Nov. 30 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama will outline
for the public tomorrow the cost of his new strategy in
Afghanistan and the limits on U.S. involvement there, White
House press secretary Robert Gibbs said.

Obama last night ordered his military commanders to begin
carrying out his plan, which he’ll announce in an address from
the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York.

“You will hear the president discuss clearly that this is
not open-ended,” Gibbs said. “This is about what has to be
done in order to ensure that the Afghans can assume the
responsibility of securing their country.”

Obama has been informing U.S. allies of his plans; calls he
placed today included ones to French President Nicolas Sarkozy
and U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown. He isn’t discussing troop
levels with the other leaders, Gibbs said. Obama also plans to
brief a group of U.S. lawmakers before his speech, scheduled for
8 p.m. New York time.

Obama is unveiling his strategy, which a U.S. official said
will include deploying 30,000 to 35,000 additional American
troops, as polls show public support for the war dropping.

On the ground in Afghanistan, the U.S. and its North
Atlantic Treaty Organization allies are facing stiffer
resistance from the Taliban. The president has said his main
goal is to disable al-Qaeda and other extremist groups that have
established havens in the border region between Afghanistan and
Pakistan.

Local Forces

Gibbs said the main U.S. objective is to train Afghan army
and police forces so they can fight the insurgency and “so that
we can then transfer that security responsibility appropriately
back to the Afghans.â€

While Obama will “touch onâ€

Obama convened his top national security advisers last
night to lay out his decision and give orders for carrying it
out. Among those he discussed the plan with were Vice President
Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Defense Secretary
Robert Gates, Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen, General
David Petraeus, head of the U.S. Central Command, and National
Security Adviser Jim Jones.

Obama also spoke with the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan,
Karl Eikenberry, and the top commander on the ground, General
Stanley McChrystal, by secure video conference, Gibbs said.

Orders Issued

“The president communicated his final decision on the
strategy in the Oval Office and issued orders on the strategy’s
implementation,” Gibbs said. Obama’s orders “are being acted
upon by those whose job it is to implement them.”

Obama was briefing other world leaders, including German
Chancellor Angela Merkel, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and
Chinese President Hu Jintao. He met today at the White House
with Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

The U.K.’s Brown said today his country will add 500 more
troops to Afghanistan, bringing to 10,000 the total number it
has committed there. Brown spoke with Obama for 45 minutes in a
video conference. They agreed on the importance of combining
military and political strategies and asking other nations to
share more of the burden, according to a statement from Brown’s
office.

French Forces

Sarkozy said in Paris today that he will keep French
soldiers in Afghanistan until the country is “pacified and
sovereign.” France has 3,095 troops in Afghanistan, and Sarkozy
didn’t say whether he would add to that force. He and Obama
spoke for about 40 minutes, the French president’s office said.

Obama planned to speak with Afghanistan President Hamid
Karzai and Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari either later
today or tomorrow, Gibbs said.

Before departing for his speech at West Point, Obama
planned to brief about 31 lawmakers, Republicans and Democrats,
from the House and Senate, Gibbs said.

Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana, the top Republican on the
Foreign Relations Committee, said yesterday that Obama “is in a
moment in which he really has to regain the approval of the
American people.”

“This is why this speech and the plan is so important,”
he said on CNN.

Explaining to Congress

To help garner support, top administration officials will
be heading to the Capitol. The Senate Armed Services Committee
is scheduled to hear testimony Dec. 2 from Clinton, Gates and
Mullen. McChrystal and Eikenberry will return from Afghanistan
to speak to lawmakers, likely next week.

An issue getting increasing attention among congressional
Democrats is the cost of the war effort. Democratic
Representative David Obey of Wisconsin is among lawmakers
backing a so-called war tax to help pay for the war.

White House Budget Director Peter Orszag has estimated that
each additional soldier in Afghanistan may cost $1 million
annually. Orszag was among the president’s advisers
at his final strategy session.

“The costs of our involvement in Afghanistan both in terms
of our men and women in uniform, the health of the force and
what this will mean” for the federal budget, have “been part
of this discussion from the very beginning,” Gibbs said.

Defense Spending

The Defense Department has spent $168.1 billion on Afghan
operations since the October 2001 invasion through Sept. 30, the
end of fiscal 2009, according to figures released by the
Pentagon today. That includes $47.3 billion spent in fiscal 2009
as the U.S. increased its troop level from 34,400 in January to
about 68,000 now. That’s up from $32 billion spent in fiscal
2008.

