Agents find bullets that hit White House, no one hurt

The White House is pictured shortly after sunrise in Washington.

Two bullets that hit the White House, one a window and the other the building’s exterior, have been found, the US Secret Service said today. No one was hurt in the shooting.


The rounds may have been fired during a shooting on Friday night near the White House, but the two incidents have not been conclusively connected.

One of the bullets broke a window but was stopped by protective ballistic glass behind the executive mansion’s historic external glass, said Secret Service spokesman Edwin Donovan. The other round was found outside the building.

Sarkozy told Obama he is fed up with Israeli PM

France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy.


French President Nicolas Sarkozy told President Barack Obama last week he was fed up with dealing with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and considered him a liar.

Sarkozy made the comment during a private conversation with Obama during a G20 summit in the French riviera town of Cannes last week and the remarks were overheard by a small number of journalists but not initially reported.

“I cannot bear Netanyahu, he’s a liar,” Sarkozy told Obama during a frank exchange where the US president took him to task for backing a Palestinian request for membership of the UN cultural heritage agency UNESCO.



A Reuters reporter was among the journalists present and can confirm the veracity of the comments, which were relayed by a French internet outlet today.

Obama said he had to deal regularly with Netanyahu even if Sarkozy was fed up with the Israeli leader, according to the translation of a French interpreter during their Cannes exchange.

In their quest for statehood recognition, the Palestinians have requested membership of the over-arching United Nations system, in addition to its Paris-based UNESCO subsidiary.

France voted in favour of a UNESCO request that succeeded but said last week it would abstain in any vote on membership of the over-arching UN system, which Washington has vowed to veto. Paris and Washington are urging renewed peace talks between the Palestinians and Israelis.

Obama planning next steps in Afghan drawdown

US President Barack Obama delivers remarks on education at the University of Colorado in Denver on October 26, 2011

The White House has asked the Pentagon for initial recommendations for the US troop presence in Afghanistan in 2014, a first step in planning the final US drawdown there despite a bleak security outlook.

Sources familiar with the discussions said President Barack Obama’s top aides have asked for scenarios for 2014. As part of that process, the Pentagon must look at troop levels for 2013 ― suggesting deeper withdrawals beyond the removal, by next September, of the 33,000 surge troops Obama deployed in a bid to turn around the flagging decade-old conflict.

“Planning for troop levels in 2013 and 2014 is now in a preliminary phase,” said Bruce Riedel, the former CIA officer who chaired the review of Afghan policy Obama ordered when he took office in 2009 and retains close White House ties.



Obama and allied leaders committed last year to turning security in Afghanistan over to Afghan control by 2014. And on a trip to Asia last week, Defence Secretary Leon Panetta said Gen. John Allen, the commander in Afghanistan, was developing a plan to gradually withdraw US forces.

But it has not been previously reported that the White House requested detailed planning to see that goal through.

The efforts to chart the course out of Afghanistan come as the White House takes decisive steps to end the bloody, costly wars that defined the decade following the September 11 attacks and refocus on an ailing US economy and the 2012 election.

Last month, Obama announced he was pulling remaining US troops from Iraq by the end of this year.

Regarding Afghanistan, the White House has not publicly announced its plans beyond the September 2012 drawdown of the surge troops.

“The President will make decisions on the size and shape of our post-September 2012 presence at the appropriate time, in consultation with our Afghan and NATO partners,” said Caitlin Hayden, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council.

Even as the Obama administration presses ahead with its drawdown plans, security remains troubling on the ground and the Afghan government remains perilously weak and corrupt.

A plan to aggressively shrink a US force that will be about 68,000-strong in October 2012 will not sit well with the Pentagon, which wants to hold on to a larger force for as long as possible as it seeks to make security gains permanent.

The Pentagon claims to have driven Taliban insurgents out of many of their southern strongholds. But the United Nations says overall violence is at its worst since the start of the war 10 years ago, despite the presence of more than 130,000 troops in a NATO-led force.

On Saturday, a suicide car bomber killed 17 people in Kabul, including 13 troops and civilian employees of the NATO-led forces, the latest bold attack in the Afghan capital that deepened questions about security.

Beyond 2012 drawdown

While the Obama administration will focus in coming months on pulling surge forces ― General Allen must submit by April a detailed plan for the 23,000 soldiers to be withdrawn between January and the end of September 2012 ― it is now actively looking beyond that date. A decision does not appear imminent.

“We’ve repeatedly said that the nature of the drawdown after the surge troops come home will be conditions-based. No decisions have been made,” Pentagon spokesman George Little said, without directly addressing the White House request.

