Wikipedia founder calls for new model of journalism in 'era of Snowden

Jimmy Wales told the "Wikimania" conference that Wikipedia now has 8 languages with over 1 million articles.

Hong Kong (CNN) -- Edward Snowden may have left the city, but on Friday Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales told a crowd of devotees gathered in Hong Kong for the website's annual "Wikimania" conference that the fugitive leaker's actions had given him new ideas about the online encyclopedia's future.

"We live in the era of Snowden and (WikiLeaks founder Julian) Assange," declared Wales in a keynote address to the crowd, which organizers said had over 500 people from 90 countries. "All kinds of information that people would prefer to remain secret or private are being exposed."

Wales said Snowden's leaks about sweeping spy programs caused him to have a "serious rethink about security." Fearing intrusions from government agencies like the National Security Agency in the U.S., Wales announced that Wikipedia would move to encrypt its pages using SSL, or secure socket layer encryption, which protects users from outside monitoring.

Pointing to examples of poor mainstream media coverage on internet security issues, Wales also asked Wikipedians to help him think of a new "hybrid model" of journalism, where volunteers could work with professional journalists to produce serious stories that would counter "tabloid nonsense" like stories about the girlfriend of Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor who leaked some of the agency's top secret programs to the media from a hotel room in Hong Kong before receiving temporary asylum in Russia.

Wales showed an image of mainstream news clippings to prove his point. "(Snowden's girlfriend) is heartbroken because he's fled Hawaii ... he misses his girlfriend... I don't see anything here about who exactly is going to get arrested at the NSA for spying on people illegally," he said.

"What we really need to do is use editorial judgment to say, 'What really matters?'"

He proposed a setup in which a carefully vetted volunteer community could be potentially be "in charge of" mainstream journalists.

Stressing that it was merely a brainstorm, the Wikipedia founder invited his community to email him with software and design ideas.

Reactions to the Wiki-journalism idea were mixed among attendees.

"I think [Wales] didn't think about it very much," said Silvia Stieneker, 35, a Wikimedia employee from Germany. "You cannot compare media that has to sell headlines to make them interesting to something like an encyclopedia."

"I don't think it will replace traditional newspapers," said Andre Costa, who works for Wikimedia in Sweden, "but it should be an alternative."

In an interview with CNN Wales said he had "great hope" that there would be demand for the idea.

"Some have this negativity that oh, the problem is the general public, they just want to read sexy stories about Kim Kardashian or whatever, it's hopeless, right?

"But you know what? A website that's more popular than the top 20 newspapers in the world combined is Wikipedia. And people are reading very serious things on Wikipedia. There's clearly a demand from the public."

"I think it's time we start being a little more radical in our thinking."

Another key topic discussed at this year's Wikimania was diversity.

"I think Wikipedia has a sexism problem," said Stieneker, who runs a workshop in Berlin that empowers women to write for Wikipedia.

Stieneker says "harsh words for women" are still sometimes used to attack female users, particularly in debates over articles related to gender issues. But she acknowledged that "the huge majority of Wikipedia is not sexist and very helpful."

She says just seven percent of the German Wikipeida community are women, compared to 13% of the general Wikipedia population.

Wales is aware of the imbalance. "We really want more women editing," he told CNN. "We're doing a lot of outreach programs."

Wikipedians say other inequalities also exist on the site. Josh Lim, a Wikipedia project director from the Philippines, said he has seen "culture clashes" between Wikipedia's "core demographic of white, highly-educated males in Western countries" and editors of less-represented backgrounds.

"An American administrator might delete an article about a school in the Philippines because he thinks it's 'not notable,' which we would take personally," he said.

According to Lim, "systemic bias" from Westerners has discouraged his team, and many editors have left.

Wales acknowledged the tensions. "There will always be some cultural conflict around the edges about what's notable and not. And sometimes we make the wrong decisions."

"But we generally get it right because our community has a spirit of inquiry and desire of understanding. And it's great if a member of our community stands up and says we're doing this wrong, and you need to stop and think about it."

"One of the great things about the Wikipedia community -- that can be exhausting -- is we talk about everything," said Wales.

More than 100,000 want to go to Mars and not return, project says

Editor's note: Read this story in Spanish at CNNMexico.com.

(CNN) -- More than 100,000 people are eager to make themselves at home on another planet. They've applied for a one-way trip to Mars, hoping to be chosen to spend the rest of their lives on uncharted territory, according to an organization planning the manned missions.

