By Rand Paul
Obama acts as though we no longer have a Constitution
A team of Japanese scientists says faults under a nuclear plant in northern Japan are likely active, which could further delay resumption of idled reactors.

A map that China has incorporated into its passports has drawn diplomatic fury because it appears to claim the entire South China Sea, ignoring competing claims from the Philippines, Vietnam and other neighboring countries.

President Obama made history twice Monday by becoming the first sitting U.S. president to set foot in Myanmar and Cambodia, two Southeast Asian countries known for their legacy of human rights abuses and government oppression, one showing signs of the progress and the other still a troubling concern.
The ongoing South China Sea dispute demands swift U.S. action to avoid becoming a 21st century Munich ("ASEAN seeks China talks on sea dispute," Web, Sunday).

Escalating violence between Israel and the Palestinians on Sunday nearly hijacked President Obama's postelection trip to Southeast Asia — a tour billed as a diplomatic show of force in the region and part of the administration's attempt to pivot U.S. focus to Asia after a decade of war in the Middle East.

Southeast Asian leaders decided Sunday to ask China to start formal talks "as soon as possible" on crafting a legally binding accord aimed at preventing an outbreak of violence in disputed South China Sea territories, a top diplomat said.

With less than two months left for Washington to avoid an impending fiscal crisis that could drive economic recovery into a tailspin, President Obama will break away from negotiations to spend four days on a diplomatic trip to Southeast Asia.
Apparently, timing is everything. Just a few weeks ago, China was excoriating one or more members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) on a daily basis for challenging Beijing's sweeping territorial claims in the South China Sea.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is in Beijing to press Chinese authorities to agree to peacefully resolve disputes with their smaller neighbors over competing territorial claims in the South China Sea. But as she began her meetings here, China questioned the stated neutrality of the United States.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will try to reassert American interests in the Asia-Pacific region in the face of China's growing influence as she kicks off a six-nation trip that will take her from the South Pacific to Russia's Far East.

Squealing tiger cubs stuffed into carry-on bags. Luggage packed with hundreds of squirming tortoises, elephant tusks, even water dragons and American paddle fish.
Maintaining the balance of power in the Pacific requires strong allies. And as Tony Abbott, the opposition leader in Australia's Liberal Party (conservative in the American sense) noted last month in a remarkable speech at the Heritage Foundation, the U.S. has a particularly strong ally in Australia.

China told the United States to "shut up" and stay out of its dispute with countries bordering the South China Sea, after a State Department spokesman called for a peaceful settlement to the conflicting claims in the energy-rich, strategic sea lanes.
The Obama administration wants Beijing to accept a code of conduct for resolving territorial disputes in the resource-rich South China Sea, a difficult U.S. mediation effort that has faced resistance from the communist government - although it has endeared the U.S. to once-hostile countries in Southeast Asia.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Thursday that she hopes China will work diplomatically with its regional partners toward "finalizing a code of conduct" for resolving territorial disputes over the oil-rich South China Sea.