Ford Motor Co will receive nearly $5.9 billion in U.S. government loans to build fuel-efficient vehicles as the Obama administration deepened its commitment to reshaping the cash-strapped auto industry.
Japan's Nissan Motor Co Ltd will receive $1.6 billion and start-up Tesla Motors Inc will receive $465 million in low-cost loans to build all-electric cars in the first wave of financing from an Energy Department program intended to offset the cost meeting sharply higher new fuel economy standards.
"By supporting key technologies and sound business plans, we can jump-start the production of fuel-efficient vehicles in America," Energy Secretary Steven Chu said at an event at Ford's sprawling engineering and product development campus.
"These investments will come back to our country many times over by creating new jobs, reducing our dependence on oil, and reducing our greenhouse gas emissions," he said.
The Energy Department has $17 billion remaining in funding under a program first authorized by Congress in 2007. Chu said the agency would work quickly to approve further loans in the coming months to other auto companies.
The announcement of the first round of funding at Ford represented a win for the automaker, the United Auto Workers union and Michigan's congressional delegation after an intense lobbying effort to get the long-stalled funding approved.
One of the conditions of receiving the subsidized loans was a determination of viability. That ruled out Ford's rivals Chrysler and General Motors Corp since they have been pushed through a federally funded bankruptcy process.
President Barack Obama said on Saturday he is "ready to fight" for a tough new agency to protect consumers from risky loans and other financial products and lashed out at groups that might stand in the way.
"These interests argue against reform even as millions of people are facing the consequences of this crisis in their own lives," Obama said in a weekly radio address.
"These interests defend business-as-usual even though we know that it was business-as-usual that allowed this crisis to take place."
Obama said opponents were already "mobilizing" against his proposal earlier this week to create a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency as part of the most sweeping set of financial regulatory reforms since the 1930s.
The new agency, which Congress would have to approve, would have the power to write rules and design or ban financial products. It could also examine firms and impose fines and other penalties on almost any institution that offers products such as home loans or credit cards.
Critics argue that the new agency would stifle financial product innovation, boost the cost of regulatory compliance and cause prices for consumers to rise.
"It's going to create exactly the type of duplication, second-guessing and layering that we feared," David Hirschman, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Center for Capital Markets, said earlier this week.
Obama said the proposed agency was badly needed to help consumers make sense of complex financial instruments and to keep loan companies honest.
"Today, folks signing up for a mortgage, student loan, or credit card face a bewildering array of incomprehensible options. Companies compete not by offering better products, but more complicated ones -- with more fine print and hidden terms," Obama said.
"The American people sent me to Washington to stand up for their interests. And while I'm not spoiling for a fight, I'm ready for one."
Senior lawmakers have said they expect to pass financial reform regulation by the end of the year.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, at a Senate hearing on Thursday, faced the most opposition to Obama's proposal to give the Federal Reserve new powers to police broad risks in the economy.
Some lawmakers believe the central bank failed to halt practices that led to the global financial crisis.
Giving the Federal Reserve more authority "is like a parent giving his son a bigger, faster car right after he crashed the family station wagon," said Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat.
US President Barack Obama has written a letter for his daughters on the occasion of Father's Day Sunday, saying that he could not be a perfect father.
'I know I have been an imperfect father. I know I have made mistakes,' said Obama in the letter that will be published in a magazine reported people.com
'I drove Michelle and newborn Malia home from the hospital nearly 11 years ago and I think about the pledge I made to her that I would give her what I never had. And that if I could be anything in life, I would be a good father,' he added.
Obama has two daughters Malia,10, and Sasha, eight.
After finishing 100 days in the office, US Secretary of state Hilary Clinton has trumped President Barack Obama in job approval ratings.
A recent polls shows Clinton having an approval rating of 71 percent, while the the President has a 65 percent approval rating.
"She's acting like a statesman and diplomat and representing her President instead of herself. She hasn't gone off on her own as many predicted. It's been very rehabilitating for her image," said a prominent Democrat on the former presidential candidate.
The Daily News quotes experts as saying that her former president husband, Bill Clinton, has helped in revamping her image.
