Media Roundup

In a major speech, President Obama tries to answer critics of drone strikes but also raises his own questions.

Some American officials and outside experts believe it could take years for a spy agency that has evolved into a paramilitary service to rebalance its activities with a return to traditional spying.

The farm state of Michoacan is burning. A drug cartel that takes its name from an ancient monastic order has set fire to lumber yards, packing plants and passenger buses in a medieval-like reign of terror.

A North Korean envoy told China's president on Friday that his reclusive country was willing to take "positive actions" to ensure peace and stability on the Korean peninsula, as China steps up diplomatic efforts to bring Pyongyang back to talks.

Minority Rohingya Muslims who have long alleged persecution by the Buddhists in Myanmar, say Buddhist families from Bangladesh are now being resettled on their land.

A movement in China to make the Communist Party subordinate to the national constitution has conservatives fighting back.

After years of relying on government spending to supercharge growth, China is planning to shift gears so that the private sector and market forces play a larger role.

Under “Abenomics,” the prime minister’s radical economic policy plan, Japan sees signs of a revival.

Pakistan’s president, Asif Ali Zardari, will certainly lose his job in September -- and like his predecessor, retired Gen. Pervez Musharraf, he’s likely to face criminal charges under the government of newly elected Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

Development groups and corruption watchdogs are applauding landmark new standards adopted Wednesday by an international initiative focused on ensuring greater transparency among oil and mining companies operating particularly in developing countries.

China has offered soldiers to the new UN peacekeeping mission in Mali, UN officials say. Talks are underway, and more than 500 Chinese peacekeepers and engineers could potentially take part in the mission, according to UN officials.

Militant leader Mokhtar Belmokhtar masterminded the two suicide bombs in Niger on Thursday which killed 20 people, a Mauritanian news agency reports.

In the euro zone, desperately in need of a boost, no news is bad news.

In an early biography, he let slip a KGB view of the meaning of citizenship.

The attack that killed an off-duty soldier in London this week appears, like the Boston Marathon bombing, to have been the work of home-grown, “lone-wolf” extremists, underlining the very different kind of threat posed by al Qaeda now that its leadership has largely been destroyed and its ideology of global jihad left largely in the hands of individuals and small groups all over the world.

U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry said Friday that he “hopes” that Israel will refrain from further Jewish settlement expansion on land Palestinians claim for a future state.

Libya's prime minister has nominated a new interior minister to fill the first spot vacated in his Cabinet, a consequence of a new law that bars officials who had served under late dictator Moammar Gadhafi from holding public office.

Syria’s political opposition met Thursday in Istanbul to elect new leadership, choose a government-in-exile and deliberate on a negotiating stance for peace talks, but it hit a controversy when the immediate past president of the Syrian Opposition Coalition, a Muslim cleric who no longer holds any post in the group, presided over the opening session and released a surprise peace initiative without consulting the group.

Why the hysteria about Russia? From the tone of what passes for policy discourse in Washington, one would think that Russian troops were massing on the country’s western border and that opposition activists were being executed by the hundreds.

The centerpiece of the U.S. Pivot to the Pacific, the Marines are moving forward.

Syria’s civil war has inspired some in Congress and in the media. Stupidity or insanity? Some people don’t learn from past mistakes. Why start another body count in a Middle East conflict with no direct relationship to U.S. security?

During his nine day Asia-Pacific trip last year in November, President Barack Obama announced a new American military doctrine, which comes as a result of the country's new foreign policy on the Asia-Pacific region: “As we end today's wars, I have directed my national security team to make our presence and missions in the Asia Pacific a top priority.

Argentina’s proposed tax amnesty only rewards cheats.

Welcome to the strange -- and terrifying -- underground world of Chinese military fantasy novels.

The Japanese prime minister offers two positives but one dangerous negative.

Why did Western liberals think China was a model for environmentalism?

A gaffe by Japan’s prime minister speaks volumes about Asia’s current rivalries, and how they might be soothed.

Japan appears to be turning around its economy. Could its economic experiment be the last, best hope for recovery for the rest of the world?

Non-Soviet Russians have a modern outlook free of Russia's traditional state paternalism.

There is no magic Keynesian bullet for the eurozone’s woes, despite what many commentators and much of the public seem to believe.

British Prime Minister David Cameron is increasingly beholden to Conservative backbenchers who want to pull the UK out of the EU. On May 22, former British Foreign Secretary David Miliband delivered the Irish Business and Employers Confederation Annual Lecture, in which he defended continued EU membership.

American policy makers should consider a military cybercampaign to give Syrians the ability to communicate freely online.

Is it still interesting? This question concerns the forthcoming presidential election in Iran.

Keep an eye on Iran over the coming weeks. The country is in the process of shedding the final vestiges of democracy as it heads to a new presidential election on June 14. It is a sad unraveling of an experiment that began more than 30 years ago.

Russia and the United States may set up joint working groups to counter emerging crime threats, Russia’s interior minister said at the end of a working visit to the United States.

The Pacific Alliance, made up of Colombia, Mexico, Peru and Chile, on Thursday agreed to eliminate tariffs on most goods to promote free trade between the countries and increase exports to Asia.

Argentina and Brazil will be launching their first two jointly developed scientific satellites for research along the Atlantic coast in a couple of years, according to Brazilian Science and Technology Minister Antonio Raupp.

Russian oil company Rosneft will extend a line of credit worth $1.5 billion to the Venezuelan Corporation of Petroleum (CVP) within the framework of bilateral agreements signed by the Russian and Venezuelan governments.

Coasta Rican lawmakers Tuesday night approved an association agreement between Central America and the European Union (EU), with 37 votes in favor and four against.

Canada's prime minister has announced a new package of development aid for Peru that environmentalists are viewing warily because it is closely tied to Canadian mining investments in the South American country.

A tiny Ecuadoran satellite that collided in space with the remains of a Soviet rocket has survived the crash, but is damaged and not transmitting.

During Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to Tokyo on May 27, India and Japan are likely to work out a set of annual bilateral exercises between the two navies off the coast of India on the lines of the Malabar exercises with the U.S.

With India and Australia slowly cranking up their strategic partnership, Indian Defense Minister A K Antony is set for his first-ever visit to Australia to bolster bilateral ties in maritime security, counter-terrorism, military exchanges and joint exercises.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is traveling to Myanmar on the first visit to the country by a Japanese leader in 36 years, as Japan attempts to reassert its position as a top economic partner after decades of poor relations with the previous military regime.

Five paramilitary soldiers have been killed and one other has been wounded by a roadside bomb in southern Thailand, local police say.

Kazakhstan’s parliament ratified an agreement with Britain on Thursday on transit of military equipment and personnel across its territory from Afghanistan, where British troops are serving in the International Security Assistance Force.

A Russian rocket will launch South Korea’s latest multipurpose Arirang-5 satellite August 22, Seoul's science ministry said Thursday.

A government spokesman says at least 15 people were injured, four of them by bullet wounds, during a protest in Guinea's capital between opposition parties and security forces.

Police fired tear gas to disperse protesters in the latest confrontation between the ruling party and Togo's increasingly active opposition. Demonstrators were gathering to protest the death of an opposition member who died in jail.

Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet with his Serbian counterpart Tomislav Nikolic in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi on Friday, the Kremlin reported.