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Hillary Clinton will Present the International Women Corage Awards

The Secretary of State will present the International Women of Courage Awards March 10 in Washington, D.C. Tonic talks to one of the inspiring, life-risking honorees. Simply put: Courage personified.

Being courageous is an admirable trait. It’s something that we all aspire to, and encourage in others. But courage, like beauty, is often in the eye of the beholder. To some, deciding to become a parent is the largest act of courage they will ever face. Others may have to muster up strength to battle domestic abuse. Some fight the morning simply to go to a job they hate each and every day. Still others face danger, imprisonment, and even death for causes they believe in, yet continue to be fearless. In all cases, it is determination, bravery, and a strong sense of spirit that pull us through.

This week, in conjunction with National Women’s History Month, ten women will be acknowledged for being fearless, courageous, and relentless when it comes to advocating women’s rights and social justice. Since 2007, the International Women of Courage Award is the Department of State’s only award recognizing women leaders around the world. A ceremony will be held on March 10 when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton presents the awards to the honorees.

The women hail from many different countries, all struggling with rampant humanitarian injustices. “These ten women have overcome personal adversity, threats, arrest, and assault to dedicate themselves to activism for human rights,” said Melanne Verveer, Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues in a press release. “From striving to give more voice to politically underrepresented women in Afghanistan to documenting human rights abuses in Zimbabwe, these heroic individuals have made it their life’s work to increase freedom and equality in the world.”

One of the honorees, Jestina Mukoko, Executive Director of the Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP) and broadcaster for the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation, is determined to accurately document the human rights abuses in her country and expose them to the international community. The ZPP reports include violence against women and politically-biased food distribution. During the deep political turmoil of the 2008 election, Mukoko was arrested, tortured, and forced to confess to an alleged terrorist plot. As her case became well-known, villagers concerned themselves with the status of Mukoko’s situation. She has brought much awareness to the injustices flourishing in the country. Her case is a huge marker in the fight against violence and government oppression. She bravely leads the way in defending human rights in one of the world’s most oppressive countries.

Tonic: Why do you feel it is important to document human rights abuses in your country?

Mukoko: At some stage in the future people will be called to account for their actions. The victims and the perpetrators will have an opportunity to deal with it in their conscience.

Tonic: After your arrest, how did you find the strength to continue to stand up for what you believe in?

Mukoko: When that happened it was a harrowing experience and when I found out about the networks and campaigns on my side, I realized there is a story. Going through that made me understand what it means to be abducted, what it means to be imprisoned for what you did not do. I met a lot of people in a similar situation and I began to understand how it helps to talk to someone else, and how talking can help other people.

The Definition of Courage

“One isn’t necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can’t be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.”- Maya Angelou

Webster’s defines courage as mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty. How come some people seem born to exemplify courageousness in the most powerful sense of the word, while others become more cautious and fearful in the face of adversity?

Tonic: Do you believe some people are naturally more courageous than others or is it a learned trait for everyone?

Mukoko: I believe it is something that happens because we are working with other people. We could not be courageous without other courageous people around us. I am humbled because I work through a network of very courageous people.

Tonic: What motivates you to get out of bed each morning to face another day?

Mukoko: A few years back I was taking care of my growing son, when his father died. I prayed, “Lord, keep me so I can look after this young man.” At 19, he is now beginning to do his own work and there is still a lot happening in my country. I am able to contribute and it will make a difference one day.

Women’s History Month

March is Women’s History Month, and this year happens to be the 30^th anniversary. The theme for 2010 is “Writing Women Back into History.” So often our history books revolve around accomplishments by men. The National Women’s History Project began in the 80s when a mere 3 percent of the text in school books made note of women’s accomplishments, and completely neglected the strides made by minority women or those in male-dominated fields such as math and science.

Fortunately, women have come a long way. The role of the female is being recognized as a vital part in growing a nation’s economy and communities. A recent report by Deloitte and Forbes Insights shows how women are slowly, but surely, becoming more prominent in government, and, therefore, influencing more active female roles in the private sector. In the report, Ambassador Amina Chawahir Mohamed of Kenya said, “If you educate a man, you educate an individual. If you educate a women, you educate a community.”

Tonic: Has there been a woman, from the past or present, who has inspired you?

Mukoko: My mother has given me inspiration. My father died when I was 5 and my mother was able to mold me into the woman I am today. I hope the Lord can give her many more days.

Tonic: Your work will have an effect lasting much longer than our lifetime. What would you say to encourage other women to fight tirelessly for what they believe in?

Where I come from that is not easy. It means putting your life at risk. You have to believe there will be a realization in the future that what you are fighting for will be recognized and respected. Do not compromise what you believe in for anything.

The Other Award Recipients

The other award winners include: Shukria Asil (Afghanistan) who works to advance the government’s responsiveness to women; Colonel Shafiqa Quraishi (Afghanistan), Director of Gender, Human, and Child Rights, recruits women to work in the Ministry of the Interior and works to increase benefits to women in the workforce, such as childcare, health care, and security; Androula Henriques (Cyprus) fights the buying and selling of women in the sex trade, has developed an anti-trafficking network, and advocates for institutional change; Sonia Pierre (Dominican Republic) aims to end anti-Haitian discrimination; Shadi Sadr (Iran) advocates women’s legal rights and, as a lawyer herself, has successfully overturned the prosecution of many women sentenced to execution; Ann Njogu (Kenya) is a leader in Kenya’s constitutional reform and collected data used to launch an investigation into government corruption; Dr. Lee Ae-Ran (Republic of Korea) advocates for human rights in North Korea and provides aid to North Korean refugees; Jansila Majeed (Sri Lanka) focuses on minority and women’s rights as well as those of internally displaced persons; Sister Marie Claude Naddaf (Syria) is working to advance social services for women, especially those in the face of domestic violence, homelessness, or trafficking.

Thanks Tonic.

Hillary Clinton Pledged Help to Central America for Fight on Drugs

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Friday pledged more U.S. help for Central America’s fight against drug cartels, saying the United States was part of the problem as trafficking and violence spread.

“We are going to forge an even closer partnership in the months and years ahead,” Clinton told a news conference in Guatemala, the last stop on a five-day Latin America tour.

“We are well aware that Central America is between the countries of Mexico and Colombia that are waging their own very intense efforts against the criminal cartels.”

Clinton’s stop in Guatemala featured talks with regional leaders on both the drug problem and Honduras, which is struggling to move beyond last year’s coup.

Mexico’s powerful drug cartels have moved deep into Guatemalan territory in the past few years as a Mexican army crackdown has pushed them to seek new smuggling routes between South America and the United States.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration reckons three-quarters of South American cocaine going north passes through Central America, smuggled by cartels that earn some $40 billion per year.

Clinton said the United States must take some responsibility

for Latin America’s drug wars because the huge U.S. domestic drug demand helps to drive the market.

“We know that we’re part of the problem,” she said. “That’s an admission that we have been willing to make this past year and it’s one of the reasons why we feel so strongly about trying to help countries like Guatemala fight this terrible criminal scourge.”

Traffickers traditionally moved cocaine through Central America by plane or boat but are increasingly developing land-based operations in countries such as Guatemala and Costa Rica, leading to rising rates of local drug violence and addiction.

Central American leaders have complained that their region is increasingly at risk in the drug wars and is not given enough assistance under the 2007 U.S. Merida initiative, which has authorized some $1.12 billion in help since 2008, mostly for Mexico.

“We are convinced that the fight against narco-trafficking and organized crime should be regional,” Guatamalan President Alvaro Colom said at the news conference. “We have seen an invasion by the Mexican cartels, we have seen a total invasion of narco-trafficking.

