Barack: Don't Tell Europe What It Wants to Hear

(NEWSER) - Europeans may have longer lives and longer vacations, but red-blooded Americans don't want their socialist ways on this side of the ocean, right wing media mouths are eager to remind everyone, MIchael Freedman writes in Newsweek. Underlying much of the opposition to health care reform is the fear that it's part of an anti-American conspiracy to transform the US into a "European social welfare state," according to Rush Limbaugh. More»

European leaders feel burned after visit by popular president

(NEWSER) - President Obama’s dizzying, 2-day jaunt through Europe left two people smarting in his dust: Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel. France’s president and Germany’s chancellor learned that Obama, not one to pal around with European leaders, keeps his distance. “Obama is not out to play buddy-buddy with Sarko or any other European leader,” Charles Bremner writes for the Times of London. More»

Sarkozy's hopes dashed amid other leaders' opposition

(NEWSER) - Leaders of Europe’s four biggest economies did not settle on a unified plan for tackling the financial crisis, the Washington Post reports. Instead, each country will deal with banking problems as they crop up. While France’s Nicolas Sarkozy hoped for a Europe-wide plan, British and German leaders were opposed to a single safety-net fund. More»

Dem to meet Palestinian president in Ramallah

(NEWSER) - Barack Obama will visit Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank next week, a top Palestinian official said today. The Ramallah meeting with the president of the Palestinian Authority will happen on July 23, CNN reports. Details on the international trip have been guarded, but the Times of London says Obama will touch down in London this Friday, continue to Israel, Jordan, Afghanistan and Iraq—and finish in France and Germany on the 24th and 25th. More»

'Gesture of peace' launches new 43-nation group

(NEWSER) - The inaugural meeting yesterday of the Union of the Mediterranean, which brought together the 27 EU countries and their neighbors to the south, kicked off discussions about a number of mutual projects. But French President Nicolas Sarkozy used it as an opportunity to flex some diplomatic muscle by bringing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad out of isolation and by hosting a sit-down between Israeli PM Ehud Olmert and the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. More»