President Barack Obama has met behind closed doors with some of the secret special operations forces who killed Osama bin Laden. The president Friday thanked the units who carried out the operation against the leader of the al-Qaida terror network.
At the Fort Campbell Army installation in Kentucky, President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden congratulated the troops involved in Sunday's dangerous operation in Pakistan.
They held a private meeting with the Navy SEAL commandos and Army helicopter pilots on the assault team who raided Osama bin Laden's compound and killed the al-Qaida leader.
Mr. Obama told them, "Job well done."
The president later carried the same message to hundreds of cheering soldiers at a nearby hangar. "I came here for a simple reason to say thank you on behalf of America. This has been a historic week in the life of our nation," he said.
Fort Campbell has sustained heavy losses in the nearly 10-year war in Afghanistan. Mr. Obama has drawn about 100,000 troops out of Iraq and has sent tens of thousands more into Afghanistan. He told the soldiers sending them into harm's way was the toughest decision he made as commander-in-chief, and he did not make it lightly.
The president thanked everyone who helped to eliminate the threat posed by bin Laden. "Thanks to the incredible skill and courage of countless individuals, intelligence, military over many years, the terrorist leader who struck our nation on 9-11 will never threaten America again," he said.
Mr. Obama said the killing of Osama bin Laden was a step toward ridding the United States and the world of the threat al-Qaida poses. "Most of all, we are making progress in our major goal, our central goal in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and that is disrupting and dismantling, and we are going to ultimately defeat al-Qaida," he said.
The president called the killing of bin Laden one of the most successful intelligence and military operations in America's history.
However, he pointed out that the war against al-Qaida and terrorism in general continues.
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Al-Qaida is urging Muslims around the world to avenge the death of its leader, Osama bin Laden, at the hands of U.S. special forces.
The U.S. monitoring group SITE Intelligence quoted on Friday a statement attributed to the terrorist network, confirming the death of its leader for the first time.
Bin Laden message
In the statement post on militant websites, al-Qaida vowed to continue its attacks on Americans and U.S. allies both inside and outside the United States. It also promised to release soon an audio message that it said bin Laden recorded the week before his death.
U.S. officials responded by saying they remain "highly vigilant" for any possible retaliatory attacks.
U.S. special forces killed bin Laden early Monday during a covert raid in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad - a two-hour drive from Pakistan's capital, Islamabad.
Al-Qaida statement
In its statement, Al-Qaida urged Pakistanis to rise up against their government and "cleanse" their country of what it called the shame brought on them by bin Laden's death in Pakistan.
The killing of bin Laden prompted hundreds of people to protest against the United States in the southwestern city of Quetta Friday. One cleric said the death of al-Qaida's leader would produce thousands of other Osamas.
Widespread anti-Americanism in Pakistan is fueled by the 10-year war in neighboring Afghanistan and a CIA effort to target militants who live in Pakistan's tribal regions.
Earlier Friday, Pakistani intelligence officials said one of Osama bin Laden's wives told them she stayed at the compound where the terrorist leader was killed for five years.
Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.
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Independent investigators at the United Nations called Friday for the United States to provide more details on the death of Osama bin Laden.
The two U.N. investigators who published a joint statement on Friday said that in exceptional cases force can be used in "operations against terrorists."
But Christof Heyns, the special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions, and Martin Scheinin, the rapporteur on protecting human rights while countering terrorism, said terrorists should normally be dealt with by arrest and trial.
Whether or not U.S. forces met international human rights standards when they killed Osama bin Laden, they said, is dependent on the specific facts. And those facts, they said, need to be brought out into the open.
The U.N. investigators are not the first to raise questions over the legality of bin Laden's death.
Information request
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Navi Pillay, the U.N.'s top human rights official, has also called for more information. The International Red Cross has said there aren't enough facts available to assess its legality and Cuba's Fidel Castro decried what he said was an execution "in front of [bin Laden's] wife and children."
U.S.-based Human Rights Watch is another organization that has joined the debate.
"I think it would be very important for the U.S. to give more information, both to show its justification for the legality and also frankly to prevent a lot of other countries from hunting down their opponents either at home or abroad and using this as justification," HRW's Rood Brody said.
He says more light needs to be shed on three main issues. The first is whether Osama bin Laden is considered a combatant in a war. Evidence needs to be provided, he says, that bin Laden's role was ongoing.
"If you're engaged in military hostilities--you're giving orders to troops in Pakistan, you have some kind of operational role--then you become in effect a soldier or a general, as the case may be, and then you become a clear military objective," he said.
