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US President Barack Obama has expressed his "deep sympathy" to South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak and the Korean people for the 46 sailors who lost their lives aboard the warship, Gibbs said. "The United States strongly condemns the act of aggression that led to their deaths," he added.

According to tomorrow's New Statesman, Barack Obama was unimpressed by his encounter with David Cameron earlier this year and commented: "What a lightweight!" According to James Macintyre's report, Cameron's attempt to stress his pro-American and Eurosceptic credentials did not meet with Obama's approval. According to Macintyre's diplomatic sources, the Democratic candidate was "distinctly unimpressed" and labelled Cameron a lightweight. Macintyre notes that 48 hours earlier Obama had delivered a speech in Berlin stressing "the importance of Europe's role in our security and our future". Following the meeting with Cameron, Obama apparently asked officials for more information on Tory Euroscepticism. Macintyre...

Noman Benotman, leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group and associate of Osama bin Laden, says bin Laden had no idea the United States would launch an all-out war against terrorism when they planned the 911 attacks. WTOP quotes Benotman as saying “What happened after the 11th of September was beyond their imagination, ” says Benotman, who adds that al-Qaida thought the U.S. was a “paper tiger.” bin Laden thought President George W. Bush would do the same thing Bill Clinton did in retaliation for terrorist attacks: launch a few cruise missiles at some camels and quickly forget the attack...

Brilliant, Pres. Obama. Simply brilliant. Way to go to fortify relations with our reliable allies in the region, particularly with a key lynchpin like JAPAN.The upshot in the original Japanese was that Japan was snubbed in D.C. for an individual "summit meeting" with Obama, while Obama on the other hand kowtowed and gave the Red Chinese the red carpet (literally) treatment.Note, no "kowtow" to Prime Minister Hatoyama (Japan) that there was to Red Chinese President Hu Jin Tao. This I assure you was not lost on Tokyo (nor Beijing, Seoul, Pyongyang, Taipei, Moscow, Teheran, Damascus, Tel Aviv etc for that...

The long-simmering clash between the world's two great powers is coming to a head, with dangerous implications for the international system. China has succumbed to hubris. It has mistaken the soft diplomacy of Barack Obama for weakness, mistaken the US credit crisis for decline, and mistaken its own mercantilist bubble for ascendancy. There are echoes of Anglo-German spats before the First World War, when Wilhelmine Berlin so badly misjudged the strategic balance of power and over-played its hand. Within a month the US Treasury must rule whether China is a "currency manipulator", triggering sanctions under US law. This has been...

The Obama administration will move ahead with Senate ratification of a treaty banning nuclear tests that was voted down by Republicans more than a decade ago, Vice President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. said Thursday. In a speech setting out the administration's arms-control agenda, Mr. Biden also said the United States will continue to pursue President Obama's call for the elimination of all U.S. nuclear arms, but defended spending $7 billion in the coming year to repair an aging arsenal.

Why Cheney attacks By: Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei February 13, 2010 03:09 PM EST Former Vice President Cheney will appear on ABC's "This Week" on Sunday, and it’s a safe bet what he will say: President Barack Obama projects weakness to terrorists and puts American lives at risk. It’s the kind of brutal charge — nuance-free and politically explosive — that has become a Cheney specialty since he left office 13 months ago. Cheney’s broadsides on Afghanistan policy, detention and surveillance policies, and Obama’s general philosophy about the U.S. role in a dangerous world inevitably dominate the news. No...

U.S. President Barack Obama bows to Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio at MacDill Air Force Base on Thursday, Jan. 28, 2010 in Tampa, Fla.

A squishy, misguided, weak-kneed liberalism has emerged in Hillary Clinton's comments about the kind of sanctions that would work best in halting Iran's nuclear program. Rather than take the one step that would really be effective -- cutting off the flow of refined gasoline to Iran -- she instead insists that we need to target the Iranian leadership with sanctions. Her husband wisely rejected the same kind of advice in deciding on the sanctions to impose on Serbia during the Bosnia war, opting for broad-based economic sanctions to deter aggression. The sanctions were incredibly effective, and the mere threat of...

