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The chairman of the US Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, has warned that the country's creditworthiness is at risk if its borrowing limit is not raised.

He said the US could lose its coveted AAA credit rating if Congress did not vote in favour of lifting the $14.3 trillion (£8.7 trillion) debt ceiling.

If there is no deal by August, the US may start defaulting on obligations.

Vice-President Joe Biden and congressional leaders have resumed efforts to find a bipartisan solution.

They are trying to reach an agreement that would tie spending cuts with an increase in the debt limit. They are expected to discuss annual spending levels, budget process reforms, taxes and healthcare

US President Barack Obama has said the European debt crisis cannot be allowed to threaten the global economy, following White House talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The leaders that the euro zone troubles "cannot be allowed to put the global economic recovery at risk," he said.

The pair discussed Nato operations in Afghanistan and Libya, the Middle East peace process and economic issues.

Later, Mr Obama was to award Ms Merkel the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
‘Peace and prosperity’
Mr Obama has previously said that the problems affecting the eurozone are one of a number of foreign "headwinds" affecting the US

US President Barack Obama is due in the Republic of Ireland at the start of a week-long tour of Europe.

The president will also visit the UK, France and Poland. In France he will attend a meeting of the Group of Eight (G8) major world powers.

The BBC's North America Editor says Afghanistan will be high on the agenda, as will the upheaval in the Arab world.

Security will be tight following the US raid that killed Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan three weeks ago.

After arriving in Dublin, President Obama will meet Irish President Mary McAleese and then hold talks with Taoiseach Enda Kenny.

Later, the US leader, together with First Lady Michelle Obama, will visit the village of Moneygall, Co Offaly, which was the home of his great-great-great grandfather on his mother's side, Falmouth Kearney.

A huge security operation has been put in place around the

The top US Republican in Congress has warned he will oppose increasing the US government's ability to borrow funds unless the Obama administration agrees to deep spending cuts.

Republican House Speaker John Boehner also said the cuts must exceed any boost to the US borrowing limit.

The move comes less than a week before the US is set to run up against its $14.3 trillion (£8.7tn) debt limit.

President Barack Obama has said a default could shake global

President Barack Obama is shifting from consoler to comic for his appearance before the White House Correspondents Dinner in Washington, DC. And some of his

America’s engagement in Libya has provoked a spasm of commentary from seasoned hands in the foreign policy establishment and pundits of all political stripes complaining that President Obama’s decision to join in the United Nations’ sanctioned, multi-lateral effort to protect civilians from Muammar Gaddafi was either confused, wrong-headed, or nave, or all of the above.
But the decision was none of those things. It was simply another example of the president making a policy decision in ways that instinctively reflect the beliefs and behaviors of his most loyal supporters, the Millennial generation, born between 1982 and 2003. The last time a generation like the Millennials (a type labeled “civic” by generational theorists) came of age it was the GI or Greatest Generation in the 1930s and

The beginning of U.S. and NATO military attacks on Libya came as a surprise to most Americans — not least anti-war and pro-peace voters like myself who have supported President Obama as a candidate and now as chief executive. I was at the start, and remain, deeply concerned about the path the president is choosing.
There is a strong anti-war case for staying out of

In his most recent State of the Union address, President Obama told us we are now in the midst of a new “Sputnik moment,” in which we need to respond to the scientific vigor of our international competitors with a little scientific vigor of our own. He suggested that we as a nation need to learn to celebrate the winner of the science fair as much as we celebrate the winner of the Super Bowl. Good luck with that, Mr. President! In my recent book, Nerds: How Dorks, Dweebs, Techies and Trekkies Can Save America…and Why They Might Be Our Last Hope, I take a look at the developmental psychology and cultural history of the nerd

By Mark Green
Mary Matalin and Wayne Barrett (sitting in for Arianna until her return in two weeks) focus on two big issues: first, after the quicksands of Iraq and Afghanistan, can America intervene militarily in the Libyan civil war in a proportionate and successful way? And how should Washington best intervene in local classrooms to improve education? From the Situation Room to the classroom. (To hear entire show, click podcast below.)
*Getting a Little Bit Pregnant in Libya. Mary acknowledges changing her mind on the right role in Libya, first opposing it, then supporting it, now opposing it. (She took cover behind a for-it-before-against-it joke at John Kerry’s expense.) She worries about the confusion of goals — Saving civilians? Regime change? — and wonders what is the doctrine that allows this intervention but not others in Yemen, Bahrain,