Operation 'Geronimo'
Brody says more also needs to be known about the planning of the operation: what orders were given and whether capturing, rather than killing, bin Laden was an option.
Thirdly, he says, more information should be given about what actually happened in the Pakistani compound where bin Laden was killed. The U.S. has already said bin Laden was unarmed so, Brody asks, what prevented the U.S. forces from capturing him?"
He says there are a lot of questions still unanswered but that does not necessarily mean that the right steps were not taken.
"Obviously in an ideal world, one would have stood outside the Pakistani compound with a bullhorn and said 'Come Out' and Osama bin Laden would have come out with his hands up and would have been captured and put on trial. We don't live in an ideal world," Brody said.
This week U.S. President Barack Obama ruled out releasing photos taken of bin Laden after he was shot.
Obama said that because of the graphic nature of the images, their publication could create a risk to national security.
The investigators Heyns and Scheinin report to the U.N. Human Rights Council.
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Osama bin Laden's second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahri, is being tipped as a likely successor to the slain al-Qaida chief. Whoever might lead the network would be hard pressed to fill bin Laden's role.
Bin Laden's death has led to speculation about who, if anyone, will take control of al-Qaida. Often mentioned is the Egyptian Islamist Ayman al-Zawahri, a frequent spokesman for the group who stressed his closeness to the late leader.
Voice of rhetoric
In an audio address released in February, al-Zawahri noted that bin Laden assigned him to advise Mujahideen on Islamic Sharia law.
Al-Zawahri has also been the voice of some of the group's more inflammatory rhetoric against the United States. Perhaps most importantly, he is considered by many to be the brains of the terror network, responsible for the planning of the group's most notorious acts, including the 2001 attacks in the United States.
Mohamed Salah, a political analyst and editor of the London-based al Hayat newspaper, says al-Zawahri is the real founder of al-Qaida, with his experience organizing Islamists in Egypt as important, if not more, than the ideological and financial leadership provided bin Laden.
Trained surgeon
A surgeon by profession, al-Zawahri, like bin Laden, gave up a life of privilege to violently promote a puritanical Islamic ideal. They met in the fight against Soviet troops in Afghanistan, but his roots in radical ideology stretch back to his teen years.
A fellow Islamist who shared an Egyptian prison cell with al-Zawahiri in the early 1980's, remembers him as a modest, poetry-reciting "gentleman," a surprisingly common description of terror leaders.
Assem Abdel Maged says outward demeanor could be misleading. Abdel Maged adds that in spite of his politeness and docility, al-Zawahiri is rigid, someone who one cannot oppose or face to change his views.
Sheikh Abdel Maged, a senior member of Jemaah Islamiyah, says the Islamic Group has advised al-Zawahri to follow its example and abandon violence. But the sheikh argues that as long as the reasons that provoked al Qaida remain - what he sees as American arrogance and support of Israel - so too will the group. All the same, in recent years, al-Qaida has been forced to undergo change. Part can be attributed to its leaders being forced underground. Whereabouts unkown
Al-Zawahri's location remains unknown. But the movement has also become more diffuse, with affiliates often eclipsing bin Laden's group.
Anwar al-Awlaki, of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, for example, has emerged as a powerful force, his charisma a stark contrast to the dour, scolding image al-Zawahri projects. Sheikh Abdel Maged believes some day this younger generation may come to the fore.
For now though, he believes al-Zawahri is the only candidate to succeed bin Laden. But some terror experts question whether al-Qaida even needs a leader. For one thing, they argue, bin Laden will remain a powerful even iconic symbol, long after his death. Sheikh Abdel Maged agrees that the organization has moved far beyond its hierarchical origins.
Abdel Maged says al-Qaida is not a pyramid, rather it's an idea that lives in space, cyberspace in particular, nourished by American acts. And it could be the American act of killing bin Laden will give his supporters scattered around the world more reason to carry on, no matter who might step in to succeed him.
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The swollen waters of the Mississippi River and its tributaries are forcing thousands of people from their homes in the midwestern and southern United States. Record water levels have caused problems in large areas along the rivers. The United States Army Corps of Engineers is fighting to control the flooding, which could last several more weeks.
Bob Anderson says there is one simple way to describe the flooding along the Ohio and Mississippi rivers this year.
"It's the record flood," he said.
Anderson is a spokesman for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which is fighting the floodwaters by managing a system of levees along the rivers.
"At certain locations in the watershed we had 600 percent greater than normal rainfall, and that's one of the main reasons we are seeing such historic flood levels," he said. "Also, the fact is we had a tremendous amount of snow over the winter and all that started melting about the same time all this rain started falling a few weeks ago."
