Obama Rips Holocaust Deniers at Buchenwald

Great-uncle helped free Buchenwald

(NEWSER) - President Obama toured the Nazi concentration camp Buchenwald today, the BBC reports. “These sites have not lost their horror with the passage of time,” said Obama, accompanied on his visit by German chancellor Angela Merkel and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel. Obama noted that his great-uncle, part of the infantry division that liberated the camp, "had a very difficult time re-adjusting to civilian life" afterward. More»

'Well, you have a few things on your mind,' he responds

(NEWSER) - President Obama is huddling with other G-8 leaders today at Camp David, with Europe's financial crisis expected to be the main topic of conversation. More precisely: Whether Obama can persuade Germany's Angela Merkel to ease up on her austerity strategy and mix in some stimulus, reports AP . If their greeting last night is any indication, some friction might already be apparent: When Obama asked how her how she has been, Merkel shrugged instead of responding, notes the Wall Street Journal . "Well, you have a few things on your mind," Obama said. More»

(NEWSER) - Skipping the celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Berlin Wall is a bad choice by President Obama, Rick Richman writes, for several reasons:

• It’s a snub of a personal invitation from German Chancellor Angela Merkel—a key ally and one going all out for the festivities.
• It’s a chance for Obama to give credit to Presidents Kennedy and Reagan for their role in winning the Cold War—credit he forgot during a campaign speech in Berlin.

Ahmadinejad had called it 'ambiguous and dubious'

(AP) - It didn't stop a mass walkout, but Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad actually toned down the speech he gave at a UN racism conference yesterday, the UN said today, dropping language denying the reality of the Holocaust. In the original text of his speech, he said of Western nations: "Following World War II, they resorted to military aggression to make an entire nation homeless on the pretext of Jewish sufferings and the ambiguous and dubious question of Holocaust.” More»

Outraged as Iranian, Swiss leaders meet at UN racism conference

(NEWSER) - Israel has angrily called home its ambassador to Switzerland after that country's president met with Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ahead of a politically charged UN meeting on racism that began today, the Times of London reports. On Israel's Holocaust Memorial Day, Switzerland’s “guest of honor is a racist and a Holocaust-denier who doesn’t conceal his intention to wipe Israel off the face of this earth,” PM Benjamin Netanyahu said. More»