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Barack Obama today laid out a broad case for closing the Guantánamo Bay prison and banning the "enhanced interrogation techniques" that have been condemned as torture – while accusing his opponents of wanting to scare Americans to win political battles.In a grand hall at the US national archives, standing directly in front of original copies of the US constitution and declaration of independence, Obama said the current legal and political battles in Washington over the fate of the 240 prisoners there stemmed not from his decision to close the facility, but from George Bush's move seven years ago to open it.

Obama stressed at several points that his administration would never free dangerous terrorists into the US, an effort to counter the Republican party's central argument against the closure. He said US prisons were tough and safe enough to handle the most vicious al-Qaida terrorist suspects now held at Guantánamo."I am not going to release individuals who endanger the American people," Obama said. "Al-Qaida terrorists and their affiliates are at war with the United States, and those that we capture – like other prisoners of war – must be prevented from attacking us again."

Shortly after Obama spoke, Dick Cheney gave a rebuttal at a conservative Washington think tank, the American Enterprise Institute. The former vice-president defended many of the Bush administration policies Obama is now unraveling, and mentioned either "September 11" or "9/11" 25 times.Cheney said Saddam Hussein had "known ties" to terrorists, an apparent rehashing of the widely discredited Bush administration effort to link the Iraqi dictator to the September 11 2001 hijackers."After the most lethal and devastating terrorist attack ever, seven and a half years without a repeat is not a record to be rebuked and scorned, much less criminalised," Cheney said."In my long experience in Washington, few matters have inspired so much contrived indignation and phony moralising as the interrogation methods applied to a few captured terrorists."

In opening a bold overture to the Islamic world on Thursday, President Obama confronted frictions between Muslims and the West, but he reserved some of his bluntest words for Israel, as he expressed sympathy for the Palestinians and what he called the “daily humiliations, large and small, that come with occupation.”

While Mr. Obama emphasized that America’s bond with Israel was “unbreakable,” he spoke in equally powerful terms of the Palestinian people, describing their plight as “intolerable” after 60 years of statelessness, and twice referring to “Palestine” in a way that put Palestinians on parallel footing with Israelis.

Mr. Obama said the bond between the United States and Israel was “based upon cultural and historical ties, and the recognition that the aspiration for a Jewish homeland is rooted in a tragic history that cannot be denied.”“On the other hand,” Mr. Obama added, “it is also undeniable that the Palestinian people — Muslims and Christians — have suffered in pursuit of a homeland. For more than 60 years, they’ve endured the pain of dislocation.” He said Americans “will not turn our backs on the legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity, opportunity and a state of their own.”

Israel's prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, met President Barack Obama yesterday and said that he wants to begin immediate peace talks with the Palestinians aimed at self-government, but he stopped short of explicitly committing Israel to Palestinian independence.

Obama said he told Netanyahu that the goal of "an extraordinary opportunity" for peace must be "allowing the Palestinians to govern themselves as an independent state".

"I want to start peace negotiations with the Palestinians immediately," he said. "I want to make it clear that we don't want to govern the Palestinians. We want to live in peace with them, we want them to govern themselves without [control over] a handful of powers that could endanger Israel. There'll have to be compromises by Israelis and Palestinians alike."

As a state senator in Chicago, Mr. Obama cultivated friendships with Arab-Americans, including Rashid Khalidi, a Palestinian-American scholar and a critic of Israel. Mr. Obama and Mr. Khalidi had many dinners together, friends said, in which they discussed Palestinian issues.

Mr. Obama’s predecessors, Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, came of age politically with the American-Israeli viewpoint of the Middle East conflict as their primary tutor, said Daniel Levy, a former Israeli peace negotiator. While each often expressed concern and empathy for the Palestinians — with Mr. Clinton, in particular, pushing hard for Middle East peace during the last months of his presidency — their early perspectives were shaped more by Israelis and American Jews than by Muslims, Mr. Levy said. “I think that Barack Obama, on this issue as well as many other issues, brings a fresh approach and a fresh background,” Mr. Levy said. “He’s certainly familiar with Israel’s concerns and with the closeness of the Israel-America relationship and with that narrative. But what I think might be different is a familiarity that I think President Obama almost certainly has with where the Palestinian grievance narrative is coming from.”

None of this necessarily means that Mr. Obama will chart a course that is different from his predecessors’. During the campaign he struck a position on Israel that was indistinguishable from those of his rivals Hillary Rodham Clinton and John McCain, going so far as to say in 2008 that he supported Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel. (He later attributed that statement to “poor phrasing in the speech,” telling Fareed Zakaria of CNN that he meant to say he did not want barbed wire running through Jerusalem.)

Barack Obama today set out his vision for a new post-cold war world, and urged Russia not to interfere in neighbouring states and to move on "from old ways of thinking".

In a keynote speech during his first trip to Russia as US president, Obama called on Moscow to stop viewing America as an adversary. The assumption that Russia and the US were eternal antagonists was "a 20th-century view" rooted in the past, he said.

