Anchor, Worldfocus
Martin Savidge is the anchor of Worldfocus a half hour International newscast that airs nightly on PBS. The program uses its own reporters as well as those of news oanizations around the world and can also be found on the web at worldfocus.org.The World Embraces President Obama Barack Obama’s inaugural address was not an event witnessed by Americans alone. On his first day in office, President Obama has been calling leaders in the Middle East. Opposition to the war in Iraq was a major factor in Barack Obama’s campaign and his election. And despite the friendship between George Bush and Britain’s Tony Blair, US relations with Western Europe took a dive during the past 8 years. Barack Obama is an African-American, but he’s not the descendent of slaves. His father was a highly educated civic leader in Kenya who came to the US for higher education. There was no reference to Latin America—not even to Mexico, where President Obama will be faced with increasingly rampant drug and gun smuggling, and where the economic crisis could drive more immigrants northward.
G7 Finance Ministers to Gather to Discuss Global Financial Crisis Treasury Secretary Paulson said yesterday that governments around the world need to coordinate their actions so "the action of one country does not come at the expense of others or the stability of the system as a whole." Finance ministers from the industrialized West as well as China, Brazil and Saudi Arabia are coming to Washington in the next few days. They'll talk about interest rates, tax cuts, spending increases and the possibility of coordinating their efforts to restore confidence in the worldwide economy. But different countries face different problems, and they compete, especially with the US, which has been economically dominant for so long. We talk about hopes, as opposed to realities, as well as the decline of mutual trust and how it might be restored.
What is Trump's plan for Middle East peace? On his first foreign tour, President Trump has promised "peace" between Israel and the Palestinians. Are there any details for re-starting talks that have been stalled for the past three years?
Trump's 'America First' goes missing abroad In the Middle East, President Trump is changing some policies of the Obama Administration—and reversing his own campaign attacks on Islam as a religion that "hates us." We hear about his visit to Saudi Arabia and what's at stake for the rest of his foreign excursion.
White House budget proposal slashes and burns President Trump's first budget request is considered dead on arrival in Congress — a familiar development in Capitol Hill. We hear what it reveals about the priorities of the new administration. What's likely to die… and what might survive?
Trump plays scolder-in-chief with NATO allies At the opening of NATO’s dramatic new headquarters in Brussels today, President Trump acknowledged that Article 5 — promising that “an attack on one nation is an attack on all” -- has only been invoked one time: in the aftermath of September 11. But the President failed to provide what 27 other Alliance members have been waiting for: a re-commitment by America’s new leader to Article 5. Instead, they got a scolding.