WASHINGTON -President Barack Obama on Friday trimmed his funding request for the war in Afghanistan and other overseas operations by 10 per cent, reflecting his plans to wind down the US presence in that country.The president asked for $79.4 billion to fund so-called overseas contingency operations ...

WASHINGTONPresident Barack Obama has warned that a spate of sexual assaults in the military endangered US national security and vowed to do everything possible to fix the problem.Obama promised to act as he met Secretary of Defence Chuck Hagel, the highest ranking US military officer Army General ...

WASHINGTON - US President Barack Obama and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed to crank up pressure on Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad Thursday, but offered no concrete new measures to do so.Obama warned there was no “magic formula” to force Assad to leave power, ...

WASHINGTON - US President Barack Obama warned Thursday that national security leaks to the news media could cost lives, defending his administration’s pursuit of those who reveal classified information.But Obama said it was important to find a balance between security and press freedom, as he ...

Well, that didn’t take long. Four months into a fresh four years, President Obama is already assuming the familiar crouch of a scandal-struck second-termer.British Prime Minister David Cameron was visiting the White House on Monday morning and the two leaders were scheduled to hold a news ...

WASHINGTON - US President Barack Obama telephoned PML-N chief and prime minister-in-waiting Nawaz Sharif and congratulated him on his party’s victory in last weekend’s historic polls, the White House said Tuesday, while pledging to continue US-Pakistan cooperative relations with the ...

WASHINGTON  - President Barack Obama on Sunday said his administration looks forward to working with the government emerging from the historic polls as equal partners in supporting a more stable Pakistan, as he congratulated the Pakistani people on successful completion of Saturday’s ...

WASHINGTON : -President Barack Obama on Saturday claimed credit for the country's improved housing market and urged the US Congress to approve a new head of an agency that oversees housing loan agencies. Seven years after the real estate bubble burst, "triggering the worst economic crisis since the ...

SAN JOSE : The CARACAS (AFP) - Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro took a swipe at Barack Obama on Saturday, calling him the "grand chief of devils" after the US president declined to recognize his contested re-election. "Coming out of Central America, Obama let loose with a bunch of impertinent ...

SAN JOSE : The United States is watching "crackdowns on the opposition" in Venezuela, President Barack Obama said in a television interview aired on Friday when asked if he considered newly elected Nicolas Maduro to be the country's legitimate president. Maduro, elected in April by a narrow margin, ...

  PETER FOSTER For the men and women involved in running the Guantanamo Bay prison camp, it must have been disconcerting, to say the least, to have heard their Commander-in-Chief share his personal views on their little corner of Cuba quite so bluntly. “Guantanamois not necessary to ...

SAN FRANCISCO: The technology team behind US President Barack Obama’s successful re-election campaign joined a star-studded list of Webby Award winners honored Tuesday for “Internet excellence.”Members of Obama’s tech team took home a Breakout of the Year award for a ...

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama said on Tuesday that his administration would reengage Congress on closing the notorious US military run prison at Guantanamo Bay."It needs to be closed," Obama said at a White House news conference. "I'm going to go back at this."Obama's comments came amid ...

WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama poked fun at himself, his political opponents, the news media and even his wife's hairstyle late Saturday at the annual White House Correspondents' Dinner.The dinner, where around 3,000 guests dine in a massive hotel ballroom, is greeted with near hysteria in ...

washington - President Barack Obama on Saturday called on the US Congress to end the “reckless” and “dumb” budget cuts known as the sequester, and to adopt a plan of “smarter” cuts to fuel economic growth.Obama’s weekly address comes after Congress on ...

CONN HALLINANIn the current crisis on the Korean Peninsula the Obama administration is virtually repeating the 2004 Bush playbook, one that derailed a successful diplomatic agreement forged by the Clinton administration to prevent North Korea from acquiring nuclear weapons? While the acute tensions ...

WASHINGTON - Hackers spooked markets Tuesday after breaking into the Associated Press’s Twitter account and falsely reporting President Barack Obama had been injured after two blasts at the White House.A brief alert on the news agency’s @AP account read: “Breaking: Two explosions ...

  George W. Bush is riding high. A megamillionaire, from the taxpayer-subsidized Texas Rangers company, he makes $150,000 to $200,000 per speech, receives a large presidential pension and support facilities and is about to dedicate the $500 million George W. Bush Presidential Library and ...

NEW YORK A defiant President Barack Obama vowed Thursday that Americans will move beyond the Boston Marathon bomb attack by bringing the perpetrators to justice - and by refusing to live in fear.“Yes, we will find you, and yes, you will face justice,” Obama said. “But more than ...

MOSCOW, Russia  - President Barack Obama's national security advisor on Monday handed a "constructive" message from the US leader to Russian President Vladimir Putin, days after the former foes exchanged Cold War-style blacklists in a row over human rights.The Kremlin praised the note, ...

President Barack Obama vowed on Tuesday that the United States will find out who carried out explosions in Boston and will hold them accountable."We still do not know who did this or why, and people shouldn't jump to conclusions before we have all the facts," Obama said in a televised ...

WASHINGTON - Several former administration officials who are now out of government are criticising President Barack Obama over the secretive nature of the US drone programme that has led to the killing of hundreds of civilians in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.At the same time, 10 civil and human ...

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama handed over his weekly radio address to the grieving mother of a Newtown massacre victim on Saturday as debate raged over proposed gun control legislation. In a rare move which ramped up pressure on US lawmakers ahead of debates on gun control in Congress, ...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US President Barack Obama on Tuesday spoke to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, for what officials said were regular consultations, three days after a Nato air strike killed 11 Afghan children. The White House announced the conversation, but would not divulge whether Obama mentioned ...

WASHINGTON  - The Pentagon laid out a budget plan Wednesday that holds military spending steady next year without taking into account the cost of the war in Afghanistan or looming automatic budget cuts.President Barack Obama's request of $526.6 billion for the Defence Department keeps the base ...

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama will make key concessions to Republican foes next week when he unveils his US budget that proposes cuts to cherished entitlement programs, the White House said Friday.Obama’s fiscal blueprint slashes the deficit by $1.8 trillion over 10 years, in what a ...

URI AVNERYObama in Israel: Every word right. Every gesture genuine. Every detail in its place. Perfect.Obama in Palestine: Every word wrong. Every gesture inappropriate. Every single detail misplaced. Perfect.It started from the first moment. The president of the United States came to Ramallah. He ...

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama has apologised to California’s Attorney General Kamala Devi Harris after praising her looks during remarks at a fundraiser this week, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said.Harris, 48, is the daughter of an Indian mother, Dr Shyamala Gopalan - a breast ...

WASHINGTON - Just days before a congressional deadline, the Obama administration is deeply divided over whether to designate the Pakistan-based Haqqani network as a terrorist group, with some officials worried that doing so could complicate efforts to restart peace talks with the Taliban and ...

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama used his regular weekly radio address Saturday to continue pounding away at Republican plans to overhaul Medicare, the U.S. healthcare program for the elderly.The address underscored the new prominence Medicare has assumed as a campaign issue in the past two ...