The Russian president contrasted Obama as "totally different" to his predecessor George W. Bush, whom he blamed for the "mistake" of US missile shield plans fiercely opposed by Moscow.

Obama agreed to visit Moscow in July after his talks with Medvedev on Wednesday on the sidelines of a G20 summit in London aimed at fixing the battered world economy.

"I believe that we managed to establish contact. But Moscow lies ahead. I cannot say that we made much progress on the most serious issues," he told reporters, adding: "Let's wait and see."

Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu has angered the governing African National Congress by saying its leader, Jacob Zuma, is unfit to become president. “In the year of Obama, can you imagine what it is like when you are walking in New York and they ask you who will be the next president?” Mr. Tutu, left, said Thursday in Durban. On Friday, prosecutors are expected to disclose their decision about whether to continue fraud and corruption charges against Mr. Zuma. The archbishop said he hoped that criminal case would be pursued. If Mr. Zuma is innocent, “Let it be a court of law that says so,” Mr. Tutu said. For its part, the A.N.C. issued a statement rebuking the archbishop and suggesting that he stroll the townships of his own country rather than the streets of New York.

Former House speaker Newt Gingrich is warning of a third party mutiny in 2012 if Republicans don’t figure out a way to shape up.

“If the Republicans can’t break out of being the right wing party of big government, then I think you would see a third party movement in 2012,” Gingrich said Tuesday. The speech, to a group of students at the College of the Ozarks in Missouri, was recorded by Springfield TV station KY3.

But Gingrich, bemoaning President Barack Obama’s “monstrosity of a budget,” acknowledged that Republicans are partially to blame for the escalation in federal spending.

"Remember, everything Obama’s doing, Bush started last year,” he said. “If you’re going to talk about big spending, the mistakes of the Bush administration last year are fully as bad as the mistakes of Obama’s first two, three months.”

As North Korea fueled a multistage rocket Thursday for its threatened satellite launch, President Barack Obama promised a "stern" response and Japan vowed to press for an emergency session of the U.N. Security Council.

Senior U.S. defense officials said that trailers and vehicles carrying rocket propellant were in place at North Korea's coastal launch site and that fueling had begun.

A U.S. counter-proliferation official said the fueling process could take "up to a few days." But a senior U.S. intelligence official told The Associated Press that Pyongyang was on track for a projected Saturday launch

Economy in Turnaround? Or Hitting a False Bottom?

The good news is that the change in mark-to-market rules has the markets thrilled. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is at 8,032 right now; on Inauguration Day 2009, the DJIA closed at 7,949.09.

That's the good news. The bad news:

The number of people filing initial claims for unemployment benefits unexpectedly rose last week, while those filing continuing claims hit an all-time high for the 10th straight week, according to a government report released Thursday.

This is separate from tomorrow's jobs report.

While 90 percent of the guns traced to the U.S. actually originated in the United States, the percent traced to the U.S. is only about 17 percent of the total number of guns reaching Mexico.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) said Wednesday that his party needs to take a fresh approach to government regulations in the wake of the economic crisis that has rattled the U.S. and world economies.

In an interview with The Hill, Romney said, “We as Republicans misspeak when we say we don’t like regulation. We like modern, up-to-date dynamic regulation that is regularly reviewed, streamlined, modernized and effective.”

Romney’s comments come as he mulls another run at the White House and the Republican Party grapples with how to come up with producing solutions to the housing and financial crises that were triggered by a variety of factors, including a lack of government regulation and enforcement.

President Obama's European visit this week has strained Air Force heavy-airlift capabilities and obliged the military to hire more foreign contractors to help resupply U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan, according to military sources.

The large delegation traveling with the president in Europe required moving several transports, including jumbo C-5s and C-17s, from sorties ferrying supplies to Afghanistan to European bases for the presidential visit, said two military officials familiar with the issue. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid any misunderstanding with White House officials.

Candlewick Press sends over a release with the news that the president's sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, a teacher in Hawaii, has a book contract:

Ladder to the Moon, Maya Soetoro-Ng’s first book, is inspired by Maya and Barack’s mother as well as by Maya’s four-year-old daughter. What lessons, the author wonders, might her daughter have learned from her grandmother had the two ever met? In Ladder to the Moon, Maya Soetoro-Ng pays homage to her mother’s tradition of storytelling – and celebrates her mother’s enduring legacy of service – with an unforgettable story of love and compassion being passed along generations. Brimming with the beauty and magic of the night, Ladder to the Moon is a modern-day fable that will charm readers of any generation with its lush prose and timeless message about discovering ones own strength. Illustrator and publication date are to be determined.

Bill O'Reilly, currently on his "100 months at #1" media tour, told Cindy Adams that he has another book in the works.

"My next book, out the latter part of 2010, is on Obama," O'Reilly said. "He's becoming a historical figure not because he's black, but because his liberal agenda is taking the country in a direction we've never been before."

Journalists seeking to talk a little foreign policy with high-profile Obama administration officials live from the G20 meetings in London this week were solicited for phone sex instead after ringing up the toll-free number given by the White House.

In a press release, the White House accidentally listed a sex line number for journalists seeking an "on-the-record briefing call with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and National Security Advisor Jim Jones to discuss the NATO summit."

But after dialing, a soft-voiced female recording that was clearly not Clinton asked for a credit card number if you "feel like getting nasty."

The rules are set in stone, and so the eagerly watching British media sputtered when the First Lady of the United States, Michelle Obama, briefly put her hand on the back of Queen Elizabeth II as the two chatted at a reception. Etiquette is quite stern about this ("Whatever you do, don't touch the Queen!"). In 2007 John Howard, then Prime Minister of Australia, got plenty of criticism for apparently putting his arm around the Queen to direct her through a crowd. He denied actually touching her, but photographs suggest that he came quite close. (Another former Australian Prime Minister did put his hand on the Queen in a similar circumstance and was later branded "the Lizard of Oz.")

When one travels to a foreign nation, a head of state should receive some basic instruction on the correct name of his host. Unfortunately for Barack Obama, his “smart diplomacy” has begun to look like ignorant blundering. In the following clip from his joint appearance in the UK with Prime Minister Gordon Brown — in the kind of joint press conference Obama denied Brown in the US — Obama uses Britain and England interchangeably: