, if not years, of tough work.

The weekend celebrations began Saturday with Obama’s whistle-stop tour, from Philadelphia to Washington, along the path Abraham Lincoln took in 1861. Then came that roaring celebrity-filled concert where several hundred thousand people flanked the reflecting pool, hearing actors, singers and then Obama himself rally for national renewal.

The Presidential Inaugural Committee has launched a Web site, USAService.org, to help people find volunteer opportunities close to their homes.

“I am asking you to make a lasting commitment to make better the lives of your fellow Americans — a commitment that must endure beyond one day, or even one presidency,” Obama said in a YouTube appeal last week. “At this moment of great challenge and great change, I am asking you to play your part; to roll up your sleeves and join in the work of remaking this nation.”

The president-elect has a busy Monday evening, too.

He is to attend three private dinners to honor the public service of former Secretary of State Colin Powell; Biden, a longtime senator from Delaware; and Sen. John McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee. Those dinners will be held at the Hilton Washington, National Building Museum and Union Station.

Michelle Obama, the future first lady, is hosting a children’s evening concert.

At the Capitol on Monday morning, groups of tourists wandered around the barricades to take pictures of the viewing stands and the monuments and buildings. A few even stood and watched NFL highlights that were being shown on the big-screen TV at the Capitol.

Three teachers from Baltimore said they decided to come out to the Capitol to scope out their routes in and out for the inauguration ceremony.

“Seems like they’ve planed it out pretty well,” said Gary Campbell, 29, of Baltimore as his group looked at the viewing stand from across the Capitol reflecting pool. Their school, Baltimore Freedom Academy, and the Homeland Security Academy planned to send four busloads of children to the National Mall to watch the inauguration ceremony.

Being from Baltimore the three were decked out in cold-weather gear and said they planned on wearing thermal coats, hats and scarves for the long wait on the Mall Tuesday.

“We knew to come prepared,” said Maddy Ahearn, 24.

Runner Kim Person stopped in front of the Capitol to snap a few quick pictures of the reviewing stand during a break in her marathon training. Person doesn’t have a ticket to the festivities, so she used the early morning lull to get close to the building.

“That’s why I’m looking at it today, because I won’t be able to see it tomorrow,” said Person, 43, who plans to be near the Washington Monument on Tuesday.

___

Associated Press Writers Jesse Holland and Charles Babington contributed to this report.

source : news.yahoo.com

Obama honors war dead at Arlington, attends church

WASHINGTON – Barack Obama laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns on Sunday, somberly pausing to honor America’s war heroes in the midst of a mostly festive weekend prelude to taking on the presidency.

Just over 50 hours from becoming the 44th president of the United States, Obama walked with Vice President-elect Joe Biden to the tomb site at Arlington National Cemetery and eased a wreath onto a stand, then placed his hand over his heart as a bugler played taps.

Obama will take the oath of office on Tuesday at a time of heavy expectations and high anxiety, and the capital has taken on the look of a fortress city, in places, with streets, bridges and overpasses obstructed in the name of security. But on television, it was a normal Sunday as a parade of political leaders of all stripes appeared on television to speculate, wax poetic and sometimes question the plans of the incoming administration.

The temperature rose above freezing, lending a measure of relief from the frigid weather the Obamas and Bidens braved — along with countless throngs of admirers — during a 137-mile whistle-stop train ride from Philadelphia to Washington on Saturday.

Obama’s Sunday started quietly as he took a limousine ride to the nation’s hallowed burial grounds for the war dead. Onlookers applauded as he passed by. Obama’s wife, Michelle, and Biden’s wife, Jill, stood nearby as the two men joined Gen. Richard Rowe, commander of the U.S. Army Military District of Washington, for the brief ceremony.

Later, the Obamas and Bidens attended church services separately.

At Nineteenth Street Baptist Church in northwest Washington, the congregation erupted in applause when the Obama family walked in, including daughters Malia and Sasha and Michelle Obama’s mother. They sat in the second row, which had been set aside for them.

Obama was told anew that his rise follows the achievements of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., whose memory the nation celebrates on Monday.

When times turn tough and critics sound off, Pastor Derrick Harkins said, Obama should turn to the strength of his wife and to God. “Understand that God has prepared you, and God has placed you, and God will not forsake you,” Harkins told the incoming president.

Biden and his wife attended mass at Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Georgetown. At one point, when newcomers and visitors were welcomed, congregants laughed and started applauding until Biden stood up. Then everyone stood up for sustained applause.

Obama and Biden were to spend Sunday afternoon at a star-studded Lincoln Memorial concert. A crowd that could swell to a half-million was expected for entertainment headlined by U-2, Beyonce and Bruce Springsteen.

With the oath of office set for the stroke of noon Tuesday at the West Front of the U.S. Capitol, the 47-year-old Obama was at the threshold of power, the keys to the White House within his reach. He campaigned on themes of change and hope, and he will have to deal immediately with a faltering economy, soaring joblessness and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

One worry seemed to be under control. Obama’s soon-to-be White House press secretary pronounced the boss relieved to already have a version of Tuesday’s inaugural address down on paper.

Robert Gibbs said on “Fox News Sunday” that the speech would stress responsibility and openness — words that Obama emphasized along the train route in Philadelphia, Wilmington, Del., and Baltimore the day before.

Another top Obama adviser, David Axelrod, said the new administration would approach weighty problems with a blend of “optimism and realism.”

Axelrod said a priority would be to “put the brakes” on the economic slide and avert a double-digit unemployment rate. The country is in a deep recession, and the jobless rate — at 7.2 percent — is the highest in 16 years.

source : news.yahoo.com

World of crises await Obama

WASHINGTON: After the pageantry and poetry, the parades and black tie inaugural balls, Barack Obama will next week inherit a world of crises, on which his presidency will rise or fall.

“Only a handful of times in our history has a generation been confronted with challenges so vast,” the president-elect told shivering audiences on his “whistle-stop” train tour from Philadelphia to Washington on Saturday. “An economy that is faltering. Two wars, one that needs to be ended responsibly, one that needs to be waged wisely. A planet that is warming from our unsustainable dependence on oil.” For Obama, this perfect storm of crises represents both a daunting baptism of power and an opportunity to carve his name alongside the few great presidents who lifted their country in hours of need.

source : jang.com.pk