Obama buildup sweeps Trinidad and Tobago

Obama-mania has struck Trinidad and Tobago like a storm - though the Caribbean nation is set to host 34 country leaders from across the Americas, residents only seem to care about United States President Barack Obama.

'I would like to shake his hand,' said a Trinidadian, named Shanti McKenzie. McKenzie was dressed in a T-shirt with Obama's face. 'It's a good thing that he's coming,' she said. 'I wish he was our new prime minister here.' Like many of her compatriots, McKenzie is convinced that Obama 'will be a great change' for Latin America and the Caribbean.

'I hope he can also bring a change in Trinidad,' she gushed. Shanti McKenzie made her way toward the centre of Port of Spain, stopping at some of the many street stands selling all kinds of Obama-themed souvenirs.

Arestes Belford is selling more up-to-date membrane, including photographs with the coats of arms of Trinidad and the United States and a reference to the Summit of the Americas.

Belford is from Trinidad and Tobago but currently resides in Brooklyn, New York. He could not miss an occasion like this to travel to his native country. 'It's the first black president of US and the first one to come to Trinidad in a very long time. I can't remember the last US president who came to Trinidad,' he said.

Behind Belford, the giant screen over a fast-food restaurant between adverts showed music videos from local artists that are dedicated to Obama. 'Barack, Barack, it's Obama, first black president in White House, yo. A moment I'm so happy to see,' raps local star Third Bass on the screen in the main avenue of the country's capital.

'The big boss is coming, the big boss. After God, he's the boss,' he stressed. 'The world respects Obama, we also do.' Beyond the international echo of the presence of the first black US president in Trinidad and Tobago, Albert rejoices about its more mundane aspects.

‘We need many things getting done, and nobody listens to us. Now Obama is coming, and we are getting everything done, the streets,' he said. 'I wish he would come every six months, and then everything here would be very nice.'

North Korea will face U.N. statement

Five permanent member countries of the United Nations Security Council and Sixth is Japan, have reached an agreement on a draft statement about North Korea's long-range rocket launch last weekend, envoys said on Saturday.

British U.N. Ambassador John Sawers incorrigible the agreement, which came after a nearly two-hour meeting on Saturday that ended a weeklong deadlock on a Security Council response to North Korea's rocket launch last Sunday.

"We now have an understanding amongst the United States, China, Russia, Britain, France and Japan on a draft presidential statement to put to the other members of the 0council," Sawers told reporters.

Presidential statements are formal statements of council positions read out by the president of the Security Council. They are generally considered to be weaker than resolutions. U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice declined to disclose any details of the statement but said, "We think this text sends a clear message."

The full 15-member Security Council was expected to receive the draft text at a closed-door meeting scheduled for 6:30 GMT, U.N. diplomats said. The agreement, they said, came after Japan said it would back a U.S.-drafted statement to be issued by the council.

The United States, Japan and South Korea say North Korea launched a long-range ballistic missile, not a satellite, in violation of Security Council resolution 1718 banning the firing of such missiles.

The statement does not declare North Korea in "violation" of 1718, diplomats said it suggests the launch was not in conformity with it, a compromise that was acceptable to Beijing.

Japan had been approaching for a council determination that would declare Pyongyang in violation of resolution 1718 but Russia and China, which are undeviating veto-wielding council members, opposed this. They were not convinced the rocket launch, which North Korea says put a satellite into orbit, was a violation.

Obama : US does not plan to put troops in Pakistan

US will go after Al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan after consulting with Islamabad but does not aim to use combat troops on the ground there, President Barack Obama said in an interview.

"If we have a high-value target within our sights, after consulting with Pakistan, we're going after them," Obama said in an interview broadcast on CBS's "Face the Nation" program.

Asked if that meant putting US troops on the ground in Pakistan, Obama said: "No. Our plan does not change the recognition of Pakistan as a sovereign government. We need to work with them and through them to deal with Al Qaeda. But we have to hold them much more accountable."

Obama made his comments in an interview conducted on Friday, the day he announced a new war strategy for Afghanistan that called for the elimination of Al Qaeda militants he said were plotting attacks on the United States from the rough region along the Afghan-Pakistan frontier.

The plan called for another 4,000 US troops to help train the Afghan army, in addition to the 17,000 combat troops he ordered to Afghanistan ahead of elections in August. Spending on the conflict is expected to rise 60 percent from the current $2 billion per month, officials said.