A senior defence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that officials were “working through various scenarios on what the contours of a post-2014 strategic relationship with Afghanistan might look like.”

Still, the official said, “it’s too early to draft up firm or specific force drawdown plans for 2013 and 2014 when the leaves have barely started to fall in late 2011.”

Yet Obama’s intentions to curtail the US military footprint overseas seem clear. Making the surprise announcement last month that Washington would abandon efforts to secure an extended troop presence in Iraq, Obama repeated his claim that the “tide of war is receding.”

“When I took office, roughly 180,000 troops were deployed in both these wars,” Obama said. “By the end of this year that number will be cut in half, and make no mistake: it will continue to go down.”

The desire to bring the Afghan war to an end is shared by Washington’s NATO partners, who are wrapped up in their own fiscal crises and likewise plan to bring their troops home.

“The issue is very simple. You stay, you lose. You leave, you lose,” a European official said recently.

Post–2014 presence?

The early planning appears linked to efforts to conclude a strategic partnership deal with the shaky government led by Afghan President Hamid Karzai, which the administration hopes to seal with an international conference to be held in Bonn, Germany, in early December, or by year’s end.

“We’re going to get that done,” a US military official said on condition of anonymity. “The Afghans are going to ask us to stay and I think we will.”

That agreement is not expected to define how many troops would stay beyond 2014 to help bolster Afghan forces, but would likely commit both sides in principle to a US military presence that would be negotiated in detail in a subsequent “Status of Forces” agreement.

“I think it will outline the broad types of things that US forces will do,” the official said.

James Dobbins, a former White House official, said Obama’s decision on a final drawdown schedule would be based on suggestions from his military advisors.

“(Similar troop) decisions have been hotly argued, but it wasn’t like the Bush administration where decisions were made before commanders were consulted,” Dobbins said.

Yet many security experts voiced worries that the drawdown would be defined by a Washington-driven timeline at the expense of judgments made on the battlefield.

“The idea that as of today in 2011 that you could plot out a trajectory for a troop withdrawal seems to be divorced from the conditions on the ground,” said Daniel Markey, an expert on Pakistan and Afghanistan at the Council on Foreign Relations.

“That said, you would have to expect that this administration would have to make preliminary plans.”

The administration’s ambitions reflect not just mounting public weariness with the war and its giant costs, but also growing exasperation with Pakistan, which Washington accuses of backing insurgents fuelling violence in Afghanistan.

While Obama will take such factors into account before announcing a decision on the next drawdown steps, which could come at a NATO summit in Chicago in May or before, changes will be unlikely once the president settles on a drawdown schedule.

News of the drawdown plans is likely to intensify worries in Kabul that, despite the repeated US pledges of a long-term presence, the Afghan government will be left in the lurch.

Western officials “believe that much progress has been made and is being made for a successful transition to proceed, and will stick to the actual 2014 timeframe. We believe that realities on the ground indicate something else,” one senior Afghan official said on condition of anonymity.

“If enough progress is not made, and 2014 is just seen as a date to leave, we will face serious problems.”

Obama's secret death warrant on al-Awlaki revealed

President Obama's secret memorandum authorising the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki was only legally valid if he could not be taken alive, it has emerged.

The legal writ, issued by the Justice Department, tackled the issues surrounding the targeted killing of a U.S. citizen by the American government - on the surface an unconstitutional act.



The issuing of the document followed fraught negotiations between administration officials and lawyers at the DOJ.Constitutional? Anwar al-Awlaki - a U.S. born citizen - was killed using secret authorisation from the justice department

Killed: Anwar al-Awlaki, left, and Osama bin Laden have both died following attacks by the U.S.legal? Officials at both the White House and the Justice Department have since refused all requests to answer how fifth amendment rights - guaranteeing a fair trial for all U.S. citizens - were satisfied by the secret memorandum

Officials at both the White House and the Justice Department have since refused all requests to answer how fifth amendment rights - guaranteeing a fair trial for all U.S. citizens - were satisfied by the secret memorandum.

The New York Times revealed more information regarding the secret document today.

The paper reported the roughly 50-page document was completed by the DOJ's legal Counsel around June last year.

According to the paper: 'The deliberations to craft the memo included meetings in the White House Situation Room involving top lawyers for the Pentagon, State Department, National Security Council and intelligence agencies.

'It was principally drafted by David Barron and Martin Lederman, who were both lawyers in the Office of Legal Counsel at the time, and was signed by Mr. Barron.'

The news follows the revelation that American militants like Anwar al-Awlaki are placed on a kill or capture list by a secretive panel of senior government aides.

