WASHINGTON, USA -Global co-operation is needed to tackle the financial meltdown, climate change, nuclear proliferation and other pressing problems, President Barack Obama said yesterday.

Fresh from his first trip overseas as president, Obama used his radio and Internet address to ask people in the United States and around the world to focus on areas of common interest.

“These are challenges that no single nation, no matter how powerful, can confront alone,” Obama said. “The United States must lead the way. But our best chance to solve these unprecedented problems comes from acting in concert with other nations.”

Obama pointed to his London meeting with leaders of the G-20 nations – a gathering that represented 85 per cent of the global economy – where he pressed for increased regulation and economic stimulus. He also noted his attendance at the NATO summit in France to discuss strategy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as his speeches against nuclear weapons in the Czech Republic and about faith divisions in Turkey. All are big-picture priorities for the young administration and most have general support among Obama’s US constituents.

“With all that is at stake today, we cannot afford to talk past one another. We can’t afford to allow old differences to prevent us from making progress in areas of common concern,” Obama said. “We can’t afford to let walls of mistrust stand. Instead, we have to find – and build on – our mutual interests. For it is only when people come together, and seek common ground, that some of that mistrust can begin to fade. And that is where progress begins.”

Obama used the eight-day trip to highlight his ambitious foreign policy agenda, including starting negotiations with Russia about reducing nuclear stockpiles. Such talks, announced alongside Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, would be the first in years and are part of Obama’s pledge “to free the world from the menace of a nuclear nightmare.”

Taken as a package, Obama said, his agenda in Europe should be the common goals among people of faith during holy days of Easter and Passover.

“These are two very different holidays with their own very different traditions. But it seems fitting that we mark them both during the same week,” Obama said. “For in a larger sense, they are both moments of reflection and renewal. They are both occasions to think more deeply about the obligations we have to ourselves and the obligations we have to one another, no matter who we are, where we come from, or what faith we practice.”

… heads to church for Easter Sunday

WASHINGTON, USA. AP – President Barack Obama and his family are looking for a new church, but his decision represents more than merely settling on a pew.

The Obamas planned to attend Easter services Sunday, marking the president’s first visit to a Washington church since taking office in January. Aides have been secretive about which church the first family will attend, citing security and the desire not to disrupt services for other worshippers. They also caution that the church Obama visits might not signal that the president has decided on a permanent place of worship.

Obama’s choice of a permanent pastor is sure to draw scrutiny, given his history with a pastor in Chicago whose bombastic sermons almost destroyed Obama’s presidential bid.

“On one level, I think he’s just getting acclimated to DC. He’s still feeling things out. Easter is a very important day in the Christian calendar; he’s a Christian,” said J Kameron Carter, who teaches theology and black church studies at Duke University. “But you are the president. Whatever decision he makes is going to be analysed with a fine-tooth comb against the backdrop of the Reverend Wright.”

Obama’s presidential campaign was blind-sided last year when video surfaced of his friend and pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, condemning the United States and suggesting the government was to blame for the HIV/AIDS scourge on black communities. Wright’s sermons forced the then-senator to deliver two speeches: the first, a tempered defence of the pastor whose rhetoric inspired the title of Obama’s memoir; later, a speech about Obama’s views on race that has been viewed almost six million times online.

Wright followed up with a media tour that personally frustrated Obama and politically enraged his aides. Obama left Trinity United Church of Christ and has been without an official house of worship since then, instead relying on a close circle of advisers and pastors to help him in private.

“What the president should do – and I believe would do – is find a church home that’s good for his family,” said Jim Wallis, a progressive evangelical who speaks with White House aides several times each day and Obama frequently.