Jonthan Freedland looks back over a year that began with Barack Obama's victory speech.

The latest deployment of British troops does nothing to dampen doubts over the West's long-term commitment to rebuilding Afghanistan.

Democrat Barack Obama said on Saturday he had quit his long-time Chicago church after months of controversy over racially laced pulpit rhetoric that still threatens to tarnish his White House hopes. The Illinois senator said he and his wife, Michelle, were withdrawing from the 8 000-strong congregation of the Trinity United Church of Christ.

Oil held above $129 a barrel on Wednesday, within sight of the previous session's record high, supported by a weak United States dollar and concern about supplies. Attention will shift later to a US government report expected to show that crude inventories rose for a fifth straight time last week while petrol and distillates supplies also increased.

If the death of a racehorse is a sad event, then the death of a racehorse on live television is an obvious starting point for national catharsis. So it has been in the United States in the past few days after the collapse and ultimate euthanasia of the filly Eight Belles at the end of last weekend's Kentucky Derby.

Oil set a new record high of $122 a barrel on Tuesday, the latest spurt in an advance that has seen prices double over the past 12 months. Supply disruptions in Nigeria, where a strike and attacks by militants has hit production, have helped boost a market that is nervous about any threats to supply.

Oil jumped more than $3 to strike a record over $120 a barrel on Monday on the weaker dollar and supply concerns from Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries members Nigeria and Iran. United States crude gained $3,37 to trade at $119,69 at 3.55pm GMT, after surging to $120,21 earlier.

It looked like yet another jubilant Barack Obama rally. The cavernous Indiana University sports hall in Bloomington jammed with thousands of supporters who stood in their seats and cheered deafeningly loudly. Ever since Obama launched his bid to become America's first ever black President 15 months ago, hundreds of cities and towns have seen the same huge rallies.

A Sudanese cameraman with the al-Jazeera on Friday accused United States authorities of insulting Islamic symbols on his return home after six years of detention at Guantánamo Bay. There were "many violations -- [we were] deprived from praying and there were ... deliberate insults to God's holy book" said Sami al-Haj.

Somali Islamist militants on Friday promised to avenge the killing of a man said to be an al-Qaeda's chief, warning citizens from countries they considered hostile to stay away from the war-torn country. The United States military on Thursday killed Moalim Aden Hashi Ayro and 11 others when it bombed a house in Somalia's central town of Dhusamareb.