Once the panel adds a terror suspect to its list it then informs the president, White House officials told Reuters.

There is no public record of the operations or decisions of the panel, which is a subset of the White House's National Security Council.

Neither is there any law establishing its existence or setting out the rules by which it is supposed to operate.

The panel was behind the decision to add Awlaki, a U.S.-born militant preacher with alleged al Qaeda connections, to the target list. He was killed by a CIA drone strike in Yemen late last month.

The role of the president in ordering or ratifying a decision to target a citizen is fuzzy. White House spokesman Tommy Vietor declined to discuss anything about the process.

Current and former officials said that to the best of their knowledge, Awlaki, who the White House said was a key figure in al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, al Qaeda's Yemen-based affiliate, had been the only American put on a government list targeting people for capture or death due to their alleged involvement with militants.

Police, protesters clash at US capital museum

Protesters march with signs past the White House during an “Occupation of Washington” rally in Washington on October 8, 2011.


Authorities shut down Washington’s popular National Air and Space Museum yesterday afternoon after antiwar protesters tried to enter the building and clashed with guards, a museum spokeswoman said.

One person was arrested during the melee at the Smithsonian museum involving between 150 and 200 protesters and six guards, museum spokeswoman Isabel Lara said.

“There was a lot of shoving going on,” Lara said, adding one of the guards was surrounded and used pepper spray before the demonstrators were moved outside. She said she was not aware of any injuries.

The shoving match broke out in a vestibule between two glass doors at the museum entrance after guards told the protesters they could not enter with signs, Lara said.

Protest organisers said the attempt to enter the museum on the National Mall was part of the Occupy D.C. antiwar demonstrations that began on Thursday on the 10th anniversary of the start of the Afghanistan war.



“Along with the Occupy Wall Street movement, it represents an upswell of people taking to the street around the country to demand social and economic justice as well as an end to the immoral wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,” organisers said in an e-mail sent to Reuters.

“It is outrageous that the security guard of a major museum in America pepper sprayed Americans as they entered the museum. The drones housed in this museum and the pepper spraying of Americans at the door are clear evidence of repression in America,” Retired Colonel Ann Wright said in the e-mail.

Drones are armed tactical unmanned planes used by the US government to track and attack insurgents overseas.

The museum, which draws 8 million visitors a year and is the most visited Smithsonian Institution museum, was shut down at 3:15pm (1915 GMT). Lara said it would reopen today.

NYC protesters may expand

Anti-Wall Street protests continued in New York City yesterday and in other US cities, although crowds outside New York have been much smaller.

“We’re tired of other people controlling, or thinking they control, our lives and our livelihoods,” said Kristin Thompson, a 22-year-old preschool teacher and one of 100 protesters in Mobile, Alabama.

In Santa Fe, New Mexico, about 250 protesters lined the streets outside a Bank of America branch, waving signs at passing vehicles.

Participants said they had been summoned via social network Internet sites, labor organisers, the liberal website MoveOn.org and members of the local Green Party.

“We are all in this together,” said Ramona Beene, 45, who owns a cake company.

She said her two college-age children were “spending thousands of dollars and won’t have jobs after they graduate.”

In New York, hundreds of protesters marched from lower Manhattan to Washington Square Park in the Greenwich Village neighbourhood — the site of protests against the Vietnam War in the 1960s and 1970s — to discuss expanding their encampment to other sites.

Lucas Vasquez, a student leading the march, said protesters were looking at expanding into Washington Square and Battery Parks, but stressed, “We’re not going to give up Liberty Plaza” — the protesters’ name for Zuccotti Park near Wall Street, where about 250 have camped out around the clock.

“It’s sometimes hard to move around there. We have a lot of people,” he said.

Hank Williams Jr apologises for Obama-Hitler comment

US President Barack Obama (centre) plays golf on Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts August 23, 2011. With Obama are Eric Whitaker (left) and Marvin Nicholson (right).


US country music singer Hank Williams Jr. said on Tuesday he was “very sorry” for any offense caused by his remarks on Fox News Channel this week comparing President Barack Obama to Adolf Hitler.

His apology was posted on his website a day after the Disney-owned cable sports channel ESPN pulled Williams’ theme song from its popular “Monday Night Football” broadcast in a rebuke to the country star for his Hitler remark.




Appearing on Fox News Channel’s morning program “Fox & Friends” on Monday, Williams said he thought that a June 18 golf summit pairing Obama with Republican House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner in the midst of the congressional budget standoff had “turned a lot of people off.”

Asked what he didn’t like about the friendly bipartisan golf match, Williams replied, “Come on! It’d be like Hitler playing golf with (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu.” He went on to refer to Obama and Vice President Joe Biden as “the enemy.”

