This article titled “Obama urged to accept Iranian nuclear offer” was written by Julian Borger, for guardian.co.uk on Monday 10th October 2011 12.13 UTC

There is a growing chorus of approval among US experts for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s offer of a new uranium deal. So far the enthusiasm has failed to catch on inside the Obama administration or among the rest of the six-nation group that handles nuclear negotiations with Iran. But that could change as the months go by and the Iranian government builds up its stockpile of low enriched and medium (20%) enriched uranium.

Ahmadinejad made this latest offer in the press, first with an interview with the Washington Post in mid-September, and then with the New York Times a week or so later. The essence of the deal, the Iranian president told the Times’ Nicholas Kristof, was: “If they give us the 20% enriched uranium this very week, we will cease the domestic enrichment of uranium of up to 20 percent this very week.”

The offer is a variant on a series of proposals and counter-proposals on the supply of fuel for the Tehran Research Reactor (TRR), for the production of medical isotopes. The first version involved Iran shipping out of its low enriched uranium (LEU) in return for the 20% enriched uranium required for the TRR. Ahmadinejad seemed to back the deal but it crashed on the reefs of internal Iranian politics. It resurfaced in May 2010 in a proposal brokered by Turkey and Brazil which was rejected by the West when it became clear that Iran intended to continue making 20% uranium at home. This was crucial as mastery of 20% uranium production is said to be 90% of the way to making weapons-grade (90% enriched) uranium in terms of technical difficulty.

In this latest reincarnation of the proposal, Ahmadinejad is saying Iran will stop 20% production. For that reason, the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security, argued that it would be wise to pursue the deal, on a temporary trial basis:

To test out Ahmadinejad’s offer, the United States could suggest that it would arrange the sale of two-year’s worth of TRR fuel in exchange for a two-year halt to any production of uranium enriched over five percent. TRR targets for medical isotope production could also be offered for sale to increase interest in the deal.

The idea has been seconded by Ali Faez and Charles Ferguson of the Federation of American Scientists, who suggest supplying Iran with 50 kg of fuel for the TRR unconditionally. They argue it would be seen as a humanitarian people-to-people gesture, helping 850,000 Iranian cancer patients receive treatment, with the strategic benefit of removing “Iran’s rationale for refining uranium to more than 3.5 percent”.

Faez and Ferguson wave away the risk that Ahmadinejad might not have the regime’s full backing for this gambit, as proved to be the case two years ago. They say Ahmadinejad has “repeated the offer often enough, and with confirmation from the foreign minister, that it must have the backing of the Iranian political elite, including Khamenei.”

That argument is debatable. Some Ahmadinejad watchers counter that he says lots of things without the Supreme Leader’s backing. The bigger problem is that it easier for academics to take these kind of gambles than leaders. Obama is in election mode and all foreign policy decisions are being subjected to a sniff test by his political advisors. Giving Ahmadinejad the benefit of the doubt once more will not sit well in a presidential debate against his eventual Republican challenger.

The rest of the 5+1 group (the P5 and Germany) have had little to say about the offer, holding fire until there is internal cohesion among the six, but if Iran continues to increase 20% U production at the present rate, and Israel shows signs of contemplating military action once more, desperation may take the upper hand and the Obama administration will be under increasingly heavy international pressure to take the risk.

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This article titled “Americans are not better off, admits Obama the underdog” was written by Richard Adams, for guardian.co.uk on Monday 3rd October 2011 21.34 UTC

Describing himself as “the underdog” in next year’s presidential election, Barack Obama admitted that Americans were no better off than they were four years ago – echoing Ronald Reagan’s successful criticism of Jimmy Carter.

Obama defended his record in office as producing steady progress – but told ABC News’s George Stephanopoulos: “Nobody is going to deny that we’re not where we need to be, that the economy is not producing enough jobs that pay well and give people a leg up on life.”

