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Is Barack Obama a friend of Israel? 1. Yes. 2. No, he's an enemy. 3. No, but he's not an enemy.

Canadians are no more loving of the United States under its current leadership than during George W. Bush's presidency, suggested a poll published Monday. But they do like President Barack Obama a whole lot more than his predecessor, said the Historica Dominion Institute survey of 1,018 Canadians. Obama was viewed favorably by 86 percent of respondents, compared to only 21 percent for Bush in 2005. "What's striking about these findings is how Canadians have detached their personal view of Barack Obama, whom they quite like and respect, from the United States, which they still view with skepticism, even distrust," said...

NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) - The United States is the most admired country globally thanks largely to the star power of President Barack Obama and his administration, according to a new poll. It climbed from seventh place last year, ahead of France, Germany, the United Kingdom and Japan which completed the top five nations in the Nation Brand Index (NBI). "What's really remarkable is that in all my years studying national reputation, I have never seen any country experience such a dramatic change in its standing as we see for the United States for 2009," said Simon Anholt, the founder...

NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) - The United States is the most admired country globally thanks largely to the star power of President Barack Obama and his administration, according to a new poll. He believes that during the previous administration of George W. Bush the United States suffered in the world ranking with its unpopular foreign policies but since Obama was elected, and despite the recent economic turmoil, the country's status has risen globally. "There is no other explanation," Anholt said in an interview, referring to the impact of Obama.

PRESIDENT Obama has been stumbling all over the world stage this past week. The spectacle has been aggravating and painful. The former world's biggest celebrity is proving himself to be the world's biggest joke to our allies and enemies alike. Sadly, the joke is on us, the nation that elected him despite plenty of alarm signals. If Obama's star has fallen this far so fast, how much worse can his presidency get for this nation over the next three years? And how much more dangerous? If only some of his recent humiliations can pop the bubble of narcissism in which...

The president's approval rating has fallen to an astonishingly low 4 percent in the Holy Land. As his envoy jumpstarts peace talks, Richard Wolffe reports on Obama's plans to win the ally back. Is Obama surrounded by self-hating Jews? That was one of the most ridiculous—and yet perversely telling—stories to emerge from the last several weeks of Israeli media coverage. Not because the president is surrounded by Jewish aides who want to sabotage their own identity. Far from it. David Axelrod openly reveres the old Jewish deli in Chicago known as Manny’s. He has a sign in his West Wing...

It is shameful when the White House is accused of betrayal by close allies in eastern and central Europe, but utterly humiliating when even the Elysee Palace thinks the United States has been transformed from a lion to a lamb in the face of mounting global threats. As The Wall Street Journal reported this morning, French president Nicolas Sarkozy was less than impressed with Barack Obama’s performance last week in the face of the Iranian nuclear crisis. According to the paper, Washington urged Paris to delete key sections of Sarkozy’s UN speech that were critical of Iran and supposedly threatened...

Everybody is saying no to the American president these days. And it's not just that they're saying no, it's also the way they're saying no. The Saudis twice said no to his request for normalization gestures towards Israel (at Barack Obama's meeting with King Abdullah in Saudi Arabia, and in Washington at meetings with Hillary Clinton). Who says no to the American president twice? What must they think of Obama in the desert kingdom? The North Koreans said no to repeated attempts at talks, by test-launching long-range missiles in April; Russia and China keep on saying no to tougher sanctions...

President Barack Obama may be regarded as a Communist trying to nationalise health care by his fiercest detractors at home, but other world leaders see him as a conservative, he declared on Sunday. Asked about the antipathy aroused by his stimulus bill, health reform plans, and takeover of ailing banks, the president revealed that the stinging domestic criticism has bemused other politicians whose politics are ostensibly to the Right of his. "I can't tell you how many foreign leaders, who are heads of centre-right governments, say to me 'I don't understand why people would call you socialist, in my country...

Most Iranians favor ties with US but distrust Obama: poll 11 mins ago WASHINGTON (AFP) – Most Iranians favor restored ties with Washington after three decades of hostility but distrust President Barack Obama despite his outreach to Muslims worldwide, a poll found Saturday. Eight in 10 Iranians also say they consider President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to be the country's legitimate president despite mass protests following the disputed June 12 vote, according to the survey by WorldPublicOpinion.org (WPO). Sixty-three percent of the 1,003 people surveyed across Iran favored restoring diplomatic relations with the United States, a position at odds with the stance...