"What we want to do is to refocus attention on Al-Qaeda," Obama said. "We are going to root out their networks, their bases. We are going to make sure that they cannot attack U.S. citizens, U.S. soil, U.S. interests and our allies' interests around the world," he said.

The approach seeks to make trust and improve ties with an ally that Washington has at times supported and at times ignored but now sees as critical in the fight against the militant group that carried out the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, U.S. officials said.

To plant Al Qaeda, Obama said, the United States had to ensure it could not find a base in Afghanistan or Pakistan from which to organize attacks. He said Washington also needed to convince average Pakistanis that the struggle with extremists was not just a U.S. war.

"One of the concerns that we've had building up over the last several years is a notion, I think, among the average Pakistani, that this is somehow America's war and they are not invested," Obama said.

US not interested in Kashmir Issue

US has made it clear that it would turn clear of the Kashmir issue as it seeks to engage India and other key stakeholders in the region in its new policy for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

'We don't intend to get mixed up in that issue,' President Barack Obama's National Security Adviser, Gen James Jones, told reporters Friday when asked if the US expected to address issues between India and Pakistan, particularly Kashmir, as part of its new regional come up to.

'But we do intend to help both India and Pakistan build more trust and confidence so that Pakistan can address the issues that it confronts on the western side of the nation,' he said referring to Pakistan's tribal areas which Obama and other US officials have described as terrorist safe havens.

'But no, Kashmir is a unconnected issue,' Jones said. 'But we think that the times are so serious that we need to build the trust and confidence in the region, so that nations can do what they need to do in order to defeat the threat' posed by Al Qaeda and Taliban terrorist groups.

'As America does more, we will ask others to join us in doing their part,' he said referring to Obama Administration's plans to 'forge a new contact group for Afghanistan and Pakistan that brings together all who should have a stake in the security of the region.'

The proposed group will include America's NATO allies and other partners, the Central Asian states, Gulf nations, Iran, Russia, India, and China, Jones said noting, 'All have a stake in the promise of lasting peace and security and development in the reign.

Is India Pakistan's primary target?

India is ringed by turbulent states Like Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Myanmar. Turbulence has percolated through India's porous borders in the form of arms and narcotics to finance insurgents, militants, terrorists and religious fundamentalists.

India remains Pakistan's primary target and operating ground for Islamic fundamentalists and terrorist groups who infiltrate through Jammu & Kashmir, Nepal and Bangladesh and carry out anti-Indian activities with impunity.

Nepal is vulnerable to China's influence. Its extremists have linkages with the People's War Group in India. In its bid to expand its influence, the PWG has carved a corridor ringing the states of Andhra Pradesh-Madhya Pradesh-Chhattisgarh-Orissa-West Bengal-Jharkhand-Bihar.

This endless internal turbulence in India is also inter-linked with external factors. To the north, India shares a 3,440-km long border with China, which can pose the entire spectrum of conventional, nuclear and missile threats. It can also influence and use as proxy India’s neighbors to weigh India down in every possible way.

In short, India's 14,058-km long land frontier is impacted by a perpetually hostile or semi-hostile environment. Indian security stands threatened by demographic assault, arms and drug smuggling, and the safe havens that the insurgents have in India.

America extends $8 million help to Pakistan

Democratic Senator John Kerry has said the United States must do what it can to "sustain the democracy" in Pakistan.

General David Petraeus, the US military commander for the region, and Richard Holbrooke, the special envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan, will brief lawmakers Thursday on Pakistan's political crisis, Kerry said, , who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Pakistan's leaders are working very, very hard to try to reach an agreement that will bring elements of the government together in unity and allow them to go forward," said Kerry.

Amidst deepening political crisis in Pakistan, the United States has conceded that it is a difficult situation in Pakistan but said that Washington supports freedom of speech and expression.

Arrest and detention of the opposition leaders supporting the march came out, the State Department asserted that it supports freedom of speech, expression and assembly in Pakistan.

State Department's Acting spokesman Robert Wood told media persons at his daily press briefing that the US stand has been that it supports freedom of speech, of expression, and of assembly in Pakistan.

"What we think is important is that the various parties try to resolve their differences within the political system of Pakistan in accordance with its constitution with respect for the rule of law," Wood said.