The Mars One project wants to colonize the red planet, beginning in 2022. There are financial and practical questions about this venture that haven't been clarified. Will there be enough money? Will people really be able to survive on Mars? But these haven't stopped some 30,000 Americans from signing up.

You can see some of the candidates on the project's website, but they're not the only ones who have applied, said Bas Lansdorp, Mars One CEO and co-founder.

"There is also a very large number of people who are still working on their profile, so either they have decided not to pay the application fee, or they are still making their video or they're still filling out the questionnaire or their resume. So the people that you can see online are only the ones that have finished and who have set their profiles as public," Lansdorp said.

The entrepreneur did not specify how many have paid the fees, completed their profiles and configured them as private.

The application process

Anyone 18 or older may apply, but the fee depends on a user's nationality. For Americans, it's $38; if you're in Mexico, however, it's a mere $15.

The company said it sets the price based on the gross domestic product per capita of each nation. "We wanted it to be high enough for people to have to really think about it and low enough for anyone to be able to afford it," Lansdorp said.

For the first crew, the Mars One mission will cost $6 billion, Lansdorp said. The idea is for it to be funded by sponsors and media that will pay for broadcasting rights of shows and movies documenting everything from the astronauts' training on Earth to their deployment and colonization of Mars.

Out of the applicants, Mars One said it will select a multicontinental group of 40 astronauts this year. Four of them -- two men and two women -- are set to leave for Mars in September 2022, landing in April 2023.

A one-way ticket to Mars -- apply now

Another multicontinental group of four will be deployed two years later, according to the Mars One plan. None of them will return to Earth.

An illustration shows the proposed Mars One settlement. A manned mission to Mars is planned in nearly a decade.

The astronauts will undergo a required eight-year training in a secluded location.According to the project site, they will learn how to repair habitat structures, grow vegetables in confined spaces and address "both routine and serious medical issues such as dental upkeep, muscle tears and bone fractures."

"What we want to do is tell the story to the world," Lansdorp said, "when humans go to Mars, when they settle on Mars and build a new Earth, a new planet. This is one of the most exciting things that ever happened, and we want to share the story with the entire world."

How will Mars be colonized?

Each lander that Mars One sends will be able to carry about 5,511 pounds of "useful load" to Mars, he said. After eight missions, more than 44,000 pounds of supplies and people are expected to have arrived. The capsules themselves, whose weight is not included in that number, will become part of the habitat.

Food and solar panels will go in the capsules. Earth won't be sending much water or oxygen though -- those will be manufactured on Mars, Lansdorp said.

Astronauts will filter Martian water from the Martian soil. "We will evaporate it and condense it back into its liquid state," he said.

"From the water we can make hydrogen and oxygen, and we will use the oxygen for a breathing atmosphere inside the habitat. This will be prepared by the rovers autonomously before the humans arrive."

It sounds like terraforming, a process in which the conditions of a planet are modified to make it habitable, but Lansdorp said it isn't.

"We will create an atmosphere that looks like the atmosphere on Earth, so you could say that we are terraforming the habitat. But to terraform the entire planet, that's a project that will take hundreds and hundreds of years," he added.

A dangerous mission

In spite of the risks of space travel, the Mars One founder said he is convinced of the viability of the project. However, some space travel experts have said the risks are far too high to carry out these manned missions to Mars, a distance that humans have never traveled.

Radiation is a big concern. NASA does not allow their astronauts to expose themselves to radiation levels that could increase their risk of developing cancer by more than 3%.

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To maintain the radiation exposure standards that NASA requires, the maximum time an astronaut can spend in space "is anywhere from about 300 days to about 360 days for the solar minimum activity. For solar maximum, in ranges anywhere from about 275 days to 500 days," said Eddie Semones, NASA spaceflight radiation officer.

A round-trip journey to Mars could expose astronauts to the maximum amount of radiation allowed in a career under current NASA standards, according to a recent study by scientists at the space agency. Mars One is planning a one-way journey, which doesn't negate the problem, and being on Mars could expose astronauts to even more radiation, depending on how long they stay and what the shielding conditions are like.

Radiation damages cells' DNA, which can lead to cell death or permanent changes that may result in cancer. However, "there's no convincing human evidence for excess abnormalities in offspring of radiation-exposed adults," Semones said.

