Foreign Affairs

President Bush on Wednesday named Walter H. Kansteiner III as a special assistant and deputy press secretary for foreign affairs.

WASHINGTON - Veteran Reps. Ed Royce, an Orange County conservative, and Maxine Waters, a South Los Angeles liberal, are about to gain higher profiles in the next Congress. Royce (R-Fullerton) is expected to be named the new chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and Waters (D-Los Angeles) the top Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. Their new positions will help offset the state's expected loss of influence on Capitol Hill following the defeat or retirement of a number of the delegation's senior members.

Looks like the media and tech moguls attending investment bank Allen & Co.'s conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, this week will be spending much of their time learning about foreign affairs. The closely guarded agenda for the annual gathering features several panels aimed at bringing the captains of industry up to speed on current events across the globe.  On Wednesday, a panel on Iran and Israel features Washington Post columnist David Ignatius. On Thursday, former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw will moderate a panel focusing on China that will feature Muhtar Kent, chairman and chief executive of Coca-Cola Co. On Friday, Charlie Rose will interview Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti.

While jobs and the economy remain their primary concerns, a strong majority of voters in the swing states of Ohio and Florida say they are interested in America's relations with other countries heading into Monday night's foreign policy debate between President Obama and Mitt Romney, according to a new survey. The poll found that 61% of Florida voters called foreign affairs one of the most important or a "very important" issue, while 59% of Ohio voters reached the same conclusion.

Here's the rundown on guests and topics for the weekend's public-affairs programs: Today "Today": Alzheimer's, angina and malignant melanoma risks; bridal attendant gifts; personal grooming products, 5 a.m. (4)(39). "John McLaughlin's One on One": Iraq, 1:30 p.m. (28). "Evans & Novak": Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), 2:30 p.m., repeats Sunday, 7 a.m. CNN. "Tony Brown's Journal": Author Ambrose Evans-Pritchard talks about President Clinton, 2:30 p.m. (28).

President Corazon Aquino, citing "this critical period of transition," today named a moderate senator with close ties to the military and the United States as foreign secretary. Raul Manglapus, who wrote books at Harvard and Cornell universities while in exile during the rule of ousted leader Ferdinand E. Marcos, fills the vacancy created by last month's stormy departure of Vice President Salvador Laurel from the Cabinet.

According to conventional wisdom, there's no surer way for a young congressman to destroy his career than delving into foreign policy. Voters don't care about it, the old hands say, and time spent on what's happening overseas is time squandered. Democrat Adam Schiff may be the exception that proves the rule. Now in his third term, the Burbank congressman seems to spend more time on foreign affairs every year. Yet in each of his two reelection campaigns, he's held on to more than 60% of the vote.

C. L. Sulzberger, a Pulitzer Prize-winning foreign correspondent for the New York Times who sometimes played behind-the-scenes roles in the stories he covered, has died at 80. Sulzberger, the author of two dozen books and a Times foreign affairs columnist for 24 years, died Monday at his Paris home. He was a nephew of Arthur Hays Sulzberger, the Times' publisher from 1935 to 1961, and a cousin of New York Times Co. Chairman Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, who was publisher from 1963 to 1992.

Benjamin Huger Read, 67, founding director of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and president of Ecofund '92. A leading foreign affairs scholar who served in the State Department during the Johnson and Carter administrations, Read was educated at Williams College and the University of Pennsylvania Law School.

"Foreign Affairs" (tonight at 5, 7 and 9 on TNT), a real charmer, lives up to its promising teaming of Joanne Woodward and Brian Dennehy. They meet on a plane bound for London, where Woodward, an astringent English professor on sabbatical, plans to work on a book, and Dennehy, a Tulsa sewage engineer, intends to vacation and do a bit of research on his ancestors.

