Adoring Canadians Cheer Obama

That nuclear summit looked a lot like a waste of time, didn't it?

(NEWSER) - President Obama convened the biggest meeting of world leaders on US soil since the founding of the UN in 1945. And what did this week's historic gathering accomplish? Well, it generated a nonbinding statement saying that Ukraine, Chile, Mexico, and Canada will get rid of some enriched uranium. “What a relief,” writes Charles Krauthammer of the Washington Post . “I don’t know about you, but I lie awake nights worrying about Canadian uranium.” More»

American protectionism worries our northern neighbor

(NEWSER) - Canada’s biggest problem now also happens to be its best friend: America. PM Stephen Harper once worried that Canada’s “special relationship” with the US had been lost under George W. Bush—and it hasn’t improved a bit under Obama, writes Luiza Ch. Savage in Macleans. Not only has Obama kept Bush’s tighter border-security measures, he’s sent spy drones to watch the border, giving it “something in common with the tribal lands between Afghanistan and Pakistan.” More»

(NEWSER) - President Obama and PM Stephen Harper today announced an environmental partnership between the US and Canada, the Globe and Mail reports. Harper spoke of a “clean energy dialogue” between top officials to “collaborate on the development of clean energy science and technology.” Said Obama, who was making his first trip out of the country since taking office: “We are so closely linked that we have a tendency to take our relationship for granted.” More»

Obama rings Britain's Brown to discuss Afghanistan, economy

(NEWSER) - Gordon Brown was the proud recipient of Barack Obama's first European phone call as president, the Guardian reports. The two leaders spoke for 15 minutes and discussed the need to make Afghanistan a priority. Obama, whose first overseas calls as president were to Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli PM Ehud Olmert, had earlier spoken to Saudi and Canadian leaders. More»

...because he's not terribly interested in fighting it

(NEWSER) - Democrats saw the way Mitt Romney's super PAC destroyed Newt Gingrich in Iowa, and it terrified them, because President Obama's super PAC—or as Politico terms it, "not-so-super PAC"—doesn't have the muscle for anything like that. "It's like when China got the bomb," says one Democrat close to the PAC, "We thought we were the ones with cash supremacy. That's clearly not the case." Obama's Priorities USA Action has just $5 million in the bank, less than half Romney's $12 million. More»