Summit

When the White House sent a last-minute invitation for Asif Ali Zardari to attend the two-day NATO summit, they were taking a highly public gamble. Would sharing the spotlight with President Obama and other global leaders induce the Pakistani president to allow vital supplies to reach alliance troops fighting in Afghanistan? But long before the summit ended Monday, the answer was clear: No deal. Zardari's refusal to reopen the supply routes left a diplomatic blot on a summit that NATO sought to cast as the beginning of the end of the conflict in Afghanistan.

LONDON - With investor confidence draining away and the value of the euro plunging, Europe struggled anew Wednesday to come up with a united game plan to keep its currency union intact and its economies from collapsing. Competing visions embraced by the continent's political heavyweights, France and Germany, clashed at an informal summit of European Union leaders with little chance of reconciliation even as fears grew that Greece could be forced out of the Eurozone and into a chaotic default.

CHICAGO - As thousands of protesters marched in the streets, President Obama welcomed more than 60 world leaders to his heavily guarded hometown for a NATO summit that will start the clock for America and its allies to begin pulling combat troops from Afghanistan. The two-day summit, the largest in the 63-year history of the military alliance, came as White House officials made it clear they were furious overPakistan's continued refusal to reopen ground routes used to move fuel and other war supplies into Afghanistan, a six-month standoff that the White House had hoped to resolve before Obama arrived in Chicago.

When the White House sent a last-minute invitation for Asif Ali Zardari to attend the two-day NATO summit, they were taking a highly public gamble. Would sharing the spotlight with President Obama and other global leaders induce the Pakistani president to allow vital supplies to reach alliance troops fighting in Afghanistan? But long before the summit ended Monday, the answer was clear: No deal. Zardari's refusal to reopen the supply routes left a diplomatic blot on a summit that NATO sought to cast as the beginning of the end of the conflict in Afghanistan.

President Obama on Tuesday said he was confident in Chicago's ability to host the G8 gathering of world leaders and played down the notion that security concerns had anything to do with the decision to move the May meeting from Chicago to Camp David. In response to a question during a news briefing in Washington, Obama noted that the NATO summit scheduled for the same weekend will still be held in Chicago, bringing him and other world leaders to the city. "I always have confidence in Chicago being able to handle security issues," said Obama, whose 2008 presidential election night victory party was held in Grant Park with a massive crowd in attendance.

A team of Southern California mountaineers has returned safely to Katmandu, Nepal, after becoming the first U.S. climbing team to put a man on the summit of the 24,682-foot Annapurna IV--one of the most difficult climbs in the Himalayas--and the first team of any kind to ascend the mountain's northwest ridge. "It was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life," said Tim Schinhofen, 34, an AT&T communications executive from El Toro who, with Sherpa guide Pemba Norbu, 34, reached the summit Oct.

CARTAGENA, Colombia - President Obama will highlight trade and business opportunities in Latin America at a regional summit in Colombia this weekend, but other leaders may upstage him by pushing to legalize marijuana and other illicit drugs in a bid to stem rampant trafficking. Obama, who opposes decriminalization, is expected to face a rocky reception in this Caribbean resort city, which otherwise forms a friendly backdrop for a U.S. president courting Latino voters in an election year.

President Obama is moving one of two major world summits from Chicago to the presidential retreat near Washington, with an aide saying the president has decided he wants a more "intimate" setting than his hometown for the May gathering.   The Group of 8 meeting will be moved to Camp David, according to the White House, but the gathering of NATO allies and the International Security Assistance Force will go on in Chicago as planned.   Camp David will more closely approximate the remote settings in which the G-8 leaders apparently prefer to gather.

This week, President Obama found out how much harder it is to sell economic stimulus packages in Europe than it is in Washington. Obama went to the Group of 20 summit in London hoping to persuade leaders of the world's biggest economies to boost government spending to counteract the global downturn. Backed by Japan and Britain, the administration argued that restoring growth around the world required a stronger fiscal push from other developed nations.

As the sky threatened rain here, nearly 2,000 protesters gathered in Arsenal Park on Thursday with a variety of grievances, setting off some clashes with police, and moved toward the distant convention center where world leaders are set to meet today. Major economic conferences have become regular targets for protest groups, and it was no different on the eve of the so-called G-20 summit, the meeting of leaders from the world's 20 largest economies. About the time that President Obama and his wife, Michelle, were stepping off Air Force One, protesters started throwing rocks at police and police cars and dragging trash containers into the middle of the street to block traffic.