Former Secretary of State Madeline Albright spoke at a forum in Omsk, Siberia. Pravda reported that her speech "surprised the audience." No wonder. The Russians in attendance must have wondered how they managed to lose the cold war: Madeleine Albright said during the meeting that America no longer had the intention of being the first nation of the world. Ms. Albright started her speech in Russian. "Hello and thank you! It's a pleasure for me to be here," she said in Russian. Albright wrote in her autobiography that she was trying to learn some Russian during the 1960s. The former...

Czechs feel betrayed, Poles irked, Romanians slighted. Ask them who's to blame, and the answer may come as a surprise: Obama. George W. Bush fawned over Eastern Europe, and its leaders rushed to join his post-9/11 "coalition of the willing." Now many—officials and ordinary citizens alike—are grumbling over what they perceive as the Obama administration's neglect. It's a startling shift in a region long accustomed to cozy ties with the United States.

<p>Shortly after the Group of 20 summit concluded in London in April, Nicolas Sarkozy blurted out to a small group of advisers a question that weighed on him as he watched President Obama glad-hand his way through the gathering: "Est-il faible?" (Is he weak?) Sarkozy did not answer his own blunt query...</p>

Lord Mandelson has dismissed claims that the release of Lockerbie bomber is linked to a trade deal - as the head of the FBI slams the Scottish government. The claim was made by Seif al Islam, the son of Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi, in a television interview filmed as Abdelbaset al Megrahi was flown home. "In all commercial contracts, for oil and gas with Britain, (Megrahi) was always on the negotiating table," he said. "All British interests were linked to the release of Abdelbaset al Megrahi." He said he had met Colonel Gaddafi twice in the past year, and on...

The release of the Lockerbie bomber has damaged the reputation of Scotland across the globe, former Labour first minister Jack McConnell has warned. He condemned the move and said it must be made clear it was not done in the name of the Scottish people. Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi was freed from Greenock prison on Thursday to be allowed home to Libya to die. Speaking to BBC Scotland, Mr McConnell said the sight of the Scottish flag being waved as Megrahi arrived back in Libya had brought shame on Scotland. He said: "The way in which the decision has been made...

The Scottish Nationalists have never been too fussy about the international company they keep. Indeed, the last time they were celebrated anywhere more exotic than Banff was when Alex Salmond became "the toast of Belgrade" – the late Robin Cook's phrase – for denouncing Nato action against the deeply unpleasant Serbian regime. However, the Nationalists crave to be noticed on the international stage by whatever means. And this week, they succeeded. Rarely can so many decent Scottish stomachs have turned than at the sight of the Saltire being flourished in Tripoli as a centre-piece of the repulsive celebrations to welcome...

[URL="http://pewglobal.org/reports/display.php?ReportID=264"]http://pewglobal.org/reports/display.php?ReportID=264[/URL] The image of the United States has improved markedly in most parts of the world, reflecting global confidence in Barack Obama. In many countries opinions of the United States are now about as positive as they were at the beginning of the decade before George W. Bush took office. Improvements in the U.S. image have been most pronounced in Western Europe, where favorable ratings for both the nation and the American people have soared. But opinions of America have also become more positive in key countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia, as well. Signs of improvement in views...

The image of the United States in the minds of Mexican citizens has skyrocketed in the past year -- rebounding to positive levels not seen since the American invasion of Iraq. pew US image.gif Pew Research Center graphic According to the Pew Global Attitudes Project's newly released survey on international attitudes toward the U.S., the favorable image of the United States has soared in Mexico from 47 percent to 69 percent since Barack Obama replaced George W. Bush as president. A year ago, just 16 percent of Mexicans said they trusted the United States to do what's right in international...

Poll: U.S. image abroad surges under Obama Survey of 25 nations contrasts with views during Bush presidency. WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama's popularity has boosted America's image abroad even though deep suspicions about the U.S. persist in the Muslim world, according to a poll released Thursday. The survey of two dozen nations conducted this spring by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center found that positive public attitudes toward the United States have surged in many parts of the world since Obama's election. Positive opinions about the United States have returned to higher levels not seen since before President George W. Bush...

I can hear it now..."But his approval rating is so high in Kenya!" http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aPqRPvwmqWHA

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama's popularity has boosted America's image abroad even though deep suspicions about the U.S. persist in the Muslim world, according to a poll released Thursday. The survey of two dozen nations conducted this spring by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center found that positive public attitudes toward the United States have surged in many parts of the world since Obama's election. Positive opinions about the United States have returned to higher levels not seen since before President George W. Bush took office in 2001. The Bush presidency marked a steep decline in U.S. popularity overseas, notably after...

