WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Barack Obama spoke with Bahrain’s king on Friday night, urging restraint after the kingdom’s security forces ignored Washington’s earlier call for calm and opened fire on protesters demanding reforms.

Amid unrest across much of the Middle East, U.S. officials have voiced concern about violence in the island nation in talks with the government of Bahrain, which hosts a big U.S. military base and borders Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter.

The White House said in a statement that Obama, in speaking with King Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa, condemned violence and said Bahrain’s stability depended on respect for the rights of its people.

Earlier on Friday, Obama said he was deeply concerned by reports of violence in Bahrain, Libya and Yemen. “The United States condemns the use of violence by governments against peaceful protesters in those countries, and wherever else it may occur,” Obama said in a statement.

Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy said he had asked the State Department to probe whether Bahrain had broken a U.S. law he wrote that prohibits aid to foreign security forces that violate human rights. The United States provided around $20 million in military aid to Bahrain in 2010.

Bahraini security forces shot at protesters in the capital, Manama, on Friday, wounding at least 60 people, a day after police swept away a protest camp in the city, killing four people and wounding more than 230.

In Libya, soldiers sought to crush unrest. In Yemen, at least four protesters were killed in clashes between security forces and government loyalists and crowds demanding an end to President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s 32-year rule.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama spoke with Bahrain’s king on Friday night, urging restraint after the kingdom’s security forces ignored Washington’s earlier call for calm and opened fire on protesters demanding reforms.

Amid unrest across much of the Middle East, U.S. officials have voiced concern about violence in the island nation in talks with the government of Bahrain, which hosts a big U.S. military base and borders Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter.

The White House said in a statement that Obama, in speaking with King Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa, condemned violence and said Bahrain’s stability depended on respect for the rights of its people.

Earlier on Friday, Obama said he was deeply concerned by reports of violence in Bahrain, Libya and Yemen. “The United States condemns the use of violence by governments against peaceful protesters in those countries, and wherever else it may occur,” Obama said in a statement.

Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy said he had asked the State Department to probe whether Bahrain had broken a U.S. law he wrote that prohibits aid to foreign security forces that violate human rights. The United States provided around $20 million in military aid to Bahrain in 2010.

Bahraini security forces shot at protesters in the capital, Manama, on Friday, wounding at least 60 people, a day after police swept away a protest camp in the city, killing four people and wounding more than 230.

In Libya, soldiers sought to crush unrest. In Yemen, at least four protesters were killed in clashes between security forces and government loyalists and crowds demanding an end to President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s 32-year rule.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama called on Bahrain on Friday to exercise restraint after the kingdom’s security forces ignored Washington’s earlier call for calm and opened fire on protesters.

Amid unrest across much of the Middle East, U.S. officials have voiced concern about the violence on the island in direct talks with the government of Bahrain, which hosts a major U.S. military presence and borders Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter.

“I am deeply concerned by reports of violence in Bahrain, Libya and Yemen. The United States condemns the use of violence by governments against peaceful protesters in those countries, and wherever else it may occur,” Obama said in a statement read by spokesman Jay Carney to reporters aboard Air Force One.

In Libya, soldiers sought to crush unrest. In Yemen, at least four protesters were killed in clashes between security forces and pro-government loyalists and crowds demanding an end to President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s 32-year rule.

But it was Bahrain’s crackdown on protesters, in defiance of U.S. calls for restraint, that posed a fresh dilemma for the Obama administration after a popular uprising in Egypt ousted long-time U.S. ally President Hosni Mubarak a week ago.

Bahraini security forces shot at protesters in the capital Manama on Friday, wounding at least 23 people, a former Shi’ite lawmaker said. Four people were killed and hundreds wounded on Thursday when riot police raided a protest camp.

Washington views the island kingdom, home to the U.S. Fifth Fleet, as a strategic ally on protecting oil supply lines in the Gulf. As in the case of Egypt and elsewhere in the region, the United States must balance strategic interests with its support for protesters’ demands for economic and political reforms.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama called on Bahrain on Friday to exercise restraint after the kingdom’s security forces ignored Washington’s earlier call for calm and opened fire on protesters.

Amid unrest across much of the Middle East, U.S. officials have voiced concern about the violence on the island in direct talks with the government of Bahrain, which hosts a major U.S. military presence and borders Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter.

“I am deeply concerned by reports of violence in Bahrain, Libya and Yemen. The United States condemns the use of violence by governments against peaceful protesters in those countries, and wherever else it may occur,” Obama said in a statement read by spokesman Jay Carney to reporters aboard Air Force One.

In Libya, soldiers sought to crush unrest. In Yemen, at least four protesters were killed in clashes between security forces and pro-government loyalists and crowds demanding an end to President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s 32-year rule.

But it was Bahrain’s crackdown on protesters, in defiance of U.S. calls for restraint, that posed a fresh dilemma for the Obama administration after a popular uprising in Egypt ousted long-time U.S. ally President Hosni Mubarak a week ago.

Bahraini security forces shot at protesters in the capital Manama on Friday, wounding at least 23 people, a former Shi’ite lawmaker said. Four people were killed and hundreds wounded on Thursday when riot police raided a protest camp.

Washington views the island kingdom, home to the U.S. Fifth Fleet, as a strategic ally on protecting oil supply lines in the Gulf. As in the case of Egypt and elsewhere in the region, the United States must balance strategic interests with its support for protesters’ demands for economic and political reforms.

By Ross Colvin

MANITOWOC, Wisc. (Reuters) – President Barack Obama pressed his case on Wednesday for investment to grow the U.S. economy out of its budget woes, a job made tougher by a forecast that the deficit will surge 40 percent this year.

The Congressional Budget Office forecast the U.S. deficit would hit $1.48 trillion this year and the Federal Reserve was downbeat on the prospects for job creation.

Those were sobering reminders the day after Obama’s State of the Union address, in which he struck a conciliatory tone toward newly empowered congressional Republicans and advocated investment in some areas and cuts in others to make the U.S. economy more competitive.

Obama’s retooled, business-friendly approach is aimed at moving to the political center, which is key to his 2012 re-election chances.

Stock and oil prices gained on optimism over Obama’s offer to cut corporate tax and curb spending.

On a trip to Wisconsin, a political battleground state he won in the 2008 election, Obama pushed his message of innovation and job creation during a visit to renewable energy firm Orion Energy Systems in Manitowoc.

By Ross Colvin

MANITOWOC, Wisc. (Reuters) – President Barack Obama on Wednesday took to America’s heartland his two-pronged agenda of investing and innovating to create U.S. jobs and spur economic growth while reining in spending, a recipe Republicans say is unworkable.

Underlining the enormity of the task, the Congressional Budget Office — the day after Obama’s televised State of the Union address — said the U.S. deficit will reach $1.48 trillion this year, 40 percent higher than its previous forecast, due to the extension of tax cuts first put in place under former President George W. Bush.

This sobering reminder followed Obama’s prime-time balancing act in which he struck a more conciliatory tone toward newly empowered congressional Republicans. His retooled, business-friendly approach is aimed at moving to the political center, which may be crucial to his 2012 re-election chances.

Obama traveled on Wednesday to Wisconsin, a political battleground state he won in the 2008 presidential election, to visit three plants, including a renewable energy company, to drive home his message of innovation and job creation.

Obama pressed his message that the country needs to invest in technology and clean energy companies like Orion Energy Systems in Manitowoc, Wisconsin.

“In this new and challenging time, when America is facing tougher competition from countries around the world than ever before, we’re going to need to up our game. We’re going to need to go all in. We’re going to need to get serious about winning the future,” Obama said to a crowd of workers at the plant.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States suggested on Thursday the sentencing of a former Russian tycoon to six more years in prison was an abuse of justice, and a senior U.S. official said it may impede Russia’s entry into the World Trade Organization.

Despite the harsh U.S. words, analysts said the treatment of Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his co-defendant Platon Lebedev was unlikely to undercut the White House effort to work with the Kremlin where it can on strategic and security issues.

A Russian judge ordered Khodorkovsky jailed until 2017 after being convicted of theft and money-laundering in a case seen by the West as a test of the rule of law in Russia and as a political vendetta against an adversary of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

Once Russia’s richest man and head of a major oil company, the now-defunct Yukos, Khodorkovsky is in the final year of an eight-year sentence imposed after a politically charged fraud and tax evasion trial that shaped Putin’s 2000-2008 presidency.

In the second trial, prosecutors said he and Lebedev stole nearly $30 billion in oil from Yukos subsidiaries through price mechanisms and laundered some of the money. Khodorkovsky’s lawyers dismissed the charges as an absurd pretext to keep him in jail.

U.S. officials said the case raised serious questions about Russia’s commitment to the rule of law.

“We remain concerned by the allegations of serious due process violations, and what appears to be an abusive use of the legal system for improper ends, particularly now that Khodorkovsky and Lebedev have been sentenced to the maximum penalty,” U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama offered Americans an optimistic assessment of the Afghanistan war on Thursday, even as U.S. spy agencies and aid groups express doubts about the progress amid worsening violence.

Obama, under pressure to show results after criticizing his predecessor George W. Bush for neglecting the war, said the United States was on track to start pulling out troops next July as planned. He offered no details on the pace of those withdrawals.

A five-page unclassified summary of the White House review said U.S. and NATO forces had made “notable operational gains,” halting the Taliban’s momentum in many areas and disrupting al Qaeda. But it stressed the gains were fragile and reversible and that major challenges remained.

It reported substantial but uneven progress in the U.S. relationship with Pakistan, whose lawless tribal areas are widely seen as the main obstacle to Obama’s strategy succeeding because of the relatively free flow of militants across the border into Afghanistan.

“I want to be clear, this continues to be a very difficult endeavor,” Obama said at the White House. But, he added, “We’re on track to achieve our goals.”

The review comes at the end of the bloodiest year since U.S.-backed Afghan forces ousted the Taliban as the country’s rulers in 2001, with almost 700 foreign troops killed so far. At least 477 of them were Americans. Yet Afghan civilians bear the brunt of the conflict as insurgents expand from strongholds into once-peaceful areas in the north and west.

On Thursday, a roadside bomb killed 14 civilians in western Afghanistan and four Afghan soldiers died in a U.S. air strike overnight.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – When President Barack Obama delivers the results of his Afghan war review on Thursday, he will recommit to a strategy that threatens to estrange him even further from a large part of his political base.

They are already angry with him over a series of big legislative and public policy issues, a losing election campaign season and a tax deal he has brokered with rival Republicans.

“He is going to feel the heat from the very segment of his own political party that was so unhappy with his tax deal,” said Daniel Markey, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington.

“They will see him as caving in to the demands of the more hawkish members of his administration and the military.”

Republicans, who broadly support his strategy, will give him political cover in Congress, supporting military policy and spending in Afghanistan. But anger among the Democratic Party’s left, whose support was so critical to Obama’s election in 2008, could pose a growing problem for the president as he approaches the 2012 election.

Still, Obama has time on his side to show his plan works. Military experts say it is too early to tell whether the strategy he put in place a year ago to break the momentum of a resilient Taliban enemy will achieve more than the limited military gains seen so far.

But Obama will be under pressure on Thursday to show Americans that his decision to send 30,000 more troops and ramp up U.S. involvement in the unpopular war is paying dividends.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – When President Barack Obama delivers the results of his Afghan war review on Thursday, he will recommit to a strategy that threatens to estrange him even further from a large part of his political base.

They are already angry with him over a series of big legislative and public policy issues, a losing election campaign season and a tax deal he has brokered with rival Republicans.

“He is going to feel the heat from the very segment of his own political party that was so unhappy with his tax deal,” said Daniel Markey, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington.

“They will see him as caving in to the demands of the more hawkish members of his administration and the military.”

Republicans, who broadly support his strategy, will give him political cover in Congress, supporting military policy and spending in Afghanistan. But anger among the Democratic Party’s left, whose support was so critical to Obama’s election in 2008, could pose a growing problem for the president as he approaches the 2012 election.

Still, Obama has time on his side to show his plan works. Military experts say it is too early to tell whether the strategy he put in place a year ago to break the momentum of a resilient Taliban enemy will achieve more than the limited military gains seen so far.

But Obama will be under pressure on Thursday to show Americans that his decision to send 30,000 more troops and ramp up U.S. involvement in the unpopular war is paying dividends.