NewsBite

Obama puts climate at centre stage

BARACK Obama has put climate change where Tony Abbott least wanted it at this year’s G20 summit — centre stage.

Dennis Shanahan

BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA - NOVEMBER 15: U.S. President Barack Obama addresses an audience at the University of Queensland on November 15, 2014 in Brisbane, Australia. World leaders have gathered in Brisbane for the annual G20 Summit and are expected to discuss economic growth, free trade and climate change as well as pressing issues including the situation in Ukraine and the Ebola crisis. (Photo by Glenn Hunt/Getty Images)

Obama ‘upside down’ but still on top

BARACK Obama delighted the happy throng by plunging in to shake hands as he departed.

Jamie Walker

U.S. President Barack Obama, right, smiles after a group of children waved flags and flowers to cheer him during a welcome ceremony with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2014. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)

Obama, Xi seal climate pact

THE US and China have struck a historic pact to reduce carbon pollution levels on the eve of the G20.

STEFANIE BALOGH and SCOTT MURDOCH

China's President Xi Jinping (front C) poses with the representatives of the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) grouping for a

US asks for Iraq troop boost

BARACK Obama has asked Australia for extra help in training Iraqi troops to fight against the Islamic State terrorist group.

SID MAHER and SCOTT MURDOCH

U.S. President Barack Obama, left, speaks as he is seated with Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, right, during a meeting with leaders of the Trans-Pacific Partnership countries on the sidelines of the APEC summit, Monday, Nov. 10, 2014, in Beijing. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

President calls to break TPP logjam

BARACK Obama has pressed world leaders to break stubborn logjams that have held up an agreement on a trans-Pacific trade deal.

US President Barack Obama makes his way to board Air Force One before departing from Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland on November 9, 2014. Obama is heading for a week-long trip to China, Myanmar, and Australia. AFP PHOTO/Mandel NGAN

Islamic State focus for meeting

TONY Abbott will thrash out the next step on the war against Islamic State extremists and push his growth agenda when he meets Barack Obama.

SID MAHER in BEIJING

POOL PHOTOS FOR FAIRFAX AND NEWS CORP.. PLEASE EMAIL ON - PM Tony Abbott meeting USA President Barack Obama arriving to attend the UN Security Council meeting on Foreign Fighters at the United Nations Building in New York Sept 24th 2014

PM to discuss IS, G20 with Obama

TONY Abbott will meet Barack Obama tomorrow to discuss the war against the Islamic State and his agenda for the G20 meeting.

SID MAHER IN BEIJING

Greg Sheridan

Republicans cruel Obama finale

REPUBLICANS have had a barnstorming, landslide election victory in US mid-term congressional elections, taking control of the Senate.

Greg Sheridan and analysis

EXCLUSIVEState Politics

US President Barack Obama seated next to campaign worker Suzanne Stern speaks on the phone to a volunteer during an unannounced visit to a campaign office October 14, 2012 in Williamsburg, Virginia. Obama took time out from debate preparation to stop and greet staff and volunteers at the office. AFP PHOTO/Mandel NGAN

ALP calls in Team Obama

THE Victorian Labor Party has hired advisers from Barack Obama’s Democratic Party to help topple the Napthine government.

John Ferguson

The World

A newspaper vendor holds up a copy of the NY Post in front of the entrance to Bellevue Hospital October 24, 2014 in New York, the morning after it was confirmed that Craig Spencer, a member of Doctors Without Borders, who recently returned to New York from West Africa tested positive for Ebola. New York confirmed the first case of Ebola in the largest city in the United States as the EU dramatically ramped up aid Friday to contain the killer epidemic ravaging west Africa.The EU announcement of one billion euros ($1.3 billion) for the worst-hit countries comes as fears of a spread of the virus grew, with the first confirmed case in Mali, where a two-year-old girl has tested positive. Craig Spencer was placed in isolation at Manhattan's Bellevue Hospital Center, officials said. AFP PHOTO / Timothy A. Clary

Obama reassures Ebola-wary public

BARACK Obama has told Americans they must be “guided by the facts, not fear” when it comes to the deadly Ebola virus, as the disease spread to Mali.

