But U.S. President Barack Obama, even while taking a more businesslike approach to diplomacy than his predecessor George W. Bush, used his debut on the world stage to start developing his own brand of rapport with fellow world leaders.

As they sat down for their first face-to-face meeting, Obama and Medvedev declared in their joint statements that the "era when our countries viewed each other as enemies is long over."

Obama-Medvedev statement

"We're going to have a concerted effort within the State Department and USAID (the U.S. Agency for International Development) to reform the process," Clinton told USA TODAY in an interview. "I'm very committed to it. I know that it's a challenge, because we're dealing with decades of practice."

The British troops had been stationed at Basra's air base since the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

The departure is part of an agreement signed between Iraq and Britain in November in which Britain pledged to complete the pullout of its last 4,100 soldiers from Iraq by July of this year.

Here violence remains high, the Sunni insurgency never defeated. As American troops withdraw, such strongholds could threaten the fragile gains in Iraq. And so the American military has mounted one of its few current combat missions to try to finally eradicate what it describes as toughened insurgents.

Even though U.S. President Barack Obama's new strategy for Afghanistan calls for continued efforts to destroy the flowers used in the production of opium, Richard Holbrooke, the administration's coordinator of Afghanistan policy, called the practice "wasteful and ineffective" at a Brussels forum this month, USA Today reported Tuesday.

London G20 protests details in full
Today will see demonstrators take to the streets of London to protest ahead of Thursday's G20 summit, here inthenews outlines the different events taking place across the capital.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice said in a statement that the administration will join the council to help make it more effective as part of President Barack Obama's desire to create a "new era of engagement" with the international community.

The letter is a plea for the release of Robert Levinson, Roxana Saberi & Esha Momeni and states that the cooperation of the Iranian government would be a humanitarian gesture.

The three US citizens have been held in Iran after being arrested March 8, 2007, February 10, 2009 and October 15, 2008 respectively

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton says the Americans delivered a letter to the Iranians at Tuesday's meeting in The Hague. The letter asks Iran to help resolve the cases of three detained or missing Americans.

The cases, and the U.S. position on them, were already known. What's new is the Obama administration's choice to approach Iran directly, instead of through a go-between. The two countries have had no formal diplomatic ties for nearly three decades.

The idea, on the surface, is to establish a navy-to-navy communications protocol so near-miss confrontations like last year’s incident in the Strait of Hormuz can be avoided. As Conyers’ resolution puts it, “the absence of diplomatic relations between the United States and Iran need not be an obstacle to direct, military to military talks on procedural issues involving the safety of naval personnel and assets,” especially when such a thing “could help protect American lives and treasure.” Beyond that, though, the resolution creates a subtle communication channel for further talks. “It also might carve out some political space in the Congress for diplomacy,” a congressional source explains.

The Afghan president signed the law earlier this month, despite condemnation by human rights activists and some MPs that it flouts the constitution's equal rights provisions.

The final document has not been published, but the law is believed to contain articles that rule women cannot leave the house without their husbands' permission, that they can only seek work, education or visit the doctor with their husbands' permission, and that they cannot refuse their husband sex.

A briefing document prepared by the United Nations Development Fund for Women also warns that the law grants custody of children to fathers and grandfathers only.

"The administration has stopped using the phrase, and I think that speaks for itself," Mrs. Clinton told reporters as she traveled here for a United Nations-led conference on Afghanistan.

Asked whether there was a specific policy decision on the terminology, she said: "I haven't gotten any directive about using it or not using it. It's just not being used."

"I have no plans" to seek out diplomats from the longtime U.S. adversary during Tuesday's one-day discussions, Clinton said. "I can't forecast tomorrow."

There’s been “very little credibility for what’s already been invested,” Clinton told reporters en route to the Netherlands for the gathering on Afghanistan tomorrow. “A lot of these aid programs don’t work.” The new U.S. strategy involves “looking at every single dollar as to how it’s spent, and where it’s going, and trying to track the outcome.”

