WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Nearly 50 countries meet in Washington this week for an unprecedented summit aimed at agreeing concrete action to prevent bomb-grade nuclear material from falling into the hands of terrorists.

WHAT IS THE GOAL OF THE SUMMIT?

In a speech in Prague last year, President Barack Obama warned that nuclear terrorism was the “most immediate and extreme threat to global security.” He wants to use the summit to galvanize countries to take the issue more seriously.

The goal of the summit is to reach a common understanding on the threat posed by nuclear terrorism and to agree on a plan of action to secure all loose nuclear material within four years to stop terrorists from getting their hands on it.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says the April 12-13 gathering of 47 nations is the largest conference hosted by the United States since 1945. Two countries not on the guest list are Iran and North Korea, both of which are locked in their own nuclear standoffs with the West.

HOW CREDIBLE IS THE THREAT OF NUCLEAR TERRORISM?

Experts describe the threat of a crude fissile nuclear bomb, which is technically difficult to manufacture and requires hard-to-obtain bomb-grade uranium or plutonium, as a “low probability, high consequence act.” In other words, unlikely but with the potential to cause massive harm to life and property.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama said on Sunday that efforts by al Qaeda to acquire atomic weapons posed the biggest security threat, and world leaders meeting this week must act with urgency to combat this danger.

Obama, speaking on the eve of an unprecedented 47-nation summit in Washington aimed at thwarting nuclear terrorism, said he expected “enormous progress” at the conference toward the goal of locking down loose nuclear material worldwide.

“The central focus of this nuclear summit is the fact that the single biggest threat to U.S. security — both short-term, medium-term and long-term — would be the possibility of a terrorist organization obtaining a nuclear weapon,” Obama told reporters.

“We know that organizations like al Qaeda are in the process of trying to secure a nuclear weapon — a weapon of mass destruction that they have no compunction at using,” Obama said before talks with South African President Jacob Zuma.

Nuclear non-proliferation experts say there are no known instances of terrorist groups obtaining highly enriched uranium or plutonium that could be used to make a crude nuclear bomb but note there have been 18 cases of nuclear material being stolen or going missing since the early 1990s.

“This is something that could change the security landscape of this country and around the world for years to come,” Obama said, warning of the potential consequences if a nuclear bomb were detonated.

Obama’s goal at the two-day summit is to get nations to agree to secure vulnerable nuclear material within four years and to take specific steps to crack down on nuclear smuggling.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama’s nominee to head the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel withdrew her name from consideration on Friday after Republicans strongly opposed her nomination.

The White House said Obama accepted Dawn Johnsen’s request to withdraw her bid for confirmation after it became clear that Republicans in the Senate would not allow her to be confirmed.

“After years of politicization of the office during the previous administration, the president believes it is time for the Senate to move beyond politics and allow the Office of Legal Counsel to serve the role it was intended to — to provide impartial legal advice and constitutional analysis to the executive branch,” said White House spokesman Ben LaBolt.

Johnsen, an Indiana University law professor who served as acting head of the Office of Legal Counsel under President Bill Clinton, had repeatedly criticized the Bush administration’s use of harsh methods to interrogate suspected terrorists.

Johnsen also argued strongly in favor of abortion rights and was the legal director of the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League from 1988-93.

In a statement in March, Republican senators on the Senate Judiciary Committee singled out Johnsen’s views on abortion and the war on terrorism, saying her “record of extremism and partisanship makes her completely inappropriate to lead the Office of Legal Counsel.”

“Even in a Senate as committed to partisan pursuits as this majority has been, Dawn Johnsen’s nomination was a bridge too far,” Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said on Friday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Nearly 50 world leaders meet in Washington next week for a summit aimed at preventing nuclear terrorism. It will be one of the largest such gatherings on U.S. soil since World War Two.

WHAT IS THE GOAL OF THE SUMMIT?

In a speech in Prague last year, U.S. President Barack Obama warned that nuclear terrorism was the “most immediate and extreme threat to global security.” He wants to use the summit to galvanize countries to take the issue more seriously.

The goal of the summit is to reach a common understanding on the threat posed by nuclear terrorism and to agree on steps to secure all loose nuclear material within four years to stop it falling into the hands of groups like al Qaeda.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says the April 12-13 gathering of 47 nations is possibly the largest assembly of world leaders in the United States since 1945. Two countries not on the guest list are Iran and North Korea, both of which are locked in their own nuclear standoffs with the West.

WHAT ARE COUNTRIES DOING TO SECURE NUCLEAR MATERIAL?

The effort to secure weapons-grade material has focused mainly on Russia and former Soviet republics. The United States has helped fund efforts to better protect such materials.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – As the clock ticked down to the historic U.S. healthcare vote on Sunday and congressional leaders scrambled to get holdout Democratic lawmakers on board, the White House was all-a-Twitter.

White House staff used the microblogging site to keep the momentum going, keeping track of which Democratic lawmakers had changed their minds and decided to vote in favor of the bill, finally giving the party a narrow majority to pass it.

Their short text messages, known as tweets, also gave the nearly 2 million registered followers of the White House’s Twitter feed a blow-by-blow account of how President Barack Obama was spending his time as the vote neared.

Obama’s White House is increasingly using Internet media like Twitter, YouTube and Facebook to talk directly to Americans and mobilize grassroots support for the president’s ambitious legislative agenda.

Twitter’s 140-character messages offer an immediacy that is attractive to a White House known for being tightly controlled and keen to get its message out in a rolling, 24-hour-a-day cable news network environment.

“It is a logical extension of their campaign strategy where they used the Internet and viral videos to spread their messages as quickly and as thoroughly as possible,” said Dan Amundson, research director at the Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason University in Washington.

SECRET SERVICE PROBES TWITTER THREAT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Barack Obama renewed his administration’s offer of dialogue and diplomacy with Tehran on Saturday, a year after his offer of a new beginning with Iran failed to achieve concrete results.

Obama, who addressed Iranians in a new videotaped appeal to mark the observance of Nowruz — an ancient festival celebrating the arrival of spring — has pledged to pursue aggressive sanctions to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.

“We are working with the international community to hold the Iranian government accountable because they refuse to live up to their international obligations,” Obama said in the address, according to excerpts released by the White House.

“But our offer of comprehensive diplomatic contacts and dialogue stands,” he said.

Iran, which has refused to halt its uranium enrichment program, denies it is seeking to build a nuclear bomb and says its nuclear program is aimed at generating electricity.

Obama said Washington was committed to a “more hopeful” future for the Iranian people despite U.S. differences with Iran’s government.

During his first year in office, Obama marked Nowruz with a then-unprecedented message offering Iran a “new beginning” of diplomatic engagement with the United States.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Nine months ago President Barack Obama offered Muslims a “new beginning” with the United States in a speech in Cairo that was the centerpiece of his efforts to restore America’s image around the world.

Today, Kuwaiti public servant, Yacoub Hussein, 45, voices the disappointment felt by many Muslims, particularly in the Middle East, with the Obama administration’s perceived failure to make good on that promise.

“We were optimistic, but there were no results,” he said.

Obama aides are defensive about such criticism and point to scientific, educational and technological initiatives launched after the Cairo speech, a Muslim entrepreneurship summit scheduled for April, as well Obama’s determination to withdraw all U.S. troops from Iraq by the end of 2011.

But the litmus test for many Muslims is progress on the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process, which Obama tried to jumpstart last year. That effort went nowhere after Israel rebuffed his demand for a complete freeze on settlements.

“Maybe the speech raised expectations too high in terms of what a young administration could accomplish in year one on a very difficult, intractable problem,” said Stephen Grand, an expert on U.S.-Islamic relations in Washington.

The administration is now trying to launch indirect talks between the two sides, but this new effort was set back last week when Israel announced plans to build 1,600 homes in contested east Jerusalem, drawing unusually blunt condemnation from an infuriated Washington.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama attacked the country’s biggest health insurers on Saturday for failing to give him a “straight answer” on why they were “arbitrarily and massively” hiking their premiums.

Obama’s renewed criticism of insurers comes as he tries to rally support among Americans and lawmakers within his own Democratic Party for a final push to pass a bill reforming the troubled $2.5 trillion healthcare industry.

The president and his health secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, met the chief executives of four of the largest U.S. health insurance companies — Aetna Inc, Cigna Corp, UnitedHealth Group Inc and WellPoint Inc — at the White House this week.

“They couldn’t give me a straight answer as to why they keep arbitrarily and massively raising premiums — by as much as 60 percent in states like Illinois,” Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address.

“If we do not act, they will continue to do this.”

Insurers say they must raise rates to cover skyrocketing healthcare costs at a time when more people are dropping coverage because of financial hardship. Higher costs are then spread among a smaller pool of paying customers, they say.

Insurance companies have been a favorite target as Obama tries to convince Americans, who have mixed feelings about his planned healthcare overhaul, they will be better off if Congress passes his ambitious plan.

WASHINGTON, March 6 (Reuters) – U.S. President Barack Obama attacked the country’s biggest health insurers on Saturday for failing to give him a "straight answer" on why they were "arbitrarily and massively" hiking their premiums. Obama’s renewed criticism of insurers comes as he tries to rally support among Americans and lawmakers within his own Democratic Party for a final push to pass a bill reforming the troubled $2.5 trillion U.S. healthcare industry. The president and his health secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, met the chief executives of four of the largest U.S. health insurance companies — Aetna Inc <AET.N>, Cigna Corp <CI.N>, UnitedHealth Group Inc <UNH.N> and WellPoint Inc <WLP.N> — at the White House this week. "They couldn’t give me a straight answer as to why they keep arbitrarily and massively raising premiums — by as much as 60 percent in states like Illinois," Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address. "If we do not act, they will continue to do this." Insurers say they must raise rates to cover skyrocketing healthcare costs at a time when more people are dropping coverage because of financial hardship. Higher costs are then spread among a smaller pool of paying customers, they say. Insurance companies have been a favorite target as Obama tries to convince Americans, who have mixed feelings about his planned healthcare overhaul, they will be better off if Congress passes his ambitious plan. "The proposal we’ve put forward would end the worst practices of the insurance industry, lower costs for millions of Americans and give uninsured individuals and small business the same kind of choice of private health insurance that members of Congress get for themselves," Obama said. The overhaul, designed to cut costs, regulate insurers and expand coverage to tens of millions of Americans, is Obama’s signature domestic policy. "VERY CLOSE" After Obama spent months campaigning for the overhaul, holding a series of town-hall meetings across the country, stiff Republican opposition and the loss of a crucial 60th Democratic vote in the Senate had stalled the effort. But Obama has not given up and this week he urged Congress to vote on the plan in the next few weeks, even if it meant passing the measure with a narrow Democratic majority and no Republican support. "I know it has been a long and hard road to this point. And we are not finished with our journey just yet. But we are close. We are very close. And so I ask Congress to finish its work," Obama said in his weekly address. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said this week the House of Representatives could vote on a Senate-passed version of healthcare reform by March 18, when Obama is due to leave for a weeklong trip to Indonesia and Australia. Analysts say the Democrats can ill-afford to give up on the healthcare overhaul now after devoting more than a year to the effort. Failure to pass it could hurt them in congressional elections in November. Republicans have called on Obama to ditch the plan and start again, saying it is too expensive for a government running huge budget deficits and vastly expands the role of government in healthcare. "Americans want reform. But they don’t want this," said Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate. "And they’re fed up because the longer Democrats cling to their flawed vision of reform, the longer Americans have to wait for the reforms they really want." (Editing by John O’Callaghan)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The process of forming a new Iraqi government after Sunday’s election will be long, difficult and possibly violent, U.S. officials said on Thursday.

“Given the stakes, given the efforts of people to secure political advantage, it would not be surprising to see violence during that period,” one of the officials said, speaking to reporters on condition of anonymity.

On Sunday, millions of Iraqis go to the polls to vote for a full four-year parliament. It will be the second national election since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein. There is no clear front-runner among the political parties in what the official called an “extraordinarily competitive” election.

“We expect the election and the government formation process thereafter to be very hotly contested, and we anticipate a difficult process of government formation that could take some time.”

The new government will be in place as the U.S. completes the withdrawal of its remaining troops by the end of 2011.

There are about 96,000 soldiers stationed in Iraq, but that number is due to be reduced to 50,000 by the end of August 2010. Despite fears of possible violence, the official said the pullout was on track.

He said Washington expected the Iraqi electoral commission to announce preliminary results on March 10-11, based on votes from about 30 percent of the polling stations.