“The cartels move from one place to the next but its our society that is suffering.”

Clinton did not provide specifics of the new U.S. help on Friday but has used her visit to reassure Central American governments that they would see more U.S. assistance on things such as maritime security, police and judicial capacity, and anti-corruption efforts.

Guatemala has made several high-profile arrests in recent weeks, including those of the national police chief and anti-drug czar, both charged in connection with the theft of cocaine and guns from a drug gang warehouse last year.

Thanks Reuters.

Hillary Clinton Uses Telephone Diplomacy with Northern Ireland

Hillary Clinton has been conducting telephone diplomacy with Northern Ireland politicians ahead of Tuesday’s vote on the devolution of justice.

The United States Secretary of State spent 15 minutes talking with Ulster Unionist leader Sir Reg Empey, looking for an update on his party’s position.

The UUP have said they will oppose the transfer of justice powers.

Ulster Unionist sources said Mrs Clinton did not try to strong-arm them into changing their position.

Ulster Unionists are to make a final decision on how they will vote on Monday night.

The UUP has been refusing to endorse the Hillsborough Agreement, insisting that matters such as education, parading and “the dysfunctional nature of the current Executive” must be addressed.

Mrs Clinton also spent 15 minutes talking to the Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness.

Thanks BBC.

Hillary Clinton in Costa Rica for Economic Development Meeting

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is in Costa Rica for a meeting of foreign ministers focused on economic development in the Americas.

Clinton will take part in Thursday’s Pathways to Prosperity conference with officials from more than a dozen Latin American nations, including Peru, Honduras and Guatemala.

She is scheduled to meet with female entrepreneurs just before the gathering, which is being held in the Costa Rican capital, San Jose.

Later in the day, Secretary Clinton is expected to hold talks with outgoing Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, and with President-elect Laura Chinchilla. She arrived in Costa Rica early Thursday as part of a six-nation tour of Latin America, which has already taken her to Uruguay, Argentina, earthquake-ravaged Chile and Brazil.
 
Clinton will wrap up her travels in Guatemala before returning to the United States at the end of the week.

On Wednesday, the top U.S. diplomat met with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.  She defended the Obama administration’s foreign policy approach, saying it is working in many places as the president reaches out to different countries.

Secretary Clinton noted the United States would like to have a positive relationship with Venezuela, but said under the current circumstances, it is difficult.    

She spoke of what she called “rhetoric” and “threats” coming from Venezuela, where she said President Hugo Chavez has been trying to stifle the press and is taking over companies and their assets.  President Chavez has been a long-time critic of the United States.

Thanks VOA News.

Hillary Clinton Says Iran Won’t Negotiate Before Sanctions are Imposed

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, visiting Brazil to enlist support for tougher United Nations Security Council penalties on Iran over its suspected nuclear weapons program, said the U.S. believes Iran will only negotiate after sanctions are imposed.

“Once the international community speaks in unison around a resolution, then the Iranians will talk and begin to negotiate,” Clinton said during a press conference today in Brasilia after talks with Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim. “We want to get to negotiations; we just think that the best path is through the Security Council.”

Clinton said that while Brazil and the U.S. differ over whether sanctions are the best approach, both countries “do not want to see Iran become a nuclear weapons country.”

Brazil, which holds a temporary voting seat on the UN Security Council, backs Iran’s claim that its nuclear program is for energy and medical purposes, and has resisted a U.S. and European push to impose new penalties to squeeze Iranian commercial and financial transactions as a means to force Iran to the negotiating table.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has cultivated trade and diplomatic ties with Iran, and is scheduled to visit Tehran in May.

Lula today reiterated his resistance to sanctions, telling reporters, “it’s not prudent to put Iran against a wall.” He said he would have “frank” talks with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad over Iran’s enrichment of uranium, and repeated that Iran has a right to a peaceful nuclear program.

Thanks Business Week.

Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner ask Hillary Clinton for Help!

Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner said she asked U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to assist in facilitating talks with the U.K. over the Falkland Islands.

Fernandez made the comments today in Buenos Aires during a meeting with Clinton. Argentina, which claims sovereignty over the islands that U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher went to war to defend in 1982, summoned U.K. embassy officials on Feb. 2 to protest the imminent start of drilling by Falkland Oil & Gas Ltd.

Thanks Business Week.

Hillary Clinton Arrives in Uruguay and Plans on Visiting Chile, Tuesday

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton landed Monday in Montevideo, Uruguay, the first stop in a six-nation Latin American tour that will take her to quake-ravaged Chile on Tuesday.

Clinton attended the inauguration of President Jose Mujica, a former member of a radical guerrilla group who spent 14 years in prison. He was released in 1985 when democracy was restored to Uruguay after a 17-year dictatorship.

Mujica was minister of livestock and agriculture from 2005 to 2008 and a senator until his election to the presidency in November.

Clinton is expected to travel next to Buenos Aires, Argentina, and meet with Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo.

The U.S. secretary of state is expected to arrive in Santiago, Chile, on Tuesday, two days after her department “strongly” urged U.S. citizens to avoid tourism and nonessential travel to the South American nation and three days after an 8.8-magnitude earthquake killed more than 700 people.

On Sunday, the Chilean government requested medical and communication assistance from the United States. The State Department “is working closely with the U.S. military, the Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance to identify appropriate medical resources and ensure their delivery as soon as possible,” the department said Sunday in a written statement.

The U.S. military and USAID are trying to help Chilean communications in the form of satellite phones, it said.

The Latin American tour was scheduled prior to the quake, and Clinton is expected to bid farewell to Chile’s president, Michelle Bachelet, who is leaving with high approval ratings for having steered the country through the global economic downturn and promoted progressive social reforms. Clinton will also meet with conservative billionaire businessman Sebastian Pinera, who is to assume the office on March 11.

Also on Clinton’s itinerary are Brazil, Costa Rica and Guatemala.

Brazil, which will hold presidential elections in October, has one of the world’s largest economies and will host the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Summer Olympics.

There, Clinton is expected to talk with President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva about his planned trip to Iran, which the United States and other nations believe has undertaken a program to build nuclear weapons, an assertion Iran denies.

In Costa Rica, which this month elected its first woman to the nation’s top job, Clinton will meet separately with President Oscar Arias and President-elect Laura Chinchilla, who takes office in May.

She also will attend Pathways for Prosperity, a meeting of hemispheric officials. The initiative includes such things as microcredit and ways in which women can be empowered, a State Department spokesman told reporters last Friday.

“It all fits in within the theme of trying to look for ways to enhance competitiveness, with a significant component, too, of encouraging private-public partnerships in the search for greater competitiveness and to address issues of social inclusion,” said Arturo Valenzuela, U.S. assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs. “Issues like corporate social responsibility, for example, are also on the table.”

Clinton’s final stop is Guatemala, a Central American nation beset by poverty and high crime. She will meet with Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom and leaders of other Central American countries and the Dominican Republic before returning to Washington.

Thanks CNN.

Hillary Clinton will Push for New Sanctions against Iran

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will push for new sanctions on Iran’s nuclear program in Brazil as part of a five-country trip to Latin America.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton undertakes a “we haven’t forgotten you” swing through Latin America this week that aims to bolster the Obama administration’s profile in the region, with an agenda ranging from democracy and security to Iran.

Iran? One of Secretary Clinton’s stops is Brazil, which currently holds a rotating seat on the United Nations Security Council, where the US is pressing for adoption of a new round of sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program.

Brazil aspires to world-power status and to a permanent seat on an expanded Security Council, but it also says it opposes international measures against Iran. So Clinton will emphasize the internationalist perspective that a nuclear Iran would destabilize a volatile region, and remind the Brazilians that (in the US view) if they want to be a world power, they need to think and act like one.

