Tag: USA

A potential showdown over Syria between US President Barack Obama and Russia's Vladimir Putin could overshadow a two-day meeting of world leaders beginning today (5 September) in St Petersburg initially dedicated to reviving the global economy.

The US National Security Agency has bugged the United Nations' New York headquarters, Germany's Der Spiegel weekly said yesterday (25 August) in a report on US spying that could further strain relations between Washington and its allies.

Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaitė said trade negotiations between the European Union and the United States would start with contacts between "professional specialists” who would look into reports that a US spy agency monitored phone calls and e-mails of EU institutions and some member states.

Germany's geographic position at the heart of Europe forces Berlin to formulate a multifaceted foreign policy. It must balance its military alliance with the United States against its energy ties with Russia, Berlin's largest natural gas supplier. It is through this context that US President Barack Obama's 18-19 June visit to Germany must be viewed, writes Stratfor.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sought to convince Czech leaders yesterday (3 December) to pick US firm Westinghouse over a Russian rival for a €8 billion nuclear power project, the country's biggest-ever public energy tender.

Moscow will seek closer ties with the United States but will not tolerate interference in its affairs and wants guarantees a US missile shield will not be used against Russia, under terms of a decree signed by Vladimir Putin yesterday, as he took office as President (7 May) for the third time. 

The US Treasury Department yesterday (8 February) enlisted five EU nations to help crack down on offshore tax evasion by Americans and ease the burdens the effort has imposed on many banks and financial institutions. 

As tensions between the United States and Russia increase over issues such as missile defence and WTO accession, Moscow is attempting to create a rift between Central Europeans and their North American allies, argues Lauren Goodrich.

Romanian President Traian Basescu signed an agreement in Washington yesterday (13 September) to host elements of a US anti-missile shield on Romanian territory. Russia immediately reacted, saying the agreement was ill-timed and asking guarantees that it is not aimed at her own strategic arsenal.

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.

The killing of an unarmed Osama Bin Laden by US forces in Pakistan violated America's democratic and legal principles as well as religious values, argues legal expert Andreas Geiger.

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.

More than 40 governments and international organisations are meeting today (29 March) in London to try to lay the groundwork for a Libya without leader Muammar Gaddafi.

The UN Security Council voted late yesterday (17 March) to authorise the imposition of a no-fly zone over Libya and the taking of "all necessary measures" - code for military action - to protect civilians from leader Muammar Gaddafi's forces.

China and the USA need to cooperate on a number of issues to retain their carefully-maintained power balance, but this balance is becoming ever more delicate as China's economic importance grows, writes global intelligence company Stratfor in an analysis.

US President Barack Obama could turn to foreign policy as a way to claw back popularity after his mid-term election setback, which has left him weakened in domestic politics, Reuters writes in an analysis piece.

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said ahead of talks with NATO allies today (14 October) that he was concerned by defence spending cuts in Europe that threatened to put more pressure on an increasingly stretched US military. European countries hit by the financial crisis are poised to make big cuts in defence budgets.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner has deplored the absence of the European Union from direct talks between Israel and Palestine, which are due to start today (2 September) in Washington.

The US Congress and the European Parliament could hold parallel hearings and produce joint communiqués as part of efforts to cooperate on areas of strategic interest, according to a senior Washington policymaker.

Russia's threat to exclude Bulgaria from its planned South Stream gas pipeline has worked, Russian daily Kommersant wrote yesterday (7 July), as a Moscow envoy obtained Sofia's consent for a ''roadmap'' to speed up the Kremlin-favoured project. The USA reacted nervously.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said yesterday (4 July) it was a US priority to help Armenia and Azerbaijan settle the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and urged them to refrain from violence over the separatist region.

"Recognition of the Armenian genocide by the full Congress and [US] President [Barack] Obama's administration would pave the way for Turkey's eventual acknowledgement of these events," writes Harout Harry Semerdjian, a foreign policy expert based in Washington, D.C. and currently a doctoral candidate at the University of Oxford, in an exclusive op-ed for EurActiv.

President Barack Obama's nuclear security summit, which ended yesterday (13 April), took a step toward lowering the risk of a terrorist group getting an atomic weapon, but real progress depends on countries keeping the promises they made.

After signing a landmark strategic nuclear disarmament treaty with Russia yesterday (8 April), US President Barack Obama reassured East European leaders that the warming of relations between Washington and Moscow would not leave a security void in Eastern Europe.