CAMBRIDGE, Mass. ? When scholars gathered at Harvard last month to discuss the political tumult convulsing China?s ruling Communist Party, a demure female undergraduate with a direct stake in the outcome was listening intently from the top row of the lecture hall. She was the daughter of Xi Jinping, China?s vice president and heir apparent for the party?s top job.

BEIJING ? Blind legal activist Chen Guangcheng, who emerged at the center of a diplomatic row between the U.S. and China, left Beijing on a United Airlines flight bound for Newark, N.J., Saturday afternoon after Chinese officials and American diplomats swiftly arranged his travel out of the country for an uncertain new life in the United States.

The House approved a bill Friday that would provide $642.5 billion in defense spending for the next fiscal year, despite a veto threat from the White House, which objected to a series of provisions that would limit the president?s authority and challenge administration policies.

CAIRO ? Egypt?s military chiefs are expected to issue a constitutional declaration redrawing the powers of the presidency before polls open Wednesday for the country?s first presidential vote since autocratic leader Hosni Mubarak was overthrown, according to state media reports.

The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency said Friday he will travel to Iran over the weekend on a previously unscheduled visit to try to resolve an impasse over access to Iranian nuclear documents and scientists.

BEIRUT ? More than 10,000 protesters poured onto the streets of Syria?s commercial hub, Aleppo, on Friday, a sign that a city that had remained relatively quiet as an uprising swept the country has been galvanized into activity.

ATHENS ? What did Angela Merkel really say?

The Greek press buzzed late Friday when the office of freshly inaugurated Prime Minister Panagiotis Pikrammenos issued a statement saying Merkel, the German chancellor, had suggested that Greece should hold a referendum on the euro.

ATHENS ? Homeward bound after the Trojan War, Odysseus of Greek myth had to pick a path through seas harboring a monster with six heads and a whirlpool that digested ships whole. Now, whether modern Greece exits the euro ? potentially triggering global economic turmoil in the process ? depends on the tough choices of Ivi Moreti and her 11 million countrymen.

Daniel Manzoni holds the phone in his hand and waits for it to ring. The caller will be a talk-show host from Radio La Jefa (Boss Radio) 700 AM. He will want to hear about the annual Argentine Festival this Saturday evening in Arlington. Manzoni runs the festival as if his life depended on it ? which, at a certain existential level, it does.