CHICAGO - As thousands of protesters marched in the streets, President Obama welcomed more than 60 world leaders to his heavily guarded hometown for a NATO summit that will start the clock for America and its allies to begin pulling combat troops from Afghanistan. The two-day summit, the largest in the 63-year history of the military alliance, came as White House officials made it clear they were furious overPakistan's continued refusal to reopen ground routes used to move fuel and other war supplies into Afghanistan, a six-month standoff that the White House had hoped to resolve before Obama arrived in Chicago.

WASHINGTON - Whatever else they achieve, back-to-back summits of world leaders this weekend hosted by President Obama will showcase the perks of incumbency. An American president with sagging approval ratings on the top campaign issue - the anemic economic recovery - will stand in the spotlight as a seasoned world leader. On Friday, Obama welcomed leaders of the major industrialized nations, the so-called G-8, for an overnight economic gathering at Camp David, the presidential retreat in western Maryland.

KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghan President Hamid Karzai, perhaps best known in the West for periodic well-aimed jabs at his NATO allies, is embarking on a determined charm offensive as he faces the prospect of seeing troops and, perhaps even more crucially, dollars slip away from his country. The Afghan government has long regarded the NATO alliance and its partners as a seemingly bottomless source of funding. But aides to Karzai say the president is heading to a landmark NATO summit in Chicago this weekend with a keen awareness of the financial pinch being felt from London to Tokyo.

WASHINGTON - Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta heads to this weekend's NATO summit prepared to confront Pakistan over what he considers price-gouging for transport of supplies to Afghanistan and hoping for a "consensus" among allies over the war effort. In an interview before his arrival in Chicago, where the summit is scheduled to begin Sunday, Panetta all but ruled out paying Pakistan $5,000 for each truck carrying supplies across its territory for NATO troops waging the Afghanistan war. Pakistani officials have demanded that amount as a condition for reopening supply routes that have been closed to the alliance since fall.

WASHINGTON — For months, President Obama has been urging his European allies to balance their zeal for spending cuts with policies to spur economic growth. His pleas have mostly been ignored. But now, as Obama prepares to host the Group of 8 industrialized nations' summit Friday and Saturday, his pro-growth argument has taken on new force — and some measure of desperation. The G-8 gathering at Camp David will cover an array of topics, but given the escalating crisis in Greece, the future of the Eurozone is expected to dominate the talks, raising the stakes for the summit and for Obama.

Just days before a NATO summit that leaders had hoped would present a carefully scripted display of unity on Afghanistan, the inauguration of a French president committed to an early drawdown has instead intensified a rush for the exits from an unpopular war. In advance of this weekend's summit in Chicago, the Obama administration and senior North Atlantic Treaty Organization officials have been scrambling to ensure that alliance members remain...

Voicing concerns that Americans are losing their connection with nature -- and that natural areas are falling victim to sprawl and pollution -- the Obama administration is inviting hundreds of sportsmen, environmentalists and other champions of the outdoors to Washington next month for a summit on conservation. The White House Conference on America's Great Outdoors, on April 16, will focus on how to conserve the land with a focus on local leadership, as opposed to a heavy federal government role, administration officials announced Friday.

Facing unbending Republican opposition to a healthcare overhaul, President Obama confronted a stark reality Thursday as his televised summit ended: If he and his Democratic allies in Congress want to reshape the nation's healthcare system, they will have to do it by themselves. Washington's most powerful Democrats and Republicans gathered for a remarkably detailed, deeply felt -- and occasionally sharp -- exchange on one of the most important and complex issues facing the country.

Lionsgate has solved one of the thorniest staffing problems resulting from its acquisition of "Twilight" studio Summit Entertainment by keeping the marketing chiefs from both studios. Tim Palen, Lionsgate's chief marketing officer who is coming off the blockbuster success of "The Hunger Games," has signed a new deal that will keep him in his job through 2015. However, the studio is also keeping Summit's marketing president, Nancy Kirkpatrick, in her current job as president of marketing for the studio, which is now a Lionsgate label.

WASHINGTON - Three Secret Service agents implicated in a prostitution scandal in Colombia - including two supervisors - are leaving the agency as investigators seek to determine whether the embarrassing episode led to a security breach. Officials said it appeared that none of the 11 Secret Service agents who allegedly brought prostitutes to their hotel rooms in Cartagena before President Obama arrived for the Summit of the Americas last weekend had weapons, radios, schedules or other potentially sensitive material in their rooms.