Cairo, situated where the Mississippi and Ohio rivers meet at the southern tip of the state of Illinois, was a target at the center of the floods. About 2,800 people were evacuated when floodwaters threatened to inundate the town.
To save Cairo, the Corps of Engineers blew up an earthen levee on the Mississippi River, intentionally flooding farmland in the neighboring state of Missouri. The Missouri Farm Bureau estimates the cost of the damage to farmland will exceed $100 million.
Corps Spokesperson Bob Anderson says farming is not the only industry affected in the region.
"Many hundreds of people are out of work now because they can't get to their industries or their companies on the river," he said. "The casino industry is shut down, which is a huge tax base for the state. They are shutting navigation down today because the river is so high on the levees."
As cities further down river brace for approaching floodwaters, Anderson says the crisis could last several more weeks.
"It doesn't look like it will be until the very end of May, when the final crest that's predicted by the National Weather Service starts to pass New Orleans," he said.
Many of the states affected by powerful tornadoes in recent weeks, such as Alabama and Tennessee, are now dealing with the prospect of potential flooding.
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Ivory Coast's president has taken the oath of office, formally ending the violent political crisis that followed November's disputed election. A U.N. human rights team is investigating a possible mass grave in an Abidjan suburb where the new national army has been battling loyalists of the ousted president.
President Alassane Ouattara swore to respect and defend Ivory Coast's constitution and protect the rights and liberties of all citizens.
In a brief ceremony at Abidjan's presidential palace, he said it is the start of a new era of reconciliation and unity for all Ivorians.
Ouattara has been the country's de facto leader since last month's capture of former president Laurent Gbagbo, whose refusal to hand over power sparked a wave of political violence.
Gbagbo is now under house arrest in northern Ivory Coast where prosecutors Friday questioned him about his alleged role in that violence. Two French lawyers retained by his daughter were turned back at Abidjan's airport.
President Ouattara's office says he will have a formal inauguration in the political capital Yamoussoukro May 21. Friday's oath of office followed the constitutional council officially making him president.
Constitutional council president Paul Yao N'dre says the council endorses the African Union decision to settle the crisis and therefore proclaims Alassane Ouattara President of the Republic of Ivory Coast.
N'dre helped set off this political crisis five months ago by annulling as fraudulent nearly ten percent of all ballots cast to announce Gbagbo's re-election. The United Nations certified electoral commission results that showed Ouattara won the vote by eight percent.
N'dre says the council overturned its previous ruling because Ivory Coast is a member of the African Union and recognizes "international norms and standards accepted by competent national organs" as more authoritative than internal decisions.
Fighting in Abidjan's Yopougon neighborhood has continued as militia still loyal to Gbagbo are holding out against Ouattara's new national army.
Red Cross officials say they have collected 60 bodies in Youpougon this week. The office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights says investigators are examining a possible link between an alleged mass grave in the neighborhood and a Wednesday attack on a Baptist church.
Ouattara is moving to restore security in Abidjan. He has already reopened banks and resumed cocoa exports.
The European Union is delivering $63 million of aid for the agricultural and justice sectors as the first installment of what will eventually be $261 million in assistance.
The United States is providing $43 million to help relief groups deliver health care, clean water, and household items to displaced civilians.
World Health Organization spokesman Tarik Jasarevic says the priority now is reopening health centers that were closed by the political crisis.
"In regions of Montagna Moyen Cavally, 55 out of 106 health centers are not operational and five out of eight hospitals. And this is due to the lack of personnel. It is due to looting of drugs and medical equipment or partial or total destruction of health infrastructures. Sixty percent of health workers are absent, and those who have stayed have not received salaries for three months," he said.
WHO says it is working to help pay health workers in Ivory Coast, especially in rural areas. It says most of the health centers in Abidjan are open but do not have enough supplies.
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Libyan forces loyal to leader Moammar Gadhafi may be guilty of war crimes, Amnesty International said Friday. In a new report, the international watchdog described ongoing attacks against the civilian population in Misrata.
Battles have raged through the streets of Misrata for more than two months now and Amnesty says in that time troops loyal to Gadhafi have unleashed a "truly horrifying" string of attacks against civilians.
Hundreds killed
On Friday, the group published a report saying the total disregard for civilian lives is a clear breach of international law.
Donatella Rovera, a senior advisor at Amnesty is in Benghazi, the rebel stronghold in eastern Libya.
From there she told VOA of the bloodshed in Misrata. She says hundreds of people have been killed or injured.
"The rocket attacks, the artillery attacks, which fall onto civilian neighborhoods, hit civilian houses, and kill civilians - those are weapons that are designed for the battlefield and should not be used in residential areas," said Rovera.