Asked by Stephanopoulos how he would appeal to voters “who simply don’t think they’re better off than they were four years ago,” Obama replied:

Well, I don’t think they’re better off than they were four years ago. They’re not better off than they were before Lehman collapsed, before the financial crisis, before this extraordinary recession that we’re going through.

I think that what we’ve seen is that we’ve been able to make steady progress to stabilise the economy but the unemployment rate is still way too high. And that’s why it’s so critical for us to make sure that we are taking every action we can take to put people back to work.

In his only debate with Carter in the 1980 presidential campaign, Reagan used his closing remarks to deliver what many political historians believe to have been a telling blow:

Next Tuesday all of you will go to the polls, you’ll stand there in the polling place and make a decision. I think when you make that decision, it might be well if you would ask yourself: are you better off than you were four years ago?

With US official unemployment still above 9%, the economic downturn has dragged down Obama’s opinion poll ratings to the point where 55% of voters in ABC News’s latest poll now expect Obama to be a one-term president.

Asked if his weak poll ratings and the state of the economy made him the underdog in the 2012 election, Obama quickly replied: “Absolutely … I don’t mind. I’m used to being an underdog.”

The interview was streamed live over the web by ABC News and Yahoo, with questions submitted online. One asked what would replace Obama’s 2008 campaign slogans of hope and change.

“I haven’t quite boiled it down to a bumper sticker yet but I think what will define 2012 is, our vision for the future,” Obama replied.

Asked what would be different if he wins a second term, Obama said: “The way it’s going to change is because the American people are going to have the say about where we want to go,” and accused the Republicans in Congress of following “a pretty extreme approach to governance.”

Later in the wide-ranging interview, Obama said he used an iPad – “Steve Jobs actually gave it to me a little bit early” – to read news coverage. Asked if he ever felt compelled to leave online comments, Obama replied:

You know, I don’t. I figure, if I got started, I wouldn’t stop, and I’ve got other things to do.

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This article titled “Obama to toughen stance on Syria with call for Assad’s departure” was written by Ian Black, Middle East editor, for The Guardian on Wednesday 10th August 2011 18.45 UTC

The United States is poised to shift its position on Syria by calling on President Bashar al-Assad to step down because of the violence he has inflicted on his own people and his failure to implement meaningful reforms for the last five months.

Barack Obama could issue the demand as early as Thursday in a speech that will mark a dramatic departure in the Syrian crisis. Until now US policy — echoed by Britain and its EU partners — has been that Assad must lead a transition or get out of the way. Now, for the first time, the US president will tell him bluntly to go.

In previous statements Washington has described Assad as “illegitimate” or “part of the past”. The White House on Wednesday decried Assad’s “heinous actions”, and spokesman Jay Carney said: “We are all watching with horror what he is doing to his own people.”

Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the UN, said on Wednesday that Washington had evidence of “crimes” in Syria and was ready to use it to step up pressure on Assad.

“He has lost his legitimacy … and Syria would be a better place without him,” Rice said. “We are looking … to lend support to the people of Syria who have the same aspirations for freedom and democracy that we have seen in so many other parts of the world.”

Syrian opposition sources and western diplomats predicted that an unconditional call for his departure would have far-reaching implications, though it would likely be couched in terms of US support for the aspirations of the Syrian people.

The precise timing and content of a presidential statement was still under discussion — partly because the US wants a full account of Assad’s six hours of talks on Tuesday with Turkey’s foreign minister, Ahmed Davotoglu, officials said.

The British and French governments are considering their response amid doubts in Whitehall about the wisdom of the US move. It was unclear whether the US would also recognise a Syrian opposition government. Unlike in Libya, where the opposition is based in Benghazi, the Syrian rebels have no base inside the country and are divided on key issues.

US media have reported in recent days that the White House is more eager to make the announcement while the state department is more cautious about the ramifications in the likely event that Assad ignores Obama’s call.

