Tag: Barack Obama

After months of vitriolic discord, Republican and Democratic lawmakers are expected to vote today (1 August) on a White House-backed deal to raise the US borrowing limit and avert an unprecedented default. The news was greeted with widespread relief around the world.

Despite Anglo-French activism in Libya, the European Union's divisions on interventionism mean that the bloc is no substitute for the United States' continued engagement with the world, argues author and expert on international relations Dominique Moïsi.

The news that Israeli-Palestinian talks are to resume should not lead to over-expectations as to their outcome, warns Shlomo Avineri, director-general of Israel's Foreign Ministry under Yitzhak Rabin's first cabinet and professor of political science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Although question marks hang over the transatlantic political will to devise common policies to regulate banks, US Ambassador to the EU William Kennard told officials and lobbyists yesterday (26 April) that the two giants were more inseparable than ever, "like Siamese twins".

European countries believe a planned US bank levy to cover the costs of the American financial bailout is flawed and discriminates against foreign banks, according to a report prepared in advance of an EU finance ministers' meeting tomorrow (16 April).