The Full Hariri Interview on CNN in London.

1- Hariri on Middle East peace

Lebanese Parliament Majority Leader Saad Hariri discusses Lebanon and his hopes for the Obama-led administration.

2- Facetime: Saad Hariri

Lebanese politician Saad Hariri talks to MME about how he be can bring economic stability to his country.

CNN Interview

About Saad Hariri

Saad ed Deen Rafiq al-Hariri (born 18 April 1970) is a Lebanese-Saudi businessman and politician, and the second son of Rafiq Hariri, the assassinated former Prime Minister of Lebanon. After his father’s death, he inherited the helm of the Movement of the Future, an essentially Sunni movement that was created and led by his late father.

Early years and personal life

Saad Hariri was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and is the son of Rafiq Hariri and his first wife Nidal Al-Bustani, an Iraqi. He managed part of his father’s business in Riyadh until his father’s assassination. When his father was killed in February 2005, he inherited some USD 4.1 billion in 2005 earning him and each of his siblings a place on the 2006 Forbes list of richest people in the world (released in March 2006). A Georgetown University Alumnus (Class of ‘92), Hariri graduated with a degree in International Business. According to Forbes, he is the 522nd richest man in the world and has a net worth of $1.4 billion

In 1993 started as marketing manager with Sipco, Saudi Industrial Paints Co in Damman, He was the Chairman of the Executive Committee of Oger Telecom, which pursues telecommunication interest in Middle East and Africa. In addition, Hariri was the Chairman of Omnia Holdings and a board member of Oger International Entreprise de Travaux Internationaux.

Entry into politics

After his father, Rafiq Hariri, was killed on 14 February 2005 by a car bomb in central Beirut, Saad Hariri returned to Lebanon and took up his father’s political path engaged in politics.

Iraqs Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was a fierce opponent of Saddam Hussien who returned after the dictator fell to become the number two in the body that purged Baath party members from the state apparatus. He also waged war on terrorist networks within the country, bacoming prime minister in two thousand and six. A member of the Islamist Shiite Dawa party since the 1960s, euronews met him in Baghdad to talk about his new domestic and international political strategies.

About Nouri al-Maliki

Nouri Kamil Mohammed Hasan al-Maliki (Arabic: ???? ???? ????? ??? ???????, transliterated N?r? K?mil al-M?lik?; born June 20, 1950), also known as Jawad al-Maliki or Abu Esraa, is the Prime Minister of Iraq and the secretary-general of the Islamic Dawa Party. Al-Maliki and his government also succeeded the Iraqi Transitional Government. His 37-member Cabinet was approved by the National Assembly and sworn in on May 20, 2006.

He is married to Fareeha Khalil, and has four daughters and two sons. He started in politics as a Shia dissident under Saddam Hussein’s regime in the 1970s and rose to prominence after he fled a death sentence into exile more than 20 years ago. During his time abroad he became a senior leader of Dawa, coordinated the activities of anti-Saddam guerillas and built relationships with Iranian and Syrian officials whose help he sought in overthrowing Hussein.

Al-Maliki’s constitutional mandate will last until 2010. On April 26, 2006, al-Maliki stopped using the pseudonym Jawad.[1] However the pseudo- or code name “Abu Esraa” (father of Esraa – his eldest daughter) is still heard on Iraqi satellite media every now and then, because it is very common in Arabic culture (and in Iraqi culture in particular) to call someone with his eldest son/daughter’s name especially by his close friends and followers.

Thousands of media outlets descended on Iowa, erecting a powerful wall of TV cameras and reporters between the voters and candidates. Bill Moyers talks with Dennis Kucinich who knows well the power of the press to set expectations and transform the agenda.

About Dennis Kucinich

Dennis John Kucinich ( born October 8, 1946) is a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives and was a candidate for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States in the 2004 and 2008 elections.

Kucinich currently represents the 10th District of Ohio in the House of Representatives, which he has been serving since 1996. His district includes most of western Cleveland as well as suburbs such as Parma and Lakewood. He is currently the chairman of the Domestic Policy Subcommittee of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. He is also a member of the Education and Labor Committee.

From 1977 to 1979, Kucinich served as the 53rd mayor of Cleveland, Ohio, a tumultuous term in which he survived a recall election and was successful in a battle against selling the municipal electric utility before being defeated for reelection by George Voinovich.

Through his various governmental positions and campaigns, Kucinich has attracted attention for consistently delivering “the strongest liberal” perspective. This perspective and his actions, such as bringing articles of impeachment against President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, and being the only Democratic candidate in the 2008 election to vote against invading Iraq, has often been in sharp contrast to the moderate to conservative tone the Democratic Party has often adopted.