In continuing violence on Wednesday, 17 people were killed in raids in Homs, al-Jazeera reported. New attacks by security forces were also reported from the north-eastern city of Deir Ez-Zor. Citizen journalists working for Avaaz said there had been nine fatalities there and two near Deraa.

The Turkish ambassador to Syria visited Hama, scene of recent heavy civilian casualties, where his presence reportedly led to the cessation of attacks by security forces. The envoy reported that tanks and heavy weapons were being moved out, Davutoglu said in Ankara.

Saudi residents in Syria were reported to have been arrested in apparent retaliation for Riyadh’s criticism of Assad, who King Abdullah described earlier this week as presiding over a “killing machine”.

The US also imposed sanctions on Wednesday on the state-owned Commercial Bank of Syria, its Lebanon-based subsidiary and the largest mobile phone operator Syriatel. The US treasury said it was “taking aim at the financial infrastructure that is helping provide support to Assad and his regime’s illicit activities”.

Signs of a shift in US policy came from the state department on Tuesday. “The message from 2009 was if you are prepared to be a reformer, if you are prepared to work with us on Middle East peace and other issues we share, we can have a new and different kind of partnership,” said spokeswoman Victoria Nuland. But “that is not the path that Assad chose.”

The US estimates that 2,000 people have been killed during the protests.

A state department spokesman declined to comment further except to say the US wanted to raise the pressure on Assad.

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This article titled “Arctic scientist who exposed climate threat to polar bear is suspended” was written by Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent, for The Guardian on Thursday 28th July 2011 19.43 UTC

It was seen as one of the most distressing effects of climate change ever recorded: polar bears dying of exhaustion after being stranded between melting patches of Arctic sea ice.

But now the government scientist who first warned of the threat to polar bears in a warming Arctic has been suspended and his work put under official investigation for possible scientific misconduct.

Charles Monnett, a wildlife biologist, oversaw much of the scientific work for the government agency that has been examining drilling in the Arctic. He managed about $50m (£30.5m) in research projects.

Some question why Monnett, employed by the US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, has been suspended at this moment. The Obama administration has been accused of hounding the scientist so it can open up the fragile region to drilling by Shell and other big oil companies.

“You have to wonder: this is the guy in charge of all the science in the Arctic and he is being suspended just now as an arm of the interior department is getting ready to make its decision on offshore drilling in the Arctic seas,” said Jeff Ruch, president of the group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. “This is a cautionary tale with a deeply chilling message for any federal scientist who dares to publish groundbreaking research on conditions in the Arctic.”

The group filed an official complaint on Monnett’s behalf on Thursday, accusing the government of persecuting the (PDF) scientist and interfering with his work. It seeks his reinstatement and a public apology.

Monnett was on a research flight tracking bowhead whales, in 2004, when he and his colleagues spotted four dead polar bears floating in the water after a storm. The scientists concluded the bears, though typically strong swimmers, had grown exhausted and drowned due to the long distances between patches of solid sea ice. It was the first time scientists had drawn a link between melting Arctic sea ice and a threat to the bears’ survival.

Two years later, Monnett and a colleague published an article in the science journal Polar Biology, writing: “Drowning-related deaths of polar bears may increase in the future if the observed trend of regression of pack ice and/or longer open water periods continues.”

The paper quickly heightened public concern for the polar bear. Al Gore, citing the paper, used polar bear footage in his film Inconvenient Truth. Campaigners focused on the bears to push George Bush to act on climate change, and in 2008, the government designated the animal a threatened species.

It was the first animal to be classed as a victim of climate change.

In 2010 the Obama administration began an investigation into his work. The scientist was suspended with pay on 18 July. He is said to be under a gagging order and forbidden from communicating with his colleagues. The employee group’s complaint alleges that the investigation is a thinly veiled attempt to disrupt scientific work on the Arctic.

Oil firms, which want to drill in the pristine environment of the Chukchi and Beaufort seas, have been complaining of delays caused by environmental reviews. This month Obama issued an order to speed up Arctic drilling permits.

