4) The relations of the usa with the eu (with which countries are they warmer)

The European Union and the United States of America established diplomatic relations as early as 1953, but it was only in November 1990 that the cooperation was formalised for the first time with the Transatlantic Declaration. Since December 1995, the New Transatlantic Agenda (NTA) has provided the foundation for the relationship. Euro-American relations are primarily concerned with trade policy. They are the biggest economic and military powers in the world (even if the EU does not yet have a common defense policy), they dominate global trade, they play the leading roles in international political relations, and what one says matters a great deal not only to the other, but to much of the rest of the world. EU and US investments are the real driver of the transatlantic relationship, contributing to growth and jobs on both sides of the Atlantic. And yet they have regularly disagreed with each other on a wide range of specific issues, as well as having often quite different political, economic, and social agendas. Together, the EU and the USA have the largest bilateral trade and investment relationship in the world, roughly 31% of the world trade and over 49% of the world GDP. In keeping with the evolving political and legal personality of the EU, there is active cooperation across a host of sectors: cooperation in justice and home affairs, energy and energy security, environment, science & technology, education & training. In recent years the EU and the US have continued to work together in the field of both civilian and military crisis management and conflict prevention.

The relations of USA are warmer with …

5) Obama’s promises in his first election campaign in 2008 “to close Guantanamo prison” and “to stop wars in Iraq and Afghanistan”

Two days after his inauguration in January 2009, Barack Obama, the US president, signed an executive order promising to close the US military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba within one year, but the deadline was missed and efforts to close the facility have so far failed - undone by congress, legal dilemmas and domestic politics. President Barack Obama failed two years ago to close the infamous prison, and debate is raging over whether a law he signed will ensure it will stay open for decades to come, jailing even United States citizens.

Tucked into the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012, which Obama signed on New Year's Eve, are provisions that appear to allow indefinite military detention of American terrorism suspects, and to require it of suspected foreign enemies. The Obama administration insists the law merely codifies existing standards, but its strong supporters and vehement opponents are sure it does much more, legally enshrining for the first time in 60 years the authority to hold citizens without trial.

Since January 2002, almost 800 prisoners of the US "war on terror" have passed through Guantanamo's gates, arriving on flights from the Middle East and other secret sites. Once there, they are held in harsh conditions and interrogated using techniques that have greatly damaged the US' reputation around the globe.Today, Guantanamo holds 171 prisoners and it's an odd mix. Thirty-six await trial on war crimes charges, including the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks. There are 46 in indefinite detention as men the U.S. considers dangerous but who cannot be charged for lack of evidence or other reasons. The U.S. wants to release 32 but hasn't, largely because of congressional restrictions, and 57 men from Yemen, like al-Nahdi, aren't being charged but the government won't let them go because their country is unstable. The first prisoners brought to the base were kept in outdoor cages and interrogated in wooden huts when they arrived on Jan. 11, 2002. With detainees later kept in steel mesh cells, the population grew to nearly 700 by mid-2003. From the start, the camps seethed with tension. Prisoners, some subjected to harsh interrogations and sleep deprivation, staged mass hunger strikes, and banged on their cell doors for hours.

Congress also has prohibited moving any Guantanamo prisoners to the U.S. for detention or trial, which effectively blocked Obama's goal of closing the prison by January 2009. No detainee has left in a year because of restrictions on transfers, and indefinite military detention now enshrined in U.S. law. It's unclear today, whether it's gonna close at all.

Obama, during the campaign, promised that he would pull out one combat brigade per month over a 16-month period from Iraq. But this promise has been scrapped. Obama promised that if he becomes president in the future, he will support and help Afghanistan not only in its security sector but also in reconstruction, development and economic sector. Obama advocates ending the U.S. combat role in Iraq by withdrawing troops at the rate of one to two combat brigades a month- “I have a plan that will bring our combat troops home by March of 2008 ... letting the Iraqis know that we will not be there forever ”. Combat troops are to be pulled out of Iraq by August 2010, but some 50,000 occupation troops remained behind. U.S. military officials say the number of attacks in eastern Afghanistan, where most of the U.S. forces in the country operate, have gone up by 40 percent in 2008, compared to the same period in 2007. In his speech Obama didn’t mention the additional number of U.S. troops -- 17,000 -- that he ordered to Afghanistan and requested over $205 billion in war funding through the end of fiscal 2010. Overall, soldiers were kept there overall past 2011. Many combat units were simply relabeled as noncombat units.  This wasn’t a withdrawal. It was “occupation lite”. All of whom have made fortunes off the war, didn’t plan to pack up and go home just like American corporations didn’t plan giving up their lucrative control of Iraqi oil. And the military, if some troops do leave Iraq, will have to rely more heavily on airstrikes to control territory and keep insurgents at bay. The airstrikes in Afghanistan have, along with the expanded fighting, driven tens of thousands of Afghan refugees into Iran and Pakistan.