Stable democracies highlighted

More broadly, Clinton will use her five-country trip to highlight how the Western Hemisphere is almost uniformly a region of stable democracies facing common challenges, aides say. On her week-long trip, Clinton is scheduled to visit Chile, Uruguay, and Costa Rica, all of which recently elected new presidents.

(Because of the massive earthquake Saturday, it was unclear Sunday if Clinton would be able to visit Chile Tuesday as planned. In a statement Clinton said, “The United States stands ready to provide necessary assistance to Chile in the days and weeks ahead and is coordinating closely with senior Chilean officials on the content and timing of such support.”)

While Uruguay elected a leader from the left, Chileans opted to shift their presidency from the left to the right. For its part, Costa Rica elected its first woman president.

Clinton will “underscore US support for representative democracy in the region, regardless of whether elected leaders come from the left … or from the right,” says Peter DeShazo, director of the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

Mr. DeShazo notes that the Obama administration started off professing a deep commitment to the region, backing up words with high-profile visits.

President Obama visited Mexico and attended a hemispheric summit in Trinidad early in his presidency.

But – as often happens – other international and domestic issues crowded out Latin America, so Clinton is out to reconfirm the commitment, DeShazo says.

Clinton’s trip comes a week after Latin American and Caribbean countries decided to create a new regional bloc to include Cuba (barred as a dictatorship from the Organization of American States) but closed to the US and Canada.

Officials in Washington insist the US welcomes the new organization focused on southern interests.

Repairing the damage over Honduras

Still, the secretary of State’s trip also appears to be designed in part to repair the damage the US relationship with the region sustained over Washington’s handling of last year’s coup in Honduras and its aftermath. Two of Clinton’s stops will be in Central America, where she will press for Honduras’s reinsertion into the hemispheric community and for the region to overcome differences over Honduras’s new post-coup government, State Department officials say.

“We see the outcome in Honduras is a very successful case of standing for a very fundamental principle … that you cannot tolerate a coup d’etat in a country,” said Arturo Valenzuela, assistant secretary of State for Western Hemisphere affairs, in a briefing for reporters on Clinton’s trip Friday.

“But at the same time, a solution had to be found to Honduras,” he added, noting that the “international community” has recognized the recent election of President Porfirio Lobo, whom voters chose in January to replace the ousted Manuel Zelaya. “We need to work to try to see how we can engage it back in.”

(Monitor report: “Could Honduras crisis prompt a power grab in Nicaragua?”)

Mr. Valenzuela also addressed Washington’s interest in discussing Iran with Brazil, saying, “What we want to try to tell the Brazilians is yes, if you have engagement with Iran, we’d really want to encourage you and urge you to in fact use that engagement in a way that you can push the Iranians … to meet their fundamental international obligations.”

Putting the point a bit more bluntly, Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs Phillip Crowley told reporters a day earlier, “Brazil is an emerging power with a growing influence in the region and around the world, and we believe that with that influence comes responsibility. And we will be talking to Brazil about the way forward on Iran.”

Thanks Christian Science Moniter.

Hillary Clinton’s Next Stop: Latin America!

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will travel to Uruguay, Chile, Brazil, Costa Rica and Guatemala from February 28 – March 5, 2010.

In Uruguay, Secretary Clinton will be attending President Mujica’s inauguration on March 1. She will travel to Santiago where she will meet with President Bachelet and President-elect Piñera. On March 3, Secretary Clinton will be meeting with President Lula and Foreign Minister Amorim in Brasilia. In Costa Rica on March 4, Secretary Clinton will be a keynote speaker at the Pathways to Prosperity in the Americas Ministerial Meeting and will meet separately with President Oscar Arias and President-elect Laura Chinchilla. In Guatemala, we are working to schedule a meeting with leaders of Central American countries and the Dominican Republic to discuss issues of mutual interest. The Secretary will also meet with President Álvaro Colom during her visit to Guatemala.

Hillary Clinton Calls on Russia to Take Part in Missile Defense

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton yesterday urged Russia to take part in a NATO plan for European missile defense, Bloomberg reported (see GSN, Feb. 22).

“While Russia faces challenges to its security, NATO is not among them,” Clinton said in Washington. “We want a cooperative NATO-Russia relationship that produces concrete results and draws NATO and Russia closer.”

“Just as Russia is an important partner in efforts to prevent nuclear proliferation, so should it be in missile defense,” she said.

Clinton’s remarks preceded a meeting today by NATO envoys on updating the “strategic concept” undergirding the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which was established 51 years ago and involves Canada, European nations and the United States.

Moscow has been vocal in its opposition to inclusion of former Soviet republics such as Georgia in the alliance, and has also turned a wary eye toward Western missile defense programs.

In recent weeks, Moscow has criticized plans by the Obama administration to locate missile shield systems in Romania and other Eastern European states as a defense against Iranian short- and medium-range missiles.

This was not the first time Clinton called on Moscow to take part in missile defense talks for Europe. She made similar comments in Paris last month.

Yesterday, the top U.S. diplomat said she could envision Russia at some point joining NATO. “I can imagine it but I’m not sure the Russians can imagine it,” Clinton said.

Terrorism and the spread of nuclear weapons are the “key challenges” facing the alliance, the secretary said.

“The danger of a nuclear attack from a nonstate actor has increased,” Clinton said. She said efforts by Iran and North Korea to produce better missiles were “reviving the specter of an interstate nuclear attack.” (Indira Lakshmanan, Bloomberg/Business Week, Feb. 23).

Clinton added that while Washington has “real differences” with Moscow on several issues, the Obama administration is resolved to collaborate with the Kremlin on shared areas of interest, Reuters reported.

“We want a cooperative NATO-Russia relationship that produces concrete results,” Clinton said.

Thanks NTI.

Hillary Clinton Stop the Sarah Palin Express?

The phenomenon that is Sarah Palin seems to be gathering momentum like a runaway train. Mortified Democrats hope she’s a runaway train wreck. But Palin’s fanatical supporters are convinced she is simply getting to the White House that much faster.

She has made enough mind-boggling public gaffes to sink twenty careers – and grown stronger. Democrats look hopefully to the latest polls, which suggest that, while she may be winning the popularity contest, voters are losing confidence in her as presidential material. Even so, she remains a genuinely threat to the Obama administration and Democratic candidates across the country. It was Palin, after all, who single-handedly derailed Obama’s health-care reform bill after her “death panel” accusation. It was also Palin who single-handedly politicized the global warming debate, by pointing to emails she claimed proved the whole thing was a liberal conspiracy in which Democrats somehow played a role. Her relentless mocking of Obama initiatives has emboldened Republican and conservative opposition, which noticed that “Obama bashing” is an effective political tool for winning support without offering any actual alternative solutions.

As a result, for Democrats, defusing this ticking political time bomb is Priority Number One. However, the question remains as to the best person to do this. Joe Biden has a tendency to put his foot in his mouth and could easily do more harm than good. Obama himself cannot afford to attack her directly – that would give her too much credibility. He is also a Harvard Law School graduate and, worse, like Biden, he is man. Palin would take every opportunity to construe whatever criticism he makes of her as evidence of his intellectual elitism and misogynistic streak.

The job falls, therefore, to a woman, and the only woman in the current political arena more powerful than the speeding locomotive that is Sarah Palin…is Hillary Clinton. A criticism of Palin that might sound mean-spirited from Obama would be a clean smack-down from Hillary. As a speaker, when tightly scripted, Palin is a charmer, but her tight skirt and high heels are no match for Clinton’s pantsuit and comfortable walking shoes.

The Hurt Locker
And when it comes to a fight, Hillary can pack a wallop. She is a hardened political soldier who has crawled through the blood and gore of the Washington battlefield to emerge as the most powerful woman in the United States – if not the world. That is why, during her campaign for the Democratic nomination, her “take no prisoner” mentality made her a formidable rival for Obama. Although she lost, she forced him to acknowledge her 18-million-voter support base. He would not be President today if she had not endorsed him. And she is Secretary of State because of that.

And Obama would be doing Hillary a favor. She isn’t exactly thrilled that her job takes her away from the front line of national affairs, often to the point where Americans forget she is still around. She would therefore relish an opportunity to get back in the game and grab some headlines again. She has nothing to lose and everything to gain. If she fails, she simply fades back into her job and moves on with her life. If she successfully neutralizes Palin, it will practically guarantee her nomination as the Democratic Presidential candidate for 2016. Don’t rule it out. She is not one to go gently into that good night.

Palin’s glass jaw is that she can criticize others, but she does not take criticism well. In the political arena, Hillary can take a world of hurting and come back at you with a ferocity that leaves you breathless.

Thanks Huffington Post.

Hillary Clinton Praises Alexander Haig for Contributions

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is praising one of her predecessors, Alexander Haig, who died on Saturday.

Hillary Clinton BURST out Laughing at Prospect of Sarah Palin as President (Video)

When Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was asked by a student at a press conference in Saudi Arabia about her thoughts on a Sarah Palin presidency, the former first lady erupted in laughter.

During the 2008 presidential campaign I often ridiculed Hillary Clinton for her diabolical cackle, but this time her laughter was sweet music to my ears.

The prospect of Sarah Palin in the White House should reduce intelligent persons to laughter or tears. When Clinton was on the campaign trail against my candidate, Barack Obama, I rarely laughed along with her. But this time I joined her infectious laughter.

God Bless America! God Bless Hillary Clinton! God protect us from Sarah Palin!

Thanks News Blaze.

Hillary Clinton’s Plane was Grounded and Picked up by Gen. David Petraeus Outranking Him

Hillary Clinton’s plane was grounded in Saudi Arabia Tuesday, forcing the secretary of state to hitch a flight on Gen. David Petraeus’ ride, outranking him in the process.

Hillary Clinton: “Iran Pursuing Nuclear Arms.”

Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, has said Iran has left the international community little choice but to impose harsh penalties against it over its controversial nuclear programme.

Speaking at a US-Islamic World Forum in Doha, Qatar on Sunday, Clinton said there was mounting evidence that Iran was pursuing a nuclear weapon.

“The evidence is accumulating that that’s exactly what they are trying to do,” she said.

“Iran has consistently failed to live up to its responsibilities. It has refused to demonstrate to the international community that its nuclear programme is entirely peaceful.”

Clinton said the US and some of its allies were working on new measures to try and persuade Iran to change its course and reconsider its “dangerous policy decisions”.

‘Shift in rhetoric’

She also stressed that the administration of Barack Obama, the US president, wants a peaceful solution to the nuclear dispute, but she said that its patience would eventually reach a limit.

“I would like to figure out a way to handle it in as peaceful an approach as possible, and I certainly welcome any meaningful engagement, but … we don’t want to be engaging while they are building their bomb.”

Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, has said Iran has left the international community little choice but to impose harsh penalties against it over its controversial nuclear programme.

Speaking at a US-Islamic World Forum in Doha, Qatar on Sunday, Clinton said there was mounting evidence that Iran was pursuing a nuclear weapon.

 “The evidence is accumulating that that’s exactly what they are trying to do,” she said.

“Iran has consistently failed to live up to its responsibilities. It has refused to demonstrate to the international community that its nuclear programme is entirely peaceful.”

 Clinton said the US and some of its allies were working on new measures to try and persuade Iran to change its course and reconsider its “dangerous policy decisions”.

‘Shift in rhetoric’

She also stressed that the administration of Barack Obama, the US president, wants a peaceful solution to the nuclear dispute, but she said that its patience would eventually reach a limit.

“I would like to figure out a way to handle it in as peaceful an approach as possible, and I certainly welcome any meaningful engagement, but … we don’t want to be engaging while they are building their bomb.”

Asked what evidence the US had that Iran was pursuing nuclear weapons, PJ Crowley, the US state department spokesman, said that Washington was basing its assertions on Iran’s actions.

“Given the current trajectory that Iran is on – the fact that it still has centrifuges spinning, and the fact that it is unwilling to constructively engage the international community – we have to assume that Iran is pursuing a nuclear programme,” he told Al Jazeera.

“Given all the steps that Iran has taken and all the actions that Iran refuses to take, we can only begin to draw the conclusion that Iran’s intentions are less than peaceful.”

Nazanine Moshiri, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in the Iranian capital, Tehran, said Clinton’s assertion of evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapon programme indicates a shift in US rhetoric.
“Most Iranians will be quite surprised by that because a few days ago the White House said Iran wasn’t capable of reaching 20 per cent uranium enrichment,” she said.
 
“Iran has told Al Jazeera they are capable of producing nuclear weapons but they are not going to. They only want to enrich to 20 per cent for their Tehran reactor.”

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s president, said on Thursday that the country’s nuclear scientists had completed the further enrichment of the the first batch of its stockpile of uranium.

Tehran has said that it stepped up enrichment to produce fuel for a medical research reactor, but the US and its allies have said that the move signals a rejection of a UN-backed plan to swap Iran’s low-enriched uranium for processed nuclear fuel.

Iran has repeatedly stated that its nuclear programme is to meet the country’s civilian energy needs.

Middle East peace

Clinton’s comments at the forum, which is jointly organised by the Qatari foreign ministry and the US-based Brookings Institution, came only hours after she arrived in Doha for the start of a three-day visit to the region.

She is also using the trip to win Arab backing for the resumption of Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, a topic which she broached during her address.

“The goal of a comprehensive peace is fully in the interest of the United States. We are committed to our role in ensuring that negotiations begin and succeed,” she said.

“I know that people are disappointed that we have not yet achieved a breakthrough. The president … and I are disappointed as well.

“But we need to remember that neither the United States nor any country can force a solution. The parties must resolve their differences through negotiations.”

Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst, said her remarks on the Israeli-Palestinian issue revealed nothing new about how the Obama administration would resolve the situation .
 
“There’s an attempt to address the Palestine-Israeli question without putting any responsibility on the occupying force, Israel, ” he said.
 
“We haven’t heard much new there.
 
“But while there is a sense that the secretary of state asks everyone to take responsibility for their actions, there is no taking responsibility for the US failure to revive the deadlocked peace process by not fulfilling its pledge to end the dispute over Israeli settlements.”

Clinton’s speech comes eight months after a similar address by Obama, who called for a new beginning in ties between the US and the Muslim world during a speech in Egypt in June.

The secretary of state on Sunday addressed concerns that Obama’s call during his speech was “insufficient and insincere”.

“Building a stronger relationship cannot happen overnight. It takes patience, persistence and hard work from all of us,” she said.

“We are and will remain committed to the president’s vision for a new beginning.”

Thanks Al Jazeera.

Hillary Clinton to China: Vote for Iran Sanctions or Face Gulf Conflagration and Oil Cutoff

Hillary to China: Vote for Iran Sanctions, or Face Gulf Conflagration and Oil Cutoff.

In an interview with Russia Today Webster G. Tarpley talks about the growing US-China confrontation, exposing Hillary Clinton’s blackmail against China. The Iran attack scenario has been revived, but this time as a means of threatening China’s oil supply and strangling that country’s further growth.

For her Jan. 29 speech at the Ecole Militaire in Paris [1], Mrs. Clinton was evidently wearing that stylish new French perfume from the House of Sarkozy called Chantage – meaning blackmail. Mrs. Clinton gloats because she thinks she has the Chinese leadership in a bind.

