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If a single word could sum up the goal of Barack Obama's Asia tour, it would be "reassurance." Obama went to Tokyo to reassure Japan that, should China attempt to seize its Senkaku Islands, America will fight at her side. He reassured Seoul of our commitment to defend South Korea. He went to Manila to reassure the Filipinos, who threw our Navy out of Subic Bay at the end of the Cold War, that America will be there in any clash with Beijing in the South China Sea. Yet, as Clyde Prestowitz writes in the Financial Times, while we are...

President Obama's renowned grasp of, and historic successes in, foreign policy show that He is the Strongest and Bestest little President ever!President Barack Humble Obama, pausing briefly in South Korea during the second leg of His tour of Asia to reassure our allies that He has their backs, gave a strong warning to North Korea against conducting a fourth nuclear test while He was in Seoul. Since no test occurred during His visit, it is beyond dispute that North Korea's Dear Leader Kim Chi-un fears Him greatly. Kim's fears are totally justified. As reported here, SEOUL – President Obama arrived in Seoul on Friday to news that North Korea may be counting down...

At a joint press conference in Malaysia today, Major Garrett asked President Obama about human rights concerns in Malaysia, saying the issues were “up for grabs” in the country. He asked the President why he hadn’t discussed human rights while in Malaysia, and why he hadn’t met with jailed opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim. (video here) President Obama said that not meeting with Mr. Anwar was “not indicative of a lack of concern,” and said that “there are a lot of people I don’t meet with.” “I think the Prime Minister is the first to acknowledge that Malaysia’s still got some...

Commentary by Paul Winters, Dignitas News Service In comments made Thursday in Japan, US President Obama pledged his support for Japanese rights in its dispute with China over islands in the East China Sea. The disputed land, known to the Japanese as Senkaku and referred to as Diaoyu are at the center of the Sino-Japanese tensions. The comments come as part of Mr. Obama's week-long trip through Asia in which he has been vocal in support for Japan and Korea in the region, but has been embarrassingly silent on support for the Philippines amid increased Chinese aggression in the South...

Russia is changing its energy export policy vector as strong demand for hydrocarbons in both in China and in India continues to grow. The recent unease in both the U.S. and Europe over Russian President Vladimir Putin’s March 17 annexation of Crimea has only added to Moscow’s efforts to diversify its markets beyond Europe. Now Russia and India are planning to construct a $30 billion oil pipeline through China’s restive Xinjiang province. If successful, the pipeline will be the most expensive in the world. The groundwork for the project was laid on October 21, 2013, during Indian Prime Minister Manmohan...

A prominent Japanese politician has raised hackles as Barack Obama visits Tokyo by claiming it's an 'open secret' that he and the first lady are headed for divorce, and that the president has been using Secret Service agents to cover for him as he pursues extramarital affairs. Kazuyuki Hamada, who sits in the upper house of Japan's parliament, earned his PhD a half-mile from the White House at George Washington University, and emerged as a shrill commentator on America's economy and foreign policy.

Obama travels to Japan without the first lady, and Japanese tongues are wagging about what that says about Japan's place on the US priority list. After all, Michelle Obama and daughters recently went to (gasp!) China. ... Now on the eve of Mr. Obama’s state visit to Tokyo this week, Japan is back to openly fretting about its place on America’s priority list – particularly in comparison to rising rival China. The reason? When Obama arrives Wednesday evening, he’ll disembark Air Force One solo – without first lady Michelle Obama. Obama will be the first US president to come to...

Here’s a guy you want to bet on– Li Ka-Shing. Li is reportedly the richest person in Asia with a net worth well in excess of $30 billion, much of which he made being a shrewd property investor. Li Ka-Shing was investing in mainland China back in the early 90s, way back before it became the trendy thing to do. Now, Li wants out of China. All of it. Since August of last year, he’s dumped billions of dollars worth of his Chinese holdings. The latest is the $928 million sale of the Pacific Place shopping center in Beijing– this...

GPS Digital Producer Jason Miks speaks with Amy Chua, a law professor at Yale, and her husband Jed Rubenfeld, also a professor at Yale, about their new book ‘The Triple Package: How Three Unlikely Traits Explain the Rise and Fall of Cultural Groups in America,’ and what it means to be a Tiger Mom. Watch Fareed’s interview with Chua and Rubenfeld this Sunday at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. ET on CNN.Your 2011 book, The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, sparked an intense debate with its look at the differences between Chinese and Western parenting. What are the key...

A US Navy official warned Sunday that finding the missing Malaysian jet may be impossible, as efforts to locate the plane intensified ahead of the expected failure of its black-box homing beacons. “It all depends on how effective we are at reducing that search area,” Capt. Mark Matthews told reporters at Australia’s Stirling Naval Base near Perth. “Right now, the search area is basically the size of the Indian Ocean, which would take an untenable amount of time to search.”