After his “All My Rowdy Friends” song was yanked from the “Monday Night Football” opening by ESPN later that day, Williams issued a statement acknowledging that his “analogy was extreme” but insisting it was intended to illustrate how ludicrous he thought it was for Obama and Boehner to team up at golf.

Williams, 62, was scheduled to return to the Fox News Channel with an interview on Tuesday on the “Hannity” show, but the network told Reuters the singer decided to cancel.

Hours later, Williams posted another statement, saying: “I have always been very passionate about politics and sports, and this time it got the best or worst of me.”

“The thought of the leaders of both parties jukin and high fiven on a golf course, while so many families are struggling to get by simply made me boil over and make a dumb statement, and I am very sorry if it offended anyone,” he wrote.

He concluded, “I would like to thank all my supporters. This was not written by some publicist.”

The statement was posted just below a link to a video clip from the ABC daytime TV talk show “The View” in which host Whoopi Goldberg suggested Williams was judged too harshly.

“Hank is a musician, and he’s always been provocative,” Goldberg said on the show. “He could have chosen his words more wisely, but as someone who steps in it quite often, we all do it. Those among us who are without sin, cast the first stone.”

Reporting on Williams’ apology on its own website last night, ESPN said it had no comment on whether his song would be used on future telecasts.

Obama to unveil Afghan troop cut plan tomorrow

President Barack Obama is finalising his decision on how many US troops to withdraw from Afghanistan starting next month and will announce his plan tomorrow, a US official said yesterday.

Obama (picture) will lay out a blueprint for bringing home thousands of troops in the initial phase of a military drawdown and also unveil a broader withdrawal strategy for the remainder of the 30,000 extra “surge” troops he ordered deployed in late 2009, the official said.






But the president was still deliberating on the exact numbers and pace of the troop reduction as he faced growing pressure from Congress and US public increasingly weary of the nearly 10-year-old war.

Obama’s decision comes at a critical time as he eyes his 2012 re-election prospects and lawmakers from both parties, seeking to reduce federal spending, are anxious to curtail what has become a costly and unpopular US military intervention.

Obama’s challenge is to strike a balance between military leaders seeking to limit any reduction in combat forces and White House advisers pressing for a withdrawal large enough to placate his own Democratic party’s anti-war wing and a growing number of Republicans.

Obama has only said the initial withdrawal will be “significant” but has not said publicly what that would entail. Some US officials have privately estimated that could mean 3,000 to 5,000 troops at first and an equal number by the end of the year.

But Defence Secretary Robert Gates, backed by the Pentagon brass, has urged a more modest drawdown out of the 100,000 US troops now in Afghanistan, warning that a faster withdrawal could jeopardise hard-won gains on the ground against the Taliban.

Obama 2012 — it’s all about jobs

President Barack Obama walks out to speak about jobs to employees after touring a North Carolina energy efficient LED lights manufacturing facility, Cree Inc., in Raleigh-Durham, June 13, 2011.


If President Barack Obama wants to convince Americans he can right the struggling US economy and deserves four more years in office, he needs to come up — quickly — with a convincing plan to generate jobs.

Recent disappointing economic data has raised fears of a double-dip recession, particularly a weaker-than-expected unemployment rate of 9.1 per cent in May. And with polls showing voters are deeply concerned, Republicans vying for their party’s nomination to oppose Obama in 2012 have been hammering the incumbent on the issue.

“The pressure to come up with something is getting stronger all the time, because the numbers in the last two months have not been good,” said Jeremy Mayer, an associate professor at the School of Public Policy at George Mason University.



Most polls have shown Obama defeating any of the current Republican White House contenders next year, but the continuing fiscal woes are cutting into his lead. A Reuters/Ipsos survey this month showed 60 per cent of Americans think the country is on the wrong track, amid higher gasoline prices, stubbornly high joblessness and a weak housing market.

“Despite his or his handlers’ rhetoric, the electorate — if the various polls are an indication — has given plenty of feedback that it wants specifics and definitive action, not pablum, and most definitely not the ‘I feel your pain’ response to the seeming endless stream of negative economic news,” said Gerald Shuster, a political communications expert at the University of Pittsburgh.

Republican candidates attacked Obama as a failure on the economy during their first major debate of the 2012 nominating race on Monday. Analysts said former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, the early front-runner, who touts his record as a successful businessman to blast Obama’s economic record, had a particularly good night.

Voters can expect to see more, unless things improve.

