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Obama, Hatoyama prioritize alliance Cooperation on nuke arms, emissions; no Futenma deal Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and U.S. President Barack Obama vowed Friday to bolster the bilateral alliance and cooperate on pressing global issues, including climate change and nuclear disarmament. The two also touched on the sensitive relocation of U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in Okinawa. The issue has cast a shadow on bilateral relations. They said it was their common goal to resolve the issue as soon as possible. Earlier this week, the two governments decided to form a ministerial-level working group to find a way to resolve...

President Barack Obama does not plan to accept any of the Afghanistan war options presented by his national security team, pushing instead for revisions to clarify how and when U.S. troops would turn over responsibility to the Afghan government, a senior administration official said Wednesday. Obama is still close to announcing his revamped war strategy — most likely shortly after he returns from a trip to Asia that ends on Nov. 19. But the president raised questions at a war council meeting Wednesday that could alter the dynamic of both how many additional troops are sent to Afghanistan and what...

War On Terror: Sen. John Kerry, who was so wrong about Iraq, now says our commander in Afghanistan is "reaching too far, too fast" and that a "good enough" policy should suffice. It won't. Offering his advice on how to micromanage the war against the Taliban, Kerry said Gen. Stanley McChrystal, President Obama's hand-picked general to fight what he called a "war of necessity," is wrong in saying he needs 40,000 more troops to fight and win it. Speaking before the Council on Foreign Relations on Monday, Kerry advocated a "good enough" policy designed not to achieve victory in al-Qaida's...

When Obama stated that he was going to reach out to the Islamic world, he was not kidding. The weakness of Obama has lead to the Taliban getting stronger. He has even given the Taliban the OK to participate in the future political landscape of Afghanistan. Apparently none of this was enough though, and now Obama is willing to share power in Afghanistan with the Taliban thugs. This is straight out of the Twilight Zone. US Offers Taliban 6 Provinces for 8 Bases By Aamir Latif, IOL Correspondent

The Obama administration is considering an almost complete surrender in Afghanistan, if the report this weekend by the BBC's Katty Kay is accurate.Speaking as a panelist on the Chris Matthews Show, a weekend public affairs broadcast, Kay reported on the internal debate at the White House, "There are real questions being asked, I think, about whether even with a big injection of troops this is a real country, a real war that you can win."And there's a new phrase which is floating around the White House which is 'minimum security'. That we're not actually aiming for a country which is...

War On Terror: Sen. John Kerry, who was so wrong about Iraq, now says our commander in Afghanistan is "reaching too far, too fast" and that a "good enough" policy should suffice. It won't. Offering his advice on how to micromanage the war against the Taliban, Kerry said Gen. Stanley McChrystal, President Obama's hand-picked general to fight what he called a "war of necessity," is wrong in saying he needs 40,000 more troops to fight and win it. Speaking before the Council on Foreign Relations on Monday, Kerry advocated a "good enough" policy designed not to achieve victory in al-Qaida's...

Russia and the United States have tentatively agreed to a weapons inspection program that would allow Russians to visit nuclear sites in America to count missiles and warheads.

Mr Obama appears to have been swayed in recent days by arguments from some advisers, led by Vice-President Joe Biden, that the Taleban do not pose a direct threat to the US and that there should be greater focus on tackling al-Qaeda inside Pakistan. The official, speaking anonymously to the press about Mr Obama’s internal discussions – a tactic that is causing dismay among some senior military officials – said the president’s final decision on his war strategy and troop levels is still at least two weeks away.

Obama will make his debut Asian tour next month, visiting Japan, Singapore, China and South Korea for a flurry of talks on pressing economic issues, trade and global security. ...But it will not include a visit to Indonesia, where he spent four childhood years, a period he has often referenced fondly in speeches and in his outreach to the Muslim world...Obama has also decided to reverse US policy and engage Myanmar

"Hear our cry, Obama." "Deliver us, Obama." Video at link.