Cluster bombs have also been used, she said.
Residents fleeing
Rovera said many people have fled their homes to safer neighborhoods and are now concentrated in a few areas furthest from the line of fire. But, she said, they are still by no means safe.
Misrata is Libya's third largest city. It's located in western Libya, a part of the country that is still mostly under the control of Mr. Gadhafi.
His forces have surrounded the city on three sides and have stepped up attacks on the city's port, the sole lifeline for international aid and the evacuation of refugees.
Dire situation
Rovera says the city is under siege and the humanitarian situation is dire.
"Obviously there is no electricity or running water or anything by way of working services in the town," she added.
ICC investigation
On Wednesday, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, said he will seek warrants against three Libyans who bear "the greatest criminal responsibility" for crimes against humanity.
He told the United Nations Security Council that he has evidence Libya's government committed war crimes.
Rovera says the violations committed in Libya do constitute war crimes.
"It is very important that the investigation takes place and that it is given the full resources that it needs," Rovera explained.
This week an aid ship ferried over 1,000 people from Misrata to Benghazi. The International Organization for Migration said they had been forced to leave hundreds of people behind and that heavy shelling in the port area means they have no immediate plans to return to Misrata.
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Ahead of a regional summit, Indonesia's foreign minister has said Thailand and Cambodia agreed to allow Indonesian monitors to go to the border between the two countries to help prevent further military clashes.
In his role as the chairman of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa on Friday said there has been a breakthrough in ASEAN's efforts to mediate an end to the Thai-Cambodia border conflict.
"I can report to all of you that the two sides have agreed to the terms of reference for the observer team, the Indonesian observer team that we have been discussing for several weeks now," said Natalegawa. "That is a done thing in the sense that the negotiations have been concluded. Cambodia has formally acceded or formally agreed to the terms of reference. Thailand has also agreed to it but they are yet to fully conclude the formal exchange of documents."
The terms of reference include how many Indonesian observers will be dispatched and the specific areas along the border where they will operate.
Since February, more than 20 people have died in repeated clashes between the two ASEAN members along their disputed border. Tens of thousands of people have fled their homes on both sides of the border.
The heart of the disagreement is a 900-year-old Hindu Khmer temple known as Preah Vihear in Cambodia and Prah Viharn in Thailand. The temple sits in Cambodia, but Thailand claims adjacent land that includes a key access route to the complex. The countries have fought sporadically over the border since 2008.
Natalegawa met with foreign ministers of the other ASEAN nations Friday. On Saturday, ASEAN national leaders begin a two-day summit in Jakarta.
The Indonesian foreign minister says talks Friday included the question of Burma's request to take over the chairmanship of ASEAN in 2014. Human Rights Watch objects to the idea of Burma (also called Myanmar) leading the association, given it says, the country's long record of human rights abuses and its lack of democratic development.
While the ASEAN heads of states will decide if Burma's bid is accepted, Natalegawa said some concerns were expressed at the ministerial level.
"The state of readiness of Myanmar to chair ASEAN in 2014, which is quite a critical year for ASEAN, on the eve of its community in 2015, the state of readiness extends beyond practical arrangements readiness but also other dimensions that we need to ascertain ourselves," added Natalegawa.
Burma passed up its chance to take the rotating chairmanship in 2005, after the United States and European Union threatened to boycott ASEAN events if Burma's government was at the helm.
Natalegawa says the foreign ministers also addressed the issue of the South China Sea where China and some ASEAN countries have competing claims to small islands and areas believed to be rich in oil. He says ASEAN and China are continuing to work together to develop a declaration of conduct to help resolve disputes.
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U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates says the U.S. military and intelligence operation that killed Osama bin Laden could be a "game changer" in the war in Afghanistan, but the impact may not be certain for months.
During a visit to an air force base in North Carolina, a serviceman asked Gates about the impact of the killing of bin Laden during the raid in Pakistan on Monday.
"There is a possibility that it could be a game changer. Bin Laden and Mullah Omar had a very close personal relationship," said Gates. "And there are others in the Taliban that have felt betrayed by al-Qaida, that it was because of al-Qaida's attack on the United States that the Taliban got thrown out of Afghanistan. So, we'll have to see what that relationship looks like."
Gates said it could be six months or more before it becomes clear exactly how bin Laden's death will affect the Taliban-al-Qaida relationship.
The secretary also was asked a question that many in Washington are asking - whether bin Laden's death will make it possible to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan more quickly than had been expected.