Obama delivered a tough, though implicit, critique of Kremlin foreign policy, rejecting the claim it has "privileged interests" in post-Soviet countries. He said the 19th-century doctrine of spheres of influence and "great powers forging competing blocs" was finished."In 2009, a great power does not show strength by dominating or demonising other countries. The days when empires could treat sovereign states as pieces on a chessboard are over," he said, speaking to graduates from Moscow's New Economic School.

Barack Obama may be forced to delay signing up to a new international agreement on climate change in Copenhagen at the end of the year because of the scale of opposition in the US Congress, it emerged today.Senior figures in the Obama administration have been warning Labour counterparts that the president may need at least another six months to win domestic support for any proposal.Such a delay could derail the securing of a tough global agreement in time for countries and markets to adopt it before the Kyoto treaty runs out in 2012.

Byers, a former cabinet minister who has close contacts with senior Democrats in the Obama team, added: "The practical reality is that a delay into 2010 will still leave time for a new international structure to be put in place for 2012 to follow from Kyoto. Such a delay would be a price worth paying to bring the United States into the global effort to tackle climate change."

Obama has committed the US to reducing its emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, but scientists and European governments insist deeper cuts are needed. Obama has suggested that the US could compensate with swifter reductions in the years beyond 2020. His recent budget proposal calls for reducing US emissions roughly 80% by 2050 over 2005 levels.

President Obama said Monday that he expected to know by the end of the year whether Iran was making “a good-faith effort to resolve differences” in talks aimed at ending its nuclear program, signaling to Israel as well as Iran that his willingness to engage in diplomacy over the issue has its limits.

“We’re not going to have talks forever,” Mr. Obama told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel after a two-hour session in the Oval Office.

Mr. Netanyahu, for his part, told Mr. Obama that he was ready to resume peace talks with the Palestinians immediately, but only if the Palestinians recognized Israel as a Jewish state.

Barack Obama today released four top secret memos that allowed the CIA under the Bush administration to torture al-Qaida and other suspects held at Guantánamo and secret detention centres round the world.

in an accompanying statement, Obama ruled out prosecutions against those who had been involved. It is a "time for reflection, not retribution," he said.

The techniques were applied to at least 14 suspects.

he Obama administration and its European allies are preparing proposals that would shift strategy toward Iran by dropping a longstanding American insistence that Tehran rapidly shut down nuclear facilities during the early phases of negotiations over its atomic program, according to officials involved in the discussions.

The proposals, exchanged in confidential strategy sessions with European allies, would press Tehran to open up its nuclear program gradually to wide-ranging inspection. But the proposals would also allow Iran to continue enriching uranium for some period during the talks. That would be a sharp break from the approach taken by the Bush administration, which had demanded that Iran halt its enrichment activities, at least briefly to initiate negotiations.

The proposals under consideration would go somewhat beyond President Obama’s promise, during the presidential campaign, to open negotiations with Iran “without preconditions.” Officials involved in the discussion said they were being fashioned to draw Iran into nuclear talks that it had so far shunned.

Mr. Obama pointed to the success in peeling Iraqi insurgents away from more hard-core elements of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a strategy that many credit as much as the increase of American forces with turning the war around in the last two years. “There may be some comparable opportunities in Afghanistan and in the Pakistani region,

Asked if the United States was winning in Afghanistan, a war he effectively adopted as his own last month by ordering an additional 17,000 troops sent there, Mr. Obama replied flatly, “No.”

Mr. Obama said on the campaign trail last year that the possibility of breaking away some elements of the Taliban “should be explored,

U.S. President Barack Obama earlier Tuesday rebuffed suggestions that Washington had given Israel a green light to attack Iran's nuclear facilities, in an interview with CNN. Asked by CNN whether Washington had given Israel approval to strike Iran's nuclear facilities, Obama answered: "Absolutely not."

"We have said directly to the Israelis that it is important to try and resolve this in an international setting in a way that does not create major conflict in the Middle East," Obama said in reference to Iran's contentious nuclear program. Advertisement In the interview broadcast from Russia where he is on an official visit, Obama added, however: "We can't dictate to other countries what their security interests are. "What is also true is, it is the policy of the United States to try to resolve the issue of Iran's nuclear capabilities," Obama said. This would be achieved "through diplomatic channels," he added.

Sources close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told The Washington Times that the premier is hesitant to request formal U.S. approval to launch military operations against Iran for fear that Washington would turn him down, according to a report which appeared in Tuesday editions.

Barack Obama is to invite Israeli, ­Palestinian and Egyptian leaders to the White House within the next two months in a fresh push for Middle East peace.

The three leaders are being invited for separate talks rather than round-table negotiations. The aim is to complete all three visits before Obama goes to France for the D-Day anniversary on 6 June.

The chances of a deal in the short term appear slim and Obama yesterday acknowledged that circumstances in Israel and the Palestinian territories were not conducive to peace. "Unfortunately, right now what we've seen not just in Israel, but within the Palestinian territories, among the Arab states, worldwide, is a profound cynicism about the possibility of any progress being made whatsoever," he said."What we want to do is to step back from the abyss, to say, as hard as it is, as difficult as it may be, the prospect of peace still exists, but it's going to require some hard choices."

