In rare visit to tiny Laos, Kerry seeks closer relations
VIENTIANE, Laos - Secretary of State John Kerry arrived Sunday in Laos, where the United States is helping the government clear a countryside still littered with unexploded ordnance dating to the Vietnam War.
Kerry’s one-day stop for talks with senior officials marks a rare diplomatic visit. He is only the third secretary of state in six decades to visit the tiny, landlocked country in Southeast Asia, with John Foster Dulles stopping in 1955 and Hillary Clinton in 2012. Relations have been standoffish for decades between Washington and the Communist rulers of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic who only last week chose a new leader for the single-party government.
But in recent years, the two countries have started to warm to each other.
Kerry came to lay the groundwork for a summit that President Obama will host in February for the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), a group that Laos chairs this year. Vientiane, the capital, will in turn host Obama at an ASEAN meeting this summer, when he will become the first U.S. president ever to visit the country.
Islamic State strikes back in Syria after losing ground
BEIRUT - The Islamic State is intensifying a brutal siege against President Bashar al-Assad’s last stronghold in eastern Syria in an apparent show of resilience as the group suffers battlefield defeats elsewhere.
The extremist organization has unleashed waves of suicide bombers and other attacks in the escalated push to seize government-held areas in the city of Deir al-Zour, according to monitoring groups. An estimated 200,000 people in those areas are quickly running out of food and medicine after a year of blockade by the group, with the United Nations expressing concern about possible deaths from starvation.
The city’s fall would mark an effective end to the Assad government’s control of the vast expanses of eastern Syria, an area that is now mostly divided between Kurdish forces and the Islamic State. It would also deal a symbolic but important blow to Russia’s military campaign in Syria, which has helped Assad’s forces regain momentum against rebels in the western part of the country but has yet to decisively turn the tide of the war.
PayPal targets millennials with ‘easy payment’ plans
Consumers trolling Shop.com may have noticed a marketing hook more often associated with big-box stores like Best Buy than an online retailer. Under the product description for a Dell Inspiron laptop there’s a PayPal Credit button that says: “Enjoy Easy Payments.”
The company is offering consumers a choice between buying the machine outright for a discount-or stretching the payments over nine months. The enticement looks to be effective. Since Shop.com introduced the option last July, average order sizes have increased from $123 to $140 and shoppers are buying more big-ticket electronics, said Eddie Alberty, vice president of strategic partnerships at the Greensboro, North Carolina, company.
A key target is millennials, who tend to shop from their phones and are starting to get married and buy big-ticket items-furniture, TVs, washing machines-that are typically paid off over time. Another is shoppers who have difficulty getting credit, including immigrants and people just starting their careers.
Washington Post
