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US President Barack Obama has declared that American troops will leave Iraq this month "with honour and with their heads held high", while at the same time warning the country's neighbours not to interfere in its progress. In a press conference with Nouri al-Maliki, Iraq's prime minister, at the White House on Monday, Obama said: "This is a historic moment. A war is ending." The president also said that the US would leave behind a sovereign and self-reliant Iraq, and that the removal of troops after nearly nine years would begin a new chapter in the relationship between the two countries - warning neighbouring nations not to interfere. "Our strong presence in the Middle East endures," Obama said. "And the United States will never waver in the defence of our allies, our partners and our interests."  "That is the concern, that at the end of the day the Iraqi officials have much closer ties to the Iranians." Obama

 President Obama addresses United Nations for first time

Barack Hussein Obama was born August 4, 1961, at Kapi'olani Maternity & Gynecological Hospital in Honolulu, Hawaii. His mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, was born in Wichita, Kansas, of mostly English, but also some German, descent. His father, Barack Obama, Sr., was a Luo from Nyang’oma Kogelo, Nyanza Province, Kenya. Obama is the first President to have been born in Hawaii.Obama's parents met in 1960 in a Russian language class at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa, where his father was a foreign student on scholarship.The couple married on February 2, 1961,but separated when Obama Sr. went to Harvard University on scholarship, and divorced in 1964.Obama Sr. remarried and returned to Kenya, visiting Barack in Hawaii only once, in 1971. He died in an automobile accident in 1982. After her divorce, Dunham married Indonesian student Lolo Soetoro, who was attending college in Hawaii. When Suharto, a military leader in Soetoro's home country, came to power in 1967, all Indone

US President Barack Obama has urged Israeli and Palestinian leaders not to let the chance of a permanent peace deal "slip away". "This moment of opportunity may not soon come again," he said, pledging US support for the new negotiations. Mr Obama spoke the day before a new round of direct talks between Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas was due to begin. Mr Obama spoke at the White House on Wednesday evening after meetings with Mr Netanyahu, Mr Abbas, Jordan's King Abdullah II and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. His remarks came on the eve of the first direct negotiations between Israeli and Palestinian leaders in 20 months, which he said were "intended to resolve all final status issues". Mr Obama said the goal of the talks, which are expected to last a year, was a permanent settlement that ended the Israeli occupation that began in 1967 and resulted in an independent, democratic  Palestinian state existing peace