As she stated, she knows that China increasingly depends on oil from the Gulf. She demanded that China vote for crippling sanctions against Iran in the UN Security Council this month, while Sarkozy — the craziest of all western leaders against Iran — controls the presidency of that body.

For China, approving crippling sanctions against Iran means in all probability the loss of 10% to 12% of its oil imports, the aborting of some $80 billion in development projects by Beijing in Iran, the sacrifice of hundreds of billions of dollars worth of oil which the Chinese have locked in via futures contracts, and, above all, a farewell to the best chance of getting a secure overland oil pipeline far away from the US-UK fleets — the pipeline from Iran via Pakistan into China.

If the Chinese fail to captitulate on this point, Mrs. Clinton darkly hinted, the US would no longer restrain the Israelis, who might then launch their long-threatened air attack on Iran, which the US has emphatically vetoed over the past two years. At that point, the Iranians would try to interdict Gulf maritime traffic and close the strait of Hormuz, meaning that about a third of China’s oil could be cut off. (The other 20% comes from Saudi Arabia.)

The US-UK elite is in a state of collective hysteria about the growth of Chinese economic power. China is now the largest exporter in the world, and officially about to become the second largest economy, passing Japan to challenge the US.

The US is way behind China in fast rail, and will soon fall behind in modern nuclear energy production. China is clearly aiming to put astronauts on the moon, but the Obama-Orszag NASA budget makes clear that the US is going nowhere when it comes to manned space flight. If US elites really want to keep pace, they should put aside their feckless attempts to contain China by subversion, economic warfare, and fomenting conflicts in the Guif and on the India-China border. Match the Chinese programs in nuclear reactors, fast rail, and manned space flight, or prepare for the status of has-been.

But for right now, the Iran attack scenario, which had been pushed to the back burner by the US National Intelligence Estimate of December 2007 — which stated that there was no Iranian nuclear weapons program — is once again operational, this time as a means at striking at China’s oil supply.

Thanks Voltaire Net.

Hillary Clinton the Next Supreme Court Justice? Interesting!

Mark McKinnon and Myra Adams on how Supreme Court retirements could persuade the secretary of State to take a high-court seat.

The political bombshell of the year could turn out to be Supreme Court Justice Hillary Clinton.
 
Don’t laugh. It’s politics.  Stuff happens. And a lot stranger stuff has happened in recent years.  Two words.  Sarah Palin.

Last week, ABC News reported: “Lawyers for President Obama have been working behind the scenes to prepare for the possibility of one, and maybe two Supreme Court vacancies this spring. Court watchers believe two of the more liberal members of the court, Justices John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, could decide to step aside for reasons of age and health. That would give the president his second and third chance to shape his legacy on the Supreme Court.”

Given the Clintons ambition for power, most would agree that Hillary doesn’t see secretary of State as the final chapter in her career. Certainly she’d like to be president.  But increasingly, she has to view that prospect as a declining one. As tough as the Clintons are, the book Game Change provides a pretty good insight into just how much that campaign took out of her. The prospect of going through that kind of microwave experience again can’t be terribly attractive.  Although, one thing we do know about the Clintons when it comes to the presidency: they never quit.
 
Some have suggested Hillary play musical chairs with Joe Biden in a second term. Biden actually wanted to be secretary of State more than he wanted to be vice president. So, he’d probably be game. The problem with this scenario is that in terms of power and influence, the veep slot would be step down for Hillary. And Team Obama never liked the idea of giving Bill Clinton entrée to meddle around the familiar old 18 acres.  On the other hand, the surest route to a party nomination is to launch your candidacy from the cat bird’s seat of the vice presidency. 

But if in the end if it’s about what is realistic, and how Hillary could have the greatest impact on society, most would agree she could have the greatest political influence by hanging around for a couple of decades casting votes and writing opinions on the Supreme Court.
 
Given the political physics of the country these days, Hillary has probably concluded that things are unlikely to get much better for Democrats anytime soon. So Obama is either a one-term president, or limps through a second term only to see Republicans recapture the presidency in 2016. Either way, it doesn’t realistically look Clinton would have a shot until 2020 at the earliest. 
 
So, we understand why Hillary might want the supreme gig. But, why would Obama consider her?
 
One possibility: legacy. As popular as Obama is, and as many votes as he received in 2008, he still stepped over Clinton to get to the throne.  And a lot of woman haven’t forgotten or forgiven. In one stroke, he would eliminate any remaining bad feelings and would become a Hillaryland hero.
 
Stripping away the drama, the politics and psychobabble, she’d be a great choice for Obama and the Democrats.  She’s as smart and as qualified as any prospect her party could nominate.
 
But, would any Republicans support her?
 
There would be fireworks, for sure. Partisan hell would break loose. Imagine Rush, Hannity, Coulter et al.  What a field day.
 
But, I’m guessing there would be enough Republicans who would support her because: (a) they actually like and respect her having served with her and seen how hard she works and how smart she is; and (b) they have some ambition to run for president themselves and they’d just as soon see her out of the picture.
 
This is not a conventional prediction. But the fun thing about politics is how often the conventional wisdom gets tossed on its head. And when you sort through all the angles on this one, Madame Justice Clinton is not really so far-fetched.

Thanks The Daily Beast.

Hillary Clinton has not Selected Outfit for Chelsea’s Wedding

Hillary Clinton has not yet selected the outfit she will wear at daughter Chelsea’s wedding.

The Secretary Of State added: “I don’t have a dress yet, no, and Chelsea doesn’t either. But we’re working on it,” Clinton added.

In November 2009, Chelsea Clinton, 29, had revealed she would tie the knot with investment banker Marc Mezvinsky.

She had sent an email to pals saying: “We wanted to wish everyone a belated Happy Thanksgiving! We also wanted to share that we are engaged!”

Chelsea and Mezvinsky, 31, have been seeing each other for four years.

They met when the former First Daughter was in the White House and both Mezvinsky’s parents were in the Congress.

Thanks OneIndia.

Hillary Clinton: Islamic Extremist Groups Pose Greatest Security Threat to US

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says trans-national Islamic extremist networks pose greater threats to the United States than the nuclear programs of Iran and North Korea.

Clinton says the Obama administration is concerned about connections between non-state groups loyal to al-Qaida with bases in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and North Africa. She was speaking in an interview with U.S. television network CNN, broadcast Sunday.

Clinton says a nuclear-armed Iran or North Korea also pose both a “real or potential threat” to the United States. Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons and says its atomic program is peaceful.

North Korea has tested nuclear weapons and has blocked six-party talks on dismantling that program in return for international aid and other incentives.

Clinton says she does not believe Iran possesses a nuclear weapon, but says Tehran’s behavior is evidence of its intentions. She noted what she called Iran’s “failure” to disclose its uranium enrichment facility near the city of Qom until after it began building the site.

Iran revealed the existence of the previously-secret facility last September, triggering outrage from Western nations who suspect Iran is enriching uranium to develop nuclear weapons.

Clinton also criticized Tehran for refusing to accept what she called a “very reasonable” U.N.-brokered proposal for sending Iran’s low-enriched uranium to Russia and France for processing into fuel. Western nations fear unsupervised enrichment could feed a nuclear weapon program.

The U.S. secretary of state defended the Obama administration’s policy of pursuing engagement with Tehran and Pyongyang to try to resolve disputes about their nuclear programs.

She says North Korea’s lack of response to U.S. engagement efforts persuaded Russia and China to sign on to what she called “very strong” sanctions against Pyongyang that are being enforced worldwide.

