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  Celebrating America’s 233rd Birthday

  Chargé d’Affaires Dan Clune looks at the flag as the Star Spangled Banner is played and the colors presented during a special Fourth of July celebration at the American Embassy in Canberra. Similar events were held at U.S. Consulates in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth as Americans celebrate the 233rd anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

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  President Obama speaks in Cairo, Egypt

  "We have the power to make the world we seek, but only if we have the courage to make a new beginning," said President Obama in a far-reaching speech that addressed major international issues including the Islamic community, the Middle East, nuclear weapons, democracy, religious freedom, women's rights, and economic development and opportunity.

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  Celebrating Our Armed Forces’ Personnel

  Representatives of armed forces from countries around the world gather at the Chief of Mission’s Residence Friday to join in commemorating U.S. Armed Forces Day. Defense Attaché Colonel Britschgi makes remarks about the history of the day, and invites guests to charge a glass to the men and women of both the U.S. and Australian armed forces.

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  Connecting with Political Experts Coast to Coast

  Thomas Mann, political scientist and fellow at the Brookings Institute, shared his views on the new Obama administration and its relationship with Congress during a wide-ranging series of talks and interviews in Brisbane, Canberra, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney in the past month. His visit was arranged by the Grattan Institute in cooperation with the American Embassy.

News from Washington

Water resources for developing countries

Posted 1 July, 2009 by Librarian

The U.S. Department of State has released the 2009 Senator Paul Simon Water for the Poor Act of 2005 Report to Congress describing U.S. Government efforts to expand access to safe drinking water and sanitation, improve water resources management and increase water productivity in developing countries. The report highlights the work of U.S. agencies and departments to build partnerships, improve science and technology capacity, and increase the political will among developing and donor countries to address water and sanitation challenges.

Read more:

• Media release
• Past reports

New Article Alert service @America.gov

Posted 30 June, 2009 by Librarian

Article Alert is a new free aggregation and digest service that links readers to interesting and informative magazine and journal articles on four major topics:  (1) American Life, (2) Economy, (3) Global Challenges, and (4) International Relations.

Editors and reference specialists employed by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of International Information Programs select from articles available on the Web in full-text format. Article selection does not constitute an endorsement of the authors’ views by the U.S. government.

Library of Congress offers digital collections

Posted 30 June, 2009 by Librarian

Did you know the Library of Congress is the largest library in the world? One way to search the Library’s publicly available digital collections (whether digitized or born digital)  is to use the Browse by Topic pages.  Topics you can explore include American history, arts and culture, government, sports and much more.

CIA redesigns World Factbook

Posted 25 June, 2009 by Librarian

Join the more than 3 million monthly visitors who consult the Central Intelligence Agency’s database of information World Factbook. Now completely redesigned, the website includes facts about the history, people, government, economy, geography, communications, transportation, military, and transnational issues of 266 world entities.

What stats do you want? Public invited to shape Data.gov

Posted 25 June, 2009 by Librarian

Created as part of the President’s commitment to open government and democratizing information, Data.gov provides access to economic, healthcare, environmental, and other government information on a single website. Although currently only a limited portion of the rich variety of federal datasets is available, the public is invited to actively participate in shaping the future of this resource by suggesting additional datasets and site enhancements to provide seamless access and use of federal data.

Learn more:

• Data policy
• Tutorial
• Open Government Initiative
• Office of Management & Budget