The monthly costs averaged $3.9 billion in fiscal 2009,
with a high of $10 billion in September, according to the
Pentagon.

The non-partisan Congressional Research Service in a Sept.
28 report estimated that lawmakers have authorized about $227
billion in spending on Afghanistan since the war started. The
CRS figure includes funding for such categories as civilian
agencies and intelligence as well as military operations.

To contact the reporters on this story:
Julianna Goldman in Washington at
jgoldman6@bloomberg.net ;
Roger Runningen in Washington at
rrunningen@bloomberg.net

WASHINGTON (AFP) –
The US House of Representatives may pass a new economic stimulus bill by December 18 in a bid to combat sky-high US unemployment, a top congressional ally of President Barack Obama said Tuesday.

"I would certainly want to see us move something on jobs before that, and we are working on it now," Democratic House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, who has made December 18 the House's target adjournment date, told reporters.

With US unemployment at a 26-year high heading into a mid-term election year, Obama and his Democratic partners have found fresh urgency in tackling the issue again, nine months after enacting a 787-billion-dollar stimulus package.

"I wouldn't characterize it as a second stimulus. I don't want to be as broad as that, I want to be very targeted on jobs," said Hoyer, who declined to provide a figure or a precise breakdown of what the bill might include.

With a White House jobs summit set for December 3, Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has tasked the chairs of key committees to draw up suggestions, which will be blended together into a final bill, said Hoyer.

"We are moving ahead at a pace that hopefully will allow us to do something in the next three weeks," he said at his weekly briefing.

"Clearly, 10.2 percent unemployment is unacceptable and is causing great pain to literally millions of people around the country. All the economic analysts have indicated that it is going to be very difficult to bring down the jobless rate, but we are hopeful to make progress on that," he said.

Hoyer indicated that measures like helping states save public sector jobs, jobs tax credits, infrastructure investments were among the "whole list of options that are available."

"We're discussing those, we're discussing with economic advisers as to what is the most effective and frankly, there are differences of opinion," he said.

But the number two Republican in the House, Representative Eric Cantor, expressed undisguised disbelief, accusing Democrats and the White House of "finally" seeing a need to help create jobs.

"We say it's about time, I say you've got to be kidding me," said Cantor.

"Sometimes it is difficult for us to take the other side seriously, but if they are serious we welcome this news," he added, urging Pelosi to work with Republicans to craft the bill.

Later, senators unveiled legislation to fund the Economic Development Administration, a government agency founded in 1965 to help economically distressed areas in the United States create or retain jobs.

"In these tough economic times, creating good jobs for American workers is our top priority," said Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer.

"This is common sense bipartisan legislation that we should move forward as quickly as possible," said Republican Senator James Inhofe.

WASHINGTON, Nov 17 (OneWorld.net) - More people are going hungry today than ever before in human history, and the numbers continue to rise. Establishing a global system of food reserves could help stifle the forces spreading hunger and begin to reverse the trend, humanitarian groups told government officials gathered at a World Food Summit this week.

The coalition of food and hunger groups is disappointed that little has happened since representatives of the world's eight most industrialized nations -- the G8 -- agreed to study the idea at a meeting in July.

The groups are concerned that economic priorities continue to drive international food and agriculture policies while over 100 million more people have been pushed into hunger over the past two years. They believe the human right to food should take precedence, and governments should be given tools to combat the forces of supply and demand when those forces result in severe malnutrition and starvation for poorer people.

"Food reserves are an important tool for governments trying to address hunger and stabilize markets for their farmers," said Alexandra Spieldoch of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP), one of the groups that authored the letter to world leaders. "We cannot allow food reserves to drop off the radar at the World Food Summit."

Staple food prices spiked worldwide in 2007 and 2008, largely as a result of rising fuel costs, erratic weather patterns that destroyed harvests, and the conversion of farmland to grow crops for biofuels. The poorest people worldwide faced the most severe consequences, while wealthier communities tended to suffer less.

With energy prices still unpredictable and climate change threatening to wreak havoc on future harvests, the potential for future food emergencies remains high.

Today, millions of families in Kenya, Somalia, and other East African countries are struggling mightily to feed themselves after three bad years of harvests caused by the worst drought the region has seen in decades. Hunger also ravaged parts of Yemen and Nepal this year, and even the United States has seen an alarming rise in its number of hungry families.