Vice President Joe Biden sat down with CBS News’ Harry Smith in an exclusive interview to share his views on the current state of the nation from the war on terror, the economy, and how President Obama is handling his criticism.

About Joe Biden

Joseph Robinette “Joe” Biden, Jr. (born November 20, 1942) is the 47th and current Vice President of the United States, serving under President Barack Obama. He was a United States Senator from Delaware from January 3, 1973 until his resignation on January 15, 2009, following his election to the Vice Presidency.

Biden was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania and lived there for ten years before moving to Delaware. He became an attorney in 1969, and was elected to a county council in 1970. Biden was first elected to the Senate in 1972 and became the sixth-youngest senator in U.S. history. He was re-elected to the Senate six times, was the fourth most senior senator at the time of his resignation, and is the 14th-longest serving Senator in history. Biden was a long-time member and former chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. His strong advocacy helped bring about U.S. military assistance and intervention during the Bosnian War. He opposed the Gulf War in 1991. He voted in favor of the Iraq War Resolution in 2002, but later proposed resolutions to alter U.S. strategy there. He has also served as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, dealing with issues related to drug policy, crime prevention, and civil liberties, and led creation of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act and Violence Against Women Act. He chaired the Judiciary Committee during the contentious U.S. Supreme Court nominations of Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas.

Biden unsuccessfully sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 1988 and 2008, both times dropping out early in the race. Barack Obama selected Biden to be the Democratic Party nominee for Vice President in the 2008 U.S. presidential election. Biden is the first Roman Catholic and the first Delawarean to become Vice President of the United States. As Vice President, Biden has been heavily involved in Obama’s decision-making process and has held the oversight role for infrastructure spending from the Obama stimulus package intended to help counteract the late-2000s recession.

Mahreen Khan interviews Musharraf in London on the questions of the day – those accusations being flung in desperation by such “journalists” as Talat Hussain, Hamid Mir, Ansar Abbasi, Dr. Shahid Masood, and the even more “jahil” anchors like the “Bolta Pakistan” folks on AAJ TV (one of them didn’t even know who Pinochet was – which he should have had as a journalist commenting on foreign and world affairs).

About Musharraf

General (ret) Pervez Musharraf (Urdu: ????? ????) (born 11 August 1943), NI(M), TBt, was the 10th President of Pakistan and the Chief of Army Staff of the Pakistan Army.

He took power on 12 October 1999, following a nonviolent military coup d’état and subsequent ouster of the government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. The military-led government stated its intention to restructure the political, economic and electoral systems. On May 12, 2000, Pakistan’s 12 member Supreme Court unanimously validated the October 1999 coup and granted Musharraf executive and legislative authority for 3 years from the coup date. President Musharraf’s decisions as President of Pakistan, were according to the constitution, approved by the Parliament and endorsed by the Supreme Court

On 18 August 2008, Pervez Musharraf resigned from the post of President under impeachment pressure from the coalition government. He was succeeded on 6 September 2008 by Asif Ali Zardari duly elected as Pakistan’s 11th President.

As she was interviewed by Laura Cochrane, a reporter of Bloomberg, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo stressed that there are a lot of things to do before her term ends next year. The nation must continue moving forward, the economy growing and the Filipino people keep employed, she added.

President Arroyo also said that the government continues focusing on education, economy ang environment in order to ensure the country’s stability. Other measures such as tax reforms and programs on information technology and infrastructure are also vital to have a healthy economy.

About Gloria Arroyo

Maria Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (April 5, 1947) is the fourteenth and current president of the Philippines. Arroyo is the country’s second female president, and the daughter of late former Philippine President Diosdado Macapagal.

A professor of economics, Arroyo entered government in 1987, serving as assistant secretary and undersecretary of the Department of Trade and Industry upon the invitation of President Corazon Aquino. After serving as a senator from 1992 to 1998, she was elected to the vice presidency under President Joseph Estrada, despite having run on an opposing ticket. After Estrada was accused of corruption, she resigned her cabinet position as Secretary of Social Welfare and Development and joined the growing opposition to the president, who faced impeachment. Estrada was soon forced from office by what its advocates would ascribe to peaceful street demonstrations of the EDSA Revolution of 2001, but which critics credit to a conspiracy among political and business elites, military top brass and Catholic Church bishop Jaime Cardinal Sin. Arroyo was sworn into the presidency by then-Chief Justice Hilario Davide, Jr. at around noon on January 20, 2001 amidst the EDSA II crowd, hours before Estrada left Malacañang. She was elected to a full six-year presidential term in the controversial May 2004 Philippine elections, and was sworn in on June 30, 2004. Arroyo is nearing her 10th year in power and is currently serving the 2nd longest presidential term in Philippine history, next to Ferdinand Marcos.

