Category: international

Live Tweeting President Obama’s Speech to the UN

Since I was recently randomly granted press credentials by the white house I figured I’d give covering the President a shot. So I now present, in chronological order, my live tweeting of President Obama’s speech to the United Nations as I heard it:

Obama: “bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla *head swivel* bla bla bla *head swivel* bla bla bla bla”

Obama: “bla bla bla bla cleavage bla bla bla in this body bla bla bla” Continue reading Live Tweeting President Obama’s Speech to the UN

North Korea Kicks Out Inspectors, Vows to Restart Nuke Program

north korea nuclear

In a major challenge to the US and UN North Korea has kicked out IAEA inspectors, left the six party talks, and declared it would restart its nuclear program. IAEA Spokesperson Marc Vidricaire just released this statement:

“The Democratic People´s Republic of Korea (DPRK) has today informed IAEA inspectors in the Yongbyon facility that it is immediately ceasing all cooperation with the IAEA. It has requested the removal of all containment and surveillance equipment, following which, IAEA inspectors will no longer be provided access to the facility. The inspectors have also been asked to leave the DPRK at the earliest possible time.

The DPRK also informed the IAEA that it has decided to reactivate all facilities and go ahead with the reprocessing of spent fuel.”

Well… I am just completely shocked that North Korea would do something as “provacative” as this after we were oh so strong in our condemnation of their last “provacative” act. Gee wilikers who would’ve thought?

Stay tuned… there is more to come on this.

Turkish Police Thwart Obama Assassination Conspiracy

The Saudi daily Al Watan is reporting that Turkish police have arrested a Syrian man who had conspired with at least three other men to try and assassinate President Obama (h/t BNO News):

According to the report, the man, who was arrested on Friday, was carrying a press card identifying him as an employee of Al Jazeera. He reportedly confessed to his intention to stab Obama with a knife and said that he was aided by three accomplices.

The report stated that Turkish authorities were still unsure as to whether the press card was a fake or whether it had actually been issued the man by the Qatari news network.

Al-Jazeera’s Ankara bureau chief, Yussef al-Sharif, told the paper that news of the suspected assassination plot had come as an utter surprise to the network’s staff in Turkey, adding that all of Al-Jazeera’s employees in the country claimed that they were not acquainted with the suspect.

Let me be the first to congratulate the law enforcement involved in stopping this assassination attempt. And let me be the first to say that I hope this brush with the realities of the war on terror will help to convince our President that he needs to commit to the fight. I hope you now see, Mr. President, that the terrorists don’t want to be your friend. They want to kill you, literally.

Pandering to them wont make them like you. Talking with them wont make them civil. Surrendering to them wont make them stop.

UPDATE: Ace links the story. He thinks there isn’t much to the plot because they planned to use a knife but it’s the press passes that make me think otherwise. It seems to me that the press could, at least in theory, get within knife range of the President. Especially considering Obama’s desire to make middle eastern networks like him.

UPDATE: CBN News has a little more information on this story. Apparently the man was planning on carrying out his attack tomorrow but was arrested on Friday. However, President Obama may still be in danger because the man claims that if he was to fail in his attempt his three conspirators were supposed to carry out their own attack. I’m sure the President is safe but this is still unnerving.

I’d also like to thank Hot Air, Tommy Christopher at AOL News, Protein Wisdom, and Memeorandum for linking me on this story. The consensus seems to be that these guys were just a bunch of morons with a knife and a fake press pass. I’m not so sure but I’ll keep you updated.

UPDATE: Some more information over at Today’s Zaman (h/t Gateway Pundit). According to their report two people have been arrested, all the conspirators had press passes and they were planning on throwing a knife at President Obama(?):

Meanwhile, two Syrian nationals purported to be in preparations of an attack against President Obama were reportedly detained by the İstanbul police on Saturday. According to a story that was published in Sunday’s Habertürk daily, the Turkish police and the CIA unearthed a plan of four individuals using fake identity cards belonging to the Al Jazeera television station to follow the US president’s visit as journalists and kill Obama by throwing a knife at him during the president’s Alliance of Civilizations meeting at the Çırağan Palace scheduled for tonight. Three others were being sought by the police yesterday in İstanbul, where the police have been carrying out extensive security operations to make sure that the visit passes without a hitch.