WASHINGTON — A new global survey has found a vast improvement in views of the United States since the election of President Barack Obama. But it also finds broad opposition to one of his key policies — sending more troops to Afghanistan — and confirms a drop in confidence in the United States among Israelis. At home, the president’s approval ratings on the economy have declined in the past month amid lagging recovery. It was unclear whether views overseas might have similarly soured after the Pew polling concluded in mid-June.

The signing ceremony in Moscow was a grand affair. For Barack Obama, foreign policy neophyte and "reset" man, the arms reduction agreement had a Kissingerian air. A fine feather in his cap. And our president likes his plumage. Unfortunately for the United States, the country Obama represents, the prospective treaty is useless at best, detrimental at worst. Useless because the level of offensive nuclear weaponry, the subject of the U.S.-Russia "Joint Understanding," is an irrelevance. We could today terminate all such negotiations, invite the Russians to build as many warheads as they want, and profitably watch them spend themselves into...

US President Barack Obama has the confidence of many publics around the world - inspiring far more confidence than any other world political leader according to a new poll of 20 nations by WorldPublicOpinion.org. A year ago, President Bush was one of the least trusted leaders in the world. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin now have the most negative confidence ratings around the world. On average across all nations about half have little or no confidence that they will "do the right thing regarding world affairs" while just a third or less do have confidence.

IT must have been the viewing angle: The despots who run Iran somehow missed the halo gracing President Obama during his recent sermon to the Muslim world. The ruling mullahs' contemptuous handling of Iran's presidential election was their response to "the Cairo effect" announced a tad prematurely by the White House. Our president's public flagellation of America only emboldened the junta in Tehran -- leaving Iran's power brokers more defiant, determined and dismissive than they've been in years. And the strongest response Obama can muster to the blood in Tehran's streets is: "I am deeply troubled by the violence that...

Congratulations to President Obama! Osama bin Laden is no longer the most dangerous man in the world, having been effectively neutered by former President Bush’s war on terror. Obama has deftly picked up the mantle and has become America’s number one enemy.Demonstrating its consummate mendacity, the mainstream media referred, during the 2008 campaign, to Barack Obama as “no drama Obama”. Just a few short months into his presidency, it is manifest that no drama Obama is instead, the architect of chaos and destruction. Everything Obama touches plummets into disorder.

North Korea celebrated Memorial Day with an underground test of a nuclear weapon reportedly the size of the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. With that and a series of missile launches, the regime in Pyongyang has sent an unmistakable signal: The Hermit Kingdom has nothing but contempt for the so-called "international community" and the empty rhetoric and diplomatic posturing that usually precede new rewards for the North's bad behavior... Until now (Japan and South Korea) have nestled under the U.S. nuclear umbrella...made possible by what is known in the national-security community as "extended deterrence." Thanks to the credibility of U.S. security...

Some members of 'Anti-American Imperialism Forum', protesting against US President Barack Obama's "Bangalore to Buffalo" remark were arrested when they tried to forcibly enter Bank Of America, on M G road here on Wednesday. About 25 protestors of the city-based outfit, carrying placards and shouting slogans - "Down, Down Big Brother Obama", "Buffalo has buffaloes, Bangalore has brains" "Osama terrorised innocent, Obama terrorises BPO workers" - were arrested when they tried to forcibly enter Bank Of America, deputy commissioner of Police (Central Division), G Ramesh said. The agitators took out a protest march from Mahatma Gandhi statue to the Bank...

. . . .[N]ations having everlasting interests rather than eternal friends or enemies. In today's language: interest beats affection any time. Mrs. Merkel surely knows how enthralled her country is with Mr. Obama. But that's not enough to place German soldiers in harm's way in Afghanistan, or to run up the national debt in a country that is traumatized by inflation. Why should Kim Jong Il part with his nuclear weapons program when it's the only sure-fire way for an unhinged but smart dictator to get great powers to give him all sorts of goodies? Let go of the nukes,...

Obama failed to get European leaders to commit to U.S.-style stimulus packages or to get NATO allies to send more combat troops to Afghanistan. But he prevented French President Nicolas Sarkozy from walking out of the G20 summit, as he threatened to do earlier. He also helped persuade China to agree to publish lists of tax havens, and got NATO allies to agree to sending up to 5,000 more military trainers and police to Afghanistan.