While orbiting the Earth, astronauts get exposed to greater concentrations of cosmic background radiation than here on Earth in addition to charged particles trapped in the upper atmosphere and from the sun, said Robert J. Reynolds, epidemiologist at the University of Texas Health Science Center.

As a spacecraft moves into deep space, the people on board would be exposed to even more cosmic radiation and solar particles, which is "fairly dangerous," Reynolds said.

Interestingly, according to Reynolds, astronauts' risk of dying of cancer is lower than that of the general public because they tend to be in shape, eat well, don't smoke and receive careful monitoring from doctors. Of course, none of them have been to Mars.

Semones emphasized that NASA does not study the health effects of Mars colonization and that it's focusing on shorter recognition missions of the surface of Mars. "We're not looking at colonization of Mars or anything. We're not focusing our research on those kinds of questions."

Can it be done?

Mars One isn't the only group hoping to make history by sending people to the red planet. The Inspiration Mars Foundation wants to launch two people -- a man and a woman -- on a 501-day, round-trip journey to Mars and back in 2018 without ever touching down.

501 days in space with your spouse: Could you handle it?

At this time there is no technology that can protect astronauts from an excess of space radiation. "The maximum number of days to stay with our standards is on the order of 500 days. So any mission that would exceed 500 days would not be doable," Semones said.

Reynolds agreed: "At this point it's completely infeasible to try to send someone to Mars unless we can get there faster or we develop better shielding for a spacecraft."

NASA is working on engines intended to cut the travel time to Mars by the 2030s, but those systems won't be ready for many years, Chris Moore, NASA's deputy director of advanced exploration systems, told CNN this year. In the meantime, Moore said engineers could try to limit travelers' exposures by designing a spacecraft in such a way that it provides more protection.

But Mars One founder Lansdorp insisted his group will get people landing on Mars by 2023.

"The risks of space travel in general are already very high, so radiation is really not our biggest concern," he said.

If that all sounds good, you can still sign up.

But remember: You can never go home again.

Legalizing pot isn't about medicine, it's about getting high

Editor's note: Howard C. Samuels, author of "Alive Again: Recovering from Alcoholism and Drug Addiction," is the founder and president of The Hills Treatment Center in Los Angeles. Watch Dr. Sanjay Gupta's documentary "WEED" at 8 p.m. ET August 11 on CNN.

(CNN) -- At first glance, my 11-year-old son seems like your everyday, all-American kid. He loves baseball and basketball, plays Xbox with his friends when they come over, and posts innocuous pictures of the family dog on his Instagram feed. Given these mundane facts about the boy, you can imagine my surprise when, while watching the news (again, seemingly from out of nowhere) he asked me, "If pot is so bad, why are they trying to legalize it?"

And, just like that, the long and involved talk my wife and I had given our children about drugs was tossed out the window.

We had explained the harmful effects of marijuana. Like cigarettes, smoking marijuana introduces tar, carbon monoxide and cancer-causing agents into your body.

Neither my wife nor I anticipated that our son would be stopped on the street by unscrupulous potheads petitioning outside of the local grocery store and being fed a line of rhetoric that went against what we were trying to teach him.

Howard C. Samuels

It turns out that potheads weren't exactly the problem; they were the symptom. Let me tell you why.

If you have a fever and you go to the doctor and he tells you that you have pneumonia, do you ask him to treat the fever, or do you ask him to treat the pneumonia? Most of us would ask him to treat the pneumonia because the pneumonia is the problem; the fever is the symptom.

It's the same way with the argument about the legalization of marijuana. I'm not interested in focusing on the symptom; I want to eradicate the problem. And the problem is that we're even considering legalizing marijuana at all.

Let's take a look at the medical marijuana issue in Los Angeles (where I live) and we can see where legalization takes us. It has been my experience that anyone can get a medical marijuana card in L.A.; all you need is $25-$100 and the ability to lie about needing it. You just make an appointment with some company, walk in and state your problem(s) and why you need a card (with no proof of medical conditions whatsoever) and you will be prescribed a card that is good for one year. It's a toothless system that isn't well-regulated.

Why are some of the people who petition for legalizing marijuana so passionate about it? Because when you smoke pot, you get loaded. You fry your brain. That's why the patients I see in my treatment center call it "getting baked." Pot is all about getting really high.

