Posts for 'Politics' Category

President Obama has turned the once utopian-sounding idea of global nuclear disarmament into a useful tool for U.S. foreign policy. His well-conceived, confidently executed three-part movement in statecraft this month should banish the notion that Obama's ambitious nuclear goals spring from naiveté or inexperience.

In the space of two weeks, the president put his own stamp on the Nuclear Posture Review released by the Pentagon on April 6, closed the deal on a modest but necessary strategic-arms treaty with Russia and then hosted a 47-nation summit that adopted his view that nuclear terrorism poses the biggest single threat to global stability.

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Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev signed the pact at a ceremony in Prague Castle after talks that centered on possible extra sanctions over Iran's atomic program, which the West believes is aimed at making bombs.

But their attempt to display a united front faltered over Kyrgyzstan, with a senior Russian official saying Moscow would urge the new leaders who toppled President Kurmanbek Bakiyev on Wednesday to shut a strategic U.S. air base in the former Soviet central Asian republic.

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After a meeting in Washington, US President Barack Obama and his French counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy have said they wanted tough new sanctions against Iran adopted at the United Nations within weeks. The leaders expressed optimism that China – a veto-wielding member of the UN Security Council –  will agree on possible next steps.

Obama and Sarkozy presented a united front on Iran at a joint press conference at the White House, saying it was time to move ahead with sanctions. "My hope is that we are going to get this done this spring," Obama said. He added: "A conflict in the Middle East, as a consequence of Iran's actions, could have a huge destabilizing effect in terms of the world economy at a time when it is just coming out of a very deep recession."

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Barack Obama's healthcare bill, the result of a long political battle, includes legislation that will make it mandatory for any restaurant chain that has more than 20 locations to include calories information on its menus. The law will affect many of the big chains, including McDonald’s, Burger King and Starbucks, who will all have to inform customers exactly how many calories their food contains.

A spokesman for the National Restaurant Association said: “We have been strong advocates and supporters in trying to ensure this provision became law, and are extremely pleased it was signed into law.” This healthcare bill will also make nutritional information compulsory on all items sold through vending machines, supporting Michelle Obama’s campaign against childhood obesity.

Suspected drug gang "hit teams" killed two Americans and a Mexican linked to a U.S. consulate in co-ordinated shootings that marked an ominous turn in the Mexico drug war.

U.S. President Barack Obama expressed said he was "outraged" by the latest killings in the notorious border city of Ciudad Juarez on Saturday night.

The Chihuahua state government identified the victims as U.S. consular worker Lesley Enriquez, her American husband Arthur Redelfs and Mexican national Jorge Alberto Salcido Ceniceros, husband of another consult employee in Ciudad Juarez.

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President Obama on Monday signaled his determination to forge ahead with a Democratic vision of a comprehensive health-care overhaul as he unveiled an ambitious proposal that would extend coverage to 31 million people, raise taxes on the wealthy and ratchet up regulations on insurers.

Like bills that have passed the Senate and House, the proposal would require almost everyone to obtain insurance or pay a fine; provide income-based subsidies to those who cannot afford it; expand Medicaid for the working poor; and impose new requirements on insurers who sell policies in a new "exchange," or marketplace, where those without employer-based benefits can buy coverage.

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A day of reckoning may have arrived for Europe. The future of the union hangs in the balance. Will Greece stay or go? And who will decide? The implications loom large for America and the world. The dream of a united Europe under one political authority is as old as the Roman Empire.

Six times throughout history under Justinian, Charlemagne, Otto the Great, Charles v, Napoleon and Hitler power-hungry men have forced the disparate peoples and nations into a military empire. And each time the combine came crashing down in a wave of blood.

Today, the dream of a united European superpower is about to be realized again. When the eurozone’s founders began working toward pan-European unity, they knew it would be virtually impossible to unite the Continent.

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During the weekend, former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin delivered the keynote address to the attendees of the Tea Party movement’s first-ever national convention.

Feb. 6, saying that the Obama administration’s policies were causing America to "drown in debt." Speaking in Nashville, Palin said that the government’s outsize spending.

In particular its massive $3.8 trillion budget for fiscal year 2011 will place undue burden on the shoulders of future generations.

Palin also criticized Obama’s foreign policy, dismissing it as too conciliatory and failing to "distinguish America’s friends from her enemies" as well as face up to the "true nature" of the threats to national security.

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President Barack Obama appealed directly to senators' desire for history-making change and their short-term political fears Sunday in urging them to stand together and overhaul the nation's healthcare system. At the request of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., Obama made a trip to the Capitol during a rare weekend legislative session to ask rank-and-file Democrats to work for compromise and do it quickly. Vice President Joe Biden joined Obama for the closed-door meeting.

Greeted by applause, Obama spoke for 45 minutes and took no questions, according to several lawmakers. He highlighted the progress he said his administration has made on jobs, and focused on the implications for remaking a healthcare system that represents one-sixth of the economy.  Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., said Obama described the healthcare bill as the ``most significant social legislation in decades so don't lose it.''

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Sarah Palin’s first brush with China has not made her many friends. “Palin Gives Speech in Hong Kong, Called Boring, Members of the Audience Left Early” was how Ming Pao, a popular Hong Kong newspaper, put it in a headline today.

A commenter in a Chinese Web forum wrote of Palin’s speech: “This is such a joke. Since when does China need the U.S. to point the way to the future?”  Palin went to Hong Kong, which is the closest she has come to mainland China, to provide what she called “a view right from Main Street” to an investors’ conference Wednesday, and though she asked that it stay closed to the media, excerpts have crept out.

“We simply cannot turn a blind eye to Chinese policies and actions that could undermine international peace and security,” she said, according to a Wall Street Journal blog. “Here, China has some one thousand missiles aimed at Taiwan and no serious observer though believes that it poses a serious threat to Beijing.”

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