| Obama in History: On April 8, Medvedev and Obama signed a new agreement in Prague regarding SNA: according to which, Russia and the USA agreed to reduce the number of intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine ballistic missiles, and heavy bombers up to 700 and a total number of nuclear warheads – up to 1550 by 2017. The validity period of the new agreement was 10 years. In December 2010, the agreement was ratified by the US Senate and in January 2011 both the houses of Russian parliament. In the beginning of August 2010, Obama stated that, from September onwards the American troops will curtail their military operations in Iraq and diplomats would be engaged to maintain stability. He reported that, around 50 thousand US military troops will remain in Iraq, however their number will gradually come down. At the same time, Obama confirmed that the USA would increase the number of troops in Afghanistan. On August 19, 2010, it was reported in the press that the last batch of troops was withdrawn from Iraq. On August 31, Obama officially declared the end of US military operations in Iraq.
In the beginning of April, 2011, Obama informed his decision to contest for a second term in 2012 and the beginning date of his new pre-election campaign through his website.
On the evening of May 1, 2011, according to Washington time, Obama in a television address informed about killing of Osama bin Laden, leader of "Al Qaeda" outfit, for whom special services of the USA hunted for almost 10 years after acts of terrorism on September 11, 2001. It was reported that, the terrorist was supposedly killed during an operation by American forces in Pakistan in the city of Abbottabad and Obama had given the order personally to eliminate the leader of "Al-Qaeda".
Despite Obama's pre-election promises, the US state debt during his presidency continued to increase and by the beginning of summer 2011, it reached 14 trillion dollars after remaining fixed at 14.294 trillion in February, 2010. In summer 2011, the press observed the difficultly in negotiations between republicans and democrats about increasing the limit of state debt and the means of reducing the budget deficit. In case, if the talks fail, a technical default would occur in US, which will be threatening and have unpredictable consequences for the world economy. This development could be avoided. On August 2, 2011, on the last day before a possible technical default, Obama signed a compromise bill for the increase of the state debt limit and a program for reducing state spending, which shortly before this, have been approved by Senate and House of Representatives of the USA.
Within the framework of the fight for reducing the budget deficit, Obama has suggested to carry out tax reform, proposed by billionaire Warren Buffett. The aim of the amendments (named as "Buffett Rule") concluded in an increase in tax for Americans, whose revenue was more than one million dollars. Reform would have helped in correcting the contradiction of huge taxes being paid on salaries in America than on the income from investments. The proposed offer invoked negative reaction from republicans.
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This Friday we continue our freaking experiment with provided source images.
