MILITARY AIRCRAFT (Reuters) – Progress in Afghanistan has cost thousands of military lives and it would be helpful if Afghan President Hamid Karzai expressed gratitude for that sacrifice, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said on Friday, bluntly rejecting the Afghan leader’s recent criticism of the war effort.

“We have made progress in Afghanistan because there are men and women in uniform who have been willing to fight and die for Afghanistan’s sovereignty and their right to govern and secure themselves,” Panetta told reporters aboard his plane to Latin America.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter on Wednesday offered a broad defense of the U.S. military’s shift in focus to the Asia-Pacific region, insisting the Pentagon had the resources to implement the new strategy despite concerns about tight budgets.

Carter, speaking at the release of a new study on the military challenge from China, said the Pentagon would increasingly focus its resources on the Asia-Pacific in coming years, adding new ships in the region as well as F-35 joint strike fighters as they become available.

BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s leader-in-waiting Xi Jinping held on Wednesday his first talks with a foreign official since vanishing from the public eye nearly two weeks ago, telling U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta he wanted to advance ties with the United States.

Vice-President Xi’s disappearance had prompted widespread rumors that he was ill or worse ahead of this year’s five-yearly Communist Party Congress when he is expected to be named party chief.

BEIJING (Reuters) – U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta urged China on Tuesday to allow closer military contacts to reduce the risk of confrontation, as the two powers grapple with a volatile territorial dispute between Beijing and Tokyo.

Panetta’s trip to Beijing for talks with senior Chinese military and government leaders has coincided with an eruption in tension over rival claims by Japan and China to a cluster of islands in the East China Sea.

TOKYO (Reuters) – U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta expressed concern on Monday about mounting tensions between Beijing and Tokyo over a disputed island group, urging “calm and restraint on all sides” as anti-Japanese protests flared in China for another day.

“It is in everybody’s interest – it is in everybody’s interest – for Japan and China to maintain good relations and to find a way to avoid further escalation,” Panetta told a news conference after meetings with the Japanese foreign and defense ministers.

MILITARY AIRCRAFT (Reuters) – U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s trip to China has been extended by a day and will include meetings with Vice President Xi Jinping, U.S. defense officials said on Monday.

The visit with Xi, China’s leader-in-waiting who canceled a recent scheduled meeting with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, was confirmed only in the last couple of days after he re-emerged from having been out of the public spotlight amid health rumors.

MILITARY AIRCRAFT, Sept 17 (Reuters) – U.S.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s trip to China has been extended
by a day and will include meetings with Vice President Xi
Jinping, U.S. defense officials said on Monday.

The visit with Xi, China’s leader-in-waiting who cancelled a
recent scheduled meeting with Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton, was confirmed only in the last couple of days after he
re-emerged from having been out of the public spotlight amid
health rumours.

TOKYO (Reuters) – Defense Secretary Leon Panetta will look for ways to deepen U.S. military relations with China during a visit to Asia this week, even as he works to bolster U.S. alliances in the region as part of a strategic shift that Beijing views with concern.

Panetta, who arrived in Tokyo on Sunday on his third trip to Asia since becoming defense secretary, will discuss the realignment of U.S. military basing in Japan and expanding ballistic missile defense cooperation before heading to Beijing to try to deepen and broaden military-to-military ties.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Congress should stop fretting over the mechanics of implementing a huge, indiscriminate budget cut early next year and instead try to pass a more reasonable plan to reduce deficits, a senior U.S. official told lawmakers on Wednesday.

In a hearing punctuated by partisan anger, acting White House budget director Jeff Zients rejected assertions that President Barack Obama was responsible for the stalemate over the looming budget cuts.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Congress should stop fretting over the mechanics of implementing a huge, indiscriminate budget cut early next year and instead try to figure out how to avoid it by passing a more reasonable deal to reduce deficits, administration officials told lawmakers on Wednesday.

Jeff Zients, acting director of the White House budget office, told lawmakers the cuts due to kick in on January 2 would be devastating for both defense and non-defense programs, causing 16,000 teachers and aides to lose their jobs and eliminating early childhood education for 100,000 youngsters.