Hillary also has labored to smooth over lingering rifts from the campaign with Obama and his inner circle, most notably First Lady Michelle Obama.
Declaring a truce at Foggy Bottom in March, Obama joked about her refusal during the campaign to mention Clinton's name, calling her "the other candidate." With a grin, Obama said, "Let me thank Secretary Clinton - I love saying that!"
Former National Security Council member Elliott Abrams opines that Obama has absorbed much of the foreign policy flak that would have gone Clinton's way.
Obama has piled the diplomatic plate high for Clinton, tasking her with risky openings to Iran and Cuba, while getting North Korea to disarm, putting down the Taliban threat in Pakistan and bringing the Israelis and Palestinians back to negotiations.
Clinton said she would give priority to "acknowledging our own errors where we have made them, which will serve as an example to others to do the same."
"Clinton is using her political talents in the building. Morale is good. And she's playing well with others. Unlike former Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld, who was barely civil to Bush Secretaries of State Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice," said Abrams.
Even Republicans are lauding the new and improved Hilary Clinton.
"It's nice to see the relationship the two of you have built...and I'm very pleased with what you're doing," Senator George Voinovich told Clinton and Gates.
Pakistan must move to the top of US strategic agenda to prevent Islamabad's nuclear arsenal from falling into the hands of Taliban, or worse, an extremist group that seized control of the government, a scholar has warned.
The 'second scenario (would give) international terrorists even greater access to Pakistan's nuclear capabilities, the risk of nuclear confrontation with India would also increase dramatically,' writes John R. Bolton in an article in the Wall Street Journal Monday.
President Barack Obama's endorsement of Pakistan's official position that it has secure control over its nuclear weapons arsenal is 'not reassuring in light of the Taliban's military and political gains throughout Pakistan', he said.
'Unless there is swift, decisive action against the Islamic radicals there, Pakistan faces two very worrisome scenarios,' wrote the former US ambassador to the UN, now a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank.
'One scenario is that instability continues to grow, and that the radicals disrupt both Pakistan's weak democratic institutions and the military,' Bolton said, with 'a tangible risk that several weapons could slip out of military control'.
'Such weapons could then find their way to Al Qaeda or other terrorists, with obvious global implications,' he said. But 'the second scenario is even more dangerous'.
'Instability could cause the constitutional government to collapse entirely and the military to fragment' and 'allow a well-organised, tightly disciplined group to seize control of the entire Pakistani government.
'Not only could this second scenario give international terrorists even greater access to Pakistan's nuclear capabilities, the risk of nuclear confrontation with India would also increase dramatically,' Bolton said.
'To prevent either scenario, Pakistan must move to the top of our strategic agenda, albeit closely related to Afghanistan,' he said, suggesting a strengthening of pro-American elements in Pakistan's military 'so they can purge dangerous Islamicists from their ranks and roll back Taliban advances'.
Obama's talks next week in Washington with presidents Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan and Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan provide a clear opportunity to take the hard steps necessary to secure Pakistan's nuclear arsenal and defeat the Taliban, Bolton said.
'Failure to act decisively could well lead to strategic defeat in Pakistan.'
A large passenger jet flew low over Manhattan, closely pursued by a fighter aircraft. Unsurprisingly, New Yorkers panicked. Few were amused to discover later that the plane was Air Force One, and that the White House had ordered it to buzz the Statue of Liberty for a publicity photo. For Barack Obama's detractors, the incident perfectly captured the new president's penchant for style over substance. "Wouldn't Photoshop have been cheaper?" asked a conservative blogger.
After 100 days in office, Mr Obama is still scorned by the people who scorned him as a candidate. But they are a minority. A YouGov/Polimetrix poll for The Economist (see left) found that fully 70 per cent of Americans like Mr Obama as a person. Many are struck by his intelligence and wholesome family, complete with new dog. Few can see in him any personal vices worse than the occasional cigarette.
Mr Obama scores less well as a president than as a person, but not much. YouGov found that 60 per cent of Americans like the way he is handling the job. Other pollsters put the number even higher. In general, Mr Obama is much more popular than Congress and slightly more popular than the policies he espouses. So long as this lasts, he is in a strong position to cajole Congress into approving his agenda.