<p>LONDON (AP) — President Barack Obama — wildly popular the world over — says he isn't the globe's most admired politician. He says that title belongs to Brazil's president.</p> <p>During a lunch at the Group of 20 summit in London, Obama shook hands with President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and said: "This is my man, right here. I love this guy."</p>

It is to be hoped that President Obama has a developed sense of humour. The man heralded by many as the new Messiah of political renewal lands in London this week not to the chorus of approval he might have expected on his first official trip to Europe but to crowds roaring with anger and frustration at the global economic system which his country underpins. It isn’t personal – yet. Few but the most unreasonable would hold the new American president responsible for woes that he inherited. Nonetheless, Obama campaigned on a platform of change. The implicit claim that his...

WASHINGTON (CNN)– As Barack Obama takes off for his first overseas trip as president, a new national poll indicates that more than eight in ten Americans think he will do a good job representing the U.S. to the world. And seven in ten people questioned in the CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey, released Tuesday, believe that leaders of other countries respect Obama. That last figure is in sharp contrast with George W. Bush. At the start of his presidency in 2001, only 49 percent believed that foreign leaders respected Bush.

Europeans have long worshipped Barack Obama from afar. Now the beloved one is paying his first visit as US president to the old continent. Yet there is every indication that Europe’s leaders are about to stiff him. Mr Obama is on a rapid-fire tour that will take him from the Group of 20 meeting in London to a Nato summit in Strasbourg, then on to a US-European Union meeting in Prague and, finally, a state visit in Turkey. But he will be lucky to return from Europe with much more than commemorative photos and some presents for the kids. (“I...

At his presidential debut on the diplomatic stage this week, Obama will face European and Asian leaders who have already rejected some of his most important proposals for rescuing the global economy. Reporting from Washington -- At the heart of President Obama's approach to foreign policy has been a promise to end the "unilateral" strategies of his predecessor and heal bruised relations with America's allies. But as Obama makes his presidential debut on the diplomatic stage at the Group of 20 summit in London this week, he faces leaders from both Europe and Asia who have rejected some of his...

The last time President Obama went to Europe, he was greeted with raucous applause and 200,000 Europeans choking a Berlin square, chanting "Obama" and "Yes We Can." This time, as the president heads to London this week to press the Group of 20 nations for a global economic stimulus plan, he's likely to get a warm reception but cold comfort from many European leaders. European Union chief Mirek Topolanek, the recently ousted leader of the Czech Republic, calls the plan the Obama administration has been pushing "a way to hell." Germany Chancellor Angela Merkel is also a skeptic. "We must...

Barack Obama has long benefitted politically from being all things to all people. After all, last year he managed to appeal to the Democratic left as an anti-war candidate with the most liberal voting record in the Senate while independents and a fair few Republicans bought his post-partisan message. But that skill, so useful at election time, could leave him unstuck as he heads to London on Air Force One this coming week for his first overseas tour to Europe and Turkey. In terms of foreign policy, he was embraced by his supporters in America as the un-Bush, the man...

Obama Will Face a Defiant World on Foreign Visit By HELENE COOPER WASHINGTON — President Obama is facing challenges to American power on multiple fronts as he prepares for his first trip overseas since taking office, with the nation’s economic woes emboldening allies and adversaries alike. Despite his immense popularity around the world, Mr. Obama will confront resentment over American-style capitalism and resistance to his economic prescriptions when he lands in London on Tuesday for the Group of 20 summit meeting of industrial and emerging market nations plus the European Union. The president will not even try to overcome NATO’s...

One of President Obama's signature boasts was that his election would, to use his term, "reboot" America's image in the world. Addressing thousands of Germans last summer, Obama said, "In Europe, the view that America is part of what has gone wrong in our world rather than a force to help make it right has become all too common." His election, he promised, would transform America's global image. it the president, the Congress, or some unknown people who pull the strings?" Khamenei further suggested that some American leaders have "demanded that our great and honorable nation be wiped out." President...

FULL-blown panic is setting in on US financial markets, prompting anxiety in Canberra and other leading world economies that the Obama Administration is not doing enough to try to stop the haemorrhaging. While President Barack Obama and the Democratic-controlled Congress have muscled through $US787bn ($1.2trillion) in stimulus spending to try to fire up the jobs market in the US, sources in the Rudd Government have flagged concerns that the underlying cause of the US economic meltdown - the unprecedented credit freeze - is not being addressed. The worry comes as US business leaders are warning the economy is in freefall....

