Odds and Ends from World Media

Time for Italians to put Berlusconi out to pasture?
From The Guardian:

Not satisfied with having once referred to Barack Obama as “sun-tanned”, Silvio Berlusconi today returned to the subject, telling a reporter he was paler than the US president.
After a journalist commented that his response to the global economic crisis made him seem like Obama, Italy’s [...]

Two Appointments to the Food and Drug Administration

From Firedoglake.com:
In his weekly address last Saturday, President Obama announced two superb appointments (In his weekly address, President Barack Obama announced the appointments of Dr. Margaret Hamburg as Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, and Dr. Joshua Sharfstein as the Principal Deputy Commissioner, as well as the creation of a new Food Safety Working [...]

Stepping Away from the Financial Crisis…Other News

From TruthOut.org:
Blackwater losing security role; other jobs being converted to public sector.
The decision not to renew Blackwater Worldwide’s security contract in Iraq when it expires in early May has left the State Department scrambling to fill a protection gap for U.S. diplomats and civilian officials there.
Two other U.S. security contractors with a far smaller presence [...]

“Let me say this as plainly as I can - by August 31, 2010, our combat mission in Iraq will end.”

From The Guardian:
Almost six years after the invasion of Iraq, the end is finally in sight for America’s involvement in its longest and bloodiest conflict since Vietnam. Barack Obama yesterday set out a timetable that will see all US combat units out by summer next year and the remainder by the end of 2011.
Obama said [...]

Busy Week for ‘44′

President Barack Obama had lots on his plate this week. Of course there was his first address to Congress. Then there was a cabinet nomination and a cabinet confirmation…
From Q13 Fox News:
Elected officials from Washington state reacted with glee as President Barack Obama prepared to nominate former Washington Gov. Gary Locke as commerce secretary.
Locke, a [...]