“My perspective is that if the current path continues, you’ll see a message out of the eventual Republican nominee that basically says, ‘If I can’t fix the economy in four years, you should fire me also,’” said Matt McDonald of Hamilton Place Strategies, a Republican policy and communications consultant.

“And candidly, the response that the administration needs to have to that is a better economy. It’s just very difficult. Communications strategy can get blamed for a lot of things, but sometimes the news is just bad,” he said.

No US president since World War Two has been re-elected with an unemployment rate higher than 7.2 per cent.

BLAMING BUSH

As the administration has struggled to come up with an economic message, it has shifted away from blaming Obama’s Republican predecessor, George W. Bush, a strategy that failed to convince Americans looking to the White House for leadership on the biggest challenge the country faces.

“The message is switching away from, ‘It was the Bush administration,’ to a slight variant, which is ‘it’s a really, really deep hole and we’re beginning to dig out of it, but it’s going to take a while to dig out of it,’” said Christopher Arterton, a professor of political management at George Washington University, who has been a Democratic consultant.

The White House says Obama is not changing his economic strategy in response to recent discouraging data.

“What the president said a month ago on jobs day, when the numbers exceeded expectations, was very similar to what the president said last Friday,” White House deputy communications director Jen Psaki told Reuters last week.

“He wasn’t waving a victory banner a month ago, and he isn’t waving a victory banner now.”

Obama will continue to talk about the progress the country has made and what else needs to be done, including taking a responsible approach to the deficit and focusing on programmes to boost economic growth, as well as successes like growth in manufacturing, she said.

Obama met on Monday in North Carolina — a state he won narrowly in 2008 — with his jobs panel, a group of corporate executives who offered job-boosting proposals including measures to cut red tape, provide more loans and invest in energy efficiency.

But voters will be looking for big results, and Obama will face a tough fight with Republicans in Congress who are focused on cutting government spending to control the budget deficit — to pass another stimulus package or other spending programmes.

Mayer suggested Obama’s best strategy might be to sidestep Congress and work directly with state governors, many of them Republicans, on a stimulus plan targeting state governments, given steep budget cuts and layoffs at the local level.

“The numbers coming out of state capitals are looking pretty horrendous,” he said. “These are very significant job losses and if you could save some of those jobs, that would have some positive outcomes for Obama.”

President Obama and PM Cameron dish up burgers at honouring American and British veterans in UK Visit.

* Taliban must make 'decisive split' with al Qaida, says Cameron in joint press conference with Obama after garden party

Forget table tennis - this is the ultimate photo opportunity for Barack Obama and David Cameron.

The UK and U.S. leaders forged a special culinary relationship today as they manned the grill at a barbecue in honour of servicemen in the garden at No. 10.

It was a moment of fun after this morning's in-depth talks on issues ranging from military campaigns in Libya and Afghanistan to global economic reform.

 Obama and Cameron diligently serve a burger to a soldier wounded in service during the garden party

 U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama and Samantha Cameron, wife of the Prime Minister, serve food at the barbecue for British and American service members and veterans

 Michelle Obama, the wife of the U.S. President, and Samantha Cameron, wife of the Prime Minister, pose with their husbands on the steps of 10 Downing Street yesterday

 U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton walks with British Foreign Secretary William Hague to join Obama at 10 Downing Street

 Mr Obama made the short journey in Cadillac One - his bombproof limousine known as 'The Beast' - from Buckingham Palace

Mr Obama's motorcade travels along the Mall as it leaves Buckingham Palace to go to Downing Street this morning

Barack Obama and David Cameron serve food from a barbecue as they entertain British and American service members and veterans at 10 Downing Street today

 Obama and Cameron wave to members of the media outside the Prime Minister's official residence, prior to their meeting

Mr Obama speaks during a joint press conference with David Cameron at Lancaster House today. The Prime Minister said the next 12 months represented a 'vital year' in Afghanistan

The pair gamely served the cooked meat at the lunch party while their wives, Samantha and Michelle, spooned side dishes onto the plates of 150 American and British service members.

The Prime Minister and the President appeared at ease as they performed their catering duties in shirt sleeves, chatting and laughing while they worked.

Even the menu appeared to reflect the strong transatlantic bond the two countries have insisted upon so firmly, featuring both British and American dishes.

British sausages, Kentish rosemary lamb chops and hot Jersey Royal potatoes were served with American staples such as hamburgers, corn on the cob and coleslaw.

There was also a tomato, mozzarella and basil salad and Caesar salad, followed by a dessert of summer berries and vanilla ice-cream.

The bilateral partnership was further symbolised by the interspersed Union flag and Stars and Stripes bunting draped overhead.

