MH370: Obama visits Malaysia as questions loom over missing jetliner

President Barack Obama is the first American leader in decades to visit Malaysia, the Asian nation grappling with the mystery of a vanished jetliner.

Obama landed in Kuala Lumpur on Saturday, seven weeks to the day Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared with 239 people aboard.

He's remained largely quiet over the issue amid an international underwater search focusing on the southern Indian Ocean.

A day before his arrival, he told a Malaysian newspaper, The Star, that the U.S. remains committed to the search.

"The United States was one of the first countries to join in the search for the missing plane," he said.

"U.S. Navy ships, aircraft and personnel remain on the scene, assisting in the search. Our FBI is working closely with Malaysia on the investigation into what caused the aircraft to disappear. And we'll continue to offer our support and assistance as the search and investigation continue."

Obama will discuss the search for the missing plane with Malaysia's Prime Minister, Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes told reporters, but it will not be the only item on the agenda.

Malaysia is a growing partner of the United States, which seeks to deepen that relationship, Rhodes said.

Topics of discussion between the two leaders will include trade, security and regional issues, he said.

Narrowed search nears end

Obama's visit comes as the initial search by the Bluefin-21 nears its end.

The submersible, which is on contract to the U.S. Navy, is scouring the ocean floor for traces of the plane.

Previously, another device, a "towed pinger locator" detected signals that officials believed were from its flight recorders, which determined the current search area for the Bluefin.

The underwater sonar device plunged into the Indian Ocean on Saturday, kicking off its 14th mission.

It has slowly scoured 95% of the ocean floor that searchers had narrowed down for it. So far, it has found no trace of the missing jetliner.

If the Bluefin-21 searches 100% of the area with nothing to show for it, the underwater search may expand Australian officials said.

A U.S. Navy source told CNN on Friday that the current search area is expected to move slightly north if the Bluefin doesn't find any wreckage. Specifically, it might shift to encompass a 6-mile radius around where another "ping" was detected.

The underwater search so far has focused on a circle with a 10-kilometer (6.2-mile) radius around the location of a detected "ping," the Joint Agency Coordination Center said.

"We are currently consulting very closely with our international partners on the best way to continue the search into the future," the Australian-based center coordinating the search said in a statement.

The plane disappeared after leaving Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, for Beijing.

Preliminary report

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak has said a preliminary report on the plane's disappearance will be available to the public next week.

He also asked an internal investigation team to look into what other information may be released publicly next week, his office said.

The report has been sent to the International Civil Aviation Organization, the U.N. body for global aviation, but not yet made available to the public.

The U.N. organization said among the safety recommendations in the report is a suggestion by Malaysia that the aviation world needs to look at real-time tracking of commercial aircraft.

It's the same recommendation that was made after the Air France Flight 447 went down in the Atlantic Ocean in 2009.

"Anytime there is a tragedy like this we ought to also reflect on what can be done going forward to prevent something similar from happening again," Obama said.

"That discussion has begun in Malaysia and around the world, and we'll see what improvements might be recommended to continue improving aviation security. One thing is already clear, however, is that large international efforts like this search operation benefit from existing partnerships among nations."

Obama, who will be in Malaysia until Sunday, is the first U.S. president to visit Kuala Lumpur in almost 50 years.

He leaves for the Philippines on Sunday, where he will remain until his departure for the United States on Tuesday.

Native Americans in the United States

Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct Native American tribes and ethnic groups, many of which survive as intact political communities. The terms used to refer to Native Americans have been controversial. According to a 1995 U.S. Census Bureau set of home interviews, most of the respondents with an expressed preference refer to themselves as American Indians (or simply Indians), and this term has been adopted by major newspapers and some academic groups; however, this term does not typically include Native Hawaiians or certain Alaskan Natives, such as Aleut, Yup'ik, or Inuit peoples.

Since the end of the 15th century, the migration of Europeans to the Americas, and their importation of Africans as slaves, has led to centuries of conflict and adjustment between Old and New World societies. Europeans created most of the early written historical record about Native Americans after the colonists' immigration to the Americas.[2] Many Native Americans lived as hunter-gatherer societies and told their histories by oral traditions. In many groups, women carried out sophisticated cultivation of numerous varieties of staple crops: maize, beans and squash. The indigenous cultures were quite different from those of the agrarian, proto-industrial, mostly Christian immigrants from western Eurasia. Many Native cultures were matrilineal; the people occupied lands for use of the entire community, for hunting or agriculture. Europeans at that time had patriarchal cultures and had developed concepts of individual property rights with respect to land that were extremely different.

The differences in cultures between the established Native Americans and immigrant Europeans, as well as shifting alliances among different nations of each culture through the centuries, caused extensive political tension, ethnic violence and social disruption. The Native Americans suffered high fatalities from the contact with infectious Eurasian diseases, to which they had no acquired immunity. Epidemics after European contact caused the greatest loss of life for indigenous populations. Estimates of the pre-Columbian population of what today constitutes the U.S. vary significantly, ranging from 1 million to 18 million.[3][3][4]

After the colonies revolted against Great Britain and established the United States of America, President George Washington and Henry Knox conceived of the idea of "civilizing" Native Americans in preparation for assimilation as U.S. citizens.[5][6][7][8][9] Assimilation (whether voluntary as with the Choctaw,[10][11] or forced) became a consistent policy through American administrations. During the 19th century, the ideology of manifest destiny became integral to the American nationalist movement. Expansion of European-American populations to the west after the American Revolution resulted in increasing pressure on Native American lands, warfare between the groups, and rising tensions. In 1830, the U.S. Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, authorizing the government to relocate Native Americans from their homelands within established states to lands west of the Mississippi River, accommodating European-American expansion.