WASHINGTON - The lethal attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Libya last month has created an unexpected casualty: White House hopes that President Obama would remain relatively unscathed on foreign policy issues in the presidential race. Questions about whether the Obama administration ignored requests for beefed-up security in Libya and why a sizable CIA presence in Benghazi failed to foresee an attack by dozens of armed extremists have become a distraction - if not a problem - for the president's reelection campaign.

Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi surprised the nation Tuesday by naming an obscure bureaucrat as his new prime minister to form a government that probably will be held in check by military leaders during an unsteady transition to democracy. The appointment of Hesham Kandil, water minister in the outgoing military-appointed Cabinet, kept with Morsi's vow that his prime minister would not come from the Muslim Brotherhood's political party. Morsi, who ran as a Brotherhood candidate, is under pressure from secularists and Christians not to choose a government dominated by Islamists.

Looks like the media and tech moguls attending investment bank Allen & Co.'s conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, this week will be spending much of their time learning about foreign affairs. The closely guarded agenda for the annual gathering features several panels aimed at bringing the captains of industry up to speed on current events across the globe.  On Wednesday, a panel on Iran and Israel features Washington Post columnist David Ignatius. On Thursday, former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw will moderate a panel focusing on China that will feature Muhtar Kent, chairman and chief executive of Coca-Cola Co. On Friday, Charlie Rose will interview Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti.

CAIRO - Egypt's foreign policy under its first Islamist president is likely to change in tenor but not substance, at least in the short term, as the new government can ill afford to strain relations with the U.S. or risk international furor by abandoning Egypt's 1979 peace treaty with Israel. President Mohamed Morsi faces domestic social and financial crises that are expected to eclipse foreign affairs in coming months. Rhetoric against Jerusalem and Washington may sharpen, but Morsi, who ran as the Muslim Brotherhood's candidate, is desperate for Western and regional investment to ease the economic turmoil that has overwhelmed the Arab world's most populous state.

Colin Powell says he's not prepared to endorse Barack Obama again, as he did during the 2008 campaign. But for the moment, it seems as if Powell has a thumb on the scale in the president's favor. In separate television interviews as he promotes his new book, the retired general and former Secretary of State under President George W. Bush both praised President Obama's efforts on the economy and raised questions about Mitt Romney's views on foreign policy. But, he insists he plans to keep his "powder dry" when it comes to throwing his support behind one of the two. "I feel as a private citizen, I ought to listen to what the president says and what the president's been doing.

Donald Payne New Jersey's 1st black congressman Rep. Donald Payne, 77, the first African American congressman elected to represent New Jersey and a former chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, died Tuesday at a hospital in Livingston, N.J. He had colon cancer. Payne represented New Jersey's heavily Democratic 10th District, including the city of Newark. He won his seat in Congress in 1988 and was easily reelected 11 more times. Payne was a member of House committees on education and foreign affairs and a congressional delegate to the United Nations.

Dante Fascell, a Florida Democrat in Congress for 38 years who played a leading role in U.S. foreign policy as chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has died of colon cancer. He was 81. He died Saturday night at his home in Clearwater, said Barbara Burris van Voorst, Fascell's press secretary until 1992, when Fascell retired. His service in Congress spanned the terms of eight presidents, beginning with his election in 1954.

Mitt Romney, resurgent in the race for the GOP presidential nomination, on Friday outlined his vision for the United States in the world, arguing for an America that has the strongest economy and military and is unafraid to take unilateral action in dealing with foreign affairs. Speaking at The Citadel, a military college in South Carolina, Romney outlined his vision of the world's problems and criticized President Obama for failing to lead in the way the GOP aspirant said he would.

Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, trailing in the polls that measure the race for the GOP presidential nomination, turned on Tuesday to foreign policy with a sharp attack on President Obama’s Mideast policies and a call to beat back the neo-isolationist wing of his own party. Speaking at the Council of Foreign Relations, Pawlenty criticized the Obama administration’s response to the series of anti-government protests --  known as the Arab spring -- that have swept through the Mideast.