If you read the report it outlines the very stringent security measures that should be reassuring. I still won’t be happy until they catch the other conspirators or the President leaves Turkey.

Clinton’s State Department Can’t Translate ‘Reset’ into Russian

hillary clinton

Our utterly brilliant Secretary of State managed to embarrass our entire nation today by screwing up a simple one word translation:

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton greeted Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Geneva Friday with a special present: a reset button inside a gift box with a ribbon.

[…]

Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Lavrov pressed the button together at the beginning of their first meeting, and he said he would put in on his desk.

“I would like to present you with a little gift that represents what President Obama, Vice President Biden and I have been saying,” Mrs. Clinton said. “We want to reset our relationship, and so we will do it together.”

In addition to the red button on a black-and-yellow base, the State Department had written “reset” in English and what it thought was its Russian equivalent.

“We worked hard to get the right Russian word. Do you think we got it?” Mrs. Clinton asked Mr. Lavrov. Continue reading Clinton’s State Department Can’t Translate ‘Reset’ into Russian

Chavez: Obama has ‘Same Stench’ as Bush

Fox reports:

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez apparently doesn’t appreciate Barack Obama’s classifying him as a supporter of the Colombian terror group, FARC, likening the president-elect’s odor to that of Chavez’s nemesis, President Bush.

In an interview airing on Venezuelan television and reported by The Washington Post Monday, Chavez said Obama has “the same stench” as Bush. The comment harkens back to September 2006, when Chavez addressed the United Nations General Assembly after Bush and said he could still smell the “sulfur” the U.S. president left behind at the podium.

I’m not worried though, once our savior descends to Venezuela to meet with Chavez I am positive that his mere presence will bring about such overwhelming hope and change that Chavez will immediately repent of his evil ways and fall to his knees in loving adoration. Continue reading Chavez: Obama has ‘Same Stench’ as Bush

North Korea Wants Ticket to Obama Inauguration

Yup, they want to send their chief nuclear envoy to witness the coronation inauguration of Obama.

They were even extra super nice in asking and refrained from their usual US-bashing crap.

If the Associated Press is right about these bad guys (who are really just misunderstood good guys) then maybe they’ve turned of a new, less murderous, leaf:

The North’s move, if confirmed, would be another sign the regime is eager to forge good relations with the next U.S. administration.

But, gee-golly, call me a skeptic cause I just ain’t buying the happy face routine. Though it looks like we will never know because Washington has decided to rain on the parade and deny Pyongyang seats at the ball.

Navy to Fight Pirates

According to CNN, the Navy has created a fleet do fight the recently troublesome pirates off the coast of Somalia. The new unit is a spin off of a force that was already in the region fighting drug trafficking and weapons smuggling. The area is important for the US to protect because around 20,000 commercial ships pass through it every year.

Interestingly enough it seems that, for once, we aren’t the only ones fighting this battle:

The United States is among at least 20 countries that are trying to combat piracy in the region, including Russia, India, Germany and Iran. In December, German sailors foiled an attempt by pirates to hijack an Egyptian cargo ship off the coast of Yemen, according to the German Defense Ministry, and the European Union launched its first naval operation to protect vessels. That came just days after China revealed its own plans to patrol the Horn of Africa’s volatile coastline. Continue reading Navy to Fight Pirates

Swiss Vote to Give Heroin to Addicts

Chalk this one up as yet another reason I’m glad to be an American:

In a stroke of brilliance Swiss voters overwhelmingly approved state sponsored heroin distribution to the exact group of people you don’t want to give heroin to… addicts. The vote keeps in place a government program intended to slowly ease addicts off of heroin.

The idiotic rehab technique is controversial at best with the United States and even the U.N. narcotics board claiming it may actually fuel drug abuse. Gee… ya think so?

I think the best part of this whole story, though, has to be the fact that the very same voters who want to give out free heroin voted to keep marijuana off limits. Can you say irony? Because, apparently, the 35 year old Swiss musician the AP quoted on this can’t:

“I think it’s very important to help these people, but not to facilitate the using of drugs,” Borer said. “You can just see in the Netherlands how it’s going. People just go there to smoke.”

Yea… giving heroin to addicts doesn’t facilitate their use of drugs at alllllllllll.