(IsraelNN.com) A top official in the Obama Administration has at last admitted what intelligence agents and Israeli government officials have been warning about for years: Iran intends to build a nuclear arsenal. In media interviews with American television news networks scheduled to air Sunday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said bluntly, "The Iranians have the intention of having nuclear weapons."

The right is calling Obama weak, but his wily foreign policy is paying off The spluttering of the American right — and some European conservatives — over Barack Obama’s foreign policy reached a new level of vituperation last week. “Is Obama naive?” pondered Michael Ledeen at National Review. “I don’t think so. I think that he rather likes tyrants and dislikes America.” Nile Gardiner of the Heritage Foundation wrote in The Daily Telegraph: “[Obama’s] appeasement of Iran, his bullying of Israel, his surrender to Moscow, his call for a nuclear-free world ... have all won him plaudits in the large...

<p>Just announced by Jennifer Griffith in a live interview, WH has asked Pentagon for a formal assessment of a withdrawal from Afghanistan, that the Afghan Wart is no longer in our nations interest, blamed the Afghan elections.</p>

Czechs are used to betrayal by their Western allies. It was at Munich in 1938 that British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain sealed their doom in exchange for a piece of paper promising "peace in our time." The fact that this further gutting of missile defense came on the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland on Sept. 17, 1939, is an eerie coincidence. "Just after midnight I was informed in a telephone call by President Barack Obama that (his) administration had decided to pull out from the planned missile defense shield installations" in the Czech Republic and Poland, the...

Strategic Defense: With Iran on the verge of a deliverable nuke, the administration tells our allies in the dead of night that we will scuttle missile defense plans in Eastern Europe to please the Russians.Czechs are used to betrayal by their Western allies. It was at Munich in 1938 that British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain sealed their doom in exchange for a piece of paper promising "peace in our time." The fact that this further gutting of missile defense came on the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland on Sept. 17, 1939, is an eerie coincidence. "Just after...

Alliances: The U.S. has expressed a willingness to barter away missile defense sites in Poland and the Czech Republic. Now the Polish foreign minister says he hopes his country doesn't regret trusting the United States.The Brussels Forum is a privately organized high-level meeting of the most influential North American and European political, corporate and intellectual leaders to address pressing challenges currently facing both sides of the Atlantic. One of the pressing issues discussed at this year's conference was whether the U.S. is serious about bartering away plans for missile defense sites in Poland and the Czech Republic in exchange for...

Scuttling a missile defense shield in the Czech Republic and Poland helps smooth relations between the U.S. and Russia. But at what price? Some of America's staunchest allies are the East Europeans — and on Thursday, they expressed dismay at what many see as a slight after decades of their support for the U.S. Among them were some famous names, including Lech Walesa, the former Solidarity leader and Polish ex-president. "I can see what kind of policy the Obama administration is pursuing toward this part of Europe," he said ruefully, adding: "The way we are being approached needs to change."...

Shortly after the pullback on the shield programme was announced, Russia's government said Prime Minister Vladimir Putin would meet several U.S. executives on Friday from firms including General Electric, Morgan Stanley as well as TPG, one of the world's largest private equity firms

The White House today would not confirm or deny a report by Iranian media that President Obama has sent a second letter to Iranian authorities. "There have been multiple ways that communication has taken place with Iran,” said White House spokesman Tommy Vietor. “We do not discuss the details or modalities of those communications." The Iranian website Tabnak reported that President “Obama has reportedly sent his second direct message to Iranian authorities.” "The first letter was dispatched in Ordibehesht, before the elections," Tabnak said, referring to the Persian month that ran from April 21 to May 21. "The leader at...

George F. Will, the elite conservative commentator, will call in his next column for U.S. ground troops to leave Afghanistan, according to publishing sources. “[F]orces should be substantially reduced to serve a comprehensively revised policy: America should do only what can be done from offshore, using intelligence, drones, cruise missiles, airstrikes and small, potent special forces units, concentrating on the porous 1,500-mile border with Pakistan, a nation that actually matters,” Will writes in the column, scheduled for publication later this week. Obama ordered a total of 21,000 more U.S. troops into Afghanistan in February and March, and casualties have mounted...