Opinion

Obama faces troubling blow

US President Barack Obama faces the prospect of even his modest reforms being overturned by a resurgent Tea Party mood.

Brad Norington

Abbott tries to rally G20 support

TONY Abbott is urging other G20 leaders to raise their ambitions for a summit in Brisbane next month to tackle the slowdown in world growth.

DAVID CROWE

Defence

US President Barack Obama (C) speaks after attended a meeting hosted by Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin E. Dempsey (3R) with the military leadership from 21 coalition partner nations to discuss the coalition efforts in the ongoing campaign against ISIL on October 14, 2014 at Andrew Air Force Base in Maryland. Representatives from Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Egypt, France, Germany, Iraq, Italy, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Turkey, United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates attended. Sitting next to President Obama are US National Security Advisor Susan Rice (3L), US Homeland Security Advisor Lisa Monaco (2L), U.S. Central Command General Lloyd Austin III (2R), Air Marshal Binskin from Australia (L) and General Gerard Van Caelenberge from Belgium. Photo by Aude Guerrucci/Pool/ABACAPRESS.COM.

Terrorists close on Baghdad

US President Barack Obama rallied allied commanders yesterday around his strategy to defeat Islamic State.

BRENDAN NICHOLSON

Dennis Shanahan

US exports fewer jihadis than us

IT is a dubious honour to have arguably the greatest number of home-grown terrorists.

Dennis Shanahan

Health and Science

A health worker wearing a protective suit has his goggles adjusted as they join members of the Medecins sans frontieres Ebola treatement centre near the main Donka hospital in Conakry on September 25, 2014. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon created the United Nations Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER) last week and named American Anthony Banbury as head of the team, which will be headquartered in Accra. AFP PHOTO / CELLOU BINANI

Ebola aid not enough, Obama tells UN

THERE is a “significant gap’’ between the effort so far and what is needed to tackle Ebola, Barack Obama has warned the UN.

Climate

Star power, absences at climate summit

LEONARDO DiCaprio calls it humankind’s greatest challenge, Barack Obama says it trumps terrorism, but Julie Bishop’s language was more measured.

EXCLUSIVENational Affairs

John Howard being interviewed by Janet Albrechtsen for an upcoming TV series. State Library, Sydney CBD. Picture by DAMIAN SHAW

Obama adding to crisis, says Howard

THE failure of Muslims to integrate is one of the factors identified by John Howard as contributing to the terrorism crisis.

Chris Kenny

Defence

Photographer: Corporal Jamie Osborne Caption: Two soldiers maintain a watchful eye on the area. Australian soldiers maintain security 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Title: Construction complete, Taliban repelled Deep Caption: The Reconstruction Task Force (RTF) has constructed a police out-post in the Tarin Kowt region. The strategically-sited out-post was completed in six days under trying circumstances, including two unsuccessful attacks by the Taliban. Facilities such as these strengthen the security infrastructure and add to the capability of the local police, which is essential to stamp out the intimidation and terror tactics employed by the Taliban. Australia has deployed an ADF Reconstruction Task Force (RTF), consisting of a combined arms team, to the Oruzgan Province in southern Afghanistan as part of Operation Slipper. The RTF is in partnership with the Netherlands Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) and forms part of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force. The RTF has a clearly defined role to work on reconstruction, improvement of provincial infrastructure and community based projects. The RTF also provides trade training to the local population and military engineering training to the Afghan National Army. This type of assistance is designed to benefit the people of Oruzgan Province and form building blocks of a stable and prosperous community. The RTF contains around 370 ADF personnel from predominately Queensland-based units. It includes elements to provide command, security, engineering, and administrative support and is equipped with Bushmaster Infantry Mobility Vehicles (IMV), Australian Light Armoured Vehicles (ASLAVs) and armoured engineer plant equipment. *** Local Caption *** Australia has deployed an ADF Reconstruction Task Force (RTF), consisting of a combined arms team, to the Oruzgan Province in Southern Afghanistan as part of Operation Slipper. The RTF is in partnership with the Netherlands Pro

PM sets out role of Iraq advisers

AUSTRALIAN military advisers in Iraq would be entitled to return fire if they came under attack, Tony Abbott says.