The one-day summit in The Hague will be an opportunity to share those findings with 72 other nations and more than a dozen international organizations, and discuss how each can contribute more effectively to development and anti-terrorism efforts, Clinton said.

"After 60 years, NATO is changing its communication strategy. It is the first time that we run a web-only campaign, with three videos aimed at reaching a wider audience, especially the younger generation," Jean-Francois Bureau, NATO's assistant secretary-general for public diplomacy told journalists on Monday (30 March).

The acronym NATO was generally well known, even among youngsters, but what is not so much known is what the organisation was actually dealing with, Mr Bureau said.

Mar 30, 2009
UAE President, Iraqi PM discuss Arab Summit issues
Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan has received Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki at his residence in Sheraton Doha.

Sheikh Khalifa and Maliki exchanged perspectives on a number of significant issues placed on the agenda on the current Arab Summit. They also explored the strong bilateral relations between the UAE and Iraq and ways to further promote them in various areas.

Present at the meeting were H.H Sheikh Abdullah Bin Zayed al-Nhayan, Foreign Minister, Ahmed Juma'a al-Za'abi, Deputy Minister of Presidential Affairs and members of the delegation accompanying Iraqi Prime Minister.

Gadhafi disrupted the opening Arab League summit in Qatar by taking a microphone and criticizing Saudi's King Abdullah, calling him a "British product and American ally."

When the Qatari emir tried to quiet him, the Libyan leader and current Africa Union chairman insisted he be allowed to speak.

"I am an international leader, the dean of the Arab rulers, the king of kings of Africa and the imam (leader) of Muslims, and my international status does not allow me to descend to a lower level," Gadhafi said.

A handover ceremony tomorrow marks the beginning of the end of the British mission, with Major-General Andy Salmon, commander of coalition forces in southern Iraq, due to transfer his authority to an incoming US general. He and his staff will then fly home, followed by most of the rest of the 4,100 contingent.

Britain says that its job is done in Basra because a set of finite goals have been met, such as training the Iraqi Army, but much work remains for the incoming American troops who are already hard at work mentoring the Iraqi police and helping to secure Iraq’s porous southern border with Iran.

The overseas tour will introduce him to the world stage.

He will attend international summits on complex, urgent topics - the global financial meltdown and the downward-spiraling fight against terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He plans individual meetings with leaders important to U.S. strategic interests, from nations including Russia, China, Britain, France, Germany, South Korea, Saudi Arabia and India. Obama also will make his first stop in a Muslim nation, Turkey.

Wildly popular around the globe but relatively inexperienced in foreign affairs, Obama also will squeeze in a Buckingham Palace audience with Queen Elizabeth II, joined by his wife, Michelle; deliver a speech in France on the trans-Atlantic relationship and an address in Prague on weapons proliferation; and holding a round-table session with students in Turkey.

03/30/2009
Afghanistan: Might As Well Talk Now
Clearly, the administation is still divided on Afghanistan, with some officials pushing for exactly the "minimalist" path derided by McCain and supported by Allison and Deutch, and others who want a much more aggressive nation-building approach. The question is: Do the latter, at least inside the administration, really believe that the United States can stay in Afghanistan for a decade or longer, building a vast Afghan army whose budget will consume three times the entire Afghan government's income?

More than 100 people attended the public forum called "Afghanistan 101" at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Princeton, which was sponsored by the Coalition for Peace Action.

"The civilian population is bearing the brunt of the armed conflict in Afghanistan and Pakistan," Jacques de Maio, the head of the ICRC's South Asia operation, told reporters in Geneva.

"Too many civilians have been killed, maimed, humiliated, wounded and then not treated," de Maio said, calling on states participating in the Hague conference on Tuesday to better consider the plight of the population "as a matter of urgency."

"There is an increasing gap between the humanitarian needs and the response by the humanitarian community in conflict affected areas" in the two countries, he added.

