News stories by Jim Lobe*, page 6

Capping a major eight-month review, President Barack Obama unveiled a new defence strategy here Thursday that places more emphasis on U.S. military capabilities in Asia and the Pacific and much less on counter-insurgency and nation-building operations in poorer and conflict-plagued countries.

Texas Rep. Ron Paul, who 24 years ago performed dismally as the standard-bearer of the Libertarian Party, has begun making waves in the 2012 presidential campaign, to the extreme discomfort of neo-conservatives and aggressive nationalists who dominate the foreign policy rosters of most of his Republican rivals.

The so-called 'Arab Spring' led U.S. network television evening news coverage during 2011, comprising a total of about 10 percent of all the news coverage provided by the three major commercial networks during 2011, according to the latest annual review by the authoritative Tyndall Report.

Hillary Clinton's historic trip this week to Burma — the first by a U.S. secretary of state since 1955 — will likely mix geo- strategic realpolitik with Washington's more idealistic interest in promoting economic and political reforms in a country that it has tried to ostracise for most of the past two decades.

As the Pentagon scrambled Monday to satisfy Pakistani demands for a full accounting of Saturday's lethal air attack on two border posts, official Washington expressed hope that Islamabad's retaliation will be limited in both time and scope.

The administration of President Barack Obama has praised a damning report issued Wednesday in Manama on Bahrain's crackdown on the democracy movement earlier this year, as human rights groups called on Washington to further delay delivery of a pending 53-million-dollar arms package to the kingdom.

Despite repeated expressions of support by President Barack Obama for democratic change during the 'Arab Spring', the United States remains widely distrusted in the region, according to a major new survey of public opinion in five Arab countries released here Monday.

Amid simmering tensions surrounding Iran's nuclear programme, a key pro-Israel U.S. senator has tabled legislation that would effectively ban international financial companies that do business with the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) from participating in the U.S. economy.

Dennis Ross, President Barack Obama's top Middle East aide who has attracted criticism for his allegedly strong pro-Israel sympathies, will leave his post at the end of this month, the White House announced here Thursday.

A significant gap between the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama and staunchly pro-Israel majorities in both houses of Congress appears to have emerged over what to do in reaction to Tuesday's report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on possible military applications of Iran's nuclear programme.