BREAKING NEWS

Kerry takes first trip as US diplomat

WASHINGTON - John Kerry views his first trip as US secretary of state as a listening tour, but the leaders he meets will want to hear whether he has any new ideas on Syria, Iran and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Kerry leaves on Sunday for London, the first stop on a nine-nation, 11-day trip that will also take him to Berlin, Paris, Rome, Ankara, Cairo, Riyadh, Abu Dhabi and Doha before he returns home on March 6.
It is an introductory trip for a man who needs little introduction abroad after spending 28 years in the U.S. Senate, all of them as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the last four as its chairman.