Since Barack Obama was elected the 44th president of the USA, he has largely remained out of sight, getting high-level government briefings and conferring with his transition team. But he eventually surfaced, alongside his wife Michelle to give 60 Minutes his first post-election interview.
Sarah Palin would call this place, and these people, the real America - Joe the Plumber country. But Oxford's plumber, Calvin Colony, keeps pet lions ("You can train 'em, but you can never tame 'em") and makes annual treks to a nudist resort in the Caribbean. The Oxford Project is full of such small, exquisite discoveries - personal stories that defy and debunk the stereotypes of smalltown America.
Via Philadelphia Inquirer
While advocating regulatory reform and new rules on accounting and fraud, President George W. Bush yesterday said world leaders should rely on capitalism and free markets to see them through the financial turmoil.
A new approach to the Middle East is necessary, says Dr Claire Spencer of Chatham House. But first, Barack Obama must lower expectations.
A hour with linguist, political activist & writer Noam Chomsky. He talks about the crisis in the Middle East and the communicative power of Internet. Professor Chomsky also discusses his book, "America's Quest for Global Dominance".
From deep within the Colombian jungle, this documentary tells the story of three American defense contractors held hostage since their plane crashed in 2003.
This list features the websites for key political party websites based on US Internet usage. This ranking list has been customized to feature only select websites.Note: Hitwise data is based on US market share of visits, which is the percentage of online traffic to the Lifestyle - Politics category, from the Hitwise sample of 10 million US Internet users. Hitwise measures more than 1 million unique websites on a daily basis, including sub-domains of larger websites.
- The Huffington Post
- BarrackObama.com
- CNN Political Ticker
- Free Republic
- RealClearPolitics
- HilaryClinton.com
- Politico
- Elections: Fox News
- Daily Kos
- Election: MSN
Hitwise categorizes websites into industries on the basis of subject matter and content, as well as market orientation and competitive context.
Source - Hitwise - week ending March 8, 2008 - based on market share of visits.
What do the arch hawks of the Bush administration, such as Paul Wolfowitz, have in common with Iran’s Revolutionary Guard?
Answer: they both fêted Ahmad Chalabi, the former Iraqi banker who put “regime change” in Baghdad at the top of US agenda. Chalabi attracts adoration and enmity in equal measure and has courted controversy through his life.
Chalabi comes across here as a charismatic, Machiavellian individual, fascinated with the world of intelligence from the beginning. He moved the Washington establishment towards the invasion of Iraq but appears to have paid no thought about what to do afterwards, except that he wanted a central role.
There is much detail here about how he took tens of millions of dollars, first from the CIA, with whom he fell out; then from the State department, with whom he fell out; and then from the defence department, with whom he fell out. Government auditors struggled in vain to discover how this money was spent.
Chalabi often promised more than he delivered. He was to provide troops for the Free Iraqi Forces, which the Pentagon would train to enter Iraq.
A training centre was established, where 1,100 US soldiers and trainers waited, but Chalabi sent nobody. The programme cost an estimated $200m and the number of Iraqis trained was, in the words of a general, “teeny-tiny”.
Via FT
There are two distinct versions of the operation mounted by the US Navy to shoot down a crippled military satellite over the Pacific. The official version, expounded in mind-numbing detail by Pentagon officials yesterday, is that the US had no choice but to launch a missile to bring down the satellite.
It had been out of control since its launch 13 months ago.
A supplementary argument, not broached by the Pentagon, was that the military technology loaded on to the satellite was not anything that America wanted another country to find on its territory.
The other interpretation of the mission is not incompatible with the first but far more worrying. While acknowledging that the satellite was in trouble and a missile strike was one way of dealing with it, this version has it that the operation was in fact a covert test of a space weapon.
Such tests were outlawed by the US-Soviet Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty of 1972. By abrogating the treaty in one of his first acts as President, George Bush opened the way for tests of the "son" of Reagan's "Star Wars".
Since then, the US has conducted a series of experiments in which missiles have been launched to intercept other missiles, with varying degrees of success.
A year ago, China surprised America when it shot down a satellite at a very high altitude. It was the most glaring demonstration yet of China's steady rise as a military power. It is hard not to regard this week's show of missile prowess by the US as directed towards China. Beijing, for one, was in no doubt.
Via The-Independent
A steady drumbeat of leaks suggests that the US and/or Israel may attack Iran sometime over the coming months. Once Upon a Time in Iran is a road movie featuring pilgrims and presidents: a journey to the spiritual heartlands of the Iranian people and a tale of martyrdom that defines their view of aggressors.
Osama bin-Laden's son has said he wants to become an "ambassador for peace" between Muslims and the West.
Omar 'Osama bin-Laden', 26, said that he was planning a horse race across North-Africa to promote peace between nations.
"A lot of people think Arabs - especially the bin-Ladens - are all terrorists. This is not the truth," Omar told AP in the Egyptian capital, Cairo.
Via BBC
1991: Iraqi Scud missiles hit IsraelIraq has attacked two Israeli cities with Scud-missiles, prompting fears that Israel may be drawn into the Gulf-War.
Israel's largest city, Tel-Aviv, and Haifa, its main seaport, were hit in the attacks, which began at 0300 local time, when most residents were asleep.
In-Context
Iraq fired Scud missiles at Israeli cities again the next day and throughout the Gulf War, but failed to provoke Israel into unilateral retaliation.
After more than a month of intensive air attacks, the Allies launched a land offensive on 24 February. One day later, the Iraqis began retreating.
Via BBC
Iranian President Mahmoud-Ahmadinejad has accused US President George Bush of "sowing the seeds of division" during his recent Middle-East visit.
"The Zionist entity is not lacking new weapons in its arsenal, but I believe it will not save it from its doomed collapse," - Ahmadinejad
Mr Ahmadinejad said Mr Bush had brought a "message of confrontation" during his tour, during which he warned Arab allies that Iran posed a threat.
Israel says Tehran could have a nuclear bomb by 2010 and has warned an Iranian nuclear weapon would threaten its existence.
E-mail messages sent and received by White-House personnel during the first three years of the Bush-administration were routinely "recycled,".
During the period in question, the Bush presidency faced some of its biggest controversies, including the Iraq-war.Two federal statutes require presidential-communications, including e-mails involving senior White House aides, to be preserved for the nation's historical record.
Some historians responded to the court disclosure yesterday by urging that the White House's actions be thoroughly probed.
"There certainly could have been hugely important-materials there . . . and of course they're not owned by President Bush or anybody in the administration, they're owned by the public," said presidential historian Robert-Dallek.
White House spokesman Tony Fratto said he has no reason to believe any E-mails were deliberately destroyed.
The court filing said tapes were recycled before October 2003, and at that point, the White House "began preserving and storing all backup tapes."
Via Washington-Post
Homeland Security Secretary Michael-Chertoff said yesterday that one of the biggest threats to American security may now come from Europe.
"One of the things we have become concerned about lately is the possibility of Europe becoming a platform for a threat against the United-States," Chertoff said.
In an interview with BBC, Chertoff said that American authorities were becoming increasingly aware of a real risk of Europe becoming a "platform for terrorists."
Via NY-Post
The term "Cold War" was introduced in 1947 by Americans Bernard Baruch and Walter Lippmann to describe emerging tensions between two former-allies.
It was the period of conflict, tension and competition between the United States and Soviet-Union and their respective allies from the mid-40s till early-90s.
Link > CNN Special: Cold War
