Rabu, 25 Maret 2009

Clinton: U.S. Drug Demand Fuels Mexico Violence

Clinton: U.S. Fueling Mexican Drug Wars
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton says America's insatiable demand for illegal drugs and inability to stop weapons smuggling into Mexico are fueling an alarming spike in violence along the U.S.-Mexican border.
Anti-Terror Stimulus? US Offers Rewards for Top Terrorists
ABC News' Kirit Radia reports: The US State Department's Rewards for Justice program announced Wednesday major rewards for information leading to the location or capture of three top al Qaeda and Taliban terrorists. The US is offering $5 million for...
Obama's stimulus 'way to Hell:' EU chief

by Mark Silva and updated

President Barack Obama's bid for a global strategy to gain rebalance in the world's economy faces at least a few obstacles.

Such as the leader of the European Union, who calls the president's economic stimulus "the way to Hell.''

As the dispatch from Brussels in The New York Times today notes, the words of Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek, who has assumed the rotating presidency of the E.U., aren't going over all that well with everyone in the 27-nation alliance, particulary the British prime minister who will play host to Obama at a global summit next week.

Comes word today from the E.U. presidency, however, that the prime minister's remarks were misinterpreted. "He didn't say that," Czech Deputy Prime Minister Alexandr Vondra said at a news conferencetoday. The explanation is that Topolanek, speaking through an interpreter, had noted that the United States is taking strong fiscal action to combat the economic crisis and said the European Union would be on the "way to Hell" if it boosted its own fiscal spending.

Whatever he said, it may be a blessing for Obama that the E.U. presidency lasts only six months. As Obama heads for the summit of the Group of 20 major industrial and emerging economies in London next week, the words of the E.U. leader may hang in the air over a conference in which Obama is seeking a global commitment to attacking the economic problems underlying the global recession.

Just five days ago, the Times notes, "E.U. leaders had reached a carefully constructed political truce designed to bury their differences and agree on a common policy ahead of the London meeting. At last Friday's E.U. summit, they pledged an additional 75 billion euros to finance loans by the International Monetary Fund and to double a credit line for its struggling eastern economies.

"European countries, including Germany, have resisted calls to increase the scale of their fiscal stimulus arguing, that the G-20 should concentrate on tightening financial regulation. ''

It is suggested that perhaps the Czechs aren't feeling the same pain that others are feeling. The E.U. president "is sitting in the Czech Republic," one official told the newspaper, "where growth is holding up relatively well and a fiscal stimulus makes no sense... He has never been in favor of a big fiscal stimulus -- though he did not argue against it at the E.U. summit."

Analysts in Prague call Topolanek eager to "show Europe that he was still politically relevant despite the collapse of the government'' and say that "railing against interventionism'' is consistent with ideology of his center-right Civic Democratic party.

"While Mr. Obama in recent weeks has pleaded with European partners to stimulate the economy, countries including the Czech Republic that endured decades of Communism are deeply suspicious of state intervention,'' the Times notes, suggesting that the leader's comments are "likely to come as an embarrassment'' for Gordon Brown, the British prime minister, visiting the United States today in preparation for hosting the G-20 summit in London next week.


Clinton: U.S. Drug Demand Fuels Mexico Violence

The secretary of state says "insatiable" U.S. demand for illegal drugs and its inability to stop weapons-smuggling have led to an alarming spike in violence near the U.S.-Mexico border.


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