On April 28th, his position grew even stronger. Arlen Specter, a Republican senator from Pennsylvania, announced that he would defect to the Democrats (see article). If the Democrats also win a disputed seat in Minnesota, as seems likely, Mr Specter's defection would give them a 60-vote supermajority in the Senate. This would make it much easier for Mr Obama to pass his two big domestic proposals: heath-care reform and a cap-and-trade system for curbing carbon emissions. However, Mr Specter said he would continue to oppose a bill that would let unions dispense with secret-ballot elections.
Mr Obama is both cursed and blessed to have taken over in the middle of a blazing financial crisis. Cursed, because he has had to spend his first 100 days frenziedly fire-fighting. Blessed, because no one blames him. Even as joblessness soars and Americans' savings turn to cinders, Mr Obama wins plaudits for acting boldly to douse the flames. He has enacted a huge fiscal stimulus, unveiled a hyper-Keynesian budget, propped up tottering car firms and hastily drafted new rules for how financial bail-outs will proceed.
No one knows if Mr Obama's fiscal firehose will work. The economy shrank at an annualised rate of 6.1 per cent in the first three months of this year, as businesses slashed inventories and cut investment by a shocking 38 per cent. This makes the current recession at least as bad as any since the second world war. And it is unlikely to end soon: the commercial property market is groaning and swine flu is sure to cause jitters.
Republicans protest that since the money Mr Obama is spraying about is borrowed, he is dooming the nation to higher taxes in the future. On April 15th, the day by which Americans must file their taxes, hundreds of thousands held "tea party" protests against Mr Obama's plan to double the deficit.
But overall, Americans are much more optimistic about the economy since Mr Obama took over. Most think he is handling economic issues well. Most do not mind if he increases the size of government to tackle the crisis, so long as he scales it back when it is over. Strikingly, 45 per cent of Americans now think the country is on the right track, up from a miserable 15 per cent before Mr Obama was elected. The stock-market, too, is up by a quarter since its low point on March 9th.
Mr Obama has been able to keep some of his campaign promises without Congressional say-so, simply by signing executive orders. In January, he ordered the closure within a year of the prison for terrorist suspects at Guantánamo Bay. This delighted his supporters, but he has not yet decided what to do with the detainees, and has not ruled out detaining some of them indefinitely. In March, he gave an order to lift George Bush's restrictions on federal funding for stem-cell research, while delegating the task of drafting more detailed ethical rules to the National Institutes of Health. And in April, he lifted some restrictions on Cuban-Americans travelling and sending money to Cuba.
Abroad, Mr Obama has won applause. He was received warmly during a visit to Europe, where audiences appreciated his promise to show more respect for world opinion than his predecessor did. Republicans berate him for exuding weakness, noting that his big speech on nuclear disarmament was upstaged by a North Korean missile test. Democrats retort that Mr Obama can be tough when necessary. He has fired missiles into Pakistan to kill suspected Taliban fighters hiding there. And he is ramping up the war in Afghanistan even as he withdraws troops from Iraq. Republicans snipe that however much foreigners may like Mr Obama, they are still not prepared to send many troops to help America in Afghanistan.
Some of Mr Obama's biggest headaches are being aggravated by his own party. He has banned "waterboarding", a form of torture that was used on at least three al-Qaeda members thought to have information about impending attacks. But he is resisting his supporters' demands that Bush-era officials be prosecuted for authorising such methods of interrogation. His reluctance may stem from the knowledge that his own party is also complicit. For example, Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House, was briefed about waterboarding and raised no objections.
Plus, he has bigger priorities. He is trying to save what is salvageable of the American car industry. He wants to reshape the American health-care system, which is nearly a fifth of the economy. He wants to tackle climate change, but has not yet begun to explain to voters that this will raise their energy bills. His honeymoon will not last for ever. If he is to build on the promise of his first 100 days, he must spend his political capital cautiously.
US President Barack Obama is new Oprah? Every book that gets tagged to with him sees a spurt in sales, as it has now happened with a novel on 9/11 and cricket that he is reading these days.
