North Korea has a long history of communicating with the United States through provocation and brinksmanship, and it has played to type ahead of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's four-nation trip to Asia that began Sunday. In recent weeks, Pyongyang has annulled its maritime border with South Korea, renounced the nonaggression agreement between the two countries, and moved missiles and equipment around in ways that could signal preparations for a launch, according to U.S. officials. For her part, Secretary Clinton ...

Hillary Clinton says her first overseas trip to Asia as U.S. secretary of state is aimed at creating a "network of partners" to tackle problems that no nation can deal with alone, including the global economic crisis. En route to Asia on Sunday, Clinton told reporters that the economy would serve as the backdrop of her trip, and she intends to explain steps the United States is taking with its $787 billion stimulus bill. She said she will be "seeking ...

Sami Khoreibi can't stop smiling. The baby-faced CEO of Enviromena Power Systems, Khoreibi launched his business a little over a year ago. Now he is looking over a 10-MW solar farm in the desert outside the city of Abu Dhabi, with row after row of solar panels angled to the Middle Eastern sun like bathers lying poolside. The solar farm is the earliest tangible part of Abu Dhabi's Masdar City, a $22 billion project designed to be the world's first ...

Top Republican lawmakers Sunday called on President Obama to change his political strategy, arguing that the passage of a massive stimulus bill on a party-line vote showed he has failed to deliver the "change" he promised. "If this is going to be bipartisanship, the country's screwed," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, told ABC's "This Week." "I know bipartisanship when I see it." Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, said Obama was off to "a bad beginning," out of step with the vow ...

During the first couple of weeks of his presidency, Barack Obama has made good use of his "spiffy" new ride. The president, who has made several trips around the country in Air Force One, was particularly excited during his first trip on the plane as commander in chief, when he flew to the House Democrats' annual retreat in Williamsburg, Virginia, last week. "Thanks for giving me a reason to fly Air Force One," he told the House Democrats after his ...

Like many mothers in Afghanistan, Maghferat Samimi has affixed a photo of a child to her mobile phone. But the 2 1/2-year-old is not her daughter. She is a rape victim, one of scores that Samimi, a researcher with the Afghanistan Human Rights Organization, has documented in the country's northern provinces over the past year. Witnesses to the child's abduction by a local militia commander have had their rape claim backed up by a nearby hospital, but the district police ...

If White House etiquette is any indication, you should be getting a random hug soon. The Obama family was always cuddly on the campaign trail, and last month the President bestowed no fewer than nine hugs on senior male staffers at a single meeting. The Hugger in Chief didn't start the trend. At work and at school, even on first introductions--at least among the latest inhabitants of The Real World--the hug is gaining ground on the handshake. There are ...

An amendment in the $787 billion economic stimulus package passed by Congress Friday would severely restrict bonuses and other forms of compensation for top executives at companies receiving federal bailout money. The amendment by Sen. Chris Dodd, chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, would impose wide-ranging restrictions on how -- and by how much -- top executives at companies receiving federal bailout money can be compensated. The measure would cap bonuses -- already often far ...

Fresh off victory on President Obama's signature $787 billion economic recovery plan, several top White House aides say they're planning an ambitious agenda for the rest of February. The Senate had waited for the return of Democrat Sherrod Brown, who was returning from his mother's wake in his home state of Ohio, to close the voting late Friday. For the rest of the month, the White House agenda will focus on addressing the housing crisis, cleaning up the banking ...

Thousands gathered in downtown Beirut's Martyrs' Square Saturday to mark the fourth anniversary of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri's assassination, a traumatic event in the nation's post-civil war history. Hariri died on Feb. 14, 2005 in a powerful explosion that left a 10-foot crater in a street in downtown Beirut, unleashing massive anti-Syria protests in what became known as the Cedar Revolution. A United Nations investigation by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon found links between Syria's government and Hariri's assassination, ...