Now, I have nothing against people who smoke pot. In fact, I believe it is a crime to put someone in prison for smoking pot. Honestly, do we really need some idiot frat boy to get picked up during Mardi Gras for smoking pot and find himself locked in a cage with a monster for six months? Kevin Sabet, a former senior adviser to the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy posesa terrific point when he says that criminal processing for possession of marijuana needs improvement, but legalization is a step too far.

Marijuana supporters like to argue that marijuana is similar to alcohol. While alcohol is legal, it also accounts for tens of thousands of deaths every year in car accidents or other drinking-related misfortunes. But we can't turn the clock back on that one because it's too embedded in our society.

Opinion: Why I changed my mind on weed

Supporters of marijuana say that marijuana should be legalized because old people and women and children who have ailments like glaucoma or cancer or intractable seizures need it.

It is painful to watch people suffer. I am not against helping people. In a perfect world, a woman suffering from cancer should be able to get a prescription from her doctor, go to a pharmacy, acquire her medical marijuana, go home and recuperate from her last round of chemotherapy. But we don't live in a perfect world, and you don't need a Ph.D. to see that the spirit of that argument is being exploited by people who aren't using the marijuana for medical reasons at all; they are using it to get high.

Introducing legalized marijuana into our culture would be like using gasoline to put out a fire, because it stunts growth.

Do you know why we don't see potheads out in public? It's because they're sitting at home smoking weed and staring at their television sets or playing video games all day. Do you have any idea how many marijuana addicts I encounter at my rehab on a daily basis? They talk about wanting to be productive. But what pot does is it kills their motivation -- it destroys people's ability to go out and work and to have a career. It makes them want to do nothing but lie around all day. Is that what you want for your children? Is that what you want for your loved ones?

And how do you market marijuana? We have only just now moved into an era where cigarette smoking is commonly known to be harmful, but now advertisers have a new product to sell. Who do you think they're going to market their product to? Not you or me, because we're not stupid enough to believe the lie; we know too much. They're going to follow in the footsteps of the cigarette companies in the 1980s and market this stuff to young people.

The very idea of that sickens me. I know what marijuana does to the human mind because I started smoking weed when I was 15 years old. It literally robbed me of my motivation to participate in my own life. I was absolutely OK with sitting around all day eating cookies and watching television and getting high with my friends. But, to go out and earn a living and do something with my life? That was all stuff that I was going to do later after I came down off of the marijuana. But, then I'd smoke some more and think, "Why bother?" . . . and, eventually, I started shooting heroin. If my family had not intervened and sought professional help, I would probably still be wandering aimlessly through the streets today; searching for that elusive "perfect high."

Even if you only stay with marijuana in your repertoire of illicit drugs to abuse, it will never yield positive results. Ever.

And, I posit this to marijuana abusers everywhere: Are you really that weak? Are you really that uncomfortable in your own skin that you can't handle living your life or having real experiences without being high? Is it really impossible for you to live life without a drug? Because, if it is, it breaks my heart and I feel sorry for you. Because that's no way to live.

And my kid, he's going to know the truth about you. He's going to know that every time you approach him arguing for the legalization of marijuana, what you're really doing is asking him to vote to make it OK for you to spend the rest of your life half-baked on your sofa, too stoned to go out and play with your own kids or do the things you've always dreamed of doing. To my kid, I'm going to say that this means one less competitor on his road to a successful and fulfilling life.

And, to the potheads who are so passionate about being allowed to smoke their lives away, I have only one thing to say: Dream On.

Golden Gabby: How a mother's love drove Olympic champion Douglas

Gabby Douglas became the first African-American gymnast in Olympic history to win gold in the individual all-around event. She is also the first black woman to win the event.

The "World Sport presents: An Uneven Playing Field" documentary will first screen on CNN International on Saturday August 10. It investigates whether the drive for equality has withered a year after the 2012 Olympics. Click here for showtimes, videos and features.

(CNN) -- Behind every great woman -- is another great woman.

Gabby Douglas' success at last year's London Olympics catapulted her to fame, fortune and glory.

The first black woman of any nationality to win gold in the individual all-around gymnastics event, the teenager was hailed as the face of progress, an all-American star and the nation's newest celebrity.

But that is just the tip of a story which takes in divorce, financial peril, racism and a mother's fight to give her daughter the opportunity she so badly craved.

Fighter

Natalie Hawkins may not be as limber and supple as her teenage daughter, but nobody can doubt her strength.

