Rowling Wows Obama—and Medvedev, Too

(NEWSER) - Time has unveiled its latest tallying of the world’s 100 most influential people, and yes, of course, Barack Obama is on it. But the other 99 choices aren’t as obvious. Bernie Madoff makes the list, as do Rush Limbaugh, George Clooney, and 4Chan’s Moot. And as usual, Time has snagged some celebrity writers, making for some great pairings, like JK Rowling on Gordon Brown, Ashton Kutcher on the Twitter guys, and Arnold Schwarzenegger on uncle-in-law Ted Kennedy. More»

President brings "psychological finesse" to the G20

(NEWSER) - Therapists could learn a thing or two from the "psychological finesse" Barack Obama showed in Europe this week, Maureen Dowd writes in the New York Times. Obama's upbringing taught him how to "slip in and out of different worlds," and that legacy was on display at the G20 conference as he turned the "the bluster and insecurities of other politicians" to his advantage. More»

(NEWSER) - No soul-searching gazes or shoulder rubs on this trip. President Obama's initial foray into foreign relations stands in stark contrast to the style of George Bush, writes Jonathan Martin in Politico. Bush took the "chummy," "towel-snapping" route in his relations with foreign leaders. Obama, on the other hand, is all business, and the White House took pains to emphasize how "frank" and "sober" today's discussions were (save for the queen). More»

President and PM want tougher bank rules to end recession

(NEWSER) - Barack Obama and British PM Gordon Brown today urged G20 members to “do whatever is necessary” to fix the global economic crisis, the Guardian reports. The two world leaders held a joint press conference on the eve of the G20 summit, at which Obama declared “the separation between various parties involved has been vastly overstated." More»

Russian president praises and needles US in op-ed

(NEWSER) - Relations between the US and Russia were testy, to say the least, by the end of 2008—a condition for which Dmitry Medvedev, not surprisingly, blames Washington. In a needling op-ed for the Washington Post, the Russian president writes that the proposed missile defense system and support for Georgia and Ukraine's NATO bids "undermined Russia's interests." But Medvedev, who will meet Barack Obama for the first time in London tomorrow, has hope that the "toxic assets" of American policy can be cleaned up. More»