"The president has been clear that the pace of the drawdown will be conditions based. So, I think that while we will see some gradual drawdowns beginning in July, I think that how fast those drawdowns go will depend largely on the situation on the ground," said Gates.
President Barack Obama has promised the U.S. withdrawal will begin in July. But he and other NATO leaders have agreed to maintain what Gates calls a "robust" troop presence for the next several years. Officials say some foreign troops may remain in Afghanistan even after the planned handover of full security responsibility to Afghan forces in 2014.
Gates also said the United States and Pakistan need to continue to work on their relationship. He praised Pakistan for doing more than he had expected to fight terrorism in recent years, but he said Pakistani officials may hedge their positions partly out of concern that the United States might withdraw from the region as it draws down its troops in Afghanistan. The relationship has been strained over several issues lately, and took another hit from the clandestine U.S. attack on bin Laden, just about 50 kilometers from the Pakistani capital.
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U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned on Friday that global shortages of food and spiraling prices threaten widespread destabilization. She spoke at the Rome headquarters of the United Nations food agency.
Clinton urged immediate action to forestall a repeat of the 2007 and 2008 crisis that led to riots in dozens of countries around the developing world.
Speaking at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Rome, she said urgent steps are needed to hold down costs and boost agricultural production as food prices continue to rise.
"The FAO food price index reached an all-time high in February," said Clinton. "Yesterday's update showed little decrease. The World Bank estimates that 44 million people have been pushed into poverty, since just last June, because of rising food prices."
Clinton said the situation is not yet as dire as it was four years ago, but warned that the consequences of inaction would be grave.
"We must act now, effectively and cooperatively, to blunt the negative impact of rising food prices and protect people and communities," she added.
She called for countries to adopt better policies this time around and said the United States is working with developing and industrialized nations to encourage everyone to respond to rising food prices not with failed policies of the past but with a sounder approach.
Clinton said more attention should be paid to improving seed quality to boost agricultural production, as well as educating farmers on the best practices and encouraging governments to prevent food hoarding.
The U.S. secretary of state said countries should share information about food production and stocks, and resist the temptation of imposing export bans no matter how attractive they may appear to be. She added that she is well aware such measures are difficult to sell politically given budget cuts.
But she stressed that everyone must do their utmost and work together to find the best ways for markets to work more efficiently and deliver results.
FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf thanked Clinton for raising the issue. He said the FAO, backed by the Group of 20 leading emerging and wealthy countries, is working on a series of studies about how to better manage the risks associated with food price volatility.
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Now that Osama bin Laden is dead, U.S. involvement in Afghanistan faces greater scrutiny. Some lawmakers, and analysts, in Washington, D.C., want President Barack Obama to do more than begin the initial withdrawal of some troops, while others want even more boots on the ground.
The Afghanistan war began as an effort to find Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida network. It has grown to 100,000 U.S. troops, plus tens of thousands of allied forces, at a cost this year of at least $100 billion. But more than a year ago, the president said, "America has no interest in fighting an endless war in Afghanistan."
So in July, some U.S. troops will withdraw.
Now, however, with terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden dead, some say that changes everything.
Steve Clemons, the founder of the private Afghanistan Study Group, wants even more U.S. troops out, and less combat. He said having U.S. troops in unstable areas results in higher al-Qaida recruitment.
"So if you move to the parts of Afghanistan that are more stable, that you can secure human rights, that you can help set up systems of government that themselves become compelling to and seductive to other parts of the state," said Clemons. "That would be fantastic because the Taliban would have to deal with that appetite that their own people have."
Clemons favors pulling out 30,000 troops in July, and withdrawing thousands more on a regular basis.
Others obviously disagree. Listen to this debate between Brian Katulis of The Center for American Progress and James Carafano of The Heritage Foundation.
"Cutting back on the military now would be about dumbest thing the United States could do," said Carafano. "This is exactly the wrong time to do that. Picture you're in the middle of a marathon, and you're winning, do you stop and let everyone catch up?"
"I don't understand what winning means in Afghanistan today - if we've got only about 100 al-Qaida militants in that country and we have a much bigger threat in al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen," said Katulis.
In addition to Yemen, analysts feel more resources should move toward Pakistan, a larger country with six times as many people as Afghanistan and an unknown number of nuclear weapons.
"We're never going to have boots on the ground in a substantial way in Pakistan, but we do need to increase our support and funding to the Pakistani people," said Katulis. "We're now over-invested in Afghanistan to the detriment of Pakistan."
With mounting evidence that bin Laden lived in Pakistan for the past five years, though, many question the billions of dollars the U.S. gives to Pakistan. The White House explains the U.S.-Pakistan relationship by saying, "It's complicated." Just like the U.S. role in Afghanistan.
