Obama aides at Dharamsala

Senior Obama administration officials held talks with top members of the Tibetan government in-exile at its headquarters at Dharamsala, Himachal Pradesh, on Sunday, ahead of what is being described as a "significant" meeting with the Dalai Lama on Monday.

A three-member White House team led by senior presidential adviser Valerie Jarrett, which arrived on a special chartered flight at Kangra's Gaggal airstrip on Saturday afternoon, held meetings on Sunday with Tibetan "prime minister" Samdhong Rinpoche and the Dalai Lama's special envoy, Lodi Gyari.

While officials have not disclosed any details about the closed-door meetings, sources said the "discussions possibly included the possibility of reopening the Tibet-China dialogue in preparation for the US delegation's meeting with.

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Row over Obama hiding birth certificate

As President Barack Obama attempts to cool a heated racial row in the United States linked to the arrest of a black Harvard professor, a growing conspiracy claims that he is hiding a Kenyan birth certificate, making him ineligible to serve as President.

The controversy linked to Mr Obama’s birth and whether he was "genuinely" born on US soil has come alive as the President’s reaction to last week’s arrest of Henry Louis Gates Jr., a black Harvard professor, threatens to spark a racial row and dent his reputation. Conspiracy theorists in the US and far right wingers, who have begun to call themselves "birthers", claim that Mr Obama is not entitled to be in the White House simply because he is "foreign born", the Daily Telegraph newspaper reported.

According to the conspiracists, there is something suspicious in the absence of a photocopy of Mr Obama’s original birth record, known as the "long form", even as the White House has published copies of his official birth certificate — a printed summary of his birth details, including the name of the medical centre in Honolulu, Hawaii, where he was born.

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Obama set to unveil 12 billion dollars college plan

US President Barack Obama will unveil a $12 billion initiative to boost community colleges and propel the US towards his goal of having the highest proportion of college graduates in the world by 2020, administration officials said.

The 10-year programme, which he will announce during a visit to Macomb Community College in Warren, Michigan, includes a new goal of graduating an additional 5 million students from community colleges over the next decade, double the current number of expected graduates.

Education is the often-forgotten third pillar of Mr Obama’s economic plan and has received far less attention than the other two — healthcare reform and renewable energy.

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Obama salary 400,000 dollars a year

Guess how much does United States President Barack Obama earn? A cool salary of $400,000 a year in cash, a new list has revealed.

Well his staffers are also doing well with almost half the presidential income. In fact, the list sent to US Congress has revealed the salaries of 487 White House Office employees, capped at $172,200, the Chicago Sun Times reported.

The $172,200 earners from Chicago are senior adviser David chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, senior adviser Valerie Jarrett and Susan Sher, chief of staff to the First Lady Michelle Obama.

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Obama seeks a new beginning with Islam

Quoting from the Quran for emphasis, US President Barack Obama on Thursday called for a “new beginning between the United States and Muslims” and said that together, they could confront violent extremism across the globe and advance the timeless search for peace in West Asia.

“This cycle of suspicion and discord must end,” Mr Obama said in a widely anticipated speech in one of the world’s largest Muslim countries, an address designed to reframe relations after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the US-led war in Iraq.

The White House said Mr Obama’s speech contained no new policy proposals on West Asia. He said American ties with Israel are unbreakable, yet issued a firm, even handed call to the Jewish state and Palestinians alike to live up to their international obligations.

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Obama policy on Business Process Outsourcings to backfire

US President Barack Obama, fighting to cope with the superpower’s super-recession and job losses, on Monday unveiled new proposals to end tax breaks for American companies that ship jobs overseas to countries like India.

Though the move will impact roughly 10 lakh information technology professionals in India, the Indian IT industry has given a thick skinned response to Mr Obama’s whiplash at Bengaluru, synonymous the world over with India’s technology outsourcing industry, saying that the proposals do not threaten outsourcing and offshoring to Indian companies such as Infosys and Wipro, but would instead make iconic American companies such as IBM and HP, which run large outsourcing centres in India, less competitive.

“It has very little to do with Indian firms which pay the US taxes for their operations in that country. It targets US subsidiaries,” Mr Som Mittal, president of the Indian software industry’s lobbying body Nasscom, said.

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Obama on Arab Television: United States not the enemy

US President Barack Obama chose an Arabic satellite TV network for his first formal TV interview as President, delivering a message on Tuesday to the Muslim world that “Americans are not your enemy”.

The interview underscored Mr Obama’s commitment to repair relations with the Muslim world that have suffered under the previous administration. The President expressed an intention to engage West Asia immediately, and his new envoy to the region, former senator George J. Mitchell, was expected to arrived in Egypt on Tuesday for a visit that will also take him to Israel, the West Bank, Jordan, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

“My job to the Muslim world is to communicate that the Americans are not your enemy,” Mr Obama told the Saudi owned, Dubai-based Al-Arabiya news channel. Mr Obama noted that the US had made mistakes in the past, but “that the same respect and partnership that America had with the Muslim world as recently as 20 or 30 years ago, there’s no reason why we can’t restore that”.

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Obama, Biden roll into Washington by train

Barack Obama warned Americans on Saturday of the vast challenges ahead as he rolled by train into Washington, kicking off three days of celebration of his inauguration as the 44th President of the United States.

