Don't seek to wreck liberal world order, Obama warns Trump

US President Barack Obama made a strident case for his successor Donald Trump to retain America's support for a liberal world order on Sunday, warning world peace and prosperity depend on it. "The main advice that I give to the incoming president is the United States really is an indispensable nation in our world order," Obama said in Peru as he wrapped up his final foreign visit. The United States' ability to uphold "international norms and rules …that's what's made the modern world," Obama said, admitting that Washington had not always fulfilled its own ideals, but remained vital to global security. "Here in Latin America there's been times when countries felt disrespected and on occasion had cause for that." But he argued history served as a warning for those imagining or flirting with a revised global order. "Take an example like Europe before that order was imposed. We had two world wars in a span of 30 years. In the second one, 60 million people were killed. Not half a million, not a million but 60 million. Entire continents in rubble." "We're not going to...

Read More........ → November 22, 2016

Santos right pick for Nobel Prize, says Barack Obama

US President Barack Obama gestures as he votes in the Presidential election at the Cook County Office Building in Chicago. —AFP Nobel Peace Prize winner Barack Obama has hailed the courage of this year’s laureate, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, and said the award was well earned. “The Nobel Committee made the right decision in welcoming his tireless efforts to bring a just and lasting peace to Colombia,” Mr Obama said on Friday. “This award is a testament to President Santos's unwavering, courageous leadership through years of difficult negotiations.” The Nobel committee raised eyebrows by giving Obama the prize in 2009, just months after he entered the White House. It surprised again on Friday, giving the award to Mr Santos just days after Colombian voters rejected a peace deal between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). “The democratic vote this week is a reminder that there is still work to be done to realize the future for which President Santos and so many citizens are striving,” Mr Obama said. “But it’s also a sign...

Read More........ → October 09, 2016

Towards end, as at beginning, Barack Obama pulls out Hanuman

US President Barack Obama speaks in the Cabinet Room of the White House in Washington. (Photo: AP) A statuette of Lord Hanuman is among the few items that US President Barack Obama carries in his pocket and seeks inspiration from whenever he feels tired or discouraged. The President disclosed this in an interview on YouTube which the White House scheduled as a way to reach younger audiences as it promotes Mr Obama’s final State of the Union address on Tuesday. [There have been earlier references to Mr Obama’s Lord Hanuman connection. In January 2015, minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had tweeted that Mr Obama had taken out a statuette of Lord Hanuman from his pocket to show to Ms Pratibha Advani, according to a news website. And in 2008 Hindus in the US presented Mr Obama a larger statue of Lord Hanuman when they heard that the then Democratic presidential candidate carried a statuette of the god in his pocket, it was reported.] On Friday, when asked to show an item of personal significance during the interview with YouTube creator Nilsen, 54-year-old Obama pulled from his pockets a...

Read More........ → January 17, 2016