SPB News for Thursday.

WSJ Gets Envelopes With Unknown White Powder

Obama Will Get His Blackberry — President Barack Obama is going to get his blackberry. — On Monday, a government agency that the Obama administration — but that is probably the National Security Agency — added to a standard blackberry a super-encryption package. …

President Barack Obama willing to negotiate with Iran ‘without preconditions’

McCain Lends Hillary Clinton a Helping Hand

Coleman packs, vows to continue Senate seat fight — WASHINGTON (CNN) — Sen. Norm Coleman began packing his Capitol Hill office Wednesday, but said he has no intention of giving up his legal fight to serve another term in Congress. — Coleman, a Republican from Minnesota, trails Democrat Al Franken by 225 votes.

3 oil firms compete for Iraq oil field The Iraqi Oil Ministry is studying offers submitted by three international oil companies to develop a prized oil field in southern Iraq, an official said Wednesday. Ministry spokesman Assem Jihad said Italy's Eni SpA, Spain's Repsol and Japan's Nippon Oil submitted bids for a service contract to develop Nasiriyah oil field.

Taliban tell Obama to withdraw US troops The 'insurgent' Taliban said on Wednesday that US President Barack Obama should learn from the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan and pull his troops out of the country to allow Afghans to decide their own fate. "We have no problem with Obama," a spokesman for the extremist Islamist movement told AFP after the inauguration of the new US president. However "he must learn lessons from (former US president [sic] George W) Bush and before that the Soviets," Yousuf Ahmadi said by telephone.
France unwilling to send more troops to Afghanistan France will reject any immediate request by U.S. President Barack Obama for reinforcements to Afghanistan because it has already deployed enough troops, French Defence Minister Herve Morin said on Wednesday. While many European leaders have welcomed Obama's multilateral approach to diplomacy, they are less eager to send their soldiers on risky missions that are unpopular with voters.

U.S. Army recruiting at the mall with videogames --Army invests $12 million in facility that resembles cross between a hotel lobby and video arcade The U.S. Army, struggling to ensure it has enough manpower as it fights wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, is wooing young [impoverished] Americans with videogames, Google maps and simulated attacks on enemy positions from an Apache helicopter. The U.S. Army Experience Center at the Franklin Mills shopping mall in northeast Philadelphia has 60 personal computers loaded with military videogames, 19 Xbox 360 video game controllers and a series of interactive screens describing military bases and career options in great detail.

Obama inauguration: Words of history ... crafted by 27-year-old in Starbucks When Barack Obama steps up to the podium to deliver his inaugural address, one man standing anonymously in the crowd will be paying especially close attention. With his cropped hair, five o'clock shadow and boyish face, he might look out of place among the dignitaries, though as co-author of the speech this man has more claim than most to be a witness to this moment of history. Jon Favreau, 27, is, as Obama himself puts it, the president's mind reader. He is the youngest chief speechwriter on record in the White House, and, despite such youth, was at the centre of discussions of the content of today's speech, one which has so much riding on it.