A spokeswoman for the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Regulation and Enforcement (Boemre) said the government would continue to carry out research on the potential impacts of Arctic drilling, despite Monnett’s suspension.

“All of the scientific contracts previously managed by Mr Monnett are being managed by the highly qualified scientists at Boemre,” Melissa Schwartz said in an email. She noted that the investigation was being overseen by the inspector general, which is independent, and that it was being conducted according to the Obama administration’s new guidelines on scientific integrity.

However, Peer argues the exercise is intended to discredit Monnett’s brief paper on the polar bear.

Other organisations also accused the government agency of a long record of meddling in science. A 2009 report by the Government Accountability Office found huge gaps in Boemre’s research on the impacts of drilling in the Arctic. And the Alaska Wilderness League stated: “Alaska Boemre has continued to ignore science and traditional knowledge in its decision-making about oil and gas development.”

Documents posted on the League’s website include a transcript of a conversation between investigators and Jeffrey Gleason, another government scientist on the 2004 trip. Gleason, who works for the government, in the Gulf of Mexico, said he did not necessarily share Monnett’s conclusions that the polar bears were killed as a consequence of climate change. “It’s something along the lines of the changing environment in the Arctic,” he was quoted as saying.

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This article titled “Leon Panetta and David Petraeus given new roles in US security reshuffle” was written by Ewen MacAskill in Washington, for The Guardian on Wednesday 27th April 2011 19.38 UTC

Barack Obama is to shake up his national security team and remake his defence and foreign policy, with General David Petraeus moving from Afghanistan to head the CIA and Leon Panetta leaving the agency to become defence secretary.

A senior US administration official, who insisted on anonymity, confirmed the changes, the first major reshuffle of the Obama administration. Obama will formally present his new team at the White House on Thursday.

Petraeus is to retire from the army after almost 40 years in order to take up his new post in September, the official said. Lieutenant-General John Allen is to replace Petraeus as the Afghanistan commander and Ryan Crocker, a veteran diplomat, is to be the next US ambassador in Afghanistan.

The changes will have implications for the war in Afghanistan and, more generally, for the bloated defence budget. Panetta, who has little military experience, has a reputation as a budget cutter and the Obama administration would like to see hundreds of billions of dollars more cut from defence spending in the coming decade.

The shakeup could influence the Obama administration’s approach to the uprisings throughout the Middle East. It will end the formidable partnership between Robert Gates, the present defence secretary, and Hillary Clinton, the secretary of state, that has dictated foreign policy for most of the last two years. Clinton is staying but Gates, whom Obama inherited from the Bush administration, is to retire on 30 June and Panetta will take over the following day. The official, who said the reshuffle had been planned over the last few months, admitted that Panetta had been reluctant to leave the CIA and finally agreed at a meeting with Obama at the White House on Monday: “Leon loved being director of the CIA and it showed.”

Michael O’Hanlon, a foreign affairs and defence specialist at the Brookings Institution, said Panetta would bring experience and management skills to the defence department. “He is experienced in politics, [Capitol] Hill, the budget, and intelligence. He is also a bright, affable and inspiring guy. Those are the pros. The cons are that he is not generally known as a classic defence strategist or planner in terms of deep familiarity with operational concepts of war, various weapons systems and technologies, and extensive experience with the uniformed military. On balance, though, he is a reasonable choice.”

The reshuffle comes at a critical point in the Afghanistan war. Obama agreed in 2009 to a Pentagon request to send 30,000 more US troops to Afghanistan but, in a rare battle with military chiefs, insisted that their withdrawal begins in July.

But Petraeus, seeing events on the ground as fragile, is reluctant to begin withdrawing anything more than a few thousand. He is due to report on this to Obama in Washington this week. The president, with an election to fight next year, is seeking a significant reduction in the 100,000 US troops there.

The general was rushed to Afghanistan last summer after Obama sacked the US commander, Stanley McChrystal. He was scheduled to leave at the end of this year, but the reshuffle brings his departure forward to September.

Petraeus insists that the US and allied forces have made significant gains over the winter but adds that these are fragile and should not be endangered by pulling out too many troops too soon.

The senior administration official insisted that the change of personnel will not have an impact on the existing strategy agreed between the US and its allies, with the drawdown to begin this year and responsibility for security passed to the Afghan government by 2014.

The reshuffle could see a different emphasis in US policy in Afghanistan, with a tilt more towards political solutions. While Gates and Petraeus have stressed the need to inflict defeats on the Taliban on the battlefield before entering into political discussions with them, others have been pressing for more back-channel discussions.

The Obama administration has been criticised for inconsistency in its response to the Arab spring, sending US planes and Predator drones to attack the forces of the Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, but taking little action against the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, other than the planned sanctions.

One of the rare divisions between Gates and Clinton was in response to Libya, with Clinton eventually coming round in favour of intervention and Gates remaining strongly opposed, arguing that the US was already sufficiently committed and could not intervene everywhere.

Petraeus had been hoping to leave Afghanistan to take the top military job, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, at present occupied by Admiral Mike Mullen, who is planning to resign later this year. Obama discussed the CIA job with Petraeus at the Oval Office in March.

The CIA job may suit Petraeus better in the long run. There is widespread speculation that he would like to stand as a Republican candidate in the 2016 White House race and the combination of senior military commander and director of the CIA would given him a solid campaign platform. He would be the highest-ranking military figure to become president since Eisenhower in the 1950s.

Panetta’s biggest impact could be on the defence budget. Gates, popular at the defence department, implemented some budget cuts, but Obama is looking for much more in a time of austerity. Panetta, a Democrat, has a background as a budget cutter.

The new defence secretary may also prove tougher in taking on the Pentagon and members of Congress with a vested interest in expensive military projects.

The Pentagon is a prime candidate for savings, with investment in a lot of hi-tech hardware that could be used in conventional warfare but is of little use in the kind of insurgencies in which the US is presently engaged in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Panetta was director of the White House office of management and budget. Gates has managed to cut a planned 0bn (£240bn) from the defence budget over the next decade but the Obama administration wants to double that.

Panetta, who was chief of staff in the Clinton administration between 1994 and 1997, was initially viewed with suspicion by the CIA because of his lack of intelligence experience. Former CIA officers say he has won over the intelligence agency, battling for it on a series of difficult and embarrassing issues.

The present US ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, has had an unhappy time in Kabul, with a public spat with the late US special envoy, Richard Holbrooke, and other rows.

Both Panetta and Petraeus will have to go in front of Senate committees to be confirmed. This can be gruelling and many candidates have been blocked at this stage in the past.

But, judging by past performances at Senate hearings, both are popular with senators and should go through relatively easily. Leaving the appointments until the summer allows time for the Senate hearings.

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This article titled “Egyptian foreign minister rejects US intervention” was written by Chris McGreal in Cairo, for guardian.co.uk on Thursday 10th February 2011 10.59 UTC

The Egyptian leadership is resisting American pressure for rapid political reform, again warning that mass demonstrations and spreading strikes calling for President Hosni Mubarak’s immediate resignation could lead to a military coup.

The country’s foreign minister, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, rejected Washington’s demand for concrete actions to show that major change is under way, saying that Washington should not impose its will.

The White House responded by warning that Cairo has not done enough to satisfy what the Obama administration has previously described as legitimate demands of the protesters.

“I think it is clear that what the government has thus far put forward has yet to meet a minimum threshold for the people of Egypt,” said Robert Gibbs, the White House spokesman.

Earlier this week, the US vice-president, Joe Biden, called Mubarak’s deputy, Omar Suleiman, the former intelligence chief who is now overseeing dealings with the opposition and the promised political transition, to urge him to immediately lift the oppressive 30-year state of emergency.