IATP and its allies believe that establishing key food stockpiles at the local, regional, or global levels would give governments in Africa and other developing countries more power over the food supply chain, allowing them to ensure consistent minimum prices -- and thus a livable income -- for their farmers as well as access to food for all their citizens during lean times and unexpected emergencies. [» Read more from IATP on the potential of food reserves and their hopes for the summit.]

Nearly 1 in 6 U.S. Citizens Went Hungry in 2008

Hunger now affects one-sixth of all people worldwide, and it is no less a problem in the United States.

As the World Food Summit got underway in Rome yesterday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture disclosed that hunger levels reached their highest levels in this country since the agency began monitoring food security in 1995.

Some 49 million people "had difficulty putting enough food on the table at times during the year," the agency said. [» Read the full report from the Inter Press Service.] 

Food Summit Promises Fail to Impress

For the first time ever, more than 1 billion people now suffer from hunger, according to the United Nations. Humanitarian groups hope passing this ignominious milestone will create a new sense of urgency among world leaders to address the problem for the world's poorest.

Pledges made in 2000, to halve hunger worldwide by 2015, are clearly off track and unlikely to be met without a concerted change of approach and renewed commitment from world leaders.

"The silent hunger crisis -- affecting one sixth of all of humanity -- poses a serious risk for world peace and security," said Jacques Diouf, head of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), earlier this year. "We urgently need to forge a broad consensus on the total and rapid eradication of hunger in the world and to take the necessary actions."

The FAO organized this week's food summit to help spur on those actions.

On the summit's first day, however, a declaration was passed that largely disappointed groups working to end hunger worldwide.

An Inter Press Service (IPS) report from the conference notes that the FAO had called for governments to commit to provide $44 billion in aid for agriculture each year, "primarily to enable smallholder farmers in developing countries to feed themselves as well as helping the world achieve the goal of increasing food production by 70 percent to meet the needs of a population likely to reach 9.1 billion by 2050."

The money would be used to increase farmers' access to irrigation systems, modern machinery, seeds, and fertilizers, as well as improving rural infrastructure and roads so they can obtain the inputs they need and take their goods to market, notes IPS.

Humanitarian groups were also disappointed that the summiteers refused to set a goal of eradicating hunger worldwide by 2025. [» Read the full IPS report on the summit.] 

Take Action

For the latest news on the global food crisis and information about what groups are doing to ease hunger worldwide -- and how you can lend a hand -- see OneWorld.net's global food crisis alert.

» OneWorld TV: Al Gore Urged to Tackle Hunger

» Subscribe to OneWorld's News Updates and Digests

More from OneWorld:

» Obama's China Trip Full of Potential

» Brazil Deforestation Down 45 Percent

» We Can Have Food Security, Say Two New Reports

» Homelessness Down, But Persisting, for U.S. Vets

LOS ANGELES – Bobby Frankel possessed a gift for coaxing top performances out of ornery, high-strung thoroughbreds, a gruff Hall of Fame trainer who was hard in his dealings with humans but gentle with the animals in his barn.
Frankel died of cancer Monday at his home in Pacific Palisades, jockey agent Ron Anderson said. He was 68.
Frankel had been running his stable by phone for most of the year while undergoing treatment and concealing details of his illness from most of his colleagues, a remarkable feat in an industry fueled by gossip.
"He was a secretive guy," Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert said from Santa Anita. "He's from the old school of training — nobody needs to know your business."
Frankel began his career at Belmont Park and Aqueduct in New York, one of the cheap hired hands who walk horses around the barn after morning workouts. He took out his trainer's license in 1966 and won his first race with Double Dash at Aqueduct that November.
He built an early reputation as "King of the Claimers," taking the cheapest horses and turning them into high-priced stakes winners.
Frankel saddled 3,654 winners and earned $227,949,775 during his 43-year career, according to Equibase. He was second only to D. Wayne Lukas in money won, and they were the only trainers to earn more than $200 million.
The Brooklyn-born Frankel oversaw a coast-to-coast string of horses, never losing his New York accent or brusque demeanor that came off as intimidating to most who sought him around the barn.
"He wasn't a good people person when he was plying his trade," said retired Hall of Fame jockey Eddie Delahoussaye, who rode for Frankel. "If you didn't know him, he could be a jerk. You had to know him off the track. He was very gracious, but he wouldn't let everybody know that."
Frankel revealed a softer side only among his animals and close friends.
"Once you got him by himself, he was a lot of fun to be around," Baffert said.
Anderson added, "He was a very kindhearted person that had people that worked for him for 20, 30 years, which is almost unheard of around the racetrack."
Frankel enjoyed his greatest success this decade, winning four consecutive Eclipse Awards (2000-03) as the nation's leading trainer and five overall. His biggest client since the 1990s was Khalid Abdullah-owned Juddmonte Farms.
Besides Empire Maker, other winning horses Frankel trained for Juddmonte included Aptitude, Intercontinental, First Defence, Sightseek and Ventura.
"He was brilliant," Juddmonte manager Garrett O'Rourke said from Lexington, Ky. "It's the end of an era, isn't it?"
Frankel, fiercely competitive and supremely confident, struck some as arrogant, especially during Belmont Stakes week in 2003.
Funny Cide was bidding to complete racing's first Triple Crown since 1978 after winning the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes. Empire Maker was bothered by a foot injury and had finished second in the Derby.
"You could have 10 really clued-in people giving him advice. He always listened and he loved it," O'Rourke said. "Then he'd turn away and say, 'That all makes sense, but we're doing this.' And if that statement was accompanied by a smirk, then you were loaded for bear. That's the way he felt coming into the Belmont."