Both leaders worked together to pile food on to one wounded soldier's plate, as other guests queued at the food-laden tables.

Following the barbecue, Obama and Cameron gave a joint press conference in which the Prime Minister said Taliban must make a 'decisive split' with al Qaida if a political settlement in Afghanistan is to be brokered.

Speaking outside Lancaster House in London, Mr Cameron said the U.S. operation against Osama bin Laden represented a 'strike right at the heart of international terrorism'.

Mr Cameron said the next 12 months represented a 'vital year' in Afghanistan, while British and American troops had 'broken the momentum of the insurgency' in the country.

In the Taliban heartland of Kandahar and central Helmand, the insurgents were 'on the back foot', the Prime Minister said.

Calling for a political settlement, he told the press conference: 'Now is the moment to step up our efforts to reach a political settlement.

Obama arrived at Downing Street before 10am this morning for discussions with Cameron as he got down to the real political business of his state visit.

During the talks, the U.S. President insisted the alliance between America and the UK is key to providing global security after a 'difficult decade'.

Nick Clegg proved that three isn't always a crowd as he joined the leaders and was seen sharing a joke with the President.

Mr Obama was smiling broadly after making the short journey in Cadillac One - his bombproof limousine known as 'The Beast' - from Buckingham Palace.

The leaders greeted each other with a handshake before Mr Obama patted the Prime Minister on the shoulder.

They then shook hands again on the steps of No. 10 but they were not joined by Mr Cameron's wife Samantha and Michelle Obama.

Both men waved to the army of press photographers gathered on the opposite pavement before walking inside, Mr Obama placing his hand on Mr Cameron's back as they did so.

Helicopters whirred overhead, taking part in the major security operation to protect the President during his visit.

Mr Obama and Mr Cameron are to spend the morning holding talks before a joint press conference in Downing Street which is bound to be studied intently for clues to the strength of their 'special relationship'.

The highlight of the day is lik

He is expected to tell MPs and peers that even though the world has changed significantly since the Second World War, the UK-US relationship and the broader transatlantic alliance is still the 'cornerstone of global security'.

The 'Arab Spring' in the Middle East and North Africa reinforce that the allies' shared beliefs are 'not just relevant but essential', he is to say.

The president will also strike an optimistic note by claiming that the world is 'turning a corner' following a 'difficult decade'.

As well as operations winding down in Iraq, the shift to Afghanistan taking control of its own security has begun, and al Qaida has been 'weakened' by successes such as the recent killing of Osama bin Laden.

Yesterday, large parts of central London were brought to a standstill as crowds gathered to welcome the president for his first state visit.

After being greeted by the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh at Buckingham Palace, the president and first lady met newlyweds the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge before Mr Obama laid a wreath at the Grave of the Unknown Warrior in Westminster Abbey.

Mr Obama and Mr Cameron then dropped in on a south London school where they took off their jackets to play two schoolboys at table tennis.

But the Anglo-American team took a sound beating at the hands of 16-year-olds Jason Do and Jamiyu Mojaji at the Globe Academy in Southwark.

Mr and Mrs Obama then attended a star-studded state banquet in the president's honour at Buckingham Palace last night as the Queen hailed the US as Britain's 'most important ally'.

She insisted the relationship was 'tried, tested and, yes, special' and the two nations together contributed to security and prosperity of the world.

'I firmly believe that the strength of our links and many shared interests will continue to ensure that when the United States and the United Kingdom stand together, our people and other people of goodwill around the world will be more secure and more prosperous,' the Queen said.

Responding with his own toast, Mr Obama spoke of the 'rock-solid foundation' between the two countries.

'From that day to this, you have been our closest partner in the struggle to protect our people from terrorism attacks and violent extremism from around the world despite very heavy sacrifices here,' the president said.

'As we confront the challenges of the 21st century together we have can confidence in the partnership our two countries share, based on a rock-solid foundation built during Queen Elizabeth's lifetime of extraordinary service to her nation and to the world.'

Mr Cameron and Mr Obama sat down for talks in the White Room of No 10 shortly before 10am this morning.

As about a dozen photographers took pictures at the start of the meeting, the president joked: 'All right guys, one of those must have worked.'

Foreign Secretary William Hague and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton followed the two leaders into Number 10 half an hour later.

Mrs Clinton waved briefly and smiled as she entered.

Earlier, the smartly dressed driver of the president's vehicle brushed down its shiny exterior as she waited for him outside the Prime Minister's residence.

Mr Obama and Mr Cameron were joined by Nick Clegg at about 10.15am.

Shaking hands with the Deputy Prime Minister, the US leader said: 'Wonderful to see you.'