Clinton also says the rest of the world is beginning to see Iran’s nuclear program the way Washington sees it, because of what she called “very slow and steady U.S. diplomacy.”

Thanks VA News.

Is Obama Going to Dump Joe Biden for Hillary Clinton?

We just heard this last month. It’s still swirling around! Democratic strategists say that if President Obama’s re-election prospects look shaky, he could dump Vice President Joe Biden from the 2012 national ticket and choose Hillary Clinton as his vice presidential running mate.

It’s inside-Washington speculation at this point, but the strategists make a good case for such a shift. “Biden was named in the first place to shore up Obama on foreign policy issues, and Obama doesn’t need that anymore,” says a former Clinton adviser. That’s because Obama has learned the ropes and has assembled a strong foreign policy and national security team including Robert Gates as defense secretary, Jim Jones as White House national security adviser, and Hillary Clinton as secretary of state.

Elevating Clinton to the vice presidential slot would accomplish several objectives: It would appeal to female voters and the still-powerful cadre of Clinton admirers, give Obama more of a pragmatic luster, and shunt the gaffe-prone Biden aside. And it would theoretically discourage Clinton, a former senator from New York, from challenging Obama in the 2012 primaries, Democratic insiders say, because as vice president she would be considered Obama’s heir for 2016. Clinton would be 69 that year, the same age as Ronald Reagan when he won the presidency in 1980.

As for Clinton, she has said that she doesn’t plan to serve as secretary of state longer than four years, but so far she has expressed no interest in another presidential run. She was the favorite for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008 but lost to Obama after a long series of primaries and caucuses.A White House strategist attributed the speculation about Biden and Clinton to “cocktail party chatter” and said Obama is “very pleased” with Biden’s job performance.

Thanks US News.

Hillary Clinton Denies Negotiations with Iran for 3 U.S. Citizens being Detained

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton denied entertaining negotiations between Iran for three U.S. citizens currently being detained.

“As we have said repeatedly, we call on Iran to release all of the American citizens that they have currently detained,” Clinton said. “We believe they’re being unjustly detained and that they should be released without further delay. We also are very committed … to making it clear to the Iranians that they should do so on humanitarian grounds since the detention of our citizens is baseless.”

The three citizens, detained since July 31, were reportedly hiking and crossed an unmarked border into Iran, according to their families.

Clinton is currently pushing the United Nations to approve tougher sanctions on Iran in regards to its nuclear program. Iran claims it is planning to send its low-enriched uranium out of state for enrichment.

Clinton wants Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to be forthright in his intentions.

“If Iran wishes to accept it, we look forward to hearing about it from the [International Atomic Energy Agency] because that’s the appropriate venue for them to file an official response,” Clinton said.

Thanks To The Center.

Iran: “We Do Not Take Mrs. Clinton’s Remarks Seriously”

Atleast he properly addressed her as Mrs. Such nice people those Iranians.

Iran: “We Do Not Take Mrs. Clinton’s Remarks Seriously”

Can anyone imagine the regime in Iran not taking a Republican administration seriously?

Hillary Clinton:Make the World a NATO Protectorate

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was busy in London and Paris last week advancing the new Euro-Atlantic agenda for the world.

As the top foreign policy official of what her commander-in-chief Barack Obama touted as being the world’s sole military superpower on December 10, she is no ordinary foreign minister. Her position is rather some composite of several ones from previous historical epochs: Viceroy, proconsul, imperial nuncio.

When a U.S. secretary of state speaks the world pays heed. Any nation that doesn’t will suffer the consequences of that inattention, that disrespect toward the imperatrix mundi.

On January 27 she was in London for a conference on Yemen and the following day she attended the International Conference on Afghanistan in the same city.

Also on the 28th she and two-thirds of her NATO quad counterparts,
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband and French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner (along with EU High Representative Catherine Ashton), pronounced a joint verdict on the state of democracy in Nigeria, Britain’s former colonial possession.

Afterwards she crossed the English channel and delivered an address called Remarks on the Future of European Security at L’Ecole Militaire in Paris on January 29. That presentation was the most substantive component of her three-day European junket and the only one that dealt mainly with the continent itself, her previous comments relating to what are viewed by the United States and its Western European NATO partners as backwards, “ungovernable” international badlands. That is, the rest of the world.

While in Paris, Clinton held a joint press conference with her counterpart Kouchner and said, “we…discussed the results of the London meetings on Yemen and Afghanistan. We have a lot of work ahead of us. We appreciate greatly the support that France has given in developing a European police force mission to support NATO in its effort to train police.

“We will be consulting even more closely. Our work in Africa is particularly important. I applaud France for resuming diplomatic relations with Rwanda, and I also appreciate greatly the work that Bernard and the government here is doing in Guinea and in other African countries.” [1]

Rwanda and Guinea (Conakry) are former French colonies.

Two days before she made a similar joint appearance in London with British Foreign Secretary David Miliband and Yemeni Foreign Minister Abu Bakr Abdullah al-Qirbi. Yemen is a former British colony. The conference on that country held on January 27 also included the Foreign Minister of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Prince Saud Al-Faisal, but not Secretary General Amr Moussa or any other representative of the 22-member Arab League.

Having the foreign minister of the unpopular government in Yemen that the U.S. is waging a covert – and not so covert – war to defend against mass opposition in both the north and south of the nation and the foreign minister of the nation that is bombing villages and killing hundreds of civilians in the north was sufficient for the Barack Obama and Gordon Brown governments. A war on the Arabian peninsula whose three major belligerents are the Yemeni government, Saudi Arabia and the U.S. is not viewed by Washington and London as a matter that 20 other Arab nations need to be consulted about.

Clinton delivered comments on the occasion that were exactly what were required to obscure the real state of affairs in Yemen in furtherance of her nation’s military campaign there: “The United States is intensifying security and development efforts with Yemen. We are encouraged by the Government of Yemen’s recent efforts to take action against al-Qaida and against other extremist groups. They have been relentlessly pursuing the terrorists who threaten not only Yemen but the Gulf region and far beyond, here to London and to our country in the United States.” [2]

Bombing Shia civilians in the country’s north and resorting to the preferred “diplomatic” intervention of the last four American secretaries of state – cruise missiles – in the south in the name of protecting London from Osama bin Laden is yet another illustration of how a nation behaves when it doesn’t have a formal diplomatic corps.

In the same breath she added “The Yemeni people deserve the opportunity to determine their own future,” when there was nothing further from her mind.

She acknowledged that “a longstanding protest movement continues” in the south and that fighting in the north “has left many thousands dead and more than 200,000 displaced” – without in any manner alluding to Saudi armed assaults in the north and U.S. cruise missile attacks in the south – but her focus remained firmly on “extremists who incite violence and inflict harm.” American bombs and missiles, of course, are nonviolent and harmless in the Secretary’s us-versus-them view of statecraft.

Clinton didn’t miss an opportunity to dress down her nation’s client Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh – “This must be a partnership if it is to have a successful outcome” – for his failure to adequately “protect human rights, advance gender equity, build democratic institutions and the rule of law.” The U.S. may extend its Afghanistan-Pakistan war into the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa [3] in nominal support of the Yemeni head of state and his Somali counterpart President Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, but they and their like – Afghanistan’s Hamid Karzai and Pakistan’s Asif Ali Zardari – should not for a minute forget who is in charge and who makes the rules.

The secretary of state had nothing to say about the condition of human rights, gender equality and so forth in Saudi Arabia and America’s other military vassals in the Persian Gulf. Medieval monarchies and hereditary autocracies that host American military bases, buy billions of dollars of advanced weapons from Raytheon, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman and are home to the U.S. 5th Fleet are not subjected to homilies on human rights and “democratic institutions.”

