The names of US President Barak Obama and France's President Nicolas Sarkozy are among a record 205 nominations for the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize. Former French-Colombian hostage Ingrid Betancourt and Chinese dissident Hu Jia are also on the list.
US President Barack Obama's proposed budget, unveiled on Thursday, anticipates an economic contraction of 1.2% in 2009, though his projections were more optimistic than those of the Congressional Budget Office.
Today on the Web: after a three-week protest, Martinique turns violent to obtain salary increases from the French government, the blogosphere reacts; Kurdish net users mobilise after a Turkish representative speaks Kurdish in parliament.
US President Barack Obama will reveal on Friday much anticipated details regarding his exit strategy for troops fighting in Iraq, according to his spokesman.
The Pentagon on Thursday ended a controversial policy preventing media coverage of coffins of dead soldiers returning from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Families will decide whether to allow media to film or photograph coffins.
US President Barack Obama is to announce his timeline for withdrawing troops from Iraq on Friday, and is leaning towards a 19-month pullout as opposed to the initial 16-month plan.
The US State Department released its annual human rights survey, spotlighting dire conditions in North Korea, China, Zimbabwe, and the former USSR. The US vowed to heed international concerns about its own record.
A Syrian native who lived most of his life in Spain, Monzer al-Kassar, was sentenced to 30 years in prison for conspiring to sell weapons to the Colombian Marxist group FARC.
In an address to Congress on Tuesday, US President Barack Obama pledged to act "swiftly and aggressively" to restore the flow of credit to US households and businesses, calling it the "lifeblood" of the nation's economy.
