Asia/Pacific

President Obama on Thursday asked the Senate to approve his hand-picked choice to lead Asia policy at the State Department.

Danny Russel, a special assistant to the president and the senior Asia hand on the National Security Council, was picked despite Secretary of State John Kerry's reported preference for someone from outside the White House. The nomination is the first signal that vacancies at the top levels of the State Department – including the Near East, Europe, Africa and Diplomatic Security bureaus – may finally begin to be filled three and a half months after Kerry arrived at State.

Russel replaces Kurt Campbell, who resigned in February. Joseph Yun has been serving as acting assistant secretary since then.

Russel served as the National Security Council's point man on Japan and the two Koreas from 2009 to 2011. Before that, he was director of the Office of Japanese Affairs at the Department of State and also served as U.S. consul general in Osaka-Kobe and deputy chief of mission at the U.S. embassies in the Netherlands and Cyprus.

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Republican senators briefly hijacked a hearing on Iran Wednesday to lambaste the Obama administration on the largely unrelated issue of CIA cash payments to Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

The angry lawmakers took advantage of a rare appearance by the State Department's third-ranking diplomat to demand answers on the decade of cash payments that The New York Times brought to light last month. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman refused to answer in public.

“Delivering cash to an elected leader – does that help us root out corruption in that country?” Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) rhetorically asked Sherman. 

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) followed-up by questioning the example that the United States is setting. 

“Would we object if other nations delivered bundles of cash to President Karzai?” he asked.

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce (R-Calif.) on Wednesday condemned comments from Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto that the use of "comfort women" in Japan during World War II was "necessary."

Royce described "comfort women" as a "state-sponsored program of sexual brutality" against thousands of women during the war. But this week, Hashimoto was reported as saying that these women were "necessary."

Acting Energy Department (DOE) Secretary Daniel Poneman said the Obama administration is not backing down from requests that India eschew solar policies that it says might violate international trade rules.

At issue are Indian requirements that solar energy firms buy all inputs from domestic producers. The subcontinent says that will help grow its solar industry, but the U.S. contends local-content requirements are outlawed by the World Trade Organization (WTO).

“At this point our view is, we are in a discussion with India. Our views on … local content are clear, and we’re hoping we can work through this,” Poneman told The Hill on Tuesday after speaking at the U.S.-India Energy Partnership Summit in Washington, D.C.

President Obama will announce in the coming weeks the number of combat troops that will be withdrawn from Afghanistan next year, Secretary of State John Kerry said Tuesday in Stockholm.

"Very shortly, not too long from now, the president does intend to make public what his plans are for post-2014," Kerry told reporters, according to Reuters.

Earlier this year, Obama announced that he would bring home some 34,000 troops by next February, effectively halving the American military presence in Afghanistan. But the administration has not yet said  how many troops will remain at the end of 2014; as many as 15,000 service members could stay behind to provide training and support to Afghan security forces.

Obama on Sunday congratulated Pakistan for the nation's first transfer of power between elected governments.

Top officials discussed the terms of an agreement outlining the U.S.'s role in Afghanistan as it prepares to remove troops.

The spokesman for South Korea's president was fired for allegedly groping an intern during a visit to Washington this week. 

Afghan president Hamid Karzai wants to cap the number of American bases in Afghanistan after the U.S. military withdraws from the country in 2014, setting the stage for a final postwar troop presence.

"The Republic of Korea will never accept a nuclear-armed North Korea," President Park Geun-hye told Congress.