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President Barack Obama says the U.S. economy is recovering, after the nation added more jobs than expected in April.
The government jobs report released Friday shows a net gain of 244,000 jobs in the United States last month, better than economists had predicted.
President Obama told factory workers in Indianapolis, Indiana the U.S. private sector has gained jobs every month for more than a year.
"That means over the last 14 months -- in just a little bit over a year -- we have added more than two million jobs in the private sector," the president said.
Related Mil Arcega video report
The unemployment rate edged higher, from 8.8 percent in March to 9.0 percent in April, largely because people who had given up looking for work were resuming their job search.
The president said the economy is moving in the right direction, despite what he called strong headwinds such as rising gasoline prices.
"We have got high gas prices that have been eating away at your paychecks, and that is a headwind that we have got to confront," he said. "You have got the earthquake in Japan that has had an effect on manufacturing here."
Mr. Obama said there will always be ups and downs as the country comes out of a recession, but he said he remains encouraged about America's economic future.
"But the fact is that we are still making progress. And that proves how resilient the American economy is, and how resilient the American worker is, and that we can take a hit and we can keep on going forward. That is exactly what we are doing," he said.
Not counting job cuts by local, state and federal governments, the U.S. economy generated 268,000 new jobs in April, the most since February 2006.
It was the third straight month that more than 200,000 jobs were created. And the job gains in February and March were revised upward.
However, 13.7 million Americans were still out of work last month, almost double the number in 2007, before the recession started.
Overall, though, the jobs figures indicate that businesses are confident in the economy and willing to hire, despite slow growth early in the year and the steep rise in energy costs.
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Prominent European nations appear headed toward recognizing an independent Palestinian state in September unless Middle East peace talks are restarted.
Both French and British leaders said this week they were prepared to support a unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state if peace talks are not relaunched by September - when the United Nations General Assembly may take up the issue in New York.
Those positions - announced by French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister David Cameron - appeared to deal a blow to efforts by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to drum up European support during meetings with the two leaders this week.
Yossi Mekelberg - a Middle East analyst who works at Chatham House and Regent's College in London - says that while Europe wants peace talks, it may opt for recognizing a Palestinian state for lack of other options.
"I think that it's a growing possibility and it's more out of desperation than actually that anyone would like to see a unilateral action," he said.
More than 110 countries have recognized Palestine diplomatically. That includes European Union members Poland, Romania and Hungary. But the EU is far from unified on the matter. During a meeting with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she opposed unilateral steps by the Palestinians.
"I would tell you that it's less than desirable," agrees analyst Mekelberg. "Because at the end of the day, the Israelis and Palestinians need to negotiate. And I would actually like to see the European Union be more proactive in advancing negotiations together with the United States working in tandem," he said.
A chance for that might arise next month when Paris will be hosting a donors conference for a future Palestinian state. French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said his government hoped to use that meeting as a platform to restart Middle East peace talks.
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A year-and-a-half ahead of the next US presidential election, five potential candidates from the Republican party came together in Greenville, South Carolina for a debate broadcast nationally on the Fox News Network. The topics ranged from the war in Afghanistan to high gasoline prices and the national debt.
The hour-and-a-half-long debate began with questions about the killing of terrorist leader Osama bin Laden on Sunday and US policy in Afghanistan, the Middle East and North Africa. Congressman Ron Paul, who opposes all US involvement abroad, including foreign aid, called for a withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan.
"We went to Afghanistan to get him and he hasn't been there," said Paul. "Now that he is killed, boy, this is a wonderful time for this country now to reassess and get the troops out of Afghanistan and end that war that has not helped us and has not helped anyone in the Middle East."
Former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum said that the parts of President Obama's foreign policy that have worked the best are the ones from the Bush administration he has continued, including the hunt for bin Laden.
President Obama's policy on Libya was attacked from two angles in the debate. Former Godfather Pizza CEO Herman Cain, the only black candidate and a tea party favorite, said the president had gone into Libya without a clear strategy and now risks having the situation escalate. But Governor Tim Pawlenty criticized President Obama for not acting decisively, in early March, when he said the removal of Moammar Gadhafi might have been achieved quickly.
"Had the president been decisive in that moment, the rebels had taken over most of the country geographically, they had the momentum, they had Gadhafi on the ropes, he was openly talking about leaving voluntarily, according to news reports, and we could shoved him out at that moment," said Pawlenty.
On the question of enhanced interrogation, which some critics say amounts to torture, all the candidates said they supported its use in some circumstances except for Congressman Paul and former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson.
