The Guardian (London)

Sameer Lalwani is a research fellow at the Washington-based New America Foundation:

"I think the expectation will be for the Obama administration to leverage pressure on the Karzai government to 'clean up' his governing style but I doubt Karzai will do so, certainly not quickly," said Lalwani. 

But one recent study by the New America Foundation estimated that US drones have killed between 750 around 1000 people in Pakistan since 2006, ...

Militancy expert Peter Bergen of the New American Foundation said the fact that the passports were found in Taliban compounds showed how the two ...

They predicted that J Street and the men who launched it -- Jeremy Ben-Ami, a former domestic policy adviser to President Bill Clinton, and Daniel Levy, ...

President Obama's efforts to achieve a comprehensive peace agreement between Israel and the Arab states, including a Palestinian state, received a much appreciated, if surprising, boost with the awarding of the Nobel peace prize to the US president. It's fair to assume that the Nobel prize committee is hoping that the award will promote Obama's diplomatic efforts across a range of issues.

Throughout the healthcare debate, President Obama has not always appeared very "presidential". He hasn't engaged in LBJ-like arm twisting or FDR-like brinksmanship, or exerted the strong leadership that the office of the presidency has been known to possess. Other than his brilliant healthcare speech in early September, Obama has mostly seemed content to lay low while the Senate thrashes out the details.

Much hope has been invested in Barack Obama's ability to strike a new course for the US following eight years of Bush administration unpopularity. Yet many in the US and abroad are impatient with the pace of progress under the Obama administration. The president made the rounds on five news talk shows on Sunday as he pressed his policies and vision, preparing for what is likely to be a difficult week.

Europeans are shaking their heads over their American friends again. Whether talking to people in the street, in the cafés or to journalists or political leaders, everyone here asks me the same question: Has America lost its mind? Town halls filled with angry citizens, shouting at their elected leaders, some of them armed with guns and threatening signs? Besides the media spectacle of these neo-1776 revolutionaries, what is doubly perplexing to Europeans is the focus of the protests: healthcare.

Steve Clemons of the New America Foundation agreed: "The Obama people always saw Bill as more of a threat than Hillary," he said. ... and more »

U.S. Supreme court confirmations are a good time to reflect on some basic precepts of our "separation of powers" system of government. Like previous nominees, Sonia Sotomayor faced the Senate judiciary committee's firing squad, as partisan tensions played out over lifetime appointment to a court that has no retirement age. At 54 years of age, Sotomayor, whose nomination the full Senate votes on today, easily could serve for three decades.