The Broadcasting Board of Governors will receive $10 million under the compromise spending deal reached last week. President Obama effectively sided with the BBG over his own State Department in a funding dispute involving Internet circumvention work.

Before leaving for Washington on Sunday to meet with US President Barack Obama, President Shimon Peres held an emotion charged meeting at Beit Hanassi with Esther Pollard the wife of convicted spy Jonathan Pollard.

Just 41 percent of American voters say the U.S. is doing the right thing by using military force in Libya right now, while 47 percent believe that the U.S. should not be involved in the North African nation. Among independents, that support slips to 38 percent, with 51 percent saying the U.S. should not be involved.

President Obama said Monday that the military operations in Libya have succeeded in averting a humanitarian catastrophe, but he pledged that the United States would continue to scale back its involvement in the conflict over the coming days.

In an effort to deflect and counteract leftist regimes in Latin America during the Cold War, Washington attached great political importance to its propaganda efforts. From Cuba to Chile, the US sought to promote friendly media while cultivating the support of right-wing reporters.

Nowhere have President Barack Obama's foreign policy approaches been in starker relief than during his unfolding travels in South America. Right now the use of military power in Libya is overshadowing his lead-by-example public diplomacy in his own hemisphere.

President Obama’s tour of Brazil, Chile, and El Salvador has been buried by news about Libya and Japan. But one of his messages – that Latin America can take more responsibility for global peace and prosperity – deserves to break through for further discussion.

With his first trip to South America eclipsed by war and upheaval in the Middle East and North Africa, President Obama sought to connect the two in a speech here on Monday, calling Latin America a model for those trying to throw off dictatorships in favor of democracy and broadly shared economic growth.