Behind the scenes in Obama’s war council debate

There’s an air of mystery hanging over President Obama’s war council, which meets in secrecy yet again this week to discuss a new strategy for Afghanistan in the highly secure White House Situation Room. But senior officials closely involved in the decision-making process reveal that the president and his team are grappling with one particularly urgent question: Will Gen.

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Senate panel OKs health reform bill; Obama: ‘We’re not there yet’

The health care reform debate reached a new milestone Tuesday as a key congressional committee passed an $829 billion plan projected to extend coverage to an additional 29 million Americans. The Senate Finance Committee’s bill would subsidize insurance for poorer Americans, establish nonprofit health care cooperatives, and create health insurance exchanges to make it easier for small groups and individuals to purchase coverage

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Woods routs Yang to clinch Presidents Cup

Tiger Woods made it a perfect five wins from five matches as he crushed Y.E.Yang 6 and 5 to clinch the Presidents Cup for the United States in the concluding singles against the Internationals on Sunday. The world number one has proved invincible all week at Harding Park in San Francisco and gained a measure of revenge on South Korean Yang, who denied him the title in the final round of this year’s PGA Championship

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Will the Nobel Prize Help Obama Make Peace?

President Barack Obama made time for a brief statement about his Nobel Peace Prize award on Friday, before heading in to a more pressing engagement — a high-powered White House strategy session on the next phase of his war in Afghanistan. That was just one indication that this year’s peace prize was, as Obama himself put it, honoring aspiration rather than achievement

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What Was the Nobel Committee Thinking?

No sooner had the Nobel Peace Prize been awarded to Barack Obama than countless observers around the globe were shaking their head in puzzlement or dismay. Sure, there was the Committee’s official line, praising Obama’s “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.” But that really didn’t shed much light on why the Oslo-based committee had bestowed the prestigious honor on a President who has been in office for less than a year

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