In Laos recently, a 10-year-old boy was killed by a buried bomb he and a friend disturbed while playing. While his friend was killed instantly, the boy survived the initial blast. In a video exhibit at Vientiane’s Cooperative Orthotic and Prosthetic Enterprise (COPE), his parents recount the details of the horrific injuries inflicted by the explosion and their frantic search for a truck to take him to the hospital. Their son survived the long trip to the nearest city and the ride to a second hospital but was denied medical care at

President Obama’s whirlwind tour of Latin America this week delivered some good news and bad news for Latin American watchers. First comes the bad the news, which I don’t think was all that bad in light of the milestone trip. The visit, rightfully positioned as a trade mission to help create American jobs given the anemic state of the U.S. economy, was cut short and proved uninteresting to American

The Libyan assault as well as continued American presence in Iraq and Afghanistan have many people saying that either the Nobel Peace Prize committee should demand the prize be returned or that the president should volunteer to hand it back. For those who think these are serious options, I have some bad news for you — it’ll never happen. Not tomorrow, not next week, not ever.
Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize raised a lot of eyebrows around the world given that he had barely been in office and had little on the resume to justify the prize. My conclusion was that the committee gave it for two main reasons: (1) to remind America that they really disliked George

The dominant discourse in national American politics these days is a discourse on deficits. The leadership of the Republican Party, emboldened by their mid-term capture of the House, regularly informs us that “we are broke, and that we need to do something about it.” By “we,” they invariably mean the federal government. By ‘broke,” they mean the scale of borrowing currently necessary to balance the federal government’s books. By “doing something about it,” they mean the wholesale cutting of a swathe of discretionary public programs: $61 billion worth of such cutting if the mainstream Republican politicians have their way, $100 billion if the Tea Party agenda

As the bombing of Libya escalates, those who supported the attacks might want to ask themselves the following questions: What is next?
The death toll will mount and so will the structural damage to the country. Regardless of the hatred for Gaddafi, there will be inevitable resentment from Libyans upset at seeing the invaders of Iraq and Afghanistan target another Arab country. If the bombing does not work and Gaddafi continues to wage war against the rest of his country, will our intervention have helped or made the already bad situation worse? Do we then ‘stay the course’ to ensure freedom for the Libyan people?
These are questions that have yet to be answered by the authors of this new war, echoing the moral certainty of Bush and Blair and the disregard for public opposition.
Obama’s decision to involve the U.S. smacks of a cynical attempt to boost his popularity at home by appearing tough — an age-old trick used when the economy is in the doldrums and nothing appears to be working

It is a different story this time. Libya is not Iraq. The U.S. and West are getting it right this

President Obama will be travelling through Latin America March 19-23, 2011 with stops in Brazil, Chile, and El Salvador. This is a region that has countries that are: major emitters, key players in global warming negotiations, taking action and ripe for further action, and on the front lines of the impacts of global warming. As he meets with leaders in South and Central America he has an important opportunity to advance action on global warming.
The Latin American region is an important source of carbon pollution accounting for around 12% of the world’s global warming pollution.* The majority of these emissions arise from the loss of tropical

In the midst of crisis in Libya and the Middle East, the confused aftermath of the earthquake in Japan, and a budget battle in Washington, President Barack Obama arrives in Brazil Saturday for a short trip to Latin America that will also take him to Chile and El Salvador. Is this really a good use of the president’s time? Absolutely; with a sluggish recovery at home and the region increasingly looking to China and others to diversify economic and political ties, now is the time to show that the United States is a willing partner that takes seriously the region’s concerns as opposed to nations that just take the region’s commodities.
Brazil is a key to success. Obama’s travel to Brasilia offers an early opportunity to explore a substantive and expansive common agenda barely three months after the inauguration of the new Brazilian president. The personal histories and paths to their respective nations’ presidencies — Obama as the first African American president, Dilma Rousseff as a former revolutionary and Brazil’s first woman president — offer a unique opportunity to forge a personal relationship between leaders that can drive the overall bilateral and even regional