On the issue of immigration, Herman Cain said he backed the right of states like Arizona to make their own laws because the federal government has failed to address the problem. But Gary Johnson, who served as governor in the border state of New Mexico from 1995 to 2003, said immigration is a benefit to the nation and should be encouraged through an expansion of the legal process.
"I think we should make it as easy as possible to get a work visa," said Johnson. "A work visa would not be citizenship or a green card, but it would be a background check and a Social Security card so that applicable taxes would be paid. Immigration needs to be about work, not welfare."
Johnson has strong support among some sectors of the conservative tea party movement, but his more liberal views on such issues as abortion and legalization of marijuana set him apart from social conservatives.
None of the five men who were on stage in South Carolina are considered top tier candidates, except for former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, who currently trails other potential candidates in polls in key primary states like Iowa. Among the prominent Republicans who may take part in upcoming debates are former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, real estate tycoon and television star Donald Trump and Minnesota Congresswoman Michelle Bachman.
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U.S. President Barack Obama is meeting Friday with members of the elite military team involved in the raid that killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden in Pakistan.
The president is visiting the Fort Campbell army base in the state of Kentucky to personally thank participants in the early Monday raid on bin Laden's compound. Administration officials said Mr. Obama will privately meet with the participants before making public remarks.
White House spokesman Jay Carney described the raid participants who will be meeting President Obama as "special operators," but would not say if they include the Navy SEALs who carried out the raid and did the actual shooting.
In his public remarks, the president will commend soldiers who have recently returned from Afghanistan.
Impact of bin Laden's Death
Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Friday that the killing of bin Laden could be a "game-changer" for U.S. military efforts in Afghanistan. Gates said it is too early to tell, but that in six months or so, officials may know if the death has made a difference.
He said it could affect the relationship between al-Qaida and the Taliban, noting that bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Omar had what he called "a very close relationship."
Gates said there are others in the Taliban who felt betrayed by al-Qaida because of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, which led to the U.S. invasion that drove the Taliban from power in Afghanistan.
The White House on Friday said the U.S. is being "extremely vigilant" about possible retaliatory attacks by al-Qaida.
Al-Qaida documents
U.S. officials say an initial review of documents seized from bin Laden's compound in the Pakistani town of Abbottabad shows al-Qaida considered a terrorist attack against trains at an unspecified location in the United States on the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks.
A Homeland Security Department document obtained Thursday by U.S. news organizations says al-Qaida thought about tampering with rail tracks so a train would fall from a bridge or into a valley. U.S. officials say they have no evidence the plot was active.
CIA safe house in Pakistan
The CIA is reported to have maintained a safe house in Abbottabad for a small team of spies who conducted surveillance for months on the compound where bin Laden was found. The Washington Post, citing U.S. officials, said the CIA went to Congress last December to secure authority to reallocate tens of millions of dollars within assorted agency budgets to fund the safe house.
The officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the house has since been shut down, due to concerns about the safety of CIA assets in the aftermath of the raid and because the intelligence agency's work was considered finished.
On Thursday, President Obama laid a wreath at the site of the destroyed World Trade Center buildings in New York to pay tribute to the thousands killed in the September 11 attacks by al-Qaida. Thousands of people lined the streets around Ground Zero, hoping to get a glimpse of Mr. Obama during his visit.
Some information for this report was provided by AP.
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Pakistani intelligence officials say a U.S. missile attack close to the Afghan border has killed at least 15 people.
Friday's drone attack was the first reported strike since Monday's pre-dawn U.S. commando raid that killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.
Authorities say the attack targeted a compound in North Waziristan, a stronghold of Taliban and al-Qaida militants on the border with Afghanistan.
U.S. drone strikes against militants based in Pakistan's tribal belt have been a source of friction between the two countries and Friday's strike could further inflame tensions between Islamabad and Washington.
Anti-US protests
And, with anti-U.S. protests taking across the country on Friday, security has been tightened further to quell any potential violence. Several Islamist groups demonstrated Friday against bin Laden's killing, saying more figures like him would arise to wage holy war against the United States.
Speaking to journalists outside the parliament building Friday, Chaudry Nisar, the head of the opposition in Pakistan's national assembly, called on the government to clarify outstanding questions about Osama Bin Laden and the U.S. raid that led to his death.
Nisar says the nation's honor has been trampled by the U.S. raid, and he says and for the government to conduct business as usual is not acceptable. He says someone must be found responsible and heads must roll.
Unpopular drones
U.S. drone strikes are extremely unpopular in Pakistan because of the perception of high civilian deaths from the missile attacks which are targeted militants along the Afghan border. Many Pakistani's feel strongly they are a violation of the country's sovereignty.
