Barack Obama

Latest news on barack obama

Databases Show There Are Only About 20 Obama Families In The U.S. Versus 11, 000 Clintons, 60,000 Bushes (AHN)

(AHN) - As the Jan. 20 presidential inauguration rite fast approaches, U.S. residents who share the same surname as President-elect Barack Obama are recognizing the value of sharing the same rare moniker. - Fri, 28 Nov 2008 05:50:00 GMT

Obama expected to name Clinton and Gates

CHICAGO (Reuters) - President-elect Barack Obama will unveil his national security team on Monday with former rival Hillary Clinton picked as secretary of state and Robert Gates staying on as defense secretary.

Britney Spears pushes Barack Obama aside in internet search table

Barack Obama's epochal victory in the US presidential election may have transfixed and gladdened the world but the British public, it seems, is more preoccupied with the life and times of another American colossus - a 26-year-old singer by the name of Britney Jean Spears.Despite, or perhaps because, she has endured yet another turbulent year, Spears has topped a list of the UK's 10 most searched-for subjects on Yahoo.The huge appetite for information on Big Brother and The X Factor pushed them into second and third place on the search list, while the US election had to make do with the seventh spot, sandwiched between High School Musical 3 and Amy Winehouse. Oasis, who released their seventh studio album, Dig Out Your Soul, last month, came in at number four. Kate Moss, whom the sculptor Marc Quinn immortalised in a £1.5m gold statue displayed in the British Museum, claimed ninth place, just ahead of EastEnders.Also on the most-searched list was Heath Ledger, who died in New York in January. The Australian star of the latest Batman film was placed eighth. His performance as the psychopathic Joker in The Dark Knight generated speculation that he may win a posthumous Oscar next year.A spokesman for Yahoo Europe said: "It is fascinating to look back over the last year and see the stories, personalities and subjects that have captured our imagination ... some of which continue to be the hot topics of today."Spears has crammed a remarkable amount into the past 12 months. As well as facing trial for driving without a valid Californian licence, having her father granted indefinite control of her assets and spending two days in a psychiatric ward, the singer has managed to confound many by launching a comeback. Last week she was named best international pop star at an awards ceremony in Germany. On Saturday, the singer made her first UK television appearance for four years when she sang her new single, Womanizer, on The X Factor. Her performance brought in the highest ratings for the show, attracting a peak of 12.8 million viewers. Today sees the launch of her sixth studio album, Circus."I've been through a lot and there's a lot that people don't know," she told MTV this year. "I look back and [think]: 'I'm a smart person. What the hell was I thinking?'"Despite her impressive showing in the list, however, Spears' new record has not captivated all the critics. "Circus isn't bad as pop albums go," wrote the Guardian's Alexis Petridis. "But ... it's less edgy and exciting than its predecessor."InternetYahooBritney SpearsBarack ObamaBig BrotherReality TVTelevisionUnited Statesguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Hillary Clinton named as Barack Obama's secretary of state

President-elect puts aside bitterness fostered during the primaries with nomination for former rival

Obama's Voices

I've been listening to the audiobook, Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama, which has the additional benefit of being read by the author. Obama's baritone has become a familiar voice in my head. What might surprise some people, beyond Obama's ability as a writer and storyteller, is that each of his characters becomes a distinct voice that he brings alive, not just in his writing but even more so in this audiobook. They come alive for us because they are so alive to him. Each person's unique voice -- from the lyrical African-English of his father or half-sister Auma, from his independent-minded and concerned mother to the voice of the South-side of Chicago's preachers, political organizers and young black men on the street, to his Kansas-bred grandparents and his Indonesian stepfather -- these are people that Obama carries with him. These aren't stock characters like Joe-the-plumber or Joe-Six-Pack. They aren't the subjects of morality tales like the historical characters in Kennedy's "Profiles in Courage." They are complex characters with hardships and conflicts, plagued by self-doubt and inspired by high ideals. They cuss and they cry. I am so grateful that our democracy has elected a leader who can write like this, think and feel so deeply, with great subtlety and sympathy, and who will bring with him to the White House such a new assortment of interesting people -- not in his Cabinet but in his head....

Obama's green start

Barack Obama and congressional leaders are preparing rapid legislation to cut US emissions that cause global warming and to kick-start a clean energy revolution.

Barack Obama?s Favorite Affiliate Program?

I got an email last night with the subject: ** A message from President Elect Obama **. Since I am a political junkie, I figured it was some political list I?d joined, and I opened it up. However, it wasn?t ?A message from President Elect Obama?, but rather a pitch to join the Luxor Linens affiliate [...]

Barack Obama's daughters invited to appear on Hannah Montana

Barack Obama's two young daughters have been invited to appear on popular children's television programme Hannah Montana.

Barack Obama backs crackdown on tax havens

President-elect Barack Obama plans to crack down on international tax havens, including Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man, within weeks of taking power in January, putting him on a collision course with Gordon Brown.There is growing international pressure to outlaw the secretive practices of tax havens as a key part of reforms to the world's battered financial system, as the leaders of the world's 20 most powerful economies gather for a major conference in Washington next weekend.Britain has been notably lukewarm, but Obama, whose approval will be key to any reform package over the next 12 months, was one of the signatories of the Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act, legislation put to Congress last year that blacklisted Jersey, Guernsey and 32 other jurisdictions. Key aides to Obama said he will introduce a similar law as part of a wide-ranging revenue-raising and tax-reform package, within weeks of taking power.Obama advisors estimate the measure could raise at least $50bn (£32bn) per year in lost US tax revenues, and Washington sources say leading accountancy firms have already hired lobbyists in anticipation of a fierce battle to water down the proposals.Key measures are likely to include: revealing the beneficial owners of secretive trusts; prohibiting accountants from charging fees on specific tax services; and identifying 'offshore secrecy jurisdictions' that 'unreasonably restrict US tax authorities from obtaining needed information'. The measures could end years of financial secrecy that have protected the super-rich and international businesses as they move money from one jurisdiction to another.Joe Guttentag, deputy assistant secretary for international tax in the Clinton administration and a key figure in the Obama campaign, is likely to drive the policy through, along with Professor Reuven Avi-Yonah, who helped frame the act. 'It is expected that something like this will happen,' Avi-Yonah told The Observer. 'There is a sense that if you can raise revenue by doing this, it will not be controversial.'The measure comes as the UK faces international condemnation for blocking moves in the United Nations to upgrade its tax committee to intergovernmental status.Brown has been keen to portray himself as the leader of efforts to reform the global financial system, boosting his credibility at home and distracting attention from the looming recession.But as the Prime Minister prepares to set out his proposals for next weekend's conference in a speech at the Guildhall tomorrow night, anti-poverty campaigners will stage a noisy protest, urging him to 'call time on global greed'.They fear Brown is too wedded to the light-touch regulation New Labour has championed for the past decade to be in the vanguard of a new economic system. 'Brown seems to have spent the past two weeks resuscitating the International Monetary Fund and refilling its coffers, so that it can lend on the same basis as the past 20 years,' said Nick Dearden, director of the Jubilee debt campaign. 'He doesn't seem to have done any soul-searching about how this crisis began.'Tax and spendingBarack Obamaguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds