• On the first day of his trip to the Middle East, President Obama met with Saudi Arabian King Abdullah, and was “struck by his wisdom and his graciousness.”

• While he was away, the agency responsible for the country’s nuclear weapons accidentally published a list of national nuclear sites. Though Thomas D’Agonstino, head of the National Nuclear Security Administration, said it didn’t include classified information about weapons-related facilities, he did admit that the leaked information could provide an “easy locator” for uranium storage sites and related facilities.

• Osama bin Laden resurfaced, or at least his voice did, in a new audio recording released Wednesday. Though Cairo Egypt had plans to welcome Obama with T-shirts heralding “The New Tutankhamen,” bin Laden had nothing but criticism for the American president. Citing U.S. pressure on Pakistan to subdue militants in Swat Valley, he accused Obama of being responsible for “killing, fighting, bombing and destruction,” and went on to state that “Obama and his administration have sown new seeds to increase hatred and revenge on America. The number of these seeds is equal to the number of displaced people from Swat Valley.”

• Meanwhile, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made it apparent that he’s willing to take but not give as he once again reiterated his opinion that the Holocaust was one big crock. Using the term, a “big deception,” he accused “the identity of the liberal democracy,” of protecting “the most criminal regime in the history of humanity, the Zionist regime… There is no doubt that the only way to replace the liberal thought is to go back to the teachings of the divine prophets.”

• Chanting “No, you can’t!” and waving signs expressing more of the same rhetoric, nearly 200 people demonstrated in front of the U.S. Consulate in Rehov Agron, a vocal protest to the Obama Aministration’s attempts at stopping Israeli construction in West Bank settlements. A mutual agreement between the protestors seemed to be that America doesn’t have any say in whether Jews can or cannot live within the Land of Israel. The planned demonstration was part of a larger protest extending throughout the country and complete with posters accusing Obama of being an “Anti-Semite” and “Jew-hater.”

Thursday, June 04, 2009

• Part 2 of the bin Laden tape aired on Thursday, and his message was even less thrilling for Western powers than Part 1 had been. “We either live under the light of Islam or we die with dignity,” it admonished. “Brace yourselves for a long war against the world’s infidels and their agents.”

• Quoting the Quran, President Obama did his best to forge a “new beginning between the United States and Muslims, stating that “This cycle of suspicion and discord must end.” He cited everything from Sept. 11 to the U.S.-led war in Iraq, which he continued to condemn.