The first European Americans to encounter the western interior tribes were generally fur traders and trappers. There were also Jesuit missionaries active in the Northern Tier. As United States expansion reached into the American West, settler and miner migrants came into increasing conflict with the Great Basin, Great Plains, and other Western tribes. These were complex nomadic cultures based on horse culture and seasonal bison hunting. They carried out strong resistance to United States incursions in the decades after the American Civil War, in a series of Indian Wars, which were frequent up until the 1890s, but continued into the 20th century. The transcontinental railroad brought more non-Natives into tribal land in the west. Over time, the U.S. forced a series of treaties and land cessions by the tribes, and established reservations for them in many western states. U.S. agents encouraged Native Americans to adopt European-style farming and similar pursuits, but European-American agricultural technology of the time was inadequate for often dry reservation lands. In 1924, Native Americans who were not already U.S. citizens were granted citizenship by Congress.

Contemporary Native Americans have a unique relationship with the United States because they may be members of nations, tribes, or bands with sovereignty and treaty rights. Since the late 1960s, Native American activism has led to the building of cultural infrastructure and wider recognition: they have founded independent newspapers and online media; FNX, the first Native American television channel (2011),[12] community schools, tribal colleges, and tribal museums and language programs; Native American studies programs in major universities; and national and state museums. Native American and Alaskan Native authors have been increasingly published; they work as academics, policymakers, doctors, and in a wide variety of occupations. Cultural activism has led to an expansion of efforts to teach and preserve indigenous languages for younger generations. Their societies and cultures flourish within a larger population of descendants of immigrants (both voluntary and involuntary): African, Asian, Middle Eastern, European, and other peoples.

Obama tells Congress to pass $447 bln jobs plan

US President Barack Obama challenged Republicans to halt a "political circus" and immediately pass a bigger than expected $447 billion jobs plan to jolt the "stalled" economy.
"These are difficult years for our country. But we are Americans. We are tougher than the times that we live in, and we are bigger than our politics have been," Obama said on Thursday, pleading for unity in a speech to a polarized Congress.
"Let's meet the moment," he said, seeking to restore public trust in his leadership with a plan that mixes tax cuts and investments and takes aim at 9.1 percent unemployment which is threatening his 2012 reelection bid.
"The question is whether, in the face of an ongoing national crisis, we can stop the political circus and actually do something to help the economy," said Obama in front of a large US flag in the well of the House of Representatives.
A combative and feisty Obama said the initiative, called the American Jobs Act, would put people back to work and more money into the pockets of those who had jobs.
"It will create more jobs for construction workers, more jobs for teachers, more jobs for veterans, and more jobs for the long-term unemployed," he said.
"It will provide a jolt to an economy that has stalled, and give companies confidence that if they invest and hire, there will be customers for their products and services. You should pass this jobs plan right away."
"You should pass it and I intend to take that message to every corner of this country."
The divided nature of Washington was reflected as Obama reeled off the applause lines of his speech, as his Democrats cheered plans for investment, and Republicans stonily sat through his calls for higher taxes on the wealthy.
Prospects for Obama's plan are uncertain given blanket Republican opposition to new spending not balanced by immediate budget cuts and a deeply polarized political climate already agitated by the coming election.
Obama says his plan will be fully paid for by spending cuts in years to come when the economic crisis has past.
He has already warned that if the plan is blocked, he will seek to hold Republicans to account at the polls and accuse them of putting a desire to eject him from the White House above a patriotic duty to revive the economy.
The centerpiece of the plan is a deeper than expected $240 billion payroll tax cut for employers and employees meant to keep money in the pockets of those most in need, spur demand and encourage firms to hire new workers.
The approach, envisaging a big role for government in stimulating the economy set up a clash with Republican 2012 front runners Mitt Romney and Rick Perry who argue Obama is out of his depth on the economy.
But Obama, hit back at Republican critics who complain at his plan to raise taxes on the richest Americans and close corporate tax loopholes.
"This isn't political grandstanding. This isn't class warfare. This is simple math.
"I'm pretty sure I know what most Americans would choose. It's not even close and it's time for us to do what?s right for our future."
The plan's $447 billion price tag contains $175 billion to cut employee payroll taxes in half, to 3.1 percent in 2012.
The taxes fund the Social Security retirement and Medicare health plan for senior citizens, and officials said the cuts were a way to get money directly into the pockets of those who need it most and those most likely to spend it.
Obama also proposed cutting the payroll tax in half for 98 percent of businesses on payroll up to $5 million in a bid to induce hiring of new workers.
Firms can get a complete payroll tax holiday if they add workers or increase the wages of current employees up to $50 million in payroll.
One administration official said that using payroll taxes to spur demand was an "elegant" way to ensure that people "have more money in your check, more money in your pocket."
Obama also proposed a $50 billion program to invest in highways, railroad and airport modernizations, which officials said would put hundreds of thousands of construction workers back to work.
He called on Congress to provide $10 billion to capitalize a national infrastructure bank to leverage private and public capital to invest in a broad range of projects.
He also proposed a $35 billion program to prevent layoffs of 280,000 teachers and to keep police officers and firefighters on the job, in a bid to stem local and state government layoffs that are inflating unemployment figures.
Other projects included:
-- A $30 billion project to modernize 35,000 public schools.
-- A "returning heroes" tax credit to spur hiring of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans
-- A $49 billion plan to reform an extend insurance payments for the long-term unemployed.
Obama will ask a congressional supercommittee which met for the first time Thursday and is mandated to cut spending by $1.5 trillion to seek further budget cuts to offset the new spending.
And he pledged to unveil a new plan to cut the long-term deficit on September 19.