Mr Obama waved to crowds from the back of a vintage train car and stopped twice for rallies in frigid weather on the more than 7-hour journey from Philadelphia to Washington, where he takes office on Tuesday amid the deepest economic crisis in generations and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“Only a handful of times in our history has a genera tion been confronted with challenges so vast,” Mr Obama said as he began the trip in Philadelphia, evoking the patriots who launched the American fight for independence in the city in 1776.

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McCain catches right hooks

When Colin Powell endorsed Barack Obama last weekend, he became the most prominent voice yet to join a growing chorus of disillusioned conservatives now openly criticising Republican candidates John McCain and Sarah Palin.

Last month, the Pulitzer prize-winning conservative columnist George F. Will compared Senator McCain’s response to the financial crisis with that of “a flustered rookie playing in a league too high” and described his temperament as “dismaying”.

Shortly after Will’s baseball analogy, columnist Kathleen Parker wrote in the right-wing National Review that, to her great disappointment, governor Palin was “clearly out of her league” and urged her to bow out as contender for the vice-presidency.

New York Times columnist David Brooks, himself a former National Review writer, then joined the fray, making the now infamous remark that Palin represented “a fatal cancer to the Republican Party”.

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Phelps hosts Palin parody for SNL viewers

Live from New York... it’s Tina Fey as governor Sarah Palin.

After wild conjecture over who would play senator John McCain’s running mate on Saturday Night Live, Fey returned to her old show for an opening sketch featuring her and Fey’s former Weekend Update co-host Amy Poehler as senator Hillary Clinton.

The NBC comedy show’s season premiere opened on Saturday with a “nonparti san message” where the two pleaded for an end to sexism in the Presidential campaigns — which have seen Palin enjoy sudden popularity after Clinton’s loss to senator Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination. “I didn’t want a woman to be President, I wanted to be President,” said Poehler, reprising her caricature of Clinton.

Many have said Fey bears a resemblance to Palin, a comparison alluded to in the sketch. A frustrated Clinton eventually broke down, complaining about Palin’s ease of ascendance and her “Tina Fey glasses.”

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Sarah targets Obama, leaves United States electrified

US Republican presidential nominee John McCain has a new attack dog. Her name is Sarah Palin, and she bites hard.

The Alaska governor’s mocking critique of Democrat Barack Obama and the Washington elite charged up Republicans looking for signs of hope that she and Mr John McCain can win the White House on November 4.

Now it is Mr McCain’s turn. The Arizona senator, nominated for President after Ms Palin spoke, will deliver a tele vised address on Thursday night accepting that nomination.

Ms Palin, 44, Mr McCain’s vice-presidential running mate, drew shouts of “Sarah, Sarah” on Wednesday in her national political debut, unleashing red-meat rhetoric against Mr Obama that had been largely lacking from this four-day event.

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Obama wins, makes history

After making history by capturing the Democratic nomination, Barack Obama turns on Wednesday to unifying a fractured party for a five month battle for the White House against Republican John McCain.

Mr Obama rocketed from political obscurity to become the first black American to win the presidential nomination of a major US party. The Illinois senator on Tuesday locked up the 2,118 delegates he needs for victory at the August convention.

Rival Hillary Clinton, the former First Lady who entered the race 17 months ago as a heavy favourite, said she would consult party leaders and supporters about her next move.

Mr Obama will be crowned the Democratic nominee at the convention in August and faces Mr McCain in November to choose a successor to President George W. Bush.

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As Hillary fades, Obama readies to fight McCain

Barack Obama began sketching the outlines of his expected presidential contest against Republican John McCain, saying the November election will be more about specific plans and priorities than about questions of political ideology or patriotism. Barely mentioning Democratic rival Hillary Rodham Clinton, Mr Obama said he was open to campaigning with Mr McCain in "town hall" events. Mr McCain's advisers have already said he would be open to holding such joint forums or unmoderated debates in which both candidates would take questions from voters.

Mr Obama warned that he won't stay away from controversial issues and he attacked Mr McCain's proposal for a temporary halt in the federal petrol tax as a "pander."

The turn toward campaigning against Mr McCain and not Ms Clinton came as Mr Obama, who would be the nation's first black President, surpassed Ms Clinton on Saturday in the all important count of super delegates. Super delegates are the nearly 800 party and elected officials who attend the Democratic national convention this August in Denver and are free to support whom ever they choose, regardless of the primary results.

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Comeback by Hillary

Hillary Rodham Clinton defeated Barack Obama in Ohio and Texas on Tuesday, ending a string of defeats and allowing her to soldier on in a Democratic presidential nomination race that now seems unlikely to end any time soon.

Ms Clinton also won Rhode Island, while Mr Obama won in Vermont. But the results mean that Ms Clinton won the two states she most needed to keep her candidacy alive.

Her victory in Texas was razor thin and came only after most Americans had gone to bed. But by winning decisively in Ohio earlier in the evening, Ms Clinton was able to deliver a televised victory speech in time for the late-night news. And the result there allowed her to cast Tuesday as the beginning of a comeback even though she stood a good chance of gaining no ground against Mr Obama in the hunt for delegates.

"No candidate in recent history Democratic or Republican - has won the White House without winning the Ohio primary," Ms Clinton said at a rally in Columbus, Ohio. "We all know that if we want a Democratic President, we need a Democratic nominee who can win Democratic states just like Ohio."

On the Republican side, Senator John McCain swept to victory in Ohio, Rhode Island, Texas and Vermont and claimed his party's nomination, capping a remarkable comeback in his second bid for the presidency.



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