The Rundown, 11/12

Get ready, Asia, President Obama is headed your way. The president will leave the White House for Tokyo, Japan today to kick off his big trip that will include stops in Singapore, Shanghai, Beijing, and Seoul, and he won't be back until a week from today.

On the way, he'll stop off in Alaska to address U.S. troops stationed at Elmendorf Air Force Base (not sure if that's any relation to the CBO chief). He'll get to Tokyo tomorrow.

Neither houses of Congress will be in session, as everyone is apparently still resting from health care and Veterans Day.

The weekly total of unemployment insurance claims will be released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which will either (if they're down) give Democrats a small bullet point to raise when talking about the economy, or, if they're up...well, they don't have to talk about that then.

It'll be a big day for lawyers, as the American Bar Association kicks off its fall 2009 antitrust forum at the National Press Club and its 19th annual review of national security law in Washington, DC, while the Federalist Society kicks off its 2009 National Lawyers Convention, also in DC. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), a former prosecutor and star of the Sonia Sotomayor confirmation hearings, will speak.

And, if you're interested in the benefits and challenges of international cooperation in space, it's your lucky day: it's the first day of a two-day forum on that very topic, hosted in DC by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the Space Foundation, and The Chinese Society of Astronauts.