To convey some sense of the audacity of Tesla's Elon Musk and his plans, consider that the sale of all-electric vehicles in the U.S. reached a high of 100,000 in 2013 — but that's still less than 1 percent of all cars sold. Enter Tesla's GigaFactory, aiming by 2020 for annual production of 500,000 lithium-ion battery packs. Under one roof — a very large one, at 10 million square feet — Tesla will “manage everything from processing raw materials to the assembly of the batteries.” All of which begs the question: Where is all that lithium going to come from?...

Video LinkThrough a wide variety of projects, in order to quickly respond to any contingencies at home and abroad, we will build an "Adaptive Agile Ground Defense Force," rapidly deployed in phased sequence for effective deterrence and response, so as to bring forth a Dynamic Joint Defense Force. We are resolved to create a "Tough & Resilient JGSDF" capable of quickly responding and completing any mission anytime, thus defending our people's lives and property, and the territorial integrity of Japan.

Joint Subcommittee Hearing: Iran’s Support for Terrorism Worldwide Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade, Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa 2172 House Rayburn Office Building Washington, DC 20515 Mar 4, 2014 10:00am

Here Are The Countries That Spend The Most On Food Matthew BoeslerFeb. 24, 2014, 8:28 PM Renaissance Macro Research, Congressional Research Service This chart plots the share of household income in a given country spent on food against the level of household income in that country. Neil Dutta, head of U.S. economics at Renaissance Macro, warns that rising food prices may serve as an additional economic headwind to some of the emerging markets in the top-left region of the chart (India, China, Indonesia, and Nigeria, to name a few). "Food prices are climbing for a range of items including cattle,...

Thousands of San Francisco Bay Area residents may have been exposed to measles last week when an unvaccinated student at the Unversity of California, Berkeley, attended classes and rode the area's BART transit system. Public health officials in Contra Costa County, outside of San Francisco, said anyone riding BART from Feb. 4 to Feb. 7 during the morning or late evening commutes could have been exposed to the highly contagious respiratory virus. The young man in his 20s lives in the county and was confirmed to have measles on Wednesday. He was likely infected while traveling recently in Asia, health...

In hopes of persuading a nervous coalition partner and skeptical public, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Wednesday mapped out a three-step path for allowing Japan to use force to defend allies without altering its pacifist constitution. "We're now facing disadvantages because we don't have" the ability to exercise the right to collective self-defense, Abe told the upper house budget committee Wednesday. By spelling out his plans in detail, Abe hopes to sway the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's dovish coalition partner, New Komeito, which has been reluctant to go along with his effort to expand Japan's military role. The prime minister...

China Is Playing 'Chicken' With US Warships In The South China Sea GlobalPost Benjamin Carlson, GlobalPost Jan. 30, 2014, 7:51 AM HONG KONG — As anyone who has seen “Rebel Without a Cause” knows, playing chicken is dangerous for California teenagers in hot-rods. But playing chicken with warships, cruisers, and fighter jets — well, that’s just another level of crazy. Unfortunately, vessels from the US military and from other countries increasingly find themselves in such high-stakes confrontations on the East Asian seas, where China has adopted a strategy of making rivals flinch or risk collision. Just this week, Chinese sailors...

IN a private conversation during the late 1990s, a Defence Attache posted in an embassy of an advanced western democracy in New Delhi, who had also previously studied at India’s Defence Services Staff College in Wellington, remarked that the Indian Army is ‘a first class antiquated Army’. For the Army as also the other services, the 1990s was a severely difficult decade. There had been minimal modernisation of the armed forces due to a combination of factors that had comprised a severe resource crunch (that had subsequently led to the liberalising of the economy) and the disintegration of the Soviet...

Following Japan's proclamations that it will take over another 280 'disputed ownership' islands, it appears the increasingly dis-approved of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's path of militarism and provocation is working. As China Daily Mail reports, citing experts, China intends to take back Zhongye Island - 'illegally' occupied by the Philippines, according to the Chinese. The Chinese navy has drawn a detailed combat plan to seize the island and the battle will be restricted within the South China Sea. Philippines military is building up on the island and the Chinese see as 'intolerable' the "arrogance" relying on US support.

The U.S. is sending an additional Army combat force of 800 soldiers to South Korea with tanks and armored troop carriers. A brief Pentagon announcement said the 1st Battalion, 12th Cavalry Regiment from the 1st Cavalry Division at Fort Hood, Texas, will deploy to two locations in South Korea on Feb. 1....