Here is video of John Brennan, Obama's top Homeland Security and Counterterrorism official, giving a speech today where he said the United States is not engaged in a "War on Terror," and also does not believe we are in a "global war" nor are we fighting "jihadists." He said the only acceptable term is that we are fighting "Al-Qaeda." Who does he think Al-Qaeda is? The are "Jihadists!" But political correctness will not allow Obama to say what is true, that Islamic Jihadists have declared war on the United States and we do face a Global War against those who...

MOSCOW -- With the clock running out on a new US-Russian arms treaty before the previous Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START, expires on December 5, a senior White House official said Sunday said that the difficulty of the task might mean temporarily bypassing the Senate’s constitutional role in ratifying treaties by enforcing certain aspects of a new deal on an executive levels and a “provisional basis” until the Senate ratifies the treaty.

On the eve of ...Obama's first visit to Moscow, Russia and the United States were on Sunday still bargaining on an outline deal to cut Cold War arsenals of nuclear weapons.... ...Medvedev said...Sunday.. that the United States must compromise on plans to deploy an anti-missile system in Europe....This was necessary to get a deal to replace the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I) before it expires on Dec. 5, the Russian leader said. "We consider these issues are interconnected,"

Link only, per FR copyright rules

A reader in the most recent Mark Sanford combox thread voices a familiar complaint from the previous ones. The argument goes like this: 1. Mark Sanford is a social conservative who advocated against same-sex marriage rights. 2. But by having an adulterous affair, he dishonored his own marriage vows. 3. Therefore it is hypocritical for him -- and by extension, other social conservatives -- to argue against same-sex marriage. 4. Because some opponents of same-sex marriage are unfaithful to their spouses, there is no good reason to oppose same-sex marriage. It's an absurd argument, but that doesn't stop more than...

My Friends, Health care is a problem of growing importance across America. From kitchen tables, to state governments, to our government here in Washington, the growing cost of health care and the shortcomings of the current system are issues of extreme concern. With polls showing that a majority of Americans now support Congress enacting a major overhaul of the U.S. health care system, it is clear that we must begin working towards a bi-partisan solution to address the need for reform. In the coming weeks, Congress will begin the hard work of debating health care legislation that will provide all...

With the dropping of the phrase "war on terror" and his recent diatribe in Cairo, Barack Hussein Obama has effectively waved the white flag at the radical faction of Islam that would seek to destroy us. Hussein Obama, now recognizing his Muslim roots, has reached out with open arms to the very people who on September 11, 2001 murdered nearly 3000 of our fellow citizens in one of the most horrific attacks ever perpetrated on a nation. Why is he doing this? For one of two reasons. Some would have us believe that by Hussein Obama embracing Islam, the violence...

Jimmy Carter will visit Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip..... was in Lebanon to monitor Sunday’s elections. Media have said that he will continue this week to Syria, Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. ....others say he will be promoting peace moves in the wake of last week’s address to the Muslim world by President Obama.

North Korea's allies China and Russia raised questions Tuesday about some possible new sanctions against North Korea for its recent nuclear test, delaying Security Council action sought by key Western powers, U.N. diplomats said.

...Saudi officials have cautioned that (obama's) appeals to King Abdallah to make a new gesture to Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu may fall on deaf ears....The Saudis and other mainstream Sunni Arab leaders in Jordan, Egypt and the Gulf states have been uneasy that Obama may be giving too much of a free hand to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, encouraging hard-liners in Tehran to push ahead with their development of nuclear weapons

...Obama's popularity in Arab nations has risen sharply compared to his predecessor George W. Bush, a poll showed Monday ahead of his trip to the heart of the Arab-Muslim world. In seven out of 10 Arab countries plus the Palestinian territories surveyed by Gallup, Obama's popularity saw double-digit percentage increases compared with ratings for Bush compiled mostly from last year... "These upsurges may reflect positive reception to Obama and his administration's public outreach to the Muslim world," Gallup analysts said

A HUMAN rights ruling will force officers to hesitate in making life and death decisions in battle, the MoD insisted last night. Three Appeal Court judges yesterday ruled the controversial Human Rights Act applies to troops, even on the battlefield. They rejected a Government bid to overturn a High Court ruling in a case brought by the family of TA Private Jason Smith, who died of heatstroke in Iraq in 2003. Giving Our Boys a “right to life” means the Ministry of Defence has a legal duty to supply proper welfare and equipment. But it also means any decision taken...