"My mom has influenced me so much," Douglas told CNN's "An Uneven Playing Field" documentary.

"She's taught me how to be a fighter and I love her so much. I don't know if this journey could be possible without her by my side supporting me."

Douglas' battle to become an Olympic champion began at the age of six when she began to copy the moves of her older sister, Arielle.

Home videos show tiny Gabby grow

Gabby's new book 'Grace, Gold & Glory'

Gabby Douglas' mom on her golden future

Read: 'Female Pele' seeks fair deal for women's soccer

Inspired by watching Dominique Dawes, the first African American gymnast to ever qualify and compete in an Olympic Games, Douglas set her heart on emulating her heroine.

Along with her mother, Dawes provided another strong role model during a difficult childhood where Douglas' parents divorced and money was scarce.

"I loved Dominique Dawes," Douglas said of the 1996 Atlanta gold medalist. "We did a couple of events together and she's just a such a joy to be around. She inspired me to do bigger and better things.

"I find that funny now because I remember when I was younger and I looked up to my role models. But now the tables have turned and I'm the role model. But I love it.

"I love girls, parents, whoever it may be, coming up to me and saying, 'You inspire my daughter.' "

Struggle

The 17-year-old is aware that life will never be the same following her performances in London -- having overcome difficult circumstances, she is now a bankable star.

One of four children at home, her gymnastics was at the heart of the family, with her mom supporting her financially at every opportunity.

Even when Hawkins suffered a negative reaction to prescription medication and was forced to leave her job at a bank in 2009, she managed to find a way to support her daughter.

While Douglas' father Timothy remained a stranger for much of her childhood, Hawkins was there when it mattered, especially once her daughter became a global superstar.

Read: London 2012 changed everything and nothing

But protecting Gabby -- nicknamed "the Flying Squirrel" due to her acrobatics -- from wider attention was quite a different proposition.

In a world where social media presents an instant opportunity for people to make a judgment, Douglas found out the hard way when Twitter went berserk with criticism of her hair style.

It was an episode which infuriated Hawkins, who was left bewildered by the abuse at her daughter.

What it did do, however, was add further backing to Douglas' assertion that female gymnasts are at a far higher risk of criticism than their male counterparts every time they wander into the arena.

Strength

"Us women have to do a lot more than the men," said Douglas reflecting on the criticism. "We've got our hair and makeup to do. The men can just go out there but we have to get ready.

"When we're looking spot-on nobody even notices. They just say, 'Oh, she looks good,' but when you look horrible then everyone is like, 'Whoosh.'

"You just handle it and be yourself. You don't want to let people tear you down. You just kind of make a joke out of it, laugh at it.

"There's always the next time, always another awards show red carpet that we can look fabulous at. You've just got to learn from it and be yourself; don't focus on the negative comments. I want to just focus on the positive."

Read: Where has all the women's coverage gone?

The gold medals soon silenced those trolling Douglas online, with her achievements transforming her from a potential star to a global superstar.

My mom taught me how to be a fighter and I love her so much. I don't know if this journey could be possible without her by my side supporting me.
Gabby Douglas

But her journey to the very top was a long and often arduous route, taking Douglas away from the comforts of home and family.

From the age of eight, she trained at Excalibur Gymnastics in Virginia Beach -- a club which had provided the U.S. national team with 10 members since 1995.

So intense was her schedule that she was forced to undergo home schooling while her mother worked nights to provide extra funds for the tuition.

It was there that she began to blossom, winning national titles and competing on the international stage as she began to show glimpses of what was to come. But Douglas' relationship with her coaches began to deteriorate following a wrist injury in 2009.

Mocked

It was a tough time for the teenager, who in the past has spoken about how she was mercilessly mocked both for her appearance and her race by fellow teammates.

The combination proved too much for both Douglas and Hawkins, who decided that the future lay away from Virginia and in Des Moines, Iowa.

Gabby's new book 'Grace, Gold & Glory'

Get Real! Gabby Douglas' hair criticized

Douglas wins women's all-around gold

For the first time, Douglas would be away from the woman who had inspired her and fought for her opportunity to pursue her dream.

It was a difficult time for the youngster, who moved in with a host family in Iowa -- the Partons.

"At first I was really excited," Douglas recalled. "I was ready to take on the journey but my mom and sister came with me for a week and when they left I was just miserable.

"I was so sad leaving my family. I had a time where I said that I needed to suck it up and put on my big girl pants.