In an interview with PBS television in the US, Aboul Gheit was asked if he regarded Biden’s call as helpful advice from a friend.

“No, not at all. Why is it so? Because when you speak about prompt, immediate, now – as if you are imposing on a great country like Egypt, a great friend that has always maintained the best of relationship with the United States, you are imposing your will on him,” he said.

The Times has reported that Saudi Arabia has threatened to prop up Mubarak if the White House tries to swiftly force him from power. It said that King Abdullah told Obama two weeks ago not to humiliate Mubarak and said Saudi Arabia would step in to replace the .5bn (£0.9bn) in annual US aid to Egypt, most of it to the military, if Washington cuts off assistance.

Such an offer would embolden Suleiman who would otherwise be concerned about the impact on the army about the sudden loss of financing.

Abdullah has defended Mubarak and accused “intruders” of meddling in Egypt’s affairs.

Aboul Gheit said the US should accept the extended timetable for political change outlined by the Egyptian leadership which centres on Mubarak resigning at elections in September.

“So for Americans to come and say ‘Change is now’, but already we are changing. Or ‘You start now’, we started last week. So better understand the Egyptian sensitivities and better encourage the Egyptians to move forward and to do what is required. That is my advice to you,” he said.

However, talks with Mubarak’s political opponents have faltered before they even gained traction after the regime declined to consider the establishment of an interim government.

Diaa Rashwan, a member of a key opposition group, the Council of Wise Men, told the Guardian that talks were going nowhere for now and that pro-democracy campaigners are alarmed at Suleiman’s warning – since reiterated by Aboul Gheit – that if the protests continue there could be a military coup.

“The regime is taking a hard line and so negotiations have essentially come to an end. Suleiman’s comments about there being a danger of a coup were shocking to all of us. It was a betrayal of the spirit of negotiations, and is unacceptable,” he said. “The regime’s strategy has been just to play for time and stall with negotiations. They don’t really want to talk to anyone. At the start of this week they were convinced that the protests were going to fade away.”

Instead, the government was faced with its largest demonstration to date in Cairo on Tuesday with another mass turnout planned for Friday. Some trade unions have also thrown their weight behind the opposition cause with a series of strikes.

Rashwan said the lack of swift progress in the talks and the upsurge in protest had shifted the initiative back to the street.

The Egyptian foreign minister said Mubarak has not considered stepping down immediately as the demonstrators are demanding because it would lead to chaos and possibly a coup.

“When you have a president who is stepping down, you have one of two possibilities. The demonstrators and the opposition insisting that they compose a government unconstitutional. And then maybe the armed forces would feel compelled to intervene in a more drastic manner,” he said. “Do we want the armed forces to assume the responsibility of stabilising the nation through imposing martial law, and army in the streets? The army is in defence of the borders of the country and the national security of the state. But for the army to rule, to step in, to put its friends on the scene, that would be a very dangerous possibility.”

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This article titled “West Wing reshuffle sees Jay Carney as new White House press secretary” was written by Richard Adams, for guardian.co.uk on Friday 28th January 2011 02.00 UTC

The White House will have a new public face, after it was announced that former Time magazine journalist Jay Carney would take over as the Obama administration’s press secretary within the next few weeks.

Currently serving as communications director for vice president Joe Biden, Carney is an experienced Washington journalist whose new job will put him in the firing line defending the administration from his former colleagues.

A Yale graduate, Carney worked briefly for the Miami Herald before moving to Time in 1989. He remained at the weekly news magazine for 20 years, with stints in Moscow, and later becoming Time’s Washington DC bureau chief. He left the magazine at the end of 2008 to join Biden’s staff.

Carney replaces Robert Gibbs, who has served as Obama’s press spokesman since the 2008 primaries and presidential election, and as the White House press secretary since Obama took office.

Carney’s wife is Claire Shipman, senior national correspondent for ABC’s news programme Good Morning America.