WASHINGTON, May 8 (RIA Novosti) - U.S. President Barack Obama said after a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that Moscow and Washington had a great chance to "reset" relations. "We have an excellent opportunity to reset the relationship between the United States and Russia on a whole host of issues," Obama said on Thursday after talks in Washington with Russia's top diplomat. Lavrov called the talks "productive," noting their "constructive, business-like nature." He also said that Russian-U.S. relations should be based on mutual respect. Obama said that he had discussed a wide range of issues with Lavrov, including...

For two days, Wesleyan University feared becoming another Virginia Tech as police conducted a nationwide manhunt for a man accused of stalking and killing one student and threatening to kill more. But the crisis came to an abrupt end late Thursday just 10 miles from campus after suspect Stephen P. Morgan saw his photo in a newspaper and asked a convenience store clerk to call police. Officers found him standing peacefully outside a Cumberland Farms store in south Meriden. They took him to the ground, then walked inside to tell the startled clerk that Morgan was the man wanted for...

MOSCOW, April 23 (RIA Novosti) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will meet with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Washington on May 7 to discuss the START agreement, which expires at the end of this year. The director of the North American Department at the Foreign Ministry, Igor Neverov, told RIA Novosti on Thursday that the first round of Russian-American expert-level consultations on preparing the new Strategic Arms Reductions Treaty (START) agreement would take place in Rome this week. "There will be a meeting of experts in April, and the experts will continue to work until the minister...

WASHINGTON (CNN) – Meghan McCain warned a group of gay Republicans Saturday that there was "a war brewing in the Republican Party" – a war between the past and the future. "Most of the old school Republicans are scared s***less of that future," she told a gathering of the Log Cabin Republicans, a group of gay and lesbian party members. The 24-year-old daughter of former GOP presidential candidate John McCain pushed back against critics upset over her comments to CNN that she wanted President Obama to succeed, and played down her recent headline-grabbing feuds with conservative commentators Ann Coulter and...

James Dobson claims the culture war has been lost! In a message to his staff at Focus on the Family that was never meant to be heard by the outside world, Dr. James Dobson, in his own words, stated that the culture war had been lost. After the tape of his talk was leaked to the public, he began damage control, going on Sean Hannity's program (he went on no other programs despite numerous offers by other programs to have him on) since Hannity would never challenge him, claiming the "media took him out of context." The fact is, the...

It wasn't really a surprise that President Obama sided with leftist lawyers in his Justice Department and released, over the objections of the intelligence community, four Office of Legal Counsel memos that concluded certain interrogation techniques used in the last several years by CIA officers on certain al Qaeda terrorists were legal. Nor was it a surprise that the presidential statement put out by the White House was a medley of preening self-righteousness and defensive disingenuousness. What was more interesting was the accompanying statement by the Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair, trying to justify Obama's decision--or at least put...

AMMAN, April 11 (Xinhua) -- Foreign ministers of six Arab states met here Saturday in a bid to enhance Arab unity over the peace process between Palestinians and Israelis. ...Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, Lebanon, the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) and Jordan attended the meeting... ...The king (of Jordan)is expected to relay the Arab stance on the peace process with Israel during his talks with U.S. President Barack Obama and other senior officials, said Judeh.

