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  Barack Obama must strengthen efforts to break al-Qaeda By Telegraph View
Published: 7:06AM GMT 30 Nov 2009Comments 8 | Comment on this articleMore than eight years on from the 9/11 attacks, Osama bin Laden is once again preoccupying the West. Gordon Brown yesterday signalled an intensification of diplomatic pressure on Pakistan to do more to "break" al-Qaeda and capture bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman Zawahiri. The Prime Minister's intervention appears to have been prompted by a paper prepared by the Democratic staff on the US Senate's foreign relations committee which claims that bin Laden slipped through America's fingers in December 2001. The report asserts that an appeal for more forces to root the terrorist figurehead out of his Tora Bora hideout was rejected and he was allowed to move "unmolested" into Pakistan's tribal areas, where he is still thought to be. Allowance must be made for the partisanship of the report and its attempt to depict the Bush administration in an unfavourable light. Even so, it comes as a salutary reminder that the US and its allies have failed in their primary post-9/11 mission, the decapitation of al-Qaeda. When he took office, President Obama indicated that he wanted to make good this omission by bringing Pakistan into the reckoning when framing Afghan policy, the so-called AfPak strategy. There has, regrettably, been precious little follow-up. Vice-President Joe Biden, who has argued forcefully for a much greater focus on Pakistan, recently asked national security officials how much the US was spending this year in Afghanistan, and how much in Pakistan. The figures were $65 billion and $2.25 billion respectively. In short, the West has taken its eye off the ball. This policy failure must be addressed by Mr Obama when he unveils his latest…

 Why are student loans in the health bill?Yesterday, when I mentioned the student-loan provisions of HCR with regard to the reconciliation process, several of you commented, what are student-loan changes doing in the health bill anyway?The fact is that many big bills end up with other things attached to them. A big bill that people think is going to pass is just an irresistible target for legislators: hey, that thing is going to pass, and the vote will really be about A, so if I can get a provision about B or C or D attached to it, it'll sail through cuz no one's going to vote against the whole thing just because of my little provision.Happens all the time -- and yes, in this case, on both sides. It just so happens that student loan reform has been a big priority of the Obama administration.Under it, private lenders will be out of the student loan business. All the lending will be issued and managed directly by the Department of Education. Proof of Obama's mad hunger to have the government control every aspect of our lives?Either that, or a sensible response to the massive and hideous student loan scandal we've had in this country in recent years. Here's what happened in a nutshell, via the New America Foundation:The roots of the 9.5 student loan case go back to the 1980s when Congress guaranteed non-profit lenders, which use tax-exempt bonds to finance their loans, a minimum rate of return of 9.5 percent on federal student loans made with these bonds. As interest rates on all other student loans fell in the 1990s, policymakers became concerned that these nonprofit student loan providers were making a killing. So in 1993, Congress rescinded that policy, but grandfathered in loans made from the old…

 How Obama Came to Plan for ‘Surge’ in Afghanistan  "When the history of the Obama presidency is written, that day with the chart may prove to be a turning point, the moment a young commander in chief set in motion a high-stakes gamble to turn around a losing war. By moving the bell curve to the left, Mr. Obama decided to send 30,000 troops mostly in the next six months and then begin pulling them out a year after that, betting that a quick jolt of extra forces could knock the enemy back on its heels enough for the Afghans to take over the fight."

    If Robert Prechter is right, one market analyst said, “we’ve basically got to go to the mountains with a gun and some soup cans Read ArticlePublisher's Note: This article was placed on Saturday, July3rd, when it was already aware of a 4% drop on Asian stock markets - which makes a lower opening on NYSE and other US markets assured.