November 17, 2009 - China on Tuesday defended its control of information on the Internet that it deems sensitive or harmful, one day after U.S. President Barack Obama told students in Shanghai that information should be free.

The remarks highlighted ongoing tensions between China and the U.S. over human rights, another ideal Obama extolled in China.

"For the Chinese government, we hope online communications can move smoothly, but at the same time we need to ensure that online communications do not affect our national security," Chinese Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei told reporters at a question-and-answer session in Beijing. China also aims to prevent "adverse content" online from harming children in the country, he said.

June 05, 2009 - He talks the talk – but will he walk the walk? by Justin Raimondo

The Obama fan club – and by this I mean the media, of course – is already hailing our President’s Cairo speech as the latter-day equivalent of the Sermon on the Mount, and there is no doubt that it was a splendid performance.

In the midst of a strong political pressure, the U.S. president, Barack Obama, left the door open yesterday to bring to justice those responsible for having designed the legal framework that permitted to practice torture on terror suspects during the administration of George W. Bush.

With two Senate committees preparing reports and requesting the formation of a commission to investigate abuses committed during the Bush Administration, with human rights organizations demanding a voice for victims of torture and with UN reminding that Washington is no stranger to international law, Obama gave way to justice, and said it depended on the legal opinion of the Attorney General to prosecute or not the lawyers who drafted the memos permitting torture.

Once again, three weeks after the last reports on torture were published, the president expressed his support for "those individuals who carried out their work within the four corners of the officially laid down guidelines."

President Obama's plan to generate extra budget money by forcing veterans to pay for some medical treatments through their private insurance is generating a firestorm among Republicans, Democrats and veterans, who argue that it's unconscionable to pass along the costs of war to those injured serving their country.

The administration for weeks has circulated on Capitol Hill a plan to generate hundreds of millions of dollars in savings by tapping veterans' private insurance for service-related injuries and ailments that for decades the government has been obligated to pay. On Monday, the president and his aides discussed the plan with veterans groups, who said the president told them it would generate $540 million.

It got an angry response.

Obama’s Policy Shift on Durban Racism Conference Draws Concern, Criticism.

(CNSNews.com) – When diplomats meet at the United Nations in Geneva on Monday to continue hammering out plans for an international conference on racism in the spring, representatives of the United States will take part for the first time in years.

The major policy shift, announced by the State Department over the weekend, is the strongest indication yet that the Obama administration could end up participating in the Durban Review Conference, also known as “Durban II.”

Doing so would undercut a campaign calling on democracies to boycott the event, which opponents say will be used by Islamic states and their allies to attack Israel, undermine Western counter-terrorism initiatives and endanger free speech.