The Obamas may have to find something else to do on April 29. In a Royal Snub heard from Buckingham Palace to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., Britain’s Prince William and Kate Middleton are reportedly not planning to invite US President Barack Obama and his wife, First Lady Michelle, to their spring wedding. What gives? Well, since [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Mr Obama’
President Obama Not Invited To Prince William Kate Middleton Royal Wedding
December 20th, 2010 |
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Obamas will not be invited to Prince Williamâ€s wedding
December 17th, 2010 |
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In a break from tradition, US President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle are unlikely to be on the guest list when Prince William marries Kate Middleton next year. Royal sources revealed on Thursday that the President and his wife are not among the congregation, as the royal wedding is not classed as a ‘state [...]
Political parties: The party’s (largely) over
October 21st, 2010 |
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Political parties’ membership is withering. That’s bad news for governments, but not necessarily for democracy
“WE WORSHIP an awesome God in the blue states,” declared Barack Obama in the speech that made him a star, “and we don’t like federal agents poking around in our libraries in the red states.” Six years after his address to his party’s national convention in 2004, the idea of Mr Obama as a post-partisan figure, an effortless uniter of Democrats and Republicans, looks droll.
But his failure to transcend party politics does not mean it was not canny to try. In America, Europe and elsewhere, the era of tight affiliation to political parties is over. Successful politicians surmount party allegiances, rather than entrench them. In America, the “50-50” nation is more like a 30-30-30 nation; last month, a Pew survey found that “independents” at 37% outnumbered either Democrats or Republicans. Such inbetweeners tend to find partisanship on the airwaves and in Congress repellent, strengthening their convictions further. …
Obama Streaker Juan James Rodriguez Apologizes; Accepts Partial Prize
October 14th, 2010 |
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Juan James Rodriguez has apologized for running naked in front of President Barack Obama during a weekend campaign stop in Philadelphia in hopes of snagging a $1 million grand prize issued by a wealthy online prankster. Rodriguez, 24, was arrested Sunday night for public lewdness after streaking 25 feet away from the president. “I just [...]
Obama warns against apathy by Democrats
September 29th, 2010 |
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On his latest cross-country trip U.S. President Obama has ramped up his response to criticisms by opposition Republicans of his handling of the U.S. economy. Mr. Obama is trying to re-energize the base of his Democratic party ahead of midterm congressional elections in November that could bring big gains for Republicans.
Obama: Iranian president’s UN remarks hateful
September 25th, 2010 |
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U.S. President Barack Obama has described as hateful and offensive remarks at the United Nations on Thursday by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Ahmadinejad said that the 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States could have been staged by the U.S. government. Mr. Obama spoke in an interview with BBC Persian Television.
The week ahead
July 4th, 2010 |
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Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, visits Barack Obama in Washington
• ISRAEL’S prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, is set to travel to Washington for a meeting with Barack Obama on Tuesday July 6th. Mr Netanyahu’s previous date with America’s president at the beginning of June was postponed after Israeli forces killed nine people in a raid on a boat attempting to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza in defiance of an Israeli blockade. Mr Obama will be keen to find a way to encourage Israeli and Palestinian leaders to begin direct talks again. Face-to-face negotiations were suspended in December 2008 after Israel’s deadly offensive against Gaza intended to stop rocket attacks from the territory. In a sign of a thawing of relations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, Ehud Barak, the country’s defence minister, said that he would shortly meet Salam Fayyad, the PA’s prime minister.
• THE lower house of France’s parliament begins debate on Tuesday July 6th over the controversial issue of banning women from wearing full Muslim veils in public before a vote likely to be held the following week. A burqa ban, which has the backing of President Nicolas Sarkozy, is also winning support in other parts of Europe. Belgium’s lower house has approved a similar measure and Spain Senate recently narrowly voted to impose a ban too. But the Council of Europe, an institution that oversees the human rights of Europeans, has voted unanimously to oppose any national bans on the burqa in EU countries. It also called on Switzerland to reverse its ban on the construction of minarets. …
Mirror image
June 22nd, 2010 |
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What Russia and America think of one another
IT IS easy to dismiss the “reset” in Russian-American relationship as mainly puff. After all, the most solid piece of business the two countries have done together since Barack Obama’s visit to Moscow last year—the signing of the new nuclear reduction treaty—belongs to the old era in the bilateral relationship. But as Mr Obama greets Dmitry Medvedev in Washington this week, he can take comfort that his reset policy has yielded one important, even if less tangible, result—the change of Russia’s perception of America. Overall, Russians’ attitudes to America (in polling from the Levada Centre) is mirrored by Americans’ attitudes towards Russia, seen in Gallup surveys. This is no accident. However resentful the Russians can be of America, they also see it as a mirror which reflects their own place in the world. And the more hawkish American neo-conservatives can be about Russia, the more they sound like their Russian counterparts.
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BP agrees to USD 20bn fund
June 17th, 2010 |
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BP executives met with U.S. Pres. Barack Obama and agreed to create a $20bn fund to compensate people and businesses harmed by the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. BP’s chairman apologized for the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history, saying that BP is “fully aligned” with Mr. Obama and his administration on the need to stop the leak and compensate for damages.