Frankel believed his horse could handle the grueling 1 1/2 miles and he relished the idea of spoiling Funny Cide's Triple Crown coronation.

"I hope everybody hates me after the race," he said. "Then I'll know I did well."

Empire Maker won by three-quarters of a length, giving Frankel his only victory in a Triple Crown race after years of trying.

"This is probably the biggest thrill in racing for me," he said.

Frankel had twice before finished second in the Belmont, including 2002 when Medaglia d'Oro was beaten by a half-length by 70-1 shot Sarava. In 2000, he failed when Aptitude was second in the Derby and the Belmont.

Frankel enjoyed needling his rivals, including Baffert, who had his own run of success leading the nation's trainers in money won.

"I ran into him at Saratoga, and he told me, 'I'm gonna get cha,'" Baffert said, imitating Frankel's accent, "and he caught me."

Frankel trained six Breeders' Cup winners, including 2004 Classic winner and Horse of the Year Ghostzapper, and ranked second to Lukas in career Breeders' Cup earnings.

His last Breeders' Cup win came with Ventura in the 2008 Filly & Mare Sprint at Santa Anita, with Frankel on hand to watch. Ventura finished second in this year's race on Nov. 6 at the same track, with Frankel listed as the trainer although he was too ill to attend.

"His outstanding horsemanship, coupled with a keen insight into the game, made him a force in the sport for the last 40 years," said Alex Waldrop, president and CEO of the National Thoroughbred Racing Association. "His immense talent, and his abiding love for his horses, will be sorely missed."

Frankel was well regarded for his success with turf horses, including Eclipse Award winners Possibly Perfect, Wandesta, Ryafan, Intercontinental and Leroidesanimaux. He was an astute handicapper, always picking the most favorable spots to enter horses.

Despite his illness, he had continued success this year, with longtime assistant Humberto Ascanio saddling Frankel's horses to victories in 13 stakes races.

Born Robert J. Frankel on July 9, 1941, he split his time between New York and California, where he first moved in 1972. He won a record 60 races at Hollywood Park in Inglewood that year on the way to his first of 30 training titles nationwide.

He won 28 races worth $1 million or more in his career, including a record six wins in the Pacific Classic at Del Mar. Frankel was the career leader in victories among trainers at Hollywood Park and Santa Anita.

"It came easy to him. He was a very gifted horseman," Baffert said. "He left a huge stamp on racing. He'll always be remembered."

Frankel was a mentor to trainer Rick Dutrow Jr., who saddled Big Brown to victories in last year's Kentucky Derby and Preakness. The horse lost his Triple Crown bid in the Belmont, when he finished last.

"I used to love it when I would do something good, I would call Bobby first and say, 'Bobby, did you see that?'" Dutrow said Monday from New York. "When I didn't know what to do, he would be the first guy to call."

Dutrow said he introduced Frankel to Los Angeles Dodgers manager Joe Torre. The two became close friends and were partners in owning some horses.

Frankel loved dogs and often brought them to the barn. He named his Australian sheep dogs Ginger and Punch after Breeders' Cup Ladies' Classic winner Ginger Punch, whom he trained. Anderson said Frankel left the hospital because "he wanted to go home and see the dogs one more time."

Frankel is survived by his daughter, Bethenny, who has appeared on the Bravo reality series "Real Housewives of New York City." He was twice divorced.

A service was planned for Tuesday at Hillside Memorial Park in Los Angeles.

___

AP Sports Writer Richard Rosenblatt in New York contributed to this report.