Asia/Pacific

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.

“The days when North Korea could create a crisis and elicit concessions — those days are over,” Obama said.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) on Monday called on Congress to pass legislation withholding aid to Pakistan until a doctor who helped the U.S. find Osama bin Laden is freed from a Pakistani prison.

Rohrabacher was responding to new reports that the next appeal hearing for Dr. Shakil Afridi will be postponed until June. In addition to starving Pakistan of foreign aid funding, Rohrabacher also called on the Obama administration to withdraw the U.S. ambassador from Pakistan.

The Afghan president said the Kabul station chief assured him that regular cash payments to his government will continue.

The State Department has tapped its first ambassador to post-Taliban Afghanistan to serve as the new special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

James Dobbins will replace Marc Grossman, who stepped down last year after less than two years heading the special envoy position created by President Obama. Richard Holbrooke was the first to occupy the post, until his death in December 2010.

Dobbins “has deep and longstanding relationships in the region and I couldn’t be more grateful that Jim has agreed to take on this assignment,” Secretary of State John Kerry said in a statement Friday. “This is a pivotal moment for both Afghanistan and Pakistan, with interconnected political, security, and economic transitions already underway in Afghanistan, and Pakistani elections just days away, marking an important and historic democratic transition.”

But the country still hasn’t developed the technology to weaponize the long-range missile, according to the assessment.