President Barack Obama’s campaign heads to the Pacific and Asian corners of the world this week where his public relations crew will produce a symphony of visuals for American voters. The nine day trip will include visits to San Diego, Hawaii, Australia, Bali and Indonesia. (more)
HONOLULU (AP) — President Barack Obama heads into a day of heavy diplomacy in his native Hawaii with some of the United States’ most important and complicated allies, the start of a nine-day tour of the crucial and growing Asia-Pacific region. (more)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Leon Panetta will make his first trip to Asia as Pentagon chief later this month, as the U.S. works to bolster its relations with countries in the region. (more)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration said Tuesday it is negotiating a possible reduction in U.S. intelligence operatives and special operations officers in Pakistan as the two countries try to mend relations badly strained by the arrest and detention of a CIA security contractor for killing two Pakistanis. (more)
My journey got off to an unpropitious start before it even began. (more)
BEIJING — If anyone wonders whether the Chinese government has tightened its grip on electronic communications since protests began engulfing the Arab world, Shakespeare may prove instructive. (more)
One might think paying for HBO as a premium cable channel would entitle subscribers to high-quality entertainment selections. But for an hour Friday night, viewers were treated to a little misogynistic locker room humor with the channel’s “Real Time with Bill Maher.” (more)
The so-called AFLAC Insurance duck commercials have been a staple on American television for over 10 years, but it appears that may be coming to a close, at least in its current incarnation. (more)
Many know what they’re going to get with Gilbert Gottfried – a crude, often inappropriate act, but one he has done well with for 20 years. (more)
While all of the details of this morning’s 8.9-magnitude earthquake in Japan are still somewhat unclear, sensitivities have hit a fever pitch, at least on the social networking website Twitter. (more)
BEIJING — Apparently unnerved by an anonymous Internet campaign urging Chinese citizens to emulate protests that have rocked the Middle East, the authorities this week have launched a forceful and carefully targeted clampdown on activities by foreigners that the government deems threatening to political stability. (more)
Reporting live from Egypt has been hard on CNN’s Anderson Cooper, who was attacked in Cairo twice this week. (more)
Mohamed ElBaradei, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate emerging as Egypt’s paramount opposition leader, told the Al Jazeera news agency that he feared Wednesday’s violent confrontation in Cairo could escalate into a “bloodbath.” (more)
WASHINGTON—U.S. authorities disclosed charges and sanctions against operators of an alleged smuggling network that was accused of purchasing millions of dollars in equipment for Iran’s nuclear and missile programs. (more)
“Let the Jews have Jerusalem. It is they who made it famous.” (more)
“Now, clean energy breakthroughs will only translate into clean energy jobs if businesses know there will be a market for what they’re selling. So tonight, I challenge you to join me in setting a new goal: by 2035, 80% of America’s electricity will come from clean energy sources. Some folks want wind and solar. Others want nuclear, clean coal, and natural gas. To meet this goal, we will need them all — and I urge Democrats and Republicans to work together to make it happen.” — Barack Obama (more)
A Chinese firm has signed a letter of intent to invest $2 billion in a North Korean industrial zone, representing one of the largest potential investments in Kim Jong Il’s authoritarian state and a challenge to U.S. policy in the region. (more)
Chinese President Hu Jintao will arrive in Washington today for an official state visit with U.S. President Barack Obama. If the tenor of bilateral relations were based simply on the number of meetings held, you could be excused for concluding that the U.S. and China were among the closest of allies. This week’s visit marks the Chinese leader’s third trip to the United States since President Obama’s inauguration two years ago, while Obama himself has gone to Beijing twice already, and has met repeatedly with his Chinese counterpart at larger summits (most recently in Seoul, South Korea). All the while, the American agenda has remained broadly the same: currency valuation and global trade imbalances — not to mention the never-ending debates over political values and human rights, whether to impose sanctions on Iran, climate change, North Korean aggression and the multi-party talks. What has changed over the years is the tone of the conversation — which has become openly more assertive, on the Chinese side, and disturbingly more subservient on the American side. (more)
America’s competitive nature and its obsession with digesting annual reviews is no secret. From the best of 2010 to the worst, everyone with some media exposure gets a chance to be reviewed. However, the White House’s much-anticipated Afghan war review received no accolades. Some even called the review a product of crowd-sourcing rather than an astute summary. (more)
As President Obama prepares to give the nation a status update on the war in Afghanistan Thursday, some in Washington are calling on him to “own” the conflict in a way they say he has not, and to articulate a clearer long-term commitment to the region than he has so far. (more)