Europeans were among the loudest cheerleaders for Barack Obama during his presidential campaign. Soon after he won the Democratic candidacy 200,000 people turned out in Berlin to hear him speak. But now that he is settled in the White House, many Europeans feel snubbed. Just six weeks into his presidency, Europeans are already fretting that Obama has yet to visit Europe. His Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, flew west for her first foreign trip, spending a week in Asia last month, before traveling to the Middle East. Meanwhile, Obama has returned the Winston Churchill bust that sat in the Oval...

Even as the U.S. Congress looks for ways to expand President Barack Obama's $819 billion stimulus package, the rest of the world is wondering how Washington will pay for it all... "The U.S. needs to show some proof they have a plan to get out of the fiscal problem," said Ernesto Zedillo, the former Mexican president who helped steer his country through a financial crisis in 1994. "We, as developing countries, need to know we won't be crowded out of the capital markets, which is already happening." ...Zedillo said that Washington, unlike most other countries, had the option of simply...

Barack Obama has now been president for 21 days, following an inauguration that was supposed to have pressed the reset button on America's relations with the wider world and ushered in a new period of global cooperation against common threats. Here's what pressing reset has accomplished so far: - Iran. Since President Obama's inauguration, Iran has launched a satellite into space and declared (with an assist from Russia, which is providing the nuclear fuel) that it would complete its long-delayed reactor at Bushehr later this year. At the Munich Security Conference last week, Iranian parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani promised a...

With a disparate cast ranging from Roman Catholic nuns to anarchists, there is one thing the 100,000 leftist activists at the World Social Forum in Brazil can agree on -- it's hard to hate Barack Obama. Former President George W. Bush was a favorite target of vitriolic anti-U.S. protests at previous editions of one of the world's biggest gathering of grassroots groups, whose inaugural meeting coincided with the start of Bush's first term in January 2001. A week after Democrat Obama's inauguration as U.S. president, the sentiment against Washington at this year's forum in the sweltering Amazon city of Belem...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Secretary of State Hillary Clinton suggested on Tuesday the world was breathing a sigh of relief that President Barack Obama had replaced George W. Bush and was working to fix the damage he had caused. In her first news conference as top U.S. diplomat, Clinton said excitement over the change in power was "reinforced time and time again" during her welcome calls in recent days with foreign counterparts. "There is a great exhalation of breath going on in the world as people express their appreciation for the new direction that's being set and the team that is...

NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) - President-elect Barack Obama has eclipsed all other contenders to clinch the top news spot so far this century. A worldwide media survey released on Monday shows that coverage around Obama's successful bid to become the next American president was written about twice as often as any other news event since the turn of the century. "Obama was unprecedented. He has captivated the world," said Paul Payack, president of the Global Language Monitor, which conducted the survey. The Texas-based firm analyses the global media to see who and what gets mentioned most among global print, electronic...

WASHINGTON — In a propaganda salvo by Al Qaeda aimed at undercutting the enthusiasm of Muslims worldwide about the American election, Osama bin Laden’s top deputy condemned President-elect Barack Obama as a “house Negro” who would continue a campaign against Islam that Al Qaeda’s leaders said was begun by President Bush. Appealing to the “weak and oppressed” around the world, the Qaeda deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, said in a video released Wednesday that the “new face” of America only masked a “heart full of hate.” For years, the terrorist network sought to fuel anti-Americanism with prolific audio and video recordings vilifying...

WASHINGTON: President-elect Barack Obama has been welcomed in the world as an ‘internationalist president’, the antithesis of George W Bush, who is often regarded as a ‘swaggering Texas cowboy’, according to Prof John Esposito. Esposito, a leading US authority on Islam, believes that Obama’s foreign policy will be expected to be all the things that many in the Muslim world saw as lacking in the Bush administration, which was viewed as neo-colonial, unilateral, arrogant, militant and interventionist. An Obama administration will be expected to be multilateral, favouring diplomacy over military threats and intervention, and avoiding what many believe was a...

With that said, it is clear at least to me that few here know much about Obama. I asked a group of college students recently what they knew about Obama’s plans to deal with the financial crisis or his stance on China. Not one person was able to tell me anything about him other than "he is America’s first black President..."

The storyline goes something like this: America’s one-time popularity in the world was squandered by George W. Bush, whose belligerence and unilateralism after Sept. 11, 2001 alienated allies and engendered widespread anti-Americanism. But now, with the election of Barack Obama, America can restore its good name and regain the world’s goodwill. One vigorous exponent of this narrative has been Obama himself. “The single most important issue that we're facing in this election,” he said during the campaign, is choosing a leader “to repair all the damage that's been done to American's reputation overseas.” On the day I become president, he...