President Barack Obama’s plan to send 4,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan includes a strategy to exploit fractures within the Taliban, though he rejects talks with the movement’s Afghan leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar. Jung said he draws no distinction between groups that promote terror and it’s up to the Afghan government to lure in those who swear off violence.

“From my perspective there’s no differentiation,” Jung, a Christian Democrat, told a group of foreign journalists today in Berlin. “When I was just in Afghanistan, we spoke with many tribal chiefs who said ‘Taliban is Taliban’.”

Jung said North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies should concentrate on working with tribal elders to promote development work as a way of preventing Afghans from turning to the Taliban, which ruled the country harshly until it was overthrown in the 2001 U.S.-led invasion.

Friday’s meeting was held under the auspices of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, a six-member regional security group including Russia, China and central Asian states, to discuss combating terrorism and drug trafficking in Afghanistan. Those present included Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary-general, the foreign ministers of Pakistan and Afghanistan, and senior British diplomats.

The US and Iranian officials spoke within minutes of each other.

As Mr Obama announced thousands more troops and billions more in cash, he said intelligence pointed to another attack on the US, this one planned from within the increasingly unstable Pakistan.

"Multiple intelligence estimates have warned that al-Qaeda is actively planning attacks on the US homeland from its safe haven in Pakistan," he said. "We have a clear and focused goal: to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan and to prevent their return to either country in the future."

28/03/09
French Plan for Armed EU Police in Afghanistan Raises Concerns
Several EU nations have concerns about a French scheme to send European armed police into Afghanistan, officials admitted during a foreign ministers meeting in the Czech Republic on Friday.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner launched the idea at an EU summit last week.

He made the case again at two days of talks with his European Union counterparts at Hluboka castle in the southern Czech Republic, which were winding up Saturday.

Karzai hailed Washington's new strategy for the "war on terror" in Afghanistan and Pakistan, including its mention of reconciliation with certain militants.

"While we are speaking about the peace process with the Taliban, we must also make sure to provide the right environment for such a peace process," Karzai told reporters.

"Right environment means first of all looking at the list that is with the United Nations and removing names that are not part of Al-Qaeda, that are not part of the terrorist networks," he said.

"Those names must be removed from the list."

In a statement released Friday, a spokesman for the hostage-takers said an agreement had been reached with Britain and the U.S. to free the Britons gradually.

A senior aide to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki acknowledged Saturday that contacts were under way to release the five Britons, who were taken hostage in May 2007, but denied a deal had been struck.

The widely read Saudi-owned Elaph Web site quoted a leader of the extremist group Asaib Ahl al-Haq, or League of the Righteous, as saying that a video sent this month to the British Embassy in Baghdad showing one of the hostages was part of the deal.

"It's our assessment and we believe it's theirs that there are issues as it relates to, for example, narcotics that present an opportunity for Iran to engage Afghanistan in a way that can address ... a concern that we also have about Afghanistan," White House security adviser Denis McDonough told a conference call with reporters.

He said the United States hoped Secretary of State Hillary Clinton "has an opportunity to constructively engage this issue."

The two leaders will also sign a document on U.S.-Russian relations in general at a meeting in London, and seek to coordinate policies on Iran, North Korea and Afghanistan, Sergei Prikhodko, an aide to President Dmitry Medvedev, told reporters.

"We will seek to agree on the terms and timeframe for working on an agreement to replace the START treaty so that at our next meeting we can reach our first concrete agreements and conclude all of our work by year's end," Prikhodko said.

Russia on Friday asked North Korea to put on hold its controversial rocket launch, seen by the US and immediate neighbours of that country as a test of Pyongyang’s long range missile.

“It would be better if DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) refrained from doing this,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexei Borodavkin said.

"The right information is crucial to making the right decisions, especially when one's life had been turned upside down by circumstances outside of one's control," said Katherine Bragg, Assistant Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, opening a high-level panel discussion at United Nations Headquarters on meeting the information needs of disaster-stricken populations.

Billions of dollars in aid is not being used to its full potential because the focus is both too short-term and too security-centric, the international charity said in its study, released Thursday.