By Medea Benjamin and Charles Davis
March 19 marks the eighth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, a nation that had no weapons of mass destruction and was not involved in the 9/11 attacks. It was sold to the American public as a war to defend our nation and free the Iraqi people. U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz said our soldiers would be greeted as liberators and that Iraqi oil money would pay for the

David Remnick, editor of the New Yorker, is arguably the most influential Jewish American journalist. Now 50, Remnick became editor at 37 after an impressive career covering the collapse of the Soviet Union for the Washington Post. His book about that incredible period, Lenin’s Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire, won a Pulitzer in 1994.
Over the years he has written about Israel and the Palestinians with some regularity. Although he claims no special expertise in the area (other than being a strongly identifying Jew), his editor’s “comments” indicate that he knows the issue

The two leaders of the new Irish government have landed in America for St.Patrick’ Day with a spring in their step and a desire to write a new chapter in the history of Ireland and America.
Prime Minister Enda Kenny and Foreign Minister Eamon Gilmore, leaders of the two coalition parties, Fine Gael and Labour, have inherited a decrepit economy, 1,000 young people a week leaving and enough problems to give an aspirin a headache.
But the mood music could not be more different since they took power. In the end the old regime was seen as hopelessly corrupt and incompetent and the Irish electorate punished the Fianna Fail led government savagely on February 25th.
The new government with a record majority in parliament are at great pains to show they will be fair, open and honest.
They have slashed their own salaries, ended the limousines and drivers for government ministers , promised quick action on a raft of good government measures and generally set the mood music right in a country where Mozart’s Requiem has been the prevailing leitmotif.
Now they are in America for St.Patrick’s Day and Kenny will have most of the day with Vice President Biden and President Obama tomorrow, joined later by Gilmore who meets Secretary of State Clinton on Friday.
In a meeting I was at with Gilmore in New York the change was immediately obvious from the ancient regime.
“I am here to listen” he told a group of Irish immigration advocates, anxious to discuss the plight of Irish undocumented.
It was a welcome refrain.

read full news from www.huffingtonpost.com

When it comes to the safety of nuclear power plants, I am biased. And I’ll bet that if President Barack Obama had been with me on that trip to Chernobyl 24 years ago he wouldn’t be as sanguine about the future of nuclear power as he was Tuesday in an interview with a Pittsburgh television station: “Obviously, all energy sources have their downside. I mean, we saw that with the Gulf spill last summer.”
Sorry, Mr. President, but there is a dimension of fear properly associated with the word nuclear that is not matched by any oil spill.
Even 11 months after what has become known simply as “Chernobyl” I sensed a terror of the darkest unknown as I donned the requisite protective gear and checked Geiger counter readings before entering the surviving turbine room adjoining plant

The stimulus program passed by the Obama administration in February 2008 never got much respect. Neo-Keynesian voices argued that it was not nearly large enough, and I agree with those criticisms. But, more often, right-wing talking points seemed to influence mainstream beliefs. Too many people seemed to accept that the stimulus was a waste of money and that much less should have been spent.
The wrongheadedness of that view should now be clearer than

This past week President Obama affirmed what many people expected. Although the president had proclaimed soon after he was elected that he would shut Guantanamo Bay Detention Center within one year, he has now confirmed that the prison will remain open for the foreseeable future. Consequently, a significant number of the 172 detainees currently detained at Guantanamo will be held without charges indefinitely, perhaps for their entire lives.
Our Witness to Guantanamo project (W2G) interviewed former General Counsel of the United States Navy Alberto Mora in December 2010. He reflected on the damage we had done to due process and the rule of law post 9/11 in Guantanamo and observed that, “Without human rights we are just another country.”
A government that has held prisoners for over 9 years without charges, and now acknowledges that it will continue to hold a significant number of them indefinitely without charges or prosecutions, cannot pretend that it is committed to human

Imagine that you’ve arrived at the local multiplex for a weekend flick. Popcorn in hand, you settle in to watch Matt Damon star in a new thriller as a young American soldier imprisoned by the government for blowing the whistle on crimes witnessed while serving in a foreign country.
INT. MILITARY PRISON CELL – DAY
(Calendar pages flip by indicating the passage of months.