CNN 2010-12-09

Now that is how you get a show！ Poppin'! Thank you gentlemen very much. Welcome, all of you, to a new week of CNN Student News! I'm Carl Azuz, and we thank all our viewers from all over the world for tuning 1 in.

First Friday of every month, the U.S. government usually announces the current unemployment rate. Bad news: This past Friday's announcement came as a surprise; the rate went up to 9.8 percent. It had been 9.6 percent for several months. Some experts were predicting it would stay the same. More than 15 million Americans looking for work, not good news. But there are some people who are actually encouraged by the increase. The unemployment rate only counts people who are actively 2 looking for jobs. So if the rate goes up, it could mean that Americans who'd stopped looking think they have a better chance of finding work, so they're back on the job hunt. Still, analysts 3 say it is disappointing the overall job market hasn't gotten better.

President Obama is back in Washington after a trip to Afghanistan. He made a surprise visit there on Friday, meeting with thousands of U.S. troops. This is his second trip to Afghanistan since he became president. Dan Lothian has more on the president's time in Afghanistan and why it didn't go exactly as planned.

It was a secret trip the White House says was in the works for more than a month; flying into Bagram Air Base for a little more than four hours to salute 4 the men and women who are carrying out the administration's stepped-up strategy in Afghanistan.

This part of the world is the center of a global effort where we are going to disrupt and dismantle 5 and defeat al Qaeda and its extremist allies, and that's why you're here.

But ahead of a mid-December review, what is being called a comprehensive assessment 6 to possibly tweak the president's policy there, challenges remain. There's rampant 7 corruption 9 in the Afghan government, highlighted by leaked state department cables in which Ambassador Carl Eikenberry is said to be concerned about "how to fight corruption when key government officials are themselves corrupt 8." And then there is the continued Taliban threat.

You're going on the offense 10. Tired of playing defense 11. Targeting their leaders. Pushing them out of their strongholds.

Mr. Obama had planned on flying to Kabul to meet with President Hamid Karzai and visit U.S. embassy employees. But a storm rolled in with high winds, dust and low cloud cover, so his helicopter trip was canceled, and the Karzai meeting became a 15-minute phone call. The president did visit wounded troops at a base hospital, awarding five Purple Hearts, and met with members of the 101st Airborne Division who lost six members in a deadly attack earlier this week.

There are going to be difficult days ahead. Progress comes at a high price.

Thirteen hundred U.S. troops have been killed in Afghanistan since the war began. This year was especially deadly. The Obama administration plans to start withdrawing troops from Afghanistan in July 2011, and a stable, reliable government there is key to meeting that deadline.