Obama sets off for Israel charm offensive

Barack Obama was on his way to Israel on Wednesday for the first time as US president, hoping to ease past tensions with his hosts and under pressure to narrow differences over handling Iran's nuclear threat.

Barack Obama sworn in for second term in brief ceremony

The United States' first mixed race president was sworn in for second term on Sunday amid palpably less popular enthusiasm and energy, pointing to four more challenging years in the White House at a time of gradual waning of American power.

Barack Obama rips into 'latest' version of Mitt Romney

US President Barack Obama quipped on Thursday that Mitt Romney must be "severely kidding" if he thought Americans would fall for his sudden "makeover" designed to hide extreme conservatism. Obama, shocked into action by poll numbers driven down by his sleepy debate performance last week, ripped into his Republican foe in swing state Florida, possibly hinting at his tactics at next week's second head-to-head. "He's trying to go through an extreme makeover. After running for more than a year in which he called himself severely conservative, Mitt Romney's trying to convince you that he was severely kidding," Obama told a 9,200-strong crowd. Obama's passionate attack fleshed out a new theme adopted by his campaign, namely that Romney, after running to the right to win the Republican nomination, is covering up hardcore conservative stands to woo moderates.

Joy and anger as Barack Obama relaxes deportation rules

Undocumented Mexican youths who came to the United States as children reacted with joy to an Obama administration rule change on Friday

Barack Obama confirms US drone strikes in Pakistan

President Barack Obama on Monday confirmed that US drone aircraft have struck Taliban and al-Qaida targets within Pakistan -- operations that until now had not been officially acknowledged.

Obama boosts US military in Australia, reassures China

US President Barack Obama and Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard on Wednesday unveiled plans to deepen the US military presence in the Asia-Pacific, with 2,500 US marines operating out of a de facto base in northern Australia.

Obama: Efforts aimed at economy's long-term health

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama on Saturday sought to reassure Americans frustrated by high unemployment that he's concentrating on jobs, while defending his administration's efforts to strengthen the economy on several fronts.

"In the coming days, I'll be unveiling additional ideas aimed at accelerating job growth and hiring as we emerge from this economic storm," Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address. "And so that we don't face another crisis like this again, I'm determined to meet our responsibility to do what we know will strengthen our economy in the long run."

Obama said he has no intention of backing off his administration's efforts to overhaul health care, improve education, invest in a clean energy economy and deal with mounting federal debts.

But he acknowledged the pain felt by millions of the unemployed.

Job losses in the U.S. have been the worst since the 1930s, but new statistics out Friday showed a relatively moderate loss of 11,000 jobs last month. The unemployment rate dipped from 10.2 percent in October to 10 percent in November.

Obama has faced criticism for tackling various problems simultaneously while the unemployment rate has been growing. He said the economy is turning around, even if slowly.

Americans "are in a very different place than we were when 2009 began," Obama said. He cited economic recovery efforts as part of the reason "we're no longer facing the potential collapse of our financial system or a second Great Depression. We're no longer losing jobs at a rate of 700,000 a month. And our economy's growing for the first time in a year."

"But for those who were laid off last month and the millions of Americans who have lost their jobs in this recession, a good trend isn't good enough," he said.

In a speech Tuesday, Obama plans to send Congress an initial list of ideas he supports for a jobs bill that could include new hiring incentives for business, home weatherization projects and the construction of roads and bridges.

Rising anger over joblessness threatens the president's agenda. Obama held a jobs forum at the White House on Thursday, made a trip Friday to visit business owners, workers and the unemployed in Allentown, Pa., and set the jobs-bill speech for next week. The president must connect with voters to boost the chances of his legislative efforts and for Democrats in the 2010 midterm elections and his own in 2012.

"The folks who have been looking for work without any luck for months and, in some cases, years, can't wait any longer," he said. "For them, I'm determined to do everything I can to accelerate our progress so we're actually adding jobs again."

While pledging to work hard on creating more jobs, Obama said he plans to continue his efforts to deal with the country's pressing long-term problems.

"I didn't run for president to pass emergency recovery programs or to bail out banks or to shore up auto companies," he said. "I didn't run for president simply to manage the crisis of the moment while kicking our most pressing problems down the road."

Twitter responds in kind to Barack Obama’s Noble Peace Prize

The Twitterverse, Oct 9 (THAINDIAN NEWS) The social networking and the micro blogging site Twitter welcomed Barack Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize 2009 with bouquets and brick-bats. Some tweets were sarcastic and some were smart alec types.

The Nobel Peace Prize committee had said that that the committee’s decision was unanimous, @wickdweirdwitch took a dig at this with “Nobel Peace Prize Committee says that it was an unanimous decision..i get it now..der was only 1 person on the committee!”

@sajal tweeted with a very sarcastic dig, “on other note…. how much does the nobel peace prize cost? i may be interested for 2013 … 30th b’day gift for myself….”

skinnylatte and @sumitdatta tweeted that ‘Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize as US didn’t attack any new country this year under his leadership.’

When Barack Obama gave his acceptance speech at the Rose Garden in the White House then @wickdweirdwitch tweeted “Barack Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech seems like a Ms. Universe last round Q&A speech!” which was widely circulated on the Twitter world.

@ashokbanker the celebrated author tweeted that, “So they couldn’t just set off fireworks to celebrate Obama winning the Nobel? Had to bomb the moon? Showoffs” and “2 Choices: (1)Swedish Academy reads way too much Science Fiction, (2)They own a time machine.” And “I’d like to offer my congratulations to Barack Obama’s PR agency. YOU guys deserve the Nobel!”

@mpoppel tweeted a gem of a tweet with “Sky News reporter asks if Obama got the Nobel Peace Prize for making peace with Hillary Clinton.” and “Next on Obama’s list: the Oscars.”

@bkkgreg “RT BarackObama “I think Greg should have won the Nobel, not me.” Thanks buddy!”

@joebrooks tweeted “Nobel Prize For Economics is picked on Monday. Let’s hope the Lehman Brothers, or Barney Frank wins! What a sham.”

@Thecomicproject tweeted that “Giving Obama the Nobel peace prize is like giving a literature Nobel to Mills & Boons writers” and that “#GivingObamaNobelPeacePrizeislike .. giving Fardeen Khan a Filmfare Lifetime Achievement Award”