JARED OWENS

Health and Science

FILE - This is a Friday, March 28, 2014 file photo provided by MSF, Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders), healthcare workers from the organization prepare isolation and treatment areas for their Ebola, hemorrhagic fever operations, in Gueckedou, Guinea. On March 28 health officials confirmed Ebola had spread from a remote forested corner of southern Guinea to the country's seaside capital. (AP Photo/Kjell Gunnar Beraas, MSF)

3000 US troops to tackle Ebola

BARACK Obama has urged the world to “act fast” to stop West Africa’s Ebola epidemic before “hundreds of thousands” are infected.

PM’s military action risky but right

THE decision to confine Australia’s role to Iraq and not Syria is crucial, and wise.

Defence

US President Barack Obama delivers a prime time address from the Cross Hall of the White House on September 10, 2014 in Washington, DC. Vowing to target the Islamic State with air strikes

New front in war on terror

BARACK Obama will order airstrikes against terrorists in Syria in a bid to “degrade and ultimately destroy” IS militants.

Cameron Stewart and Paul Maley

Greg Sheridan

Countdown to action speeds up

BARACK Obama clearly has a timetable for hitting Islamic State terrorists in Iraq, and critically, in Syria.

Greg Sheridan

FILE - In this Sept. 3, 2014, file photo, President Barack Obama speaks at Nordea Concert Hall in Tallinn, Estonia. The first President Bush had one, so did President Bill Clinton, and the second President Bush had two. Now, Obama wants to build a coalition of nations to join the U.S. to combat the threat posed by the Islamic State group in the Middle East and beyond. The diplomacy of coalition building is time-consuming, and questions about who can or should join are often messy. And in this situation it is complicated by the fact that the U.S. and its allies share an interest in defeating the extremists with some governments they otherwise oppose. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File)

Thanks for Iraq, but no US requests yet

BARACK Obama has thanked Tony Abbott for Australia’s help in Iraq, but made no specific request for extra military support.

Brendan Nicholson and Phillip Hudson

National Affairs

FILE - In this June 16, 2014 file photo, demonstrators chant pro-Islamic State group slogans as they carry the group's flags in front of the provincial government headquarters in Mosul, 225 miles (360 kilometers) northwest of Baghdad. The Islamic State group holds roughly a third of Iraq and Syria, including several strategically important cities like Fallujah and Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria. (AP Photo, File)

Australia to ‘disrupt’ Islamic State

AUSTRALIAN strike aircraft and military advisers could be deployed to ‘disrupt’ Islamic State jihadists’ capabilities, Tony Abbott says.

Jared Owens

The World

A flag of the autonomous Kurdistan region flies next to Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga fighters standing on a tank as they hold a position on the front line in Khazer, near the Kurdish checkpoint of Aski kalak, 40 km West of Arbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq, on September 7, 2014. Kurdish forces in the north have been bolstered by American strikes and recently took control of Mount Zardak, a strategic site east of Mosul that provides a commanding view of the surrounding area, a senior officer said. AFP PHOTO / SAFIN HAMED

Obama readies Islamic State game plan

BARACK Obama has promised to lay out within days a strategy to defeat Islamic State, as Australia completes a third weapons drop to Iraq.

WASHINGTON, DC - SEPTEMBER 03: Former Cecretary of State Henry Kissinger delivers remarks during the ceremonial groundbreaking of the future U.S. Diplomacy Center at the State Department's Harry S. Truman Building September 3, 2014 in Washington, DC. When completed, the Diplomacy Center will be a museum and education center that will 'demonstrate the ways in which diplomacy matters now and has mattered throughout American history.' Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images/AFP == FOR NEWSPAPERS, INTERNET, TELCOS & TELEVISION USE ONLY ==

Kissinger calls for all-out attack

HENRY Kissinger has urged US President Barack Obama to “launch an all-out attack” on terrorist group the Islamic State.

TOBY HARNDEN AND JARED OWENS

Firmer ground for Iraq action

BARACK Obama’s model for intervention in Iraq is more Bush Sr than Bush Jr.