U.S. President Barack Obama Monday formally announced his 2012 re-election bid, saying the country needed "to protect the progress" it had made.

"Today, we are filing papers to launch our 2012 campaign," Obama said in a statement.

Number-two Republican Senator Jon Kyl, a fierce critic of U.S. President Barack Obama's efforts to engage Syria, said Washington should call for Syrian leader Bashar Assad to step down for undermining Lebanon’s democracy and smuggling weapons to Hizbullah.

“We should not be fooled by his sacking of his government. This is still the same Assad who undermined Lebanese democracy, who worked with North Korea to develop a clandestine nuclear capability, and who smuggles arms to Hizbullah and lends support to Hamas,” Kyl said in a statement on Wednesday.

U.S. President Barack Obama said he is confident that Moammar Gadhafi will "ultimately" step down, as a new poll Wednesday found nearly half of Americans were opposed to U.S. military involvement in Libya.

Obama warned Tuesday he had not ruled out supplying arms to rebels seeking to oust him, and said the "noose is tightening" around the Libyan strongman.

U.S. President Barack Obama said Saturday the international mission in Libya was clear and focused and succeeding and had saved countless innocents from a "bloodbath" threatened by Moammar Gadhafi.

Under increasing pressure to explain his strategy to Americans, Obama gave his most detailed review of the conflict so far, and insisted American national interests were behind his decision to order U.S. forces into U.N.-mandated combat.

Hillary Clinton said Tuesday she planned to stay on as secretary of state into U.S. President Barack Obama's second term, presuming he wins re-election, to help with the transition.

"I will stay until the beginning of the next term because I know it takes a while for people to get appointed and confirmed," Clinton told ABC News in an interview.

Bolivian President Evo Morales called Monday for U.S. President Barack Obama's Nobel Peace Prize to be revoked, saying the U.S. leader's decision to launch a military attack on Libya showed he did not deserve the honor.

"Two years ago we heard that President Barack Obama had won the Nobel Peace Prize, but is he defending peace in the world now, or isn't he instead fomenting violence?" Morales told reporters, days after Obama ordered the bombing of Libya military targets as part of an U.N.-approved effort to protect civilians.

Warren M. Christopher, the attorney turned envoy who tirelessly traveled to Bosnia and the Middle East on peace missions during his 1993-96 tenure as secretary of state in the Clinton administration, has died at age 85.

Late Friday, Christopher died at his home in Los Angeles of complications from bladder and kidney cancer, said Sonja Steptoe of the law firm O'Melveny & Myers, where Christopher was a senior partner

The United States, Britain and France pounded targets in Libya with airstrikes and Tomahawk missiles on Saturday, in a campaign to prevent Moammar Gadhafi from crushing a month-old uprising against his rule.

Libyan state television said a French plane was shot down, as an official in Tripoli denounced the "barbaric aggression" despite its announcement of a ceasefire in a month-long showdown against rebels.

U.S. President Barack Obama Friday threatened defiant Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi with military action unless he met specific, "non-negotiable" demands for a ceasefire, a halt to attacks on civilians and a retreat from rebel strongholds.

Obama said the world could not stand by because, if left unchecked, Gadhafi would commit atrocities in which thousands could die, adding that the Libyan strongman had been given "ample warning" to change his behavior.

A high-ranking Republican legislator has said that the U.S. Congress should cut off funding for the Lebanese army if Hizbullah plays “even a minor role” in Premier-designate Najib Miqati’s government.

Representative Steve Chabot of Ohio, chairman of the House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, told The Daily Star in an interview published Friday that Congress should not donate U.S. taxpayer money to Lebanon if the assistance winds up under Hizbullah’s control.