Mr Clegg, gesturing to the sunlit windows, said: 'You've brought the sun today.'

At about 10.40am, the President, Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister moved to the Cabinet Room for talks on security with other ministers, advisers and officials.

Mr Cameron and Mr Obama sat opposite each other in the centre of the coffin-shaped Cabinet table, the Prime Minister flanked by Mr Clegg and Mr Hague, and the President by Mrs Clinton and the U.S. Ambassador to London, Louis Susman.

Other British ministers attending included Chancellor George Osborne and Home Secretary Theresa May.

Obama: Would raid Pakistan again if militant found

President Barack Obama is seen being interviewed by Britian’s Andrew Marr of the BBC in the Diplomatic Reception Room in the White House, in Washington on May 21, 2011..


US President Barack Obama would approve a new incursion into Pakistan if the United States found another leading militant there, he said in a BBC interview broadcast today.

US Navy Seals killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, mastermind of the September 11 attacks on US cities in 2001, in a raid on his fortified compound in Pakistan on May 2, ending a manhunt for the world’s most-wanted militant.



Asked if Obama would do the same again if the United States discovered another “high-value target” in Pakistan or another country, such as a senior al Qaeda member or Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Omar, he said he would “take the shot”.

“We are very respectful of the sovereignty of Pakistan. But we cannot allow someone who is actively planning to kill our people or our allies’ people, we can’t allow those kind of active plans to come to fruition without us taking some action,” Obama told the BBC.

“I had made no secret. I had said this when I was running for the presidency, that if I had a clear shot at bin Laden, that we’d take it.”

Obama’s comments echoed those of US Senator John Kerry, a Democrat close to his administration and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Asked this month if the United States would conduct a similar raid in Pakistan to kill Omar if they knew his whereabouts, he said Washington would consider all its options.

US officials have long maintained Omar fled to Pakistan after the Taliban government was overthrown in late 2001 by US-backed Afghan forces and is still in hiding there. Islamabad has denied reports he is in Pakistan.

Obama arrives in Britain on Tuesday for a three-day state visit — the first state visit by a US president since 2003.

He will hold talks with British Prime Minister David Cameron and address the parliament to hail the two countries’ special relationship and stress the importance of transatlantic ties.

Obama eases Israeli anger on Mideast peace vision

President Barack Obama takes the stage to deliver remarks to delegates at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee policy conference in Washington, May 22, 2011.

President Barack Obama yesterday eased Israeli anger over his new Middle East peace proposals when he made clear that the Jewish state would likely be able to negotiate keeping some settlements in any final deal with the Palestinians.

Obama repeated his view that long-stalled peace talks should start on the basis of the Israel’s 1967 borders, an assertion that had infuriated Israeli leaders, exposed a rift between the two allies and raised further doubts about peace prospects.



But Obama’s speech to Washington’s most powerful pro-Israel lobbying group yesterday seemed to soothe some tensions over Obama’s endorsement three days earlier of a longstanding Palestinian demand on the borders of their future state.

Obama stressed that he expected the two sides to eventually reach an accord that included land swaps that would take into account the “new demographic realities on the ground,” signalling that Israel should be allowed to keep some Jewish settlements built on occupied land.

The speech to Israel’s staunchest US supporters followed a testy encounter at the White House on Friday. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stunned his hosts by warning Obama against seeking peace “based on illusions” as he vowed Israel would never pull back to old borders he regarded as “indefensible”.

But the right-wing Israeli leader quickly expressed his appreciation for Obama’s remarks yesterday, saying in a statement, “I am determined to work together with President Obama to find ways to resume the peace negotiations.”

It could still take some time, however, for Obama and Netanyahu to overcome the latest strains in an already-fraught relationship that some analysts say is just as much a hindrance to reviving the moribund peace process as policy differences.

Netanyahu resisted offering any concessions in his Oval Office talks on Friday.

Obama’s speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) also served as a reminder his peace formula could cost him support among Jewish and pro-Israel voters and donors as he runs for re-election in 2012. Some prospective Republican presidential challengers have already accused him of betraying Israel, Washington’s closest ally in the region.

ACKNOWLEDGES DIFFERENCES

“Even while we may at times disagree, as friends sometimes will, the bonds between the United States and Israel are unbreakable, and the commitment of the United States to the security of Israel is ironclad,” Obama said to loud applause.

But Obama sometimes met stony silence from the AIPAC audience and at one point drew a smattering of boos.

Israeli officials were pleased, however, to hear Obama again reject a Palestinian plan to seek UN. recognition of statehood in September and condemn a recent reconciliation deal between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas Islamists. But he also pressed Israel to “make the hard choices” for peace.

An aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said: “We appreciate President Obama’s stated position regarding a state on the 1967 borders, it is a step in the right direction.”

Yesterday, Obama reiterated the “principles” he outlined on Thursday in a speech on Middle East upheaval, but introduced new phrasing that assuaged some of Netanyahu’s concerns.

At issue is Obama’s embrace of a long-sought goal by the Palestinians: that the state they seek in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip should largely be drawn along lines that existed before the 1967 war in which Israel captured those territories and East Jerusalem.

The proposal would call for negotiated land swaps for Israel to retain some large settlements in the West Bank.

Obama chided those who he said had “misrepresented” his position, a slap at Netanyahu, who had seized on the notion that he was being asked to return to 1967 lines while ignoring the president’s stipulation there would be land exchanges.

“By definition, it means that the parties themselves — Israelis and Palestinians — will negotiate a border that is different than the one that existed on June 4, 1967. That’s what mutually agreed upon swaps means,” Obama said.

“It allows the parties themselves to account for the changes that have taken place over the last forty-four years... to take account of those changes including the new demographic realities on the ground.”

IN LINE WITH BUSH PROMISES

Obama’s new wording was more in line with guarantees by former President George W. Bush in 2004 saying it was “unrealistic” for Israel to return to old borders and suggesting it may keep settlement blocs under any peace pact.

A senior US official insisted however, that even though “people are trying to suggest that he felt he had to clarify something he said on Thursday, he did no such thing.”

Despite that, Obama’s stress on 1967 borders put the United States formally on record as endorsing the old boundaries as a starting point, something it had only embraced privately.

Obama’s aim was to draw Palestinians back to the table and head off their UN statehood drive, but the Palestinians signalled they would not be deterred. Obama, leaving on a European tour later on Sunday, planned to try to convince European leaders not to support a unilateral statehood bid.

US-brokered talks collapsed late last year when Netanyahu refused to extend a moratorium on settlement building in the West Bank and the Palestinians walked away.

Netanyahu is expected to be feted when he addresses AIPAC today and then speaks to the US Congress tomorrow where he will have a chance to rally support for his stance.

While Obama won the Jewish vote overwhelmingly in 2008, some prominent Jewish Americans were rethinking their support for his re-election after this week’s events.

Some Israelis have never felt entirely comfortable with Obama, unnerved by his early attempts to reach out to Iran and his support for Arab revolutions that have unsettled Israel.

Al Qaeda leader's last moments now captured in toy bricks

Despite documenting an iconic historial moment, the pictures detailing Osama Bin Laden's death were still subject to days of mocked up internet viral treatment.

But one artist has immortalised the famous Navy Seal raid on Bin Laden's Pakistan compound in unique style - by recreating the pictures in Lego.

Student Alex Eylar mocked up his own version of the Al-Qaeda leader's demise by picturing him as a Lego man sat on a bed about to be gunned down by Lego commando.

Another painstakingly-detailed picture recreates the dramatic moment President Obama and his senior staff watch the Navy Seal raid from the White House Situation Room.

Alex's version shows President Obama - who strangely has a mop of black hair - sat watching the raid with other toy brick White House staff including a Lego Hilary Clinton.

Vice President Joe Biden and other members of the national security team are also shown in Lego form staring at their monitors.

 Recreation: Bin Laden sat watching TV in his Pakistan compound also became a defining image following his death.Tension: The defining image of President Obama watching the raid from the White House Situation Room also got the toy brick treatment.Block and load: Two Lego commandos confront Bin Laden in his compound in artist Alex's recreation

President Obama described the time spent watching Navy Seal Team Six raid on Bin Laden's Abbottabad compound as 'the longest 40 minutes of my life'.

He said: 'We knew as events unfolded what was happening in and around the compound, but we could not get information clearly about what was happening inside the compound.'

'And it was the longest 40 minutes of my life, with the possible exception of when Sasha got meningitis when she was three months old, and I was waiting for the doctor to tell me that she was all right. It was a very tense situation.

A third reconstruction shows the infamous moment Bin Laden was pictured sat in his squalid lair watching television reports about himself.

The 22-year-old's interpretation is much more colourful than the drab living space where Bin Laden was spotted in real life.

But the artist still includes telltale details like the terror chief's brown blanket and spare computer monitor.

The detailed recreation even includes the Al-Qaeda mastermind's bolster pillow, satellite decoder and the remote control which he points at the TV.

Lego expert Alex has previously recreated famous movie scenes using the famous toy blocks, including American Beauty and A Clockwork Orange.