President Barack Obama has bypassed the usual process of confirmation by the Senate and directly appointed four new U.S. ambassadors whose nominations had been stalled or blocked by lawmakers for months.

America’s influence has dwindled everywhere with the financial crisis and the rise of emerging powers. But it seems to be withering faster in the Middle East than anywhere else. Two decades ago, when America marshalled a daunting force to toss Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait, it stood unchallenged in the region.

The northern West Bank village of Masaha received a special book donation to its library from the U.S. Consulate General in Jerusalem on Tuesday. The donation included 40 books from Scholastic Books' My Arabic Library, in addition to a selection of 100 books produced by the United States Government's Regional Book Office in Cairo and Amman.

For two years, President Obama has labored to improve America's standing in the eyes of the Muslim world. He hasn't gotten anywhere with the governments of Iran, Syria, the Palestinian Authority or perhaps any other Muslim country. But with their publics, Mr. Obama is much better liked than his predecessor, which has yielded more favorable ratings for the U.S. in general.

A survey released on Saturday shows that nearly two-thirds of Japanese believe the country should seek for deeper interdependence with China, despite rows and spats in the past year - a trend experts say reflects the realistic mindset of the Japanese people as well as the evolving geopolitical changes in East Asia.

Given these grand plans, perhaps not surprisingly the first two years of the Obama Administration Middle East policy have been distinguished more by frustration than accomplishment. This is particularly true in the Levant—in Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, and Israel—the focus of much of the Administration’s regional efforts.

There is the official Indian response to WikiLeaks at last. Foreign secretary Nirupama Rao has defended the confidentiality principle of diplomatic communication between ambassadors and the home government, while launching the new website of the publicity and public diplomacy wing for the ministry of external affairs on Saturday.