JERUSALEM (AFP)--An Israeli minister said Friday there should be a time limit on any talks between the international community and Iran over its controversial nuclear programme. "We have to think together how long this dialogue should last," vice prime minister Silvan Shalom told army radio

MOSCOW (AFP)--New rockets will by 2016 account for at least 80% of the strategic missile forces in Russia as it replaces its Soviet-era arsenal with new nuclear-capable missiles, the military said Friday. "Plans for the development of the Russian strategic rocket forces through 2016 foresee a decrease in quantity and a transformation in quality at the same time, (said) " Nikolai Solovstov, the commander of Russia's strategic missile forces....

PARIS (AFP)--France said Friday it had begun to reduce its own arsenal long before U.S. President Barack Obama called for a "world without nuclear weapons," as a leaked memo showed Paris unimpressed by his speech. ....Sarkozy's foreign policy advisers were dismissive of Obama's call for an end to the arms race, which he made to a cheering crowd of supporters in Prague on Sunday. France also poured cold water on the idea that disarmament measures by declared nuclear powers would aid nonproliferation work by persuading rogue states and terrorist groups to drop their own weapons programs.

Newly elected Republican Party Chairman Jennifer Nassour has wasted no time making it clear where she wants the party to go. Last week, in a front-page interview with the hardcore homosexual newspaper Bay Windows, she told the homosexual community that they didn't need to worry about the Republican party opposing them on "social issues" or "the culture wars."

MIDI - MAGICAL MYSTERY TOURCome on, Obama's apology tour Come on, we know you will like it for sure (Come on) Here is your invitation...Obama's apology tour (Come on) Come watch him bash our nation...Obama's apology tour His apology tour Come on, Obama's apology tour Come on, we know you will like it for sure (Come on) He will say how really bad we are...Obama's apology tour (Come on) They will treat him like he's a rock star...Obama's apology tour His apology tour We're the problem, it's true...he'll blame me and you Ahhh, Obama's apology tour Come on, we...

Brigitte Gabriel recently said in an interview that Obama's message to Iran was a message of SURRENDER!

U.S. President Barack Obama is considering meeting with Syrian President Bashar Assad this summer, a United Arab Emirates-based newspaper reported yesterday. The Al Khaleej daily based its report on Arab diplomatic sources in Cairo. They told the paper the United States was weighing holding the meeting, the first of its kind in nine years, as a measure to advance the Middle East peace process. Advertisement According to the report, the Obama administration is contemplating the move in the wake of a number of recent meetings between senior American and Syrian officials.

"... the situation is increasingly perilous. Many have been killed. What is our purpose in Afghanistan? Why do our men and women still fight and die there? because the 9-11 terrorists are still there. And in Pakistan. If the Afghanistan lets terrorists operate there, we will continue to be in peril. Afghanistan and Pakistan are tightly linked, with terrorists moving to the Pakistan border as a safe haven to train and plot. To America this border has become the most dangerous region in the world. But this problem runs across (most of the African and Asian world). The safety of...

Senate Foreign Relations Chair John Kerry (D-Mass.) on Friday morning applauded President Obama's video address to Iran. "President Obama's eloquent address to the people and leaders of Iran commemorating Nowruz can be a watershed moment in public diplomacy, with a unique president using the powers of persuasion to great effect," Kerry said in a statement.

PARIS – A new wave of nationwide strikes hit France on Thursday as angry workers demanded that President Nicolas Sarkozy open new talks on the government's policies to fight the deepening economic crisis. By mid-afternoon, tens of thousands of protesters from the public and the private sectors, including employees of Air France and oil giant Total, were marching in the streets of France's biggest cities: Paris, Marseille and Lyon. More than 200 protest marches were under way around the country as economic news worsened. The French economy is shrinking at the fastest pace in over 30 years, the national statistic...

ROME - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said he hoped to meet U.S. President Barack Obama and expressed his willingness to help mediate between the West and Iran. Assad, in an interview with Italian newspaper La Repubblica published on Wednesday, also confirmed he was ready to resume peace negotiations with Israel but expressed concern about the political climate there. “With the pullout in Iraq, the will for peace, the closing of Guantanamo, (Obama) has shown himself to be a man of his word,” he said, referring to the U.S. naval base in Cuba where hundreds of suspected Islamist militants have been...