10
news without borders
Obama dominates
in first 100 days
WASHINGTON: In his
high-velocity first 100 days,
Barack Obama has sketched
the outlines of a presidency of
astounding ambition, which
would remake the United
States at home and transform
its role abroad.
Yet the new president’s
agenda still faces tests of fire
posed by a punishing eco-
nomic crisis, the scheming of
US allies and foes abroad and
a poisoned political environ-
ment back home.
“It is clearly the most
ambitious agenda at least
since the 1960s,” said Prin-
ceton University historian
and political scientist Julian
Zelizer.
Inheriting a crisis of a
magnitude few recent pred-
ecessors faced, Obama seems
to have steadied America’s
nerves despite the wrenching
financial blight.
He unleashed a huge gov-
ernment intervention in the
economy, passed a historic
US$787 billion (RM3 trillion)
stimulus bill and now has
high-stakes environmental
and healthcare reforms on
the launchpad.
Abroad, Obama swapped
George W. Bush’s swagger
for a cupped ear, giving Rus-
sia respect it craves, reaching
out to Muslims and vowing to
drain decades of enmity with
foes Cuba and Iran.
He previewed fundamental
policy changes towards China,
Mexico and Cuba, apologised
to Europeans for past US
“arrogance,” mandated the
closure of Guantanamo Bay,
outlawed torture and ordered
withdrawal from Iraq.
Obama doubled down in
Afghanistan and Pakistan,
ditched US denial on climate
change and called for a world
free of nuclear weapons.
Tom De Luca, professor of
political science at Fordham
University, said Obama’s for-
eign policy was “breathtaking
in its scope.”
“I think it clearly illustrates
the immense self confidence
Obama has in himself and in
his administration.”
Obama, 47, once panned
by rivals as inexperienced,
slipped on the mantle of
president with ease, in un-
flappable style.
Despite missteps on
cabinet nominations and the
fallout of Bush-era terror
interrogations, his team has
mostly dominated the politi-
cal message.
The result: Obama is car-
rying the American people
with him. Fifty-six percent in
a USA Today/Gallup poll said
he had done an excellent or
good job.
A Fox News poll gave
Obama a job approval rating
of 62%, though like other
surveys, found a sharp gap
between Democrats and
Republicans.
But talking about change
is easy, effecting it is not:
Obama admits America is
a “big ocean liner – it’s not
a speedboat; it doesn’t turn
around immediately.”
Many initiatives, including
engaging Iran, battling the
global crisis and subduing
North Korea also depend on
events and actors outside
Obama’s control. – AFP
EARTHREPORT
Week Ending April 24
Diet to save earth
BRITISH researchers stirred up a portly
pot of controversy with their findings that
point to overweight people contributing
to global warming more than their slim
counterparts.
Citizen Writing in the International Journal of Epi-
Nades: demiology, Phil Edwards and Ian Roberts of
the London School of Hygiene and Tropical
Can a Medicine point to food production being a
GP do major contributor to global warming.
heart They also say that changing diets and
less physical activity have resulted in the
surgery? average UK citizen consuming 19% more
pg 12 food than 40 years ago.
Overweight people can be responsible
for the emission of a ton more of the
greenhouse gas carbon dioxide than thin
ones, mainly due to their eating more food
and the additional fuel needed to carry
them in cars and other vehicles, the study
says.
Balmy march
DESPITE what seemed to have been a
winter that wouldn’t end across many
parts of North America, March 2009
turned out to be the 10th warmest
worldwide since records began in 1880.
The US National Climatic Data Centre
calculated the combined global land and
ocean surface temperature for the month
was 55.87 degrees Fahrenheit, which is
almost one degree warmer than the 20th
theSun | MONDAY APRIL 27 2009
century average.
Land areas of the southern hemisphere
experienced their fourth warmest March
on record, while the dry surfaces north of
the equator experienced the 12th warm-
est March on record.
Airlifted from extinction
ABOUT 50 surviving members of one
of the world’s rarest species of frog are
being airlifted from one of its two last
remaining refuges in the Caribbean in a
desperate bid to save it from extinction.
An invasive fungus has nearly wiped out
the “mountain chicken” since it probably
arrived on the British colony of Montserrat
earlier this year.
Named for its unique taste and popu-
larity as a delicacy, the frog once inhabited
five Caribbean islands.
Britain’s Durrell Wildlife Conservation
Trust, the Zoological Society of London
and the Parken Zoo in Stockholm will use
the airlifted mountain chickens in captive
breeding to prevent the species from be-
ing entirely wiped out.
Rivers of change
A NEW study by US researchers suggests
that climate change may be causing riv-
ers in some of the world’s most populous
regions to lose water. The findings may
indicate global warming could potentially
threaten future supplies of food and wa-
ter. Scientists from the National Centre for
Atmospheric Research examined stream
flows from 1948 to 2004 and found
significant changes in about one-third
of the world’s largest rivers. The rivers
that were delivering less water to large
populations included the Colorado in the
southwestern United Sates, the Ganges in
India, the Yellow River in northern China
and the Niger in West Africa.
Earthquakes
TWO strong quakes in South Asia’s seis-
mically active Hindu Kush mountain range
killed at least 22 Afghans and destroyed
hundreds of homes early on April 17.
The stronger quake caused many mud-
and-brick homes to collapse on sleeping
villagers in the middle of the night.
• Earth movements were also felt
along the Israel-Lebanon border and in
western China’s Xinjiang region, islands
north of Indonesia’s Sulawesi Island,
northern Colombia and central Alabama.
– Universal Press Syndicate