Rotterdam to host 2010 Tour start

Organisers of the Tour de France have announced that the 2010 race will begin from the Dutch city of Rotterdam.

Rotterdam lodged a bid to host the start of the 2010 event, along with neighbour Utrecht, following London’s successful Grand Depart in 2007.

A Tour statement said the choice would promote inner-city cycling, adding that Rotterdam “adheres perfectly to the route we imagine for the 2010 Tour”.

The 97th Tour begins on 3 July 2010, with more details to come in December.

The Tour de France last started from the Netherlands in 1996, when it began in ‘s-Hertogenbosch.

Obama fills out White House communications team

WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Barack Obama promoted an economic plan Saturday he said would create 2.5 million jobs by rebuilding roads and bridges and modernizing schools while developing alternative energy sources and more efficient cars.

“These aren’t just steps to pull ourselves out of this immediate crisis. These are the long-term investments in our economic future that have been ignored for far too long,” Obama said in the weekly Democratic radio address.

The goal is to get the plan quickly through Congress, with help from both parties, after Obama takes office Jan. 20. The plan, which envisions those new jobs by January 2011, is “big enough to meet the challenges we face,” he said. The president-elect said he has asked his economic advisers to flesh out the recovery plan – one “big enough to meet the challenges we face. … We’ll be working out the details in the weeks ahead, but it will be a two-year, nationwide effort to jump-start job creation in America and lay the foundation for a strong and growing economy.”

Obama noted the growing evidence the country is “facing an economic crisis of historic proportions” and said he was pleased Congress passed an extension of unemployment benefits this past week. But, he added, `We must do more to put people back to work and get our economy moving again.”

Nonetheless, he said, “There are no quick or easy fixes to this crisis, which has been many years in the making, and it’s likely to get worse before it gets better.”

It will take support from Democrats and Republicans to pass the economic plan, Obama said. “I’ll be welcome to ideas and suggestions from both sides of the aisle,” he said. “But what is not negotiable is the need for immediate action.”

People “are lying awake at night wondering if next week’s paycheck will cover next month’s bills,” if their jobs will remain, if their retirement savings will disappear, he added.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said congressional Democrats will “continue pushing for aggressive but necessary measures. Part of that is passing a substantial economic recovery package, like the one President-elect Obama discussed this morning, that creates good-paying jobs here in America and stabilizes a volatile market.”

In a slap at President George W. Bush, Reid added, “We will soon finally have a leader and partner in the White House who recognizes the urgency with which we must turn around our economy, and I look forward to working with him and the new Congress to do so.”

The Labor Department reported that claims for unemployment benefits jumped last week to the highest level since July 1992, providing fresh evidence of the weakening job market.

“We’ll put people back to work rebuilding our crumbling roads and bridges, modernizing schools that are failing our children, and building wind farms and solar panels,” Obama said. He also made a commitment to fuel-efficient cars and alternative energy technologies “that can free us from our dependence on foreign oil and keep our economy competitive in the years ahead.”

Obama pointed to the past, saying that Americans in this country’s darkest hours have risen above their divisions to solve their problems, as a hope for the future.

“We have acted boldly, bravely, and above all, together,” Obama said. “That is the chance our new beginning now offers us, and that is the challenge we must rise to in the days to come. It is time to act. As the next president of the United States, I will.”

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AP Special Correspondent David Espo contributed to this report.

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On the Net:

Video link to Obama’s address: http://www.change.gov

Kevin Rudd introduces www.KevinPM.com.au

Iraqi cabinet approves US pact

IRAQ’S cabinet approved a military pact overnight that requires the withdrawal of all US troops by the end of 2011, as a deadly suicide car bomb underscored the country’s lingering insecurity.

The attack took place within hours of the cabinet decision at a police checkpoint in Iraq’s volatile Diyala province, killing at least 15 people. It was the latest in a string of near-daily attacks targeting security forces.

Baghdad and Washington have been scrambling for months to reach an agreement that will govern the status of more than 150,000 US soldiers stationed in about 400 bases across the country after their UN mandate expires on December 31.

Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said all the most important political blocs had taken a “positive position” on the deal.

“They consider it the best (agreement) possible, because it will manage and end the military presence and guarantee the complete withdrawal of the troops.”

The United States welcomed the approval of the Status of Force Agreement (SOFA), with National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe describing it as “an important and positive step”.

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