The Pakistani government said bin Laden's death was a milestone in the fight against militancy although it expressed objections to the raid which killed him as a violation of its sovereignty.
Mounting criticism
Since the covert mission, there has been widespread criticism in Pakistan about how the government has released information on the raid, and about the presence of Osama bin Laden on Pakistani soil. Many Pakistani's say the raid also exposed weaknesses in the country's defense, something Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir denied on Thursday.
"There is no reason for Pakistanis to feel demoralized," he said. "We are proud of our achievements. We are proud of our defense capabilities. We are proud of our armed forces. We are proud of our track record in anti-terror, which is equal to none. And I think we have to look to the future and not be mired in the past," Bashir said.
Pakistan has denied any knowledge of the al-Qaida leader's whereabouts. On Thursday the army threatened to cut intelligence and military cooperation with the United States if it mounted more attacks on Pakistani soil.
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China says it will discuss disagreements over currency reform in high level meetings with U.S. officials in Washington next week. Chinese officials say other issues of concern include access for Chinese companies to the U.S. market and the U.S. debt debate.
One of the most contentious issues between China and the United States is reforming the exchange rate of the Chinese currency, the yuan.
Chinese Vice Finance Minister Zhu Guangyao told reporters Friday there is at least no discord on the basics.
Zhu says the two countries agree on the direction of reform, but have differences on specific issues. He did not give details, but said these differences will be addressed so that both sides can, in his words, deepen understanding.
For years, many American critics have said the yuan is intentionally undervalued in order to make Chinese exports cheaper and give China an unfair trade advantage. The main disagreement has been the pace of exchange rate reform, which China maintains is a sovereign decision.
Another issue is expected to be market access - in both directions. In answer to recent criticism by Commerce Secretary Gary Locke that American companies do not have enough access to the Chinese market, Zhu countered by saying Chinese companies have similar complaints about trying to do business in the United States.
Zhu urged the U.S. government to provide a favorable legal and institutional environment for Chinese companies that want to invest in the United States, and he especially urged Washington not to discriminate against Chinese state-owned enterprises.
Zhu said China also is paying close attention to the debate in the United States over fiscal issues and the U.S. debt. He noted that U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner briefed Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan about it in a timely manner.
He said he thinks the timely sharing of information is crucial for helping establish mutual trust. He added that he hopes the U.S. side will adopt what he described as "effective fiscal consolidation measures" based on President Obama's proposal.
One non-economic issue expected to be on the agenda includes human rights, which U.S. officials have said they will rise with their Chinese counterparts.
Vice Foreign Minister Cui Tiankai was asked whether China thinks the United States focuses too much on human rights.
He avoided passing judgment, but he urged the U.S. government to pay more attention to China's human rights developments rather than to be, in his words, "preoccupied with the individual cases" of people who have violated Chinese law.
These comments come amid China's biggest security crackdown in years, which apparently is aimed at preventing any unrest inspired by the Jasmine Revolutions in the Middle East.
The wide-ranging Sino-American talks begin next Monday in Washington. For the first time, they will include a strategic security dialogue that brings together diplomatic and military officials from both countries.
France announced plans to expel 14 Libyan diplomats on Friday, a day after Britain ordered two Libyan officials to leave.
The French foreign ministry says the diplomats, who back Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, have been declared "persona non grata." The ministry says they have been given up to 48 hours to leave France.
France formally recognized Libya's rebel movement after anti-government unrest erupted in the country.
On Thursday, British Foreign Secretary William Hague ordered the expulsion of two diplomats from Libya, saying their behavior had become "unacceptable."
Also Thursday, an international conference was held on Libya during which nations pledged millions of additional dollars in non-military assistance Libyan rebels and civilians.
Members of the 22-nation Libya Contact Group agreed in Rome to set up an internationally monitored fund to help support the rebel Transitional National Council.
Kuwait pledged $180 million, while Qatar promised at least $400 million more. The United States said it would take steps to free up a small part of the $30 billion in Libyan state assets frozen in the U.S. and use it for humanitarian aid in Libya's rebel-held territories.
Meanwhile, a ship carrying at least 800 evacuees from Libya's besieged city of Misrata docked in the eastern rebel stronghold, Benghazi, on Thursday. The International Organization for Migration had chartered the vessel. The group says as many as 50 wounded civilians were on board.
Relief workers on the ship say they waited offshore for three days as NATO minesweepers finished searching for explosives drifting in Misrata's harbor. Pro-Gadhafi forces planted the mines last week.
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