The announcement was the most noteworthy of a series of moves as Obama’s new chief of staff, Bill Daley, completed a minor reshuffle of staff posts within the corridors of the West Wing.

Alyssa Mastromonaco, Obama’s director of scheduling and advance work, was promoted to White House deputy chief of staff for operations, while health reform director Nancy-Ann DeParle becomes deputy chief of staff for policy.

The changes come as Obama and his staff gear up for the 2012 election campaign. At the end of the week one of his most senior advisors, David Axelrod, leaves the White House for the nascent Obama campaign’s Chicago headquarters.

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This article titled “Obama’s climate adviser, Carol Browner, to depart White House” was written by Suzanne Goldenberg US environment correspondent, for Guardian Weekly on Tuesday 25th January 2011 04.45 UTC

The White House energy and climate adviser is due to step down in the next few weeks, in a departure seen as the collapse of Barack Obama’s ambitious green agenda.

Officials told reporters on Monday night that Carol Browner, who had served as the first White House energy and climate change “tsar”, would be leaving and that she may not be replaced.

Reports of Browner’s exit – barely 24 hours before Obama was to set out his priorities for the coming year in his state of the union address – reinforced concerns expressed by environmental groups that he was preparing further compromises on his once-ambitious green agenda to try to build a working arrangement with Republicans.

Obama has also come under pressure from the main business lobby, the Chamber of Commerce, which opposes environmental regulations.

But Browner’s exit also recalled the extent to which Obama failed to realise his sweeping campaign promise of weaning America off fossil fuels, and making the transition to a new clean energy economy.

Browner, who headed the environmental protection agency during the Clinton administration, was seen as a shrewd operative, and was designated Obama’s point person in the effort to enact climate change legislation.

With Democrats in control of both houses of Congress, environmental organisations in early 2009 saw reasonable prospects for the passage of comprehensive climate change legislation.

In Obama’s first months in the White House, Browner presided over a complex set of negotiations with US car manufacturers to produce an agreement that would increase fuel efficiency by as much as 25% over the next five years.

She was also credited with giving Democratic leaders in Congress room to build support to pass a climate change bill through the house of representatives in June 2009. But the effort to pass cap and trade bill foundered in the Senate last year – with some Democrats blaming Obama for failing to send a strong enough signal that he was behind the bill. Others blamed the White House for choosing to move forward on health care reform before energy and climate change.

Since the Democrats’ defeat in November’s mid-term elections, Obama has said he will not seek to pass sweeping climate change legislation.

“I think there are a lot of Republicans that ran against the energy bill that passed in the House last year and so it’s doubtful that you could get the votes to pass that through the House this year or next year or the year after,” Obama told a post-election press conference.

Meanwhile, Republicans in the house were calling for an investigation of Browner’s influence over the energy and climate agenda.

The EPA she once served was also in the firing line of Republicans, and some conservative Democrats, who are pushing to strip the agency of its authority to act on greenhouse gas emissions.

Browner’s reputation also took a hit with the Obama administration’s handling of the BP oil spill. In August, she made the now-notorious claim on behalf of the White House that the “vast majority” of the 4.9m barrels of oil that spewed into the Gulf of Mexico from BP’s broken well was gone. Her statement was later discredited.

Even before reports of Browner’s exit, environmental organisations had already been expressing fears that Obama was prepared to sacrifice his green agenda to his efforts to build a working relationship with Republicans.

More than 20 environmental and public health organisations wrote to Obama last week urging him to stand up for the EPA in his state of the union speech tonight.

The agency, which begun the process of regulating greenhouse gas emissions this year, has become the prime target for anti-government Republicans.

Republicans, along with Democrats from coal and oil states, are pushing to block the EPA from regulating greenhouse gas emissions, while environmental organisations want a commitment from Obama to use his presidential veto power to stop any such move.

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This article titled “WikiLeaks has caused little lasting damage, says US state department” was written by Paul Harris in New York, for The Guardian on Wednesday 19th January 2011 01.50 UTC

The damage caused by the WikiLeaks controversy has caused little real and lasting damage to American diplomacy, senior state department officials have concluded.