Realpolitik returns
May 27th, 2010 |
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The National Security Strategy reveals a narrower view of what force can accomplish
EVERY incoming president is required to send Congress a National Security Strategy. Some of these documents are abstract and forgettable but others really do provide a clue to the future. One such was the document George W. Bush signed in 2002, which gave warning that America would act against foes seeking dangerous military technologies before such threats were fully formed. A year later the Bush administration cited precisely this doctrine to justify the invasion of Iraq and the toppling of Saddam Hussein.
Barack Obama’s National Security Strategy, published on May 27th, has a different emphasis. Mr Obama opposed the invasion of Iraq. His document does not endorse Mr Bush’s doctrine of pre-emption. Nor, though, as the Iranians will doubtless note, is pre-emption explicitly disavowed. As a last resort, says the strategy, “the United States must reserve the right to act unilaterally,” albeit adhering to “standards that govern the use of force”. …
Almost there
May 21st, 2010 |
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The Senate votes for financial reform, but some important issues remain unresolved
FINANCIAL reform is coming to America. On May 20th, after more than three weeks of often rancorous debate, the Senate approved the biggest overhaul of the financial system since the Great Depression, by 59 votes to 39. Its bill must now be reconciled with one passed by the House of Representatives in December. The result will be Barack Obama’s second big legislative victory of the year, after the passage of health-care reform in March.
Tim Geithner, Mr Obama’s treasury secretary, praised Chris Dodd and Harry Reid, the Democratic senators who steered the 1,500-page Restoring American Financial Stability Act to a successful vote, for their “tremendous leadership”. The administration has reason to be pleased, since the bill largely mirrors the reform blueprint it had been pushing. …
The week ahead
May 16th, 2010 |
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Mexico’s president visits America
• THE Mexican president, Felipe Calderon, visits America for meetings with Barack Obama and other senior officials and will also address a joint session of Congress on Thursday May 20th. Discussion are likely to centre on a “war” against vicious drug gangs and organised crime declared by Mr Calderon and his efforts to dismantle the criminal organisations that operate at America’s borders. Mr Obama’s recent pledge to tackle immigration reform is evidence that he is sympathetic to the plight of migrants, which should reassure Mexicans outraged at Arizona’s tough new immigration law.
• BRITAIN’S “new politics”, an unlikely coalition government of the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats, will get its first test on Tuesday May 18th when the country’s Parliament sits for the first time to elect a speaker. A recent general election failed to produce an outright winner. Despite assurances from David Cameron and Nick Clegg, the leaders of the two parties, that the coalition will survive for a full five years disagreements on European integration and the balance between liberty and security remain profound. These fissures could be exploited by backbench MPs and party activists unhappy with the new arrangements. …
If We Broke Up Standard Oil, We Can Break Up the Giant Banks
May 1st, 2010 |
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If we broke up standard oil, we can break up the giant banks.Says who?Senator Ted Kaufman (interviewed recently by The American Prospect’s Tim Fernholz): You and Senator Sherrod Brown have proposed an amendment that would cap the size of the largest ba…
The BRICs: The trillion-dollar club
April 15th, 2010 |
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Brazil, Russia, India and China matter individually. But does it make sense to treat the BRICs—or any other combination of emerging powers—as a block?
IN ANY global gathering, the American president is usually seen, at a minimum, as primus inter pares: the one who can make or break the final bargain and select his favoured interlocutors. So in Copenhagen last December, as negotiations for a new climate-change treaty were entering their final hours, a hastily convened meeting between Barack Obama and China’s prime minister, Wen Jiabao, looked as if it would be the critical moment when a deal might be struck. But when the president turned up, he found not only Mr Wen but the heads of government of Brazil, South Africa and India. This was unexpected. The Americans even thought the Indians had already left the summit. What was conceived as a bilateral talk turned instead into a negotiation with an emerging-market block. As an additional sign that things were changing in the world, the president got a finger-wagging from one of Mr Wen’s hangers-on. But at least Mr Obama was in the room; Europeans were shut out while the emerging powers and America put the final touches to their deal.
This week the same developing countries are meeting again, in Brasilia. On April 15th Brazil, India and South Africa—rising powers that are also democracies—put their heads together. The next day South Africa will drop out and Russia and China will join the party, to create a meeting of the so-called BRICs. …
Disarmament and counter-proliferation: Old worry, new ideas
April 15th, 2010 |
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After some moral victories over nuclear matters, America’s hardest test looms
TO HEAR Barack Obama talk about the “unprecedented threat” that terrorists might one day set off a nuclear bomb, it would be easy to assume that little has changed since the days of George Bush. But having adopted his predecessor’s diagnosis, Mr Obama is proposing a different treatment. Where Mr Bush disliked arms treaties and favoured muscular unilateral action—he invaded Iraq on the grounds that he could not afford to wait for proof of Saddam Hussein’s (non-existent) banned weapons to come in the form of a “mushroom cloud”—Mr Obama is performing an intricate multilateral dance.
His introductory bow came in Prague last year, when the president set out his vision of a world free of nuclear weapons. Then, in September, he held out his hand to Russia by announcing a reconfiguration of America’s anti-missile defence system. The couple’s twirl concluded last month with an agreement to cut each side’s nuclear arsenal to 1,550 deployed warheads. …