On the day of the London conference on Afghanistan Clinton, flanked by the foreign ministers of Africa’s two former major colonial masters, Britain’s David Miliband and France’s Bernard Kouchner, also delivered a lecture to the government of Nigeria, ordering it to address “electoral reform, post-amnesty programs in the Niger Delta, economic development, inter-faith discord and transparency.” [4]

At the January 28 International Conference on Afghanistan, attended by the foreign ministers of all 28 NATO member states and dozens of NATO partnership underlings with troops in the South Asian war zone – the “international community” as the West defines it – Clinton complemented the Pentagon’s allies and satraps:

“I think that what we have seen is a global challenge that is being met with a global response. I especially thank the countries that have committed additional troops, leading with our host country, the United Kingdom, but including Italy, Germany, Romania.” [5]

She will need yet more troops in the near future for a far larger conflict than those the U.S. and NATO are currently involved with in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia if the following comments contribute to the results they appear to intend:

“I also had a chance to discuss Iran’s refusal to engage with the international community on its nuclear program. They continue to violate IAEA and Security Council requirements.

“The revelation of Iran’s secret nuclear facility at Qom has raised further questions about Iran’s intentions. And in response to these questions, the Iranian Government has provided a continuous stream of threats to intensify its violation of international nuclear norms. Iran’s approach leaves us with little choice but to work with our partners to apply greater pressure….”

Washington and its main NATO partners Britain, France and Germany along with miscellaneous allies around the world – “rogue” nuclear powers India, Israel and Pakistan among them (who know who to align with and purchase arms from) – dictate the terms on matters ranging from the proper holding of elections to which nation can develop a civilian nuclear power program. Any country outside the “Euro-Atlantic” and “international” communities faces censure, threats, “greater pressure” and ultimately military attack.

The U.S. has a population of 300 million and the European Union of 500 million, combined well under one-eighth that of the world. Yet the two, whose military wing is NATO, hold “international conferences” on Asia, the Middle East and other parts of the world and presume to deliver ultimatums to all other nations.

To cite a recent example, the New York Times reported that “Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton warned China on [January 29] that it would face economic insecurity and diplomatic isolation if it did not sign on to tough new sanctions against Iran for its nuclear program, seeking to raise the pressure on Beijing to fall in line with an American-led campaign.” [6] On the same day “The Obama administration notified Congress on Friday of its plans to proceed with five arms sales transactions with Taiwan worth a total of $6.4 billion. The arms deals include 60 Black Hawk helicopters, Patriot interceptor missiles, advanced Harpoon missiles that can be used against land or ship targets and two refurbished minesweepers.” [7]

Clinton has joined in the U.S. chorus of hectoring of China since she took up her current post last year, in May even raising the specter of Chinese penetration of Latin America.

China is not Afghanistan or Yemen. It is not even Iran. The last generation’s foreign policy hubris and megalomania of the West, epitomized by its wars in Southeast Europe and South Asia and the Middle East, may be headed into far more dangerous territory.

Grandiosity, arrogance and perceived impunity blind those afflicted with them, whether individuals or nations.

No clearer example exists than Secretary Clinton’s remarks in Paris on January 29.

To demonstrate the worldview of those she represents – that the United States and Europe are the incontestable metropolises and rulers by right of the planet – early in her address Clinton said “I appreciate the opportunity to discuss a matter of great consequence to the United States, France, and every country on this continent and far beyond the borders: the future of European security.” [8]

That is, the U.S. arrogates to itself the prerogative of not only speaking with authority on the security of a continent 3,500 miles away but intervening around the world in its alleged defense.

Flattering her hosts, she further said: “As founding members of the NATO Alliance, our countries have worked side by side for decades to build a strong and secure Europe and to defend and promote democracy, human rights, and the rule of law. And I am delighted that we are working even more closely now that France is fully participating in NATO’s integrated command structure. I thank President Sarkozy for his leadership and look forward to benefiting from the counsel of our French colleagues as together we chart NATO’s future.”

Regarding the phrase “to defend and promote democracy, human rights, and the rule of law,” evocative of almost identical terms used two days earlier in reference to Yemen, Clinton’s Paris speech was fairly overflowing with similar language.

The words recently have been tarnished and debased so thoroughly by the use they have frequently served – justifying war – that they are at risk of deteriorating into not so much noble as suspect abstractions.

Worse yet, they are incantations employed to praise oneself for uniquely possessing them and to castigate others who don’t. ["Our work extends beyond Europe as well....European and American voices speak as one to denounce the gross violations of human rights in Iran." But not in Saudi Arabia, Western Sahara, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, post-"independence" Kosovo, Estonia and Latvia, etc.]

Clinton’s speech contained these terms and phrases in the following sequence:

democracy, human rights, and the rule of law

unity, partnership, and peace

global progress

reconciliation, cooperation, and community

security and our prosperity

importance of liberty and freedom

peace and security

development, democracy, and human rights

human potential

democratic institutions and the rule of law

progress and stability

democracy and stability

accountable, effective governments

economic and democratic development

expanding opportunity

development and greater stability

defend and promote human rights

peace and opportunity and prosperity

defending and advancing our values in the world

a Europe transformed, secure, democratic, unified and prosperous

The last is a variant of A Europe Whole And Free [9] first employed by President George H.W. Bush in 1989 to inaugurate his putative new world order.

As will be seen by further excerpts from her address (as well as its location and context), Clinton’s use of the above expressions was, as noted, both self-congratulatory and in contradistinction to the implied lack of what they pertain to in the world outside of the Euro-Atlantic community and its approved allies elsewhere.

Again taking up the theme of Western superiority and the need for the Euro-Atlantic precedent to be enforced on others, she said “European security is, not only to the individual nations, but to the world. It is, after all, more than a collection of countries linked by history and geography. It is a model for the transformative power of reconciliation, cooperation, and community.”

However, “much important work remains unfinished. The transition to democracy is incomplete in parts of Europe and Eurasia.” The subjugation of Europe’s eastern “hinterlands” will be explored later in relation to her comments on the European Union’s Eastern Partnership and related matters.

“The transatlantic partnership has been both a cornerstone of global security and a powerful force for global progress.

“NATO is revising its Strategic Concept to prepare for the alliance’s summit at the end of this year here at (inaudible). I know there’s a lot of thinking going on about strategic threats and how to meet them. Next week, at the Munich Security Conference, leaders from across the continent will address urgent security and foreign policy challenges.

“The United States, too, has also been studying ways to strengthen European security and, therefore our own security, and to extend it to foster security on a global scale.”

To elite trans-Atlantic policy makers the above paragraphs’ meaning is indisputable: The use of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization military bloc – the true foundation of the “transatlantic partnership” – in waging war in and effectively colonizing the Balkans and in expanding into Eastern Europe, incorporating twelve new nations including former Warsaw Pact members and Soviet republics, is the worldwide paradigm for the West in the 21st century.

That mechanism, using Europe as NATO’s springboard for geopolitical aggrandizement in the east and the south, is being applied at the moment against larger adversaries than the bloc has tackled before now:

“European security remains an anchor of U.S. foreign and security policy. A strong Europe is critical to our security and our prosperity. Much of what we hope to accomplish globally depends on working together with Europe….And so we are working with European allies and partners to help bring stability to Afghanistan and try to take on the dangers posed by Iran’s nuclear ambition.”

“We have repeatedly called on Russia to honor the terms of its ceasefire agreement with Georgia, and we refuse to recognize Russia’s claims of independence for Abkhazia and South Ossetia. More broadly, we object to any spheres of influence claimed in Europe in which one country seeks to control another’s future. Our security depends upon nations being able to choose their own destiny.”