COPENHAGEN — As President Barack Obama jetted off to save the climate talks Thursday night, his allies at home and overseas were engaged in another rescue mission of sorts: guarding his prestige from taking a hit if the talks flop. Obama’s aides have spent weeks tamping down expectations that he can be the decisive factor at COP-15, going so far as to schedule his visit during the doldrums of the conference’s first week until a backlash forced them to reschedule him for an appearance at Friday’s finale. On Thursday night, senior administration officials touted the day’s modest progress after Secretary...

On the eve of the unveiling of the nation’s new Afghanistan policy, former Vice President Dick Cheney slammed President Barack Obama for projecting “weakness” to adversaries and warned that more workaday Afghans will side with the Taliban if they think the United States is heading for the exits. In a 90-minute interview at his suburban Washington house, Cheney said the president’s “agonizing” about Afghanistan strategy “has consequences for your forces in the field.” “I begin to get nervous when I see the commander in chief making decisions apparently for what I would describe as small ‘p’ political reasons, where he’s...

Attorney General Holder has announced that he intends to bring the 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to trial in Federal Court in New York City. AG Holder made this decision in part becasue he believes the 9/11 attacks were primarily against citizens, and therefore should be held in a federal court. 9/11 was an act of war by a non state actor, typically defined as terrorism. The purpose of the attack was not to kill American citizens. The attack was designed to weaken the United States ability to respond to the longer term efforts efforts by Osama bin Laden and...

So much of an idiot, in fact, that according to Tapper’s source, at least one Japanese paper isn’t running the photo out of embarrassment. This tool actually groveled himself into a minor international incident. The good news for O-bots? It wasn’t unprecedented. Nixon evidently made a modest bow to Hirohito in the early 70s. The bad news? “Obama’s handshake/forward lurch was so jarring and inappropriate it recalls Bush’s back-rub of Merkel. “Kyodo News is running his appropriate and reciprocated nod and shake with the Empress, certainly to show the president as dignified, and not in the form of a first...

One of President Obama's major campaign promises was to improve the United States reputation abroad. I wonder if he meant that he was going to make America the butt of the World's Jokes. Yesterday the POTUS had another Protocol faux pas by bowing down to Japanese Emperor Akihito, the second time he bowed down to a world leader (King Fahd of Saudi Arabia was the first). By subordinating himself to other world leaders the President has damaged the prestige of the office he holds and of the country. The press in other countries are now running stories with headlines calling...

Bad enough that Obama bowed down to another head of state yesterday. Even worse that he did not bother to learn how one bows in Japan, and just winged it. I agree with Scott Johnson, Steve Gilbert, Andrew Malcom, and many others that the President of the United States should not be bowing before any head of state. But unlike these astute observers, I actually know a little something about the art of the bow in Japan, having lived in Japan four different times on a resident visa, taught East Asian Studies at Harvard, and counseled many hundreds of American,...

It's one thing to avoid the "terrorist" label when reporting on Ft. Hood suspect Major Nidal Hasan. It's quite another to say that those who do use it are making a political calculation to "paint the Democrats as soft terror." Yet that's what MSNBC's Rachel Maddow insisted on her Nov. 11 broadcast. Maddow launched into a minute-and-a-half soliloquy on why it is bad for the Democratic Party when commentators label Hasan a "terrorist." She even attempted to make the case on Hasan's behalf against a terrorism label. Who needs a legal team when you have friends like Maddow and Chris...

President Obama has staked his reputation on being a human rights guru to people around the world. But his remarks at Tuesday's news conference and behavior since taking office have instead exposed a different persona--that of human rights charlatan. On June 15, three days after the phony Iranian elections and the same day that seven Iranian demonstrators were murdered, Obama's UN Ambassador, Susan Rice, made a speech in Vienna promoting the Saint Obama vision: "The responsibility to protect is a duty that I feel deeply. … We must prepare for the likelihood that we will again face the worst impulses...

BBC LATEST: Headline Only US President Obama Says He Will Not Rush "Solemn Decision" To Commit Troops To Afghanistan

Benjamin Disraeli's most famous advice to aspiring politicians was: "Never complain and never explain." For the greatest orator of our time, a man who makes Churchill, Lincoln and Henry V at Agincourt look like first-round rejects on "Orating With The Stars," Barack Obama seems to have pretty much given up on the explaining side. He tried it with health care with speech after speech after exclusive interview for months on end, and the more he explained the more unpopular the whole racket got. So he declared that the time for explaining is over, and it's time to sign on or...