In the 2009 rankings of Most Powerful Women by Forbes, she was ranked as the 44th most powerful woman in the world.

Vindication is on the way if Obama doesn’t screw things up by fulfilling his campaign promise of retreating from Iraq before the job is finished. I think that this is one of many promises that he made to the far left that he will break for the greater good of the country; he is no fool.

Go Obama go, win this war for us just like McCain would have done. Maybe Obama will be Bush III, as far as the war is concerned.

Dr. Condoleezza Rice became Secretary of State on January 26, 2005. Prior to this, she was the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, commonly referred to as the National Security Advisor, since January, 2001.

In June 1999, she completed a six year tenure as Stanford University’s Provost, during which she was the institution’s chief budget and academic officer. As Provost she was responsible for a $1.5 billion annual budget and the academic program involving 1,400 faculty members and 14,000 students.

As professor of political science, Dr. Rice has been on the Stanford faculty since 1981 and has won two of the highest teaching honors — the 1984 Walter J. Gores Award for Excellence in Teaching and the 1993 School of Humanities and Sciences Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching.

WASHINGTON Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Sunday she regrets the U.S. relied on flawed intelligence as the basis for going to war in Iraq and took partial responsibility for mismanaging the post-invasion occupation.

As eight years of the Bush administration come to a close, the president and now one of his longest-serving advisers are acknowledging mistakes in Iraq while steadfastly defending the war and Saddam Hussein’s overthrow.

“While it’s fine to go back and say what might we have done differently, the truth of the matter is we don’t have that luxury,” Rice said in a broadcast interview.

“I would give anything to be able to go back and to know precisely what we were going to find when we were there. But that isn’t the way that these things work,” Rice said “And I still believe that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein is going to turn out to be a great strategic achievement.”

About Condoleezza Rice

Condoleezza Rice (born November 14, 1954) is a professor, diplomat, author, and national security expert. She served as the 66th United States Secretary of State, and the second to hold that office in the administration of President George W. Bush. Rice was the first African-American woman secretary of state, as well as the second African American (after Colin Powell), and the second woman (after Madeleine Albright). Rice was President Bush’s National Security Advisor during his first term. Before joining the Bush administration, she was a professor of political science at Stanford University where she served as Provost from 1993 to 1999. Rice served as the Soviet and East European Affairs Advisor to President George H.W. Bush during the dissolution of the Soviet Union and German reunification.

When beginning as Secretary of State, Rice pioneered a policy of Transformational Diplomacy, with a focus on democracy in the greater Middle East. Her emphasis on supporting democratically elected governments faced challenges as Hamas captured a popular majority in Palestinian elections yet supported Islamist militants, and influential countries including Saudi Arabia and Egypt maintained authoritarian systems with U.S. support. While Secretary of State, she chaired the Millennium Challenge Corporation’s board of directors.

In March 2009, Rice returned to Stanford University as a political science professor and the Thomas and Barbara Stephenson Senior Fellow on Public Policy at the Hoover Institution.

The world is weighed down by financial, economic and social crises. The G20 summit in London promised reform of the financial system. What progress has been made on this promise? And what of those citizens affected by unemployment. Euronews talked to France’s Economy Minister Christine Lagarde about what she thinks of the outlook for her country and for others.

About Christine Lagarde

Christine Lagarde (born 1 January 1956) is the current Minister of Economic Affairs, Industry and Employment of France, appointed in June 2007. She was previously Minister of Agriculture and Fishing and Minister of Trade in the government of Dominique de Villepin. Lagarde is the first woman ever to become minister of Economic Affairs of a G8 economy.

In 2008, Lagarde was ranked the 14th most powerful woman in the world by Forbes Magazine. A noted antitrust and labour lawyer, Lagarde made history as the first female chairman of the international law firm Baker & McKenzie. She has been awarded France’s highest honor, the Légion d’honneur.

Biography

Lagarde was born in Paris as Christine Lallouette to academic parents. She attended secondary school in Le Havre (Seine-Maritime) and at the Holton-Arms School in Bethesda (USA) while a participant on an AFS Intercultural exchange program. She studied at the Law School of University of Paris X: Nanterre. She later lectured there after graduating. She also has a post-graduate diploma (DESS) in labour law, and a Master’s degree in English.

Lagarde worked as an intern at the United States Capitol, as William Cohen’s congressional assistant.

Lagarde is a champion synchronized swimmer.

Baker & McKenzie

Lagarde joined Baker & McKenzie in 1981. She became president of the executive committee in 1999, and became president of the global strategic committee in 2004.

Of the law firm, Lagarde said Baker & McKenzie is “a very democratic environment, which values people in terms of their work and their contribution”.

Lagarde joined the executive committee in 1995 and was elected Chairman in 1999. She implemented a “client first” mentality and saw a 30 percent rise in the firm’s profits during her tenure. She was reelected Chairman in 2002.

Her personal interest in European affairs led her to open the European Law Centre, an office of Baker and McKenzie in Brussels exclusively dedicated to the practice of EU Law. This interest in European affairs did not prevent her from causing great offence in Scottish political circles when,in an interview on BBC Radio 4 on 6th November 2009, she referred to the “Kingdom of England” and to “England” in the course of discussing the U.K.’s attitude to the European Union.This apparent ignorance of the constitution of the United Kingdom is thought to be worrying in such a powerful government minister.

Ministerial career

As France’s Trade Minister between 2005 and May 2007, Lagarde prioritized opening new markets for the country’s products, focusing on the technology sector. On 18 May 2007, she was moved to the Ministry of Agriculture as part of the government of François Fillon. The following month she joined François Fillon’s cabinet in the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Industry and Employment to become the first woman to ever be in charge of economic policy in France.

She has made the controversial statement that France is a country that thinks too much, and that such obsessive thinking prevents reforms from being implemented.

According to French newspaper Le Parisien, in November 2008 Christine Lagarde stated her determination to make Paris an important center of Islamic finance.

Boris staunchly defends the party line in the face of intense questioning from Paxman. Paxman defends his line (and job) in the face of intense mirth created by Boris Johnson. Great stuff.

i hate politics but London mayor Boris is a real breath of fresh air to the ordinary man in the street. plz subscribe or leave a comment and you will get more funnies!! Peace.

About Boris Johnson

Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (born 19 June 1964), a British politician and journalist, is the current Mayor of London. He previously served as the Conservative Member of Parliament for Henley-on-Thames and as editor of The Spectator magazine.

Johnson was educated at the European School of Brussels, the independent Ashdown House School, then at Eton College , and finally at Balliol College, Oxford, where he read Classics. He began his career in journalism with The Times, and later moved on to The Daily Telegraph where he was assistant editor. He was appointed editor of The Spectator in 1999. In the 2001 general election he was elected to the House of Commons and became one of the most high profile politicians in the country. He has also written several books.

Under Michael Howard, Johnson briefly served on the Conservative front bench as the Shadow Minister for the Arts from April 2004 until November 2004. When David Cameron was elected leader of the Conservative Party in 2005, Johnson was re-appointed to the front bench as Shadow Minister for Higher Education and resigned as editor of The Spectator. In September 2007 he was selected as the Conservative candidate for the 2008 Mayor of London election. Johnson defeated Labour incumbent Ken Livingstone and was elected Mayor, after which he resigned as an MP.

Speaking to Al Jazeera English, after his first visit to the Gaza strip as the Quartet’s Middle East Envoy, Tony Blair said he wanted to hear first hand accounts of what it was like to live there during and after the war.

It is the first time Blair has visited Gaza since becoming the Middle East envoy to the so-called Quartet, which represents the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations.

About Tony Blair

Anthony Charles Lynton “Tony” Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. On the day he resigned as Prime Minister, he was appointed the official Envoy of the Quartet on the Middle East on behalf of the United Nations, the European Union, the United States, and Russia.

Tony Blair was elected Leader of the Labour Party in the leadership election of July 1994, following the sudden death of his predecessor, John Smith. Under his leadership, the party adopted the term “New Labour“, abandoned policies it had held for decades, and moved towards the centre ground. Blair led Labour to a landslide victory in the 1997 general election. In the first years of the New Labour government, Blair handed over control of interest rates to the Bank of England; introduced the minimum wage; signed the Belfast Agreement; introduced tuition fees; and established the Scottish Parliament, the National Assembly for Wales, and the Northern Ireland Assembly. In his first six years, Blair ordered British troops into battle five times—more than any other prime minister in history.

Blair is the Labour Party’s longest-serving Prime Minister; the only person to have led the Labour Party to three consecutive general election victories; and the only Labour Prime Minister to serve consecutive terms, more than one of which was at least four years long. He was succeeded as Leader of the Labour Party on 24 June 2007 and as Prime Minister on 27 June 2007 by Gordon Brown, Chancellor of the Exchequer.

In May 2008 Blair launched his Tony Blair Faith Foundation.This was followed in July 2009 by the launching of the Faith and Globalisation Initiative with Yale University in the USA, Durham University in the UK and National University of Singapore in Asia to deliver a postgraduate programme in partnership with the Foundation.