President Barack Obama has said the US seeks a "new beginning" with Cuba and an "equal partnership" with all the nations of the Americas.

Mr Obama was addressing Latin American and Caribbean leaders at the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago. The summit follows a thaw in US-Cuban relations. Cuba is not at the summit.

Earlier, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton welcomed an offer for talks from Cuban President Raul Castro, saying the old US policy had failed. Mr Castro said on Thursday that he was ready to talk about "everything" with the US, including human rights, political prisoners and freedom of the press. His comments came after the US eased its long-standing embargo of the communist nation, allowing Cuban-Americans to visit relatives in Cuba and send money home more easily.

the United States supports the creation of a viable Palestinian state in virtually all of the West Bank and Gaza. The new Israeli government led by Benjamin Netanyahu opposes this goal, and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has already said that he does not think Israel is bound by its recent commitments on this issue.  

To advance its own interests, therefore, the United States will have to pursue a more even-handed policy than it has in the past, and put strong pressure on both sides to come to an agreement. Instead of the current "special relationship" -- where the U.S. gives Israel generous and nearly-unconditional support -- the United States and Israel would have a more normal relationship, akin to U.S. relations with other democracies (where public criticism and overt pressure sometimes occurs).  While still committed to Israel’s security, the United States would use the leverage at its disposal to make a two-state solution a reality.

This idea appears to be gaining ground. Several weeks ago, a bipartisan panel of distinguished foreign policy experts headed by Henry Siegman and Brent Scowcroft issued a thoughtful report calling for the Obama administration to “engage in prompt, sustained, and determined efforts to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict.” Success, they noted, "will require a careful blend of persuasion, inducement, reward, and pressure..."

The Obama administration may take a tough line with Tehran in coming months even as it signals a willingness to move toward direct talks with Iranian officials, according to President Obama’s aides and outside experts who have consulted with the government about Iran. While Mr. Obama is expected to soften the Bush administration’s line against talking to Iran, the aides said, he may also seek to toughen sanctions.

Mr. Obama told the Arabic-language television station Al Arabiya last week that “if countries like Iran are willing to unclench their fist, they will find an extended hand from us.” He has also spoken recently of the need to treat Iran with “mutual respect.”

Dennis B. Ross, the longtime Middle East peace negotiator who is expected to be named to a senior post handling Iran, has long argued that the United States must persuade America’s European allies to increase economic pressure against Iran.

The US and Russia have agreed to work towards cutting deployed nuclear warheads to as few as 1,500 each under an agreement signed by Barack Obama on his first trip to Russia as president.

Obama and the Russian prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev, signed a framework deal aimed at cutting warheads to a maximum of 1,675 within seven years of a nuclear arms reduction treaty coming into force.

Current treaties allow for a maximum of 2,200 warheads, though both sides are thought to have more than that deployed, or capable of launch. According to some expert estimates of current numbers, the new commitment would mean each side scrapping almost 1,000 warheads.

The Bush-era interrogation techniques that many view as torture may have yielded important information about terrorists, President Obama's national intelligence director said in an internal memo.

"High-value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al Qaeda organization that was attacking this country," Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair said in a memo to personnel.

The memo, obtained by CNN late Tuesday, was sent around the time the administration released several memos from the previous administration detailing the use of terror interrogation techniques such as waterboarding, which simulates drowning.

President Obama said Friday he is seeking "a new beginning" in U.S. relations with Cuba.

the United States seeks a new beginning with Cuba."

Obama said that "decades of mistrust" must be overcome, but noted that he has already loosened restrictions that limited Americans from traveling to visit relatives in Cuba and from sending money to them. Obama lifted all restrictions Monday on the ability of individuals to visit relatives in Cuba, as well as to send them remittances.

U.S. officials have taken "very seriously" a plot to assassinate President Barack Obama involving a Syrian man who was arrested late last week in Turkey

officials also noted that while Obama gets more threats than usual as the first African-American U.S. president,

The plot was first reported by the Saudi Arabian newspaper al-Watan, which revealed that Turkish security services arrested a man of Syrian origins Friday in connection with a plan to kill Obama during his visit to Turkey.

"The Iranian nation has shown that it can forget hasty behaviour but we are awaiting practical steps by the United States," Aliakbar Javanfekr, an aide to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, told Reuters.

"The Iranian nation has shown that it can forget hasty behaviour but we are awaiting practical steps by the United States," Aliakbar Javanfekr, an aide to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, told Reuters. "The Obama administation so far has just talked," he added, calling for Obama to make "fundamental changes in his policy towards Iran".

In an unusually swift reaction to Obama's overture, presidential aide Javanfekr said Iran welcomed "the interest of the American government to settle differences". But he said the Obama administration "should realise its previous mistakes and make an effort to amend them." "By fundamentally changing its behaviour America can offer us a friendly hand," he told Reuters."Unlimited sanctions which still continue and have been renewed by the United States are wrong and need to be reviewed." Javanfekr singled out US backing for Israel, Iran's main enemy in the region, saying that: "Supporting Israel is not a friendly gesture."