In an interview on economic policies, published in the New York Times magazine Sunday but available on the net since Thursday, the president was asked about his reading. 'At the end of our conversation, when I asked him if he was reading anything good, he said he had become sick enough of briefing books to begin reading a novel in the evenings - 'Netherland,' by Joseph O'Neill,' interviewer David Leonhardt wrote.
That casual hint was enough to send publisher Random House to the press.
'The May 2008 book, published by Random House's Pantheon imprint and one of the New York Times's Best Books of the Year, has already gained market traction. According to Random House's Paul Bogaards, the title has sold 90,000 copies. But with this new presidential seal of approval, RH has decided to go back to press for an additional 2,500 copies as 'a start', according to Bogaards,' the trade publication Publishers Weekly has reported.
'The bigger message is that the president, at the end of the day, is making time to read a book,' Bogaards said.
'Netherland' is about a European man in Manhattan after 9/11 who has two loves - that for his wife, and that for his adopted country. Among other themes, the novel explores the cricketing subculture of New York, as well as a tragic friendship with a Trinidadian immigrant.
The New York Times review last year had described it as 'the wittiest, angriest, most exacting and most desolate work of fiction we've yet had about life in New York and London after the World Trade Center fell'.
Last month, a lesser-know title 'Open Veins of Latin America' by Eduardo Galeano, published in English translation in 1971, reached Amazon's sales ranking No. 2 after Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez gifted a copy of it to Obama.
Given the effects of 'Obama plug' on book sales, the Publishers Weekly wondered if the president was the new Oprah Winfrey whose recommendations have seen even classics like 'Anna Karenina' getting a new lease of life in the US.
Worried about the expanding writ of the Taliban in Pakistan, a former US ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, has said the Obama administration must seriously consider pulling out as many nuclear weapons as possible from Pakistan.
Bolton said such a step would certainly allay fears about the consequences of the Pakistan government caving to the Taliban.
He urged Obama to push for the issue during trilateral talks with Pakistan and Afghanistan next week.
"President Obama's talks next week in Washington with the presidents of Afghanistan and Pakistan provide a clear opportunity to take the hard steps necessary to secure Pakistan's nuclear arsenal and defeat the Taliban," The Nation quoted Bolton, as saying.
Bolton emphasized the need of greater US assistance to both Pakistan and Afghanistan to counter the ever advancing extremists.
"We must strengthen pro-American elements in Pakistan's military so they can purge dangerous Islamicists from their ranks, roll back Taliban advances and, together with our increased efforts in Afghanistan, decisively defeat the militants on either side of the border," he added.
Bolton also highlighted the need to reduce the heightened tension between India and Pakistan, and pressurize Pakistan to put the disgraced scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan back under house arrest.
"We must strive to keep Indo-Pakistani relations stable, if not friendly, and pressure Islamabad to put nuclear-weapons proliferator and father of Pakistan's nuclear programme Abdul Qadeer Khan back under house arrest," he said.
Stepping up pressure on Pakistan to take concrete action against the Taliban, the US has given Islamabad two weeks time to eliminate the insurgents from its soil before Washington determines what it will do next.
General David Petraeus, who heads the US Central Command, has told US officials that the coming two weeks would be 'critical to determining whether the Pakistani government will survive', Fox News reported.
'The Pakistanis have run out of excuses' and are 'finally getting serious' about combating the threat from Taliban and Al Qaeda extremists operating out of the country's northwest, the general said.
Criticising Pakistan's attitude towards fighting the insurgents, Petraeus said 'we have heard it all before' that Pakistan was doing its best to eliminate the Taliban threat.
He said that he is looking forward to see concrete action by Islamabad in the next two weeks before determining the US' next course of action, which is presently set on propping up the Pakistani government and military with counter-insurgency training and aid.
Petraeus made these assessment in talks with lawmakers and Obama administration officials this week, the news channel reported, citing people familiar with the discussions.
The sources also told the channel that no one in Washington has an 'understanding of Taliban's true objective'.
It remains unclear to policymakers here whether the Taliban wants to overthrow the Zardari government or merely to carve out territory within Pakistan in which it can establish safe haven, impose Sharia law, and plot attacks against external targets.
As American confidence in the Pakistani government wanes, the Obama administration is reaching out more directly than before to Pakistan president Asif Ali Zardari's chief rival Nawaz Sharif, the New York Times said in a report.
