Aides say the president is expected to focus on the economy when he addresses a joint session of Congress Tuesday evening, but will also touch lightly on foreign policy issues. After much talk of engaging America's adversaries, chief among them Iran, the Obama administration has made no move so far, pending a policy review. But Iranian leaders from President Ahmadinejad on down have sent letters and delivered speeches welcoming a change of U.S. policy and declaring themselves ...

Will President Obama just talk about the state of this troubled Union whose economic crisis he has inherited, or will he cast his net of ideas far and wide to address a new American relationship with the world? After much talk of engaging America's adversaries, chief among them Iran, the Obama administration has made no move so far, pending a policy review. But Iranian leaders from President Ahmadinejad on down have sent letters and delivered speeches welcoming a change ...

"Smile, you're in Swat," reads a billboard on the main road into the lush green honeymooners' valley once dubbed the "Switzerland of Asia". But over the past two years, Swat has been turned into a playground for the Taliban. And it may be the Taliban, and their fellow Islamists, who have most reason to smile as a result of the government's decision, last week, to end its floundering military campaign and instead ...

Taliban militants released a kidnapped Pakistani official in exchange for two of their men in the troubled Swat Valley, government officials said Monday. Kushal Khan was on his way to take up his new post as the district coordination officer Sunday when unknown gunmen kidnapped him and six members of his security detail near Mingora, the valley's main city. Late Sunday, Khan and his security guards were released after two Taliban militants were freed in a swap, said Syed Muhammad ...

The Taliban and the government of North West Frontier Province in Pakistan have agreed to a permanent cease-fire in the nation's volatile Swat Valley, an official said. Syed Mohammad Javed, commissioner for the Malakand region, which includes Swat Valley, told reporters in Mingora that the two parties had agreed to make permanent a 10-day cease-fire declared earlier this week. Javed said the agreement meant boys schools will reopen on Monday and camps will be set up for Swat residents who ...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told Afghan President Hamid Karzai America's "new strategy" in Afghanistan will focus on reconstructing the war-battered country and maintaining strong counter-terrorism measures, his office said. Karzai's office passed along a statement with details of a meeting Saturday between Karzai and a Pelosi-led congressional delegation visiting Afghanistan. Both sides discussed bilateral relations, counter-terrorism strategy, Afghan-U.S. bilateral relations, counter-terrorism strategy, economic improvements, and America's long-term security commitment to the country. "Ms. Pelosi during the meeting said ...

Tuba Sahaab looks nothing like a warrior. She is a slight girl of 11, living in a simple home in a suburb of Islamabad. But in Tuba's case, looks are deceiving. With her pen, Tuba is taking on the swords of the Taliban. She crafts poems telling of the pain and suffering of children just like her; girls banned from school, their books burned, as the hard-core Islamic militants spread their reign of terror across parts of Pakistan. A ...

In a desperate move to deal with an intractable radical insurgency, the Pakistan government says it will impose a form of Islamic law in the area of Swat Valley in the northwestern corner of the country. As a result, Islamabad's faltering military campaign there has been put on hold, and the militants have agreed to a tentative ceasefire. But many observers fear that, far from calming the conflict, the government has capitulated to the Islamist guerrillas and has set a ...

Taliban spokesman Muslim Khan announced a 10-day cease-fire on Sunday in Pakistan's Swat Valley, a volatile region in North West Frontier Province that is largely controlled by the Taliban. The Taliban are holding talks with the North West Frontier Province's government in the town of Timagera in the province's Lower Dir district, he said. Taliban leader Sufi Mohammad is heading negotiations for the militants. There was no immediate confirmation of the cease-fire from the Pakistani government. Swat Valley ...

President Obama says he'll talk to Iran if Tehran "unclenches its fist"; President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says Iran is open to negotiations but only on a basis of "fairness and mutual respect." Both men's coded conditionals are a reminder that after three decades of mutual hostility, talking won't be easy. TIME tapped a number of Iran experts for perspective on some of the key questions facing U.S.-Iran diplomacy. When should talks begin Conventional wisdom holds that Obama should wait until ...