Washington, Mar. 8 : US President Barack Obama has declared in an interview that he is open to the idea of the American military reaching out to moderate elements of the Taliban.

Geneva - The multilateral approach of the new United States administration offers a chance for making "real progress" in efforts for global disarmament, the Russian foreign minister said Saturday.

"The arrival of the new US administration and President Obama changes the situation because now the questions of multilateral disarmament has become a priority, which was not seen under the previous administration," Sergey Lavrov told reporters in Geneva.

New Delhi, Mar 7 : Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi has said that Presidnet Hu Jintao will meet his American counterpart Barack Obama during the London G-20 meeting in April.

Yang made the remarks while meeting domestic and overseas journalists on the sidelines of the annual parliament session at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

Washington, Mar 7: President Barack Obama will sign an executive order on March 9 lifting the Bush Administration’s restrictions on funding of embryonic stem cell research.

The long-awaited move is certain to draw criticism from anti-abortion and religious groups that question the science and ethics behind the research.

Obama was a frequent critic of former President George W. Bush’s 2001 executive order, which said federal dollars could be spent for research only on stem cell lines created before Aug. 9, 2001.

Washington  - US President Barack Obama went on the road Friday hoping to tout the success of his economic recovery plan by addressing a group of police cadets in Ohio whose jobs were saved by the funding in his stimulus package.

Obama appeared in the city of Columbus, where officials are facing a 13-million-dollar budget shortfall and had informed the graduating class that they would not be able to join the police force. Their jobs were saved after the city secured 4 million dollars from the stimulus package.

London - US President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle are expected to be received by Queen Elizabeth II during the Group of 20 (G20) summit in London next month, according to media reports Friday.

The private visit is due to take place at Buckingham Palace before the start of the one-day summit of world leaders in London on April 2.

Although the palace has not confirmed the fixture, the BBC's royal correspondent and a number of newspapers said Friday that it was certain to happen.