The USS Boxer is en route to scene of the pirate hostage standoff. Who knew we even had such a vessel?

The Boxer is the flag ship for a multination anti-piracy task force. The Boxer resembles a small aircraft carrier. It has a crew of more than 1,000, a mobile hospital, missile launchers and about two dozen helicopters and attack planes.

I wonder how long it will take to get there?

Steve Clemons criticizes the Obama Administration's Advisor on the upcoming Summit of the Americas, Jeffrey Davidow for his answer to Steve's question at a recent conference on Latin America. the exchange on the flip.

Captain Richard Phillips tried to escape from the Somali pirates by jumping off the lifeboat, but was recaptured.

Negotiations are ongoing for his release. Ransom demands have been made. The lifeboat is out of fuel. There are no toilets on the lifeboat.

I think the pirates will release the Captain. I hope I'm right.

The FBI has sent hostage negotiators to try and obtain the release of the U.S. Maersk Alabama captain Richard Phillips being held hostage by Somali pirates. The pirates have sent reinforcements to their comrades.

Captain Phillips selflessly volunteered himself to protect the other crew members. Let's hope for his safe return. [More...]

The WSJ reports:

President Barack Obama plans to request new funding from Congress for the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, but he risks a backlash from antiwar lawmakers. . . . Rep. Lynn Woolsey, a California Democrat and leader in the 77-member congressional Progressive Caucus[,] is . . . concerned about the planned escalation in Afghanistan. "I don't think we should be going there," she said.

Similar sentiments echo across the House. Rep. Jim McGovern (D., Mass.) said he fears Afghanistan could become a quagmire. "I just have this sinking feeling that we're getting deeper and deeper into a war that has no end," he said.

President Obama responded in Prague today to North Korea's rocket launch.

"I call on North Korea to honor its commitment to abandon all nuclear weapons programs, to abide by recognized norms of international relations, and to work to promote peace and stability in Northeast Asia," Obama said.

What's behind the launch? A cry for attention? A message that Kim Jong il has recovered from his stroke and is still a big, bad force to be reckoned with?

Apparently, the launch was unsuccessful and fell into the sea. The U.N. will meet today and discuss it, but further tough sanctions are not expected because Russia and China oppose them.

Former Argentinian President Raul Alfonsin, who courageously governed Argentina through one of its most difficult periods, after a disastrous and inhuman military dictatorship (remember the Falklands War, the "Desaparcidos" and the film "La Historia Oficial"), has passed away. He was a great man. NYTimes obit:

Raul Alfonsin, who guided Argentina's return to democracy in the 1980s after seven years of brutal military rule but failed to stave off a deep economic crisis, died Tuesday of lung cancer. He was 82. Alfonsin was president from 1983 to 1989 and won international admiration for putting on trial and jailing the former military leaders who tortured and killed thousands of suspected leftists in a vicious "dirty war." He had been a prominent opponent of the junta that took power in 1976 and his presidency restored respectability to a country regarded as a pariah after decades of coups and often thuggish rule.

RIP, Raul Alfonsin.

Not surprising:

The U.S. Treasury Department has promised opponents of changes to U.S.-Cuba policy that are tucked into a giant spending bill that some of the most controversial provisions will result in little change. The Senate was expected to vote later Tuesday on a $410 billion spending bill that contains provisions that would make trade and travel to Cuba easier. But letters from Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has assured the lawmakers who helped block the bill last week that few of the provisions will actually change U.S.-Cuba policy.

(Emphasis supplied.) It was always window dressing. By the way, watch on agriculture subsidy cuts in the 2010 budget - they won't survive either. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, and the pork too.

Speaking for me only

In Saudi Arabia, Khamisa Sawadi, a 75 year old widow has been sentenced to 40 lashes and 4 months in jail for mingling.

Sawadi is Syrian but her late husband was Saudi. The court also ordered her to be deported after completion of her sentence.

The newspaper Al-Watan said the woman met with the two 24-year-old men last April after she asked them to bring her five loaves of bread at her home in al-Chamil, a city north of the capital, Riyadh.

[More...]

In response to some, in my view, unfortunate remarks by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Amnesty International levelled some harsh but appropriate criticism:

[Secretary] Clinton said the United States would continue to press China on long-standing US concerns over human rights such as its rule over Tibet. "But our pressing on those issues can't interfere on the global economic crisis, the global climate change crisis and the security crisis," Clinton told reporters in Seoul just before leaving for Beijing.

More . . .

One of the more interesting exchanges in today's press conference with President Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Harper was the discussion of trade, NAFTA and the Buy American provisions in the stimulus. On the flip is the pertinent excerpts:

President Obama is in Canada today on a visit with the Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Matt Yglesias writes a good post on the importance of the US-Canada relationship.

This is an Open Thread.