There’ll be a lot more "out of office" emails in Washington this week as key members of the Obama administration are on trips in South Asia, Asia and the Arabian peninsula. Defense Secretary Robert Gates is in China today and will travel to South Korea and Japan later in the week. Vice President Joe Biden has just left Afghanistan and is in Pakistan today; and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is in Qatar, continuing her tour of Arab states after her surprise trip to Yemen yesterday. What do these three top officials hope to accomplish abroad, and what challenges do they face?

Vice President Joe Biden spoke in Israel this morning in a speech that was billed as one similar to President Obama's address to the Muslim world while in Cairo last year. But Biden's visit to Israel wasn't without incident.

It's our weekly look at the news to watch out for with Marcus Mabry, international business editor for The New York Times, and Rob Watson, BBC political correspondent.

Takeaway Washington correspondent Todd Zwillich caught up with Vice President Joe Biden yesterday. Biden, who was traveling his old stomping grounds on Capitol Hill to swear in Senator Scott Brown, had some interesting things to say about the filibuster rule in the Senate.

Over the last two years, Vice President Joe Biden has gone from powerful senator to presidential contender to vice president.  As part of that ascension, he has given up some things to gain others, and as James Traub reports in this weekend's New York Times magazine, Biden is creating a job that holds considerable power in the nation's domestic and foreign agendas.

[WEB EXTRA] Listen to more from our interview with James Traub:

Marcus Mabry, international business editor for our partner, The New York Times, and Jonathan Marcus, diplomatic correspondent for our partner, the BBC, look at the week ahead, primarily at the violence in central Asia. They will also peek ahead at what's going to happen with Vice President Joe Biden's visit to Eastern Europe, and examine the latest on Afghanistan's election controversy and how that will affect the White House's decision on troop levels there. All that and how the latest bombings in Iran affect ongoing meetings about their nuclear program.

Vice President Joe Biden travels to Lebanon today to meet with Lebanese President Michel Suleiman in Beirut. The meeting is a show of U.S. support for a leader facing tough elections in two weeks. Lebanon's militant Shiite group Hezbollah is expected to make electoral gains. This is the second visit to Lebanon by an American official. (Secretary of State Clinton was there a few weeks ago.) Why is Washington so concerned about this Lebanese vote? The Takeaway turns to Rami Khouri, Director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut. He is also the editor-at-large for The Daily Star newspaper in Beirut.