American officials have long held Sharif at arm's length because of his close ties to Islamists in Pakistan, but some Obama administration officials now say those ties could be useful in helping Zardari's government to confront the stiffening challenge by Taliban insurgents, the influential newspaper said Saturday.
The move reflects the heightened concern in the Obama administration about the survivability of the Zardari government, the daily said.
Gen. David H. Petraeus, the head of the United States Central Command, has said in private meetings in Washington that Pakistan's government is increasingly vulnerable, according to unnamed administration officials cited by the Times.
General Petraeus is among those expected to attend an all-day meeting on Saturday with senior administration officials to discuss the next steps in Afghanistan and Pakistan, in advance of high-level sessions next week in Washington, when Zardari and President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan will meet with President Obama at the White House.
Washington has a bad history of trying to engineer domestic Pakistani politics, and no one in the administration is trying to broker an actual power-sharing agreement between Zardari and Sharif, unnamed administration officials were cited as saying.
But they say that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Richard C. Holbrooke, the special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, have both urged Zardari and Sharif to look for ways to work together, seeking to capitalise on Sharif's appeal among the country's Islamist groups.
Obama administration officials have been up front in expressing dissatisfaction with the response shown by Zardari's government to increasing attacks by Taliban fighters and insurgents with Al Qaeda in the country's tribal areas, and along its western border with Afghanistan.
A Defence Department official cited by the Times said the administration wanted to broker an agreement not so much to buoy Zardari personally, but to accomplish what the administration believes Pakistan must do.
'The idea here is to tie Sharif's popularity to things we think need to be done, like dealing with the militancy,' the unnamed official was quoted as saying.
Both Holbrooke and Clinton have spoken with Sharif by telephone in the past month, and have urged Zardari's increasingly unpopular government to work closely with Sharif, administration officials said.
Despite fierce op-ed page debates over the Obama administration's actions so far on Israel, Iran and the Middle East, American Jews are unwavering in their support of the new president, according to a new Gallup poll.
Tracking polls conducted through Obama's first 100 days in office show that 79 percent of Jews approve of Obama's performance so far, about the same percentage that voted for him last November, reports The Jerusalem Post.
Only Muslims gave Obama higher approval ratings, with 85 percent responding that they approve of the president. Respondents who identified themselves as non-religious also indicated overwhelming support, with 73 percent indicating approval.
Liberal Jews showed overwhelming support for the Democratic president, with 96 percent approving of his job performance. Among those who described themselves as moderate, 77 percent approved of Obama.
Jewish conservatives split evenly, with 45 percent approving of Obama and 45 percent disapproving.
The poll's authors noted that Obama has taken a strong stand on the Middle East by appointing George Mitchell as a special peace envoy and dispatching Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to the region. The new administration has also signaled shifts in their approach to Iran's nuclear program.
"It is not clear whether US Jews endorse Obama's approach, but the fact that four in five approve of the job he is doing - consistent with their vote for him in the election - suggests they at least tolerate it," they wrote.
Even though the Pakistan Army has initiated military operation against the Taliban in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and has claimed success in some areas, the offensive might not yield the desired results, because Pakistani officers are hesitant to carry out an attack against their own people, a US expert believes.
A retired US Army colonel and author, Ralph Peters said Washington must understand that Pakistani military personnel might be facing problems fighting their own people.
"Pakistani officers just don't want to fight against their people," The Daily Times quoted Peters, as saying.
"Our diplomats and generals can't understand why Pakistan's million-man military avoids confronting the Taliban as the extremists tear into the country's flesh," he added.
Peters, while comparing the struggle in Pakistan with America's civil war said : "Look to our own history. Along the Indus River, 2009 looks worrisomely like 1861 did on the Potomac, the river which flows through West Virginia and Washington."
"After the attack on Fort Sumter, President Abraham Lincoln offered command of the Union forces to the most respected officer in the US Army, Colonel Robert E Lee. Lee was not in favour of secession," he said.
"Lee declined the offer. For all of his patriotism, he felt he couldn't lift his sword against his native Virginia, against his relatives, friends and neighbours," Peters said.