Talkback king Rush Limbaugh leads backlash to Obama
March 2, 2009
THE radio talkback host Rush Limbaugh has said he wants to see President Barack Obama fail, warning that the core free enterprise values of the nation are “under assault” and its very survival is at stake.
Obama touted as the answer to Israel’s impasse
February 16, 2009
FORGET the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. President Barack Obama may instead be called upon to use all his skills as a mediator to resolve the Israeli political conflict.
A week after elections that saw the Kadima party of the Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni, win the most votes but Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party claim victory because right-wing parties won more votes overall, the country is waiting to see who will lead the next government.
Clinton takes shot at Bush over uranium claims
February 16, 2009
THE US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, has cast doubt on a Bush administration claim that North Korea had a clandestine program to enrich uranium, and has said she would focus on getting the Pyongyang Government to give up its stock of weapons-grade plutonium.
“There is a debate within the intelligence community as to exactly the extent of the highly enriched uranium program,” Mrs Clinton told reporters traveling with her to Asia on her first voyage as the chief US diplomat.
Help for Gaza and CIA Torture Outlawed
January 23, 2009
On his third day in office, President Barack Obama has focused on the Middle East, calling on Israel to open its borders with Gaza to allow humanitarian aid and commerce.
And he has appointed one of America’s most talented negotiators to broker lasting peace in the troubled region.
Mr Obama also announced plans to close the contentious detention centre at Guantanamo Bay within 12 months and to ban “enhanced interrogation” used by the CIA in the past, branding it torture and contrary to American values.
Obama presses forward on Iran, backward on Iraq
January 12, 2009
THE US president-elect, Barack Obama, has confirmed that he will pursue a clear policy of engagement with Iran and press immediately for peace in the Middle East.
Speaking on the ABC News television program This Week, Mr Obama said he wanted to work directly with Iran – a country whose president has called for Israel’s destruction – to improve relations and halt a nuclear program that Tehran describes as peaceful, but the West believes is not.
“We are going to have to take a new approach,” he told the program’s host, George Stephanopoulos, in his first interview since arriving in Washington.
President works to defend his legacy
January 11, 2009
THE countdown clocks that George Bush’s chief of staff distributed 990 days ago are still ticking. His advisers tallied their remaining time last week and calculated fewer than 300 hours to go.
Cardboard cartons are stacked in the West Wing as files are carefully catalogued for the archives. By Friday, the last official work day of the Bush White House, all but the most senior officials will have turned in their government-issued BlackBerrys and badges.
This is what Mr Bush is calling the season of “the lasts”.
America didn’t jump off the cliff – it was Bushed
January 5, 2009
We like our failed presidents to be Shakespearean, or at least large enough to inspire Oscar-worthy performances from magnificent tragedians. So here, too, George Bush has let us down. He is not a memorable villain so much as a sometimes affable second banana whom Will Ferrell can nail without breaking a sweat. He is smaller than life.
Economic powers gather for summit
November 14, 2008
Leaders from the world’s biggest economic powers known as Group of Twenty (G20) gathered in Washington today for a crisis summit to reshape the global financial order as recession spreads to a growing number of countries.
US President George Bush was hosting more than 20 leaders from the world’s richest nations and emerging economic powerhouses, including Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, at a working dinner at the White House followed by formal talks tomorrow.
Obama set to confront all challenges
November 9, 2008
There are challenges ahead for Obama.
After losing 1 million jobs this year, another 260,000 evaporated in October, with unemployment at a 14-year high in America.
The backbone of America’s industrial might, Ford and General Motors, is on the brink. The slowdown is accelerating and has not yet hit the bottom.
Christmas looks bleak.
US to host crisis summit
October 19, 2008
US President George Bush, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso have agreed to a series of summits with world leaders on the global financial crisis.