It emerged in private briefings to Congress by top diplomats that the fallout from the release of thousands of private diplomatic cables from all over the globe has not been especially bad.

This is in direct opposition to the official stance of the White House and the US government which has been vocal in condemning the whistle-blowing organisation and seeking to bring its founder, Julian Assange, to trial in the US.

A congressional official briefed on the reviews told Reuters news agency that the administration felt compelled to say publicly that the revelations had seriously damaged American interests in order to bolster legal efforts to shut down the WikiLeaks website and bring charges against the leakers. “I think they want to present the toughest front they can muster,” the official said.

The official implied that the WikiLeaks fiasco was bad public relations but had little concrete impact on policy.

“We were told [it] was embarrassing, not damaging,” the official added.

It appears that damage was localised in terms of a few specific cables, for example about Yemen, and thus expected to be containable in the long-run.

US officials say the continued media attention on revelations has made it difficult for Washington to repair relations with governments critical to its counter-terrorism operations, such as Pakistan and Yemen. Last November Hillary Clinton, the secretary of state, strongly condemned the leak of more than 250,000 diplomatic cables, claiming: “It puts people’s lives in danger, threatens our national security and undermines our efforts to work with other countries to solve shared problems.”

She added: “We are taking aggressive steps to hold responsible those who stole this information.”

So far WikiLeaks has released just a fraction of a cache of diplomatic messages which came into its possession. It has done so with the co-operation of several global news organisations like the Guardian, the New York Times and Der Spiegel.

The US government is currently checking to see if criminal charges can be brought against Assange who is in London fighting extradition to Sweden for questioning over allegations of sexual misconduct.

Damage assessments by the state department, Pentagon and US intelligence community are meanwhile still continuing to focus on the leaks. The assessments also cover the leaking of tens of thousands of military field reports from Iraq and Afghanistan.

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This article titled “Barack Obama appoints William Daley as chief of staff” was written by Ed Pilkington in New York, for The Guardian on Thursday 6th January 2011 18.09 UTC

Barack Obama has begun an overhaul of his inner circle, lending the White House a more business-friendly face with the appointment of an outsider banker, William Daley, as his chief of staff.

Daley continues the heavy Chicago bent of Obama’s White House. He is a son of the legendary Chicago mayor Richard Daley and brother of the city’s outgoing mayor, also named Richard. But he marks a departure for the president after two years in office by dint of his considerable Wall Street experience.

The new chief of staff has for the past seven years been a senior executive at JP Morgan Chase, and before that worked for a hedge fund and in telecoms. He straddles the business-politics divide, having been Bill Clinton’s commerce secretary for three years from 1997 and managed Al Gore’s failed run for the presidency in 2000.

Daley’s appointment was seen as a signal of Obama’s intention to change political tack after receiving a drubbing in the midterm elections in November. The president now faces a resurgent Republican party which on Wednesday took control of the House of Representatives.

Daly, who brings with him an outsider’s perspective and minimal ideological baggage, may help Obama to bridge the party divide more successfully than he has to date.

Speculation about Daley’s appointment was rife since he made a quiet visit to the White House yesterday. Several news outlets reported that the job had been offered and accepted.

The chief of staff position is the highest profile in a number of posts to be filled as Obama works his way through a post-midterm round of musical chairs. Pete Rouse, who has been standing in as acting chief of staff for the last few months following the departure of Rahm Emanuel, who is running for Daley’s brother’s job of Chicago mayor, will be made a senior adviser to Obama. Rouse made it clear that he did not want the role of chief of staff in the first place.

David Plouffe, who was a leading figure in Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, is expected to join the White House next week to take over from David Axelrod, who is returning to Chicago to spearhead Obama’s re-election bid in 2012.

The other sensitive post remaining to fill is that of Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, who yesterday announced he would be stepping down next month.

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