Presidential Election, Re-election | featured news

At the gatherings, the president, who will formally open his re-election campaign on Saturday, and a tight circle of advisers gird for the coming battle with Mitt Romney.

Like Barack Obama, Nicolas Sarkozy swept to power on a wave of hope for change. Sarkozy's wave crashed on the global financial crisis and his own failings.

Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev reiterated that he won't stand against Vladimir Putin in presidential elections next year, though he said that he wants a second term.

Republicans Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee hold a slight lead over President Barack Obama in a new poll of Florida residents on next year's presidential election. If the election were held now, 48 percent said they would vote for Romney while 43 percent preferred Obama. Huckabee was favored 49 percent to 44 percent in the same matchup. The two former governors were the only Republicans leading the incumbent president in a survey of 800 likely voters taken between April 4 and April 7 by Washington-based Mason-Dixon Polling and Research. The random telephone survey, which had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points was completed the day before Obama and Congress announced their compromise on the federal budget.

The BBC has received the strongest indication yet that Russian President Dmitry Medvedev is considering running for a second presidential term.

Major Democratic strategists, still reeling from a barrage of midterm spending by conservative groups, are planning a similarly well-funded campaign by liberal organizations aimed at reelecting President Obama in 2012.

There were no bids by younger Palestinian leaders on Friday to step into the shoes of President Mahmoud Abbas, who says he does not want to run for re-election in January.

The Palestinian president says he doesn't want to run for re-election in the January balloting.