"This was my decision. I knew I had to go to the gym and work very hard, because I think in the gym I was kind of giving up a little too. I decided to push myself."

Dreams

And push she did -- both mentally and physically, Douglas began to reach the heights of which she had only dreamed years earlier.

Working under the gaze of Chinese coach Liang Chow, the man who helped Shawn Johnson win gold at Beijing in 2008, Douglas spent four to five hours in the gym every day.

It was a grueling workload, with Douglas adapting to the Chinese method of coaching rather than the technique she picked up in her formative years in Virginia.

"It is a bit different, but I love Chow's style," she said.

"He corrected my technique and the quality of my gymnastics, and him and his wife Li have shaped me up into this amazing gymnast in a year and a half."

Champion

The hard work has certainly paid off.

I was so sad leaving my family. I had a time where I said that I needed to suck it up and put on my big girl pants.
Gabby Douglas

Gold on the uneven bars at the 2010 Pan American Championships catapulted Douglas into the limelight before she took silver in the beam at the U.S. Junior nationals.

She was part of the U.S. team which won gold at the 2011 World Championships before a stellar 2012 placed her at the forefront of the national consciousness.

Four gold medals, one silver and one bronze all arrived within 12 months before Douglas produced a magnificent exhibition at the U.S. Team Trials to win the all-around competition.

Alongside Jordyn Wieber, Aly Raisman, McKayla Maroney and Kyla Ross, Douglas helped the U.S. women's team win gold in London -- the first time the nation had triumphed in female gymnastics since that team including Dawes in 1996.

The team, dubbed the "Fierce Five," brought a zest and flair to the Games which captured the imagination of gymnastics fans not just in London but across the world.

"We had this girl power," Douglas recalls. "We just said, 'Let's be sassy,' and we bonded really well, meshed together and it was amazing.

"I think people should definitely be paying attention to women's sport because we can do a lot of things.

"We're very powerful, strong minded and whenever we want something, we go out there and fight. I definitely think people should pay more attention."

Celebrity

Douglas has had no shortage of attention following those triumphs.

I want to help girls believe in themselves and I want them to know that anything is possible if you set your mind to it
Gabby Douglas

Now she is one of the most instantly recognizable figures in U.S. sport, hosting awards nights, speaking at events for kids and modeling on the catwalk.

Sponsors have quickly realized the value of Douglas' success -- Kelloggs, Nintendo and Procter & Gamble are among the firms to have signed deals with her.

"It's very fun," said Douglas about her new-found lifestyle in front of the camera. "I love doing photo shoots and commercials, it's really fun. They like to keep it exciting with a lot of energy. I have a blast doing all this stuff.

"But with the whole fame thing, I just try to take it one step at a time. It can be difficult to handle everything at once with celebrity, the gym and school.

"So when I'm at school I think about school, when I'm at the gym I think about the gym and when I'm outside and traveling I think about that. I don't like to cram myself with everything."

Role model

Young she might be, but Douglas is wise beyond her years. Aware of her influence on her peers and younger following, she is as keen as ever to inspire those who seek to replicate her success.

Whether it be by hosting kids' awards, motivational speaking or just taking time to sign autographs, this is one woman who is desperate to make a difference.

"I have this platform and I love using it," she added. "Some girls or moms come up to me and say, 'You inspire my daughter,' or 'Gabby, you've inspired me to do great things.'

"I just want to help them believe in themselves and I want them to know that anything is possible if you set your mind to it."

Obama's foreign policy in a tailspin

Editor's note: Frida Ghitis is a world affairs columnist for The Miami Herald and World Politics Review. A former CNN producer and correspondent, she is the author of "The End of Revolution: A Changing World in the Age of Live Television." Follow her on Twitter: @FridaGColumns.

(CNN) -- America's foreign policy has gone into a tailspin. Almost every major initiative from the Obama administration has run into sharp, sometimes embarrassing, reverses. The U.S. looks weak and confused on the global stage.

This might come as happy news to some opponents of the administration who enjoy seeing Barack Obama fail, but it shouldn't.

America's failure in international strategy is a disaster-in-the-making for its allies and for the people who see the U.S. model of liberal democracy as one worth emulating in their own nations.

Frida Ghitis

There is no question that Obama was dealt a difficult hand.

He came to office after America's international standing was battered by the unpopular Iraq war launched by George W. Bush. Since then, countless events outside of Washington's control have presented the White House with options ranging in many cases from bad to worse, and problems that had no good solution.

