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The United States took another punitive measure against Russia Tuesday, announcing it would not participate in a G8 Summit scheduled for Sochi in June unless Moscow reversed course on Ukraine, Reuters reported. The move followed an hour-long phone conversation between President Obama and West German Chancellor Angela Merkel that senior administration officials told Fox News focused on trying to construct a diplomatic off-ramp to get Russian President Vladimir Putin to de-escalate the situation in Ukraine. The White House released a statement saying the two leaders “agreed on the importance of de-escalating the situation, including through the deployment international observers and...

In stark contrast to that of his presidential predecessors, Barack Obama’s message on Wednesday was pure mush, another clichéd “citizens of the world” polemic with little substance. This was a speech big on platitudes and hopeless idealism, while containing much that was counter-productive for the world’s superpower. Ultimately it was little more than a laundry list of Obama’s favourite liberal pet causes, including cutting nuclear weapons, warning about climate change, putting an end to all wars, shutting Guantanamo, ending global poverty, and backing the European Project. It was a combination of staggering naiveté, the appeasement of America’s enemies and strategic...

It's already been firmly established that if a person, group or ideology disagrees with Barack Obama, he becomes fixated on them and then, any opportunity he gets, he makes provocative comments that could be interpreted as a warning shot. The message? Barack Obama doesn't forget ideological unfaithfulness, and if he can, he'll shut you up by shutting you down. The president has imposed his bad attitude on, to name but a few: Conservatives, specifically of the tea party brand, right-leaning talk radio, Fox News, and the group the left views as the seat of pro-life advocacy, the Catholic Church. Catholicism...

During a speech yesterday in Belfast, President Barack Obama criticized Catholic education, suggesting that it’s harmful to national unity. “If towns remain divided—if Catholics have their schools and buildings and Protestants have theirs, if we can’t see ourselves in one another and fear or resentment are allowed to harden—that too encourages division and discourages cooperation,” said the President, during his Northern Ireland Visit for the G8 summit. The Scottish Catholic Observer pointed out that Archbishop Gerhard Müller, prefect of the Vatican's Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, recently praised Catholic education before a Scottish audience.

U.S. President Barack Obama reacts as the sun comes out as he works alongside Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron and students on a school project about the G8 summit during a visit to the Enniskillen Integrated Primary School in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland, Monday, June 17, 2013. U.S. President Barack Obama (L) meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin during the G8 Summit at Lough Erne in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland June 17, 2013. Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron (2nd R) arrives for a group photo with (L-R) European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, German Chancellor Angela Merkel,...

June 17, 2013 Obama assassination bid fears - aircraft carriers on standby off Irish coast during G8 summit @Press Eye Ltd Northern Ireland - 17th June 2013 - Mandatory Credit - Brian Little/ Presseye --- Culture Minister Carl N Chuiln and Minister for Education, John O'Dowd MLA waiting for US President Barack Obama during his visit to the Waterfront Hall, Belfast ahead of the G8 Summit in County Fermanagh. ..It is understood that a contingency plan is in place for the unlikely event that an attempt would be made on the President’s life. The Secret Service also have diplomatic immunity...

US President Barack Obama has said the road to a lasting peace in Northern Ireland is "as urgent now as it has ever been". The president was addressing a gathering at the Waterfront Hall in Belfast, ahead of the G8 summit in County Fermanagh. President Obama said there was "more to lose now" than before.

British Prime Minister David Cameron says leaders gathering Monday for the G-8 summit in Northern Ireland should reach speedy agreement on trade and tax reforms, and draw inspiration from the host country’s ability to resolve its own stubborn conflict. … Referring to Northern Ireland’s ability to leave behind a four-decade conflict that claimed 3,700 lives, he said leaders of the Group of Eight wealthy nations should be inspired by the setting—the lush lakelands of County Fermanagh—to deliver their own economic breakthrough. … Obama, seizing on that theme, was beginning his trip in the Northern Ireland capital of Belfast, where he’s...

When the G8 world leaders fly into Northern Ireland for their major summit there on June 17, they will see a vista of progress that has been created to deceive them. According to Ireland’s national broadcaster, RTE, local councils have hired workers to paint fake shop fronts stocked with attractive but illusory produce. They have also been contracted to cover derelict buildings with colorful billboards, the better to hide the real economic hardship being felt in towns and villages close to the five star golf resort where G8 leaders will meet this month.

A weekend summit of G8 leaders hosted by US President Barack Obama stressed the need for the eurozone to focus on keeping Greece inside the euro—although plans are reportedly being drafted to deal with its potential exit. "Our imperative is to promote growth and jobs.The global economic recovery shows signs of promise, but significant headwinds persist," leaders from the US, Japan, Canada, the UK, Germany, Italy, France and Russia, as well as the heads of the EU commission and the European Council, said in their final statement on Saturday (19 May). The informal meeting at Obama's retreat in Maryland was...

