Link: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/02/01-9

Obama Seeks Record $708 Billion in Defense Budget. Barack Obama on Monday asked Congress to approve a record $708 billion in defense spending for fiscal year 2011, including a 3.4 percent increase in the Pentagon's base budget and $159 billion to fund U.S. military missions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. The White House budget request also included $33 billion in additional funding for fiscal 2010 to pay for increasing military and intelligence operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and drawing down U.S. forces in Iraq. That comes on top of $129.6 billion already provided for the current fiscal year, which ends September 30.

Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/01/gaza-war-report-accuses-israel

A new Israeli report defending the military's conduct in the Gaza war was challenged tonight after evidence emerged apparently contradicting one of its key findings. Israel submitted a 46-page report to the UN on Friday saying its forces abided by international law throughout the three-week war last year. It was meant to avert the threat of international prosecutions and to challenge a highly critical UN inquiry by South African judge Richard Goldstone, which accused both Israel and Hamas of "grave breaches" of the fourth Geneva convention, war crimes and possible crimes against humanity.

Link: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24561.htm

By George Galloway STOP THE WAR COALITION Meeting 27 January 2010 - Speakers: Tony Benn, George Galloway MP, Kate Hudson (CND), Lindsey German (Stop the War), 7pm, Camden Centre, Bidborough Street, London WC1H 9DB

Link: http://wsws.org/articles/2010/feb2010/pers-f01.shtml

The 90-minute televised meeting between President Barack Obama and the House Republican caucus, broadcast over the cable networks Friday, was an extraordinary exposure of the right-wing consensus within American bourgeois politics.

Link: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100201/ap_on_bi_ge/us_obama_unemployment

The Obama administration is predicting little improvement in the nation's unemployment rate by the end of the year. Although President Barack Obama says the multitrillion-dollar spending plan released Monday is designed to get Americans back to work, the administration forecasts 9.8 percent unemployment at the end of this year. That would be down only slightly from the current rate of 10 percent.

Link: http://rawstory.com/news/afp/US_deficit_to_hit_record_1_56_trill_02012010.html

US President Barack Obama's administration acknowledged Monday that the government budget deficit will swell to a record 1.556 trillion dollars in the current fiscal year to September.

Link: http://rawstory.com/2010/02/imam-killed-fbi-shooting-handcuffed/

A Detroit-area imam who died in a shootout with the FBI in October was shot 21 times -- at least once in the back -- and found by police lying down with his wrists in handcuffs behind him, says a local Detroit news report.

Link: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24546.htm

Afghanistan-based US predators carried out a record number of 12 deadly missile strikes in the tribal areas of Pakistan in January 2010, of which 10 went wrong and failed to hit their targets, killing 123 innocent Pakistanis. The remaining two successful drone strikes killed three al-Qaeda leaders, wanted by the Americans.

Link: http://dissidentvoice.org/2010/02/obama-on-why-the-us-has-not-condemned-israels-human-rights-violations-against-the-occupied-palestinian-people/

A question was posed to US president Barack Obama at a town hall meeting in Tampa, Florida on 28 January. Obama took this as an opportunity to “talk about the Middle East generally.” Obama: "Israel is one of our strongest allies." Would one’s strongest allies coax it into the quagmire of aggression and occupation? The US faces stiff resistance in Iraq; nonetheless, Israeli hawks encourage military action against Iran. Obama: "It is a vibrant democracy." For who? Not for all its citizens. This is made clear by Israeli professor Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi.

Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=117557&sectionid=351020201

Iraq's Ministry for Human Rights will file a lawsuit against Britain and the US over their use of depleted uranium bombs in Iraq, an Iraqi minister says. Iraq's Minister of Human Rights, Wijdan Mikhail Salim, told Assabah newspaper that the lawsuit will be launched based on reports from the Iraqi ministries of science and the environment.

Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=117579&sectionid=351020202

A secret meeting between the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Leon Panetta and Israeli officials has reportedly centered on Iran's nuclear program. In a secret flying visit to Israel on Thursday, the head of the CIA reportedly discussed Iran's nuclear issue in a sit-down with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Mossad Chief Meir Dagan.

Link: http://beforeitsnews.com/story/15163/6.3_Trillion_Obama_Keeps_Fannie,_Freddie_Off_U.S._Budget.html

More stories from this contributor759 people have read this story President Barack Obama’s budget blueprint for the next fiscal year excludes the $6.3 trillion in liabilities of government-controlled Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and delays for a second time a decision on restructuring the mortgage-finance companies that were seized 17 months ago. The companies may need $54.4 billion more in U.S. Treasury Department preferred stock purchases to stay afloat in the current year that ends Sept. 30, and $23 billion more for the next fiscal year, according to calculations made from the Obama administration’s 2011 budget proposal to Congress today.

Link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/8492333.stm

Scotland has suffered some of the coldest winter months in almost 100 years, the Met Office has confirmed. By combining the temperatures of January and December it showed they were the coldest since 1914 - the year data started being logged.

Link: http://www.paltelegraph.com/palestine/gaza-strip/3936-iof-shoot-palestinian-near-gaza-border

Israeli occupation force shot and wounded a Palestinian man who was approaching the Gaza border fence on Monday before arresting him, the Israeli army and Palestinian medics said.

Link: http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50176

Three flow stations in the oil-rich Niger Delta have had to be closed after a pipeline was sabotaged. The company said the Jan. 30 leak on the Trans Ramos oil pipeline was due to sabotage, but no group has so far claimed responsibility for the attack. A represnetative of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta told a Nigerian newspaper at the end of January that it was ending a truce agreed in October 2009.

Link: http://www.counterpunch.org/hudson02012010.html

In a dress rehearsal for this November’s mid-term election, Democrats and Republicans vied last week for who could denounce the banks and blame the other party the most for the giveaways to Wall Street that have swollen the public debt since September 2008, pushing the federal budget into deficit and the economy into a slump.

Link: http://www.davidicke.com/forum/showthread.php?t=101823

Calls to introduce a licensing system to police the Internet on behalf of a powerful UN agency represent the latest salvo in a long-running battle to kill free speech on the web and bring an end to the powerful digital democracy that has devastated the carbon tax agenda of the UN by exposing the Climategate scandal. UN International Telcommunications Union secretary general Hamadoun Toure told the World Economic Forum in Davos this past weekend that global treaties need to be enacted in the name of stopping cyber warfare. Craig Mundie, chief research and strategy officer for Microsoft, told fellow globalists at the summit that the Internet needed to be policed by means of introducing licenses similar to drivers licenses – in other words government permission to use the web.

Link: http://www.uruknet.info/index.php?p=m62819&hd=&size=1&l=e

Despite years of international military operations, hospitals in Afghanistan remain in a state of complete decay and are struggling to cope with a growing number of war victims. Facilities are inadequate and, in some areas, there are no hospitals or clinics at all. The situation is particularly bad in the southern part of the country where fighting is the heaviest.

Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/feb/01/barack-obama-nasa-moon-budget

Reports say planned human flights to the moon and Mars likely to be ditched in effort to rein in US deficit. Nasa's plans to send a manned mission to the moon and launch the US into a bold new era of space exploration are likely to remain on the ground today when Barack Obama unveils his budget.

Link: http://www.truthout.org/schooled56578

In my last article, I made the following observation regarding the challenges President Obama faced on the eve of his Wednesday evening State of the Union address: "The American people, well-trained in the art of short-term memory loss, have come to the conclusion that everything happening now is Obama's fault, and the polls reflect this without dispute. One speech on Wednesday night won't fix all that ails us, but if Mr. Obama doesn't hit precisely the right notes in the delivery, his second year could come to make his first year seem like a Cape Cod clambake by comparison."
Well, let's see.