Still, trying to count the ways in which foreign policy has gone badly for Obama makes for a stunningly long list.

Relations with Russia have fallen off a cliff, making the theatrical "reset" of 2009 look, frankly, cringe-worthy. No, it's not all Obama's fault. Putin has sought to belittle the U.S. and humiliate Obama personally, a man he reportedly despises, as part of his campaign to build up his authoritarian rule at home. Obama just canceled a summit meeting after Putin -- incredibly, posing as the great defender of freedom -- granted asylum to NSA leaker Edward Snowden despite the very public pleas from Washington, which only made the U.S. look more powerless.

You might confuse the times with the old Cold War days, but back then the U.S. looked mighty -- one of two awe-inspiring superpowers. The U.S. doesn't exactly inspire awe anymore.

Obama dramatically warned Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, as he slaughtered his people by the thousands, that if he used chemical or biological weapons, he would cross a "red line." The line was crossed and not much happened. Syria is crumbling, self-destructing in a civil war that I, for one, believe could have turned out quite differently if Washington had offered material and diplomatic support for moderates in the opposition. Fears that the opposition would be dominated by extremists became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Syria's war has sucked in Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah militia, taking Lebanon to the edge of disaster and making Iran a major player in a war for the survival of the anti-American Shiite axis -- Iran-Syria-Hezbollah -- while the U.S., to all appearances, stands helplessly on the sidelines.

But it is Egypt where America's foreign policy fiasco is most visible.

It was in Cairo in 2009, where the newly elected Obama, still reflecting the glow of sky-high expectations, launched his campaign to repair relations with the so-called "Muslim World."

His landmark "New Beginning" speech in Egypt was cited by the committee that awarded Obama the Nobel Peace prize.

Nobody knew what would happen in Cairo's Tahrir Square a few years later. But today, the same people who yearned for democracy despise Washington. When Egyptians elected a Muslim Brotherhood president, Washington tried to act respectfully, but it showed a degree of deference to the Muslim Brotherhood that ignored the ways in which the group violated not only Egyptians' but America's own standards of decency and rule of law.

As tensions in Egypt grow between Islamists on one side and the military and anti-Islamists on the other, there is one sentiment shared by all: Both sides feel betrayed by Washington.

Egypt's most powerful man, Gen. Abdel Fatah al-Sissi, said, "You [the U.S.] left the Egyptians; you turned your back on the Egyptians, and they won't forget that."

The awkward dance around whether to call Egypt's overthrow of President Mohamed Morsy a coup made Washington look dishonest and incompetent, especially when Secretary of State John Kerry accidentally went off script during an interview in Pakistan, saying the military was "restoring democracy."

Just as the Arab uprisings were unfolding, the U.S. announced a major new policy, the "pivot" to Asia, with new attention to China's rising power. But the pivot proved premature. The Middle East demanded American attention with increasing urgency.

Then there's al Qaeda, all but given up for dead, now apparently resurrected. More than a dozen U.S. embassies stand shuttered across the Middle East and Africa, the world's last remaining superpower symbolically cowering behind locked gates.

The scare came from what could be counted as a victory for U.S. intelligence, reportedly the result of communications surveillance. And yet, one wonders whether telling the world that the U.S. successfully listened in on al Qaeda's leaders isn't an absurd mistake. But Washington is on the defensive, trying to explain to the world that the surveillance is still necessary.

Everyone, it seems, is angry at the U.S. after Snowden's revelations of NSA spying. Even Germany, one of America's closest friends, cannot hide its irritation. Bolivia is furious after the presidential plane was forced to land on suspicions that Snowden was aboard.

America's diplomatic disaster is the result of ham-handed efforts to please all sides, compounded by a failure to explain America's position in a coherent way. In fact, there is no driving idea behind the country's foreign policy. What does America stand for in the world today, can anyone answer that question?

The problem, ironically, is tailor-made for none other than President Obama. Although there is no denying that he bears the brunt of the responsibility for the problem, he is someone who has shown a talent for distilling overarching ideas from competing narratives.

It is time for a real reset, for a pivot.

It is time for Obama to spend some time thinking about what America stands for, what its goals are and then explain it in a clear and credible way. Even if we disagree with his conclusions, at least there will be a North Star guiding his policies.

Obama's supporters and his critics should hope he can pull America forward.