Israel will not be invited to NATO's May 20-21 summit in Chicago, the alliance's top official said Friday. But he denied that alliance member Turkey had blocked Israel's participation. Instead, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the reason is because Israel does not participate in NATO's main military missions. News reports have claimed that Turkey blocked Israel's participation because of the raid in 2010 by Israeli troops on ships heading to Gaza in which eight Turks and a Turkish-American died. NATO has a system of partnerships with dozens of nations across the globe such as the Mediterranean Dialogue, a NATO...

Just days after reclaiming the Russian presidency, Vladimir Putin has canceled his planned visit to the United States, where he'd been scheduled to attend a major economic summit and meet with President Obama. The White House confirmed in a statement late Wednesday that Putin told Obama on a phone call he'd be sending Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev in his place. Putin claimed he was too busy finalizing cabinet appointments to make the May 18-19 G-8 Summit at Camp David. Yet the Obama administration had moved the gathering to the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland from the planned venue in...

In a surprise turnaround, the White House announced Monday afternoon that Chicago won’t be hosting the controversial G-8 summit after all. It will be held at Camp David instead of Chicago. The NATO summit will proceed here May 20-21. City Hall insisted that it was President Barack Obama’s decision — that Mayor Rahm Emanuel did not ask the White House to take the more controversial of the two summits off Chicago’s hands. One leading demonstrator pledged the protests “will go forward” here despite the switch. The White House issued a terse statement dropping the bombshell shortly before 3 p.m. “In...

This spring’s G-8 summit has been moved from Chicago to Camp David, though the NATO summit scheduled for the same weekend is staying in Chicago.

Former tenants of college dorms, parent’s basements and police drunk tanks currently known as OWS (Occupy Wall Street) protesters have alternately amused and disgusted television audiences across the nation. Deluded enough to believe “the world is watching” and actually supportive of their disgraceful antics, this crew of doped-up reprobates has proudly defecated on police cars and turned city parks into slums, all the while demanding free goods and services from politicians, city officials and local vendors. New York‘s Zuccotti Park–squatter central for the Big Apple’s OWS contingent–has become “…a breeding ground for bacterial infection loaded with potential health-code violations…” said...

Posted on May 29, 2011 by Anthony Watts Image: Sierra Club CompassSaturday, 28 May 2011 16:58 Agence France-Presse DEAUVILLE, France: Russia, Japan and Canada told the G8 they would not join a second round of carbon cuts under the Kyoto Protocol at United Nations talks this year and the US reiterated it would remain outside the treaty, European diplomats have said.The future of the Kyoto Protocol has become central to efforts to negotiate reductions of carbon emissions under the UN’s Framework Convention on Climate Change, whose annual meeting will take place in Durban, South Africa, from November 28 to December...

A specter is haunting the world: the specter of Canada. To hear President Obama's supporters tell it, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper is a one-man economic wrecking crew. He led the charge at the G-8 summit to endorse the goal of advanced nations cutting their deficits in half by 2013. Obama only reluctantly went along, warning of the ill effects of what the intellectual architects of his stimulus package plaintively call "premature austerity." This dreaded austerity has treated our friendly neighbors to the north quite well. If deficit spending is the engine of growth, Canada should be a nation of...

In her new memoir, former first lady Laura Bush writes that she, her husband and the American delegation may have been poisoned at the 2007 G-8 summit hosted by Germany. German federal investigators as well as the kitchen staff at the Grand Hotel Heiligendamm refute her account. Steffen Duckhorn still remembers well the day Laura Bush thought she might die. He was feeling a bit worked up because he had heard that President George W. Bush, who was attending the G-8 summit in June 2007 in Heiligendamm, Germany, wasn't feeling well. Duckhorn had cooked for the president, and Bush was...

The former first lady Laura Bush has opened a diplomatic can of worms by writing in her new book that she and her husband may have been poisoned during a state visit to a G8 summit in Germany in 2007. The passage of Spoken From the Heart in which she discusses the incident amounts to the first time that the idea has been floated that George Bush's illness at the summit may have been the result of poisoning. The then US president succumbed to a stomach complaint, as did his wife and several members of their entourage, during a three-day...

A powder sent to the American embassy in Rome during last week's G8 in Italy was the ashes of the sender's wife, it emerged today. Officials at the embassy went into overdrive when the envelope arrived last Wednesday, just hours before President Barack Obama arrived in the Italian capital for the summit. The post room of the building was sealed off and staff evacuated as police scientists in protective overalls arrived to take the powder away amid fears it could be an anthrax terror attack.