The final sentence is galling beyond endurance, coming as it does from the foreign policy chief of a nation with hundreds of thousands of troops in Afghanistan and Iraq and which with its NATO allies waged war against Yugoslavia and tore the nation apart.

The one preceding it is equally absurd, as Clinton repeatedly insists on the right of the U.S. to be not only a major player on the European continent but the main arbiter of military, security, political, energy and other policies there while denouncing Russia – it didn’t need to be named – for alleged designs to establish a “sphere of influence” in neighboring states.

“Security in Europe must be indivisible. For too long, the public discourse around Europe’s security has been fixed on geographical and political divides. Some have looked at the continent even now and seen Western and Eastern Europe, old and new Europe, NATO and non-NATO Europe, EU and non-EU Europe. The reality is that there are not many Europes; there is only one Europe. And it is a Europe that includes the United States as its partner….We are closer than ever to achieving the goal that has inspired European and American leaders and citizens – not only a Europe transformed, secure, democratic, unified and prosperous, but a Euro-Atlantic alliance that is greater than the sum of its parts….”

For decades, indeed since the end of World War II, American leaders have been “inspired” by a vision of a Europe transformed and unified – under NATO military command and a European Union serving as the civilian, and increasingly military, complement to the Alliance.

“NATO must and will remain open to any country that aspires to become a member and can meet the requirements of membership,” even Ukraine where the overwhelming majority of its citizens oppose being pulled into the military bloc. ["We stand with the people of Ukraine as they choose their next elected president in the coming week, an important step in Ukraine’s journey toward democracy, stability, and integration into Europe. And we are devoting ourselves to efforts to resolve enduring conflicts, including in the Caucasus and on Cyprus."]

And should a nation be incorporated into the bloc even against the will of its people, then the U.S. “will maintain an unwavering commitment to the pledge enshrined in Article 5 of the NATO treaty that an attack on one is an attack on all. When France and our other NATO allies invoked Article 5 in the aftermath of the attacks of September 11th, 2001, it was a proclamation to the world that our promise to each other was not rhetorical, but real….And for that, I thank you. And I assure you and all members of NATO that our commitment to Europe’s defense is equally strong.

“As proof of that commitment, we will continue to station American troops in Europe, both to deter attacks and respond quickly if any occur. We are working with our allies to ensure that NATO has the plans it needs for responding to new and evolving contingencies. We are engaged in productive discussions with our European allies about building a new missile defense architecture….”

Washington is uncompromisingly bent on expanding NATO even further along Russia’s borders – Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Finland – despite misgivings among some NATO allies in Europe, and will use the Alliance’s Article 5 war clause to “protect” those new outposts. It will also drag all of Europe into its worldwide interceptor missile system.

And not against military threats – there is no military threat to any European nation – but against a veritable plethora of phantom pretexts, including so-called cyber and energy security, both of which are subterfuges for the U.S. to intervene against Russia. A host of other ploys for NATO intervention were added, many from NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen’s 17-point list of last year [10]: Iran’s nuclear program, “confronting North Korea’s defiance of its international obligations,” “tackling non-traditional threats such as pandemic disease, cyber warfare, and the trafficking of children” and the “need to be doing even more, such as in missile defense, counternarcotics, and Afghanistan.” Anything and everything is grist to the U.S.’s and NATO’s mill.

As Clinton put it, “In the 21st century, the spirit of collective defense must also include non-traditional threats. We believe NATO’s new Strategic Concept must address these new threats. Energy security is a particularly pressing priority. Countries vulnerable to energy cut-offs face not only economic consequences but strategic risks as well. And I welcome the recent establishment of the U.S.-EU Energy Council, and we are determined to support Europe in its efforts to diversify its energy supplies.”

Diversifying energy supplies is a code phrase for driving Russia and keeping Iran out of oil and natural gas deliveries to Europe. If the tables were turned the U.S. would view – and treat – such a policy as an act of war.

The global expansion of the American agenda in Europe was indicated further in Clinton’s remarks that “This partnership is about so much more than strengthening our security. At its core, it is about defending and advancing our values in the world. I think it is particularly critical today that we not only defend those values in the world. I think it is particularly critical today that we not only defend those values, but promote them; that we are not only on defense, but on offense.”

And placing the current world situation in historical perspective, she said: “We are continuing the enterprise that we began at the end of the Cold War to expand the zone of democracy and stability. We have worked together this year to complete the effort we started in the 1990s to help bring peace and stability to the Balkans. And we are working closely with the EU to support the six countries that the EU engages through its Eastern Partnership initiative.”

The Eastern Partnership is a U.S.-backed European Union program to pull six of twelve former Soviet repiblics that formed the Commonwealth of Independent States into the Western orbit: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. [11] Armenia and Belarus are members with Russia of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, a potential counterbalance to NATO’s drive into the former Soviet Union. Along with Serbia and Cyprus, those nations represent the last obstacles to NATO, and behind it the U.S., securing control of all of Europe.

Clinton also had the audacity to raise the issues of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) and the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty (CFE), the first almost two months beyond its December 5 expiration and the other, in its adapted form, not ratified by a single member state of NATO, which – led by the U.S. – is exploiting its suspension for military buildups in new Eastern European nations.

“Two years ago, Russia suspended the implementation of the CFE Treaty, while the United States and our allies continue to do so. The Russia-Georgia war in 2008 was not only a tragedy but has created a further obstacle to moving forward….” The U.S. and NATO have justified their non-ratification of the Adapted Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty by demanding that Russia withdraw a small handful of peacekeepers it maintains in post-conflict zones in Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Transdniester. Had those forces been withdrawn earlier under Western pressure, Georgia’s invasion of South Ossetia in 2008, coordinated with an attack on Abkhazia, might have proven successful for its American-trained army.

Part of Clinton’s self-serving interpretation of the CFE Treaty is “the right of host countries to consent to stationing foreign troops in their territory.” That is, U.S. and NATO and decidedly not Russia troops. There can be no spheres of influence in former Soviet space – except the West’s.

Her understanding of an autonomous Europe not “besieged” by Russia and Iran – and North Korea – includes not only stationing American troops on its soil but also nuclear weapons, hundreds of which are still housed in NATO bases in several European countries. “President Obama declared the long-term goal of a world without nuclear weapons. As long as these weapons exist, the United States will maintain a safe, secure, and effective arsenal to deter any adversary, and we will guarantee that defense to our allies.

“[W]e are conducting a comprehensive Nuclear Posture Review to chart a new course that strengthens deterrence and reassurance for the United States and our allies….” Clinton didn’t indicate which European nations have requested to be placed under the Pentagon’s nuclear shield.

After her presentation Clinton answered questions from the audience at the French Military Academy.

Her extemporaneous comments were even more revealing that her prepared text.

They included:

“When it comes to NATO, I think that greater integration on the European continent provides even more opportunity for the level of cooperation to increase.

“But I think, given the complexity of the world today, closer cooperation and more complementarity between the EU and NATO is in all of our interests to try to forge common policies – economic and development and political and legal on the one hand in the EU, and principally security on the other hand in NATO. But as I said in my remarks, they are no longer separated. It’s hard to say that security is only about what it was when NATO was formed, and the EU has no role to play in security issues.”

NATO’s new Strategic Concept lays particular emphasis on the advancement – indeed the culmination – of U.S.-EU-NATO global military integration. [12]

Regarding the implementation of that project, Clinton stipulated the issue of energy wars. “[I]t would be the EU’s responsibility to create policies that would provide more independence and protections from intimidation when it comes to energy markets from member nations. But I can also see how in certain cases respecting energy, there may be a role for NATO as well.”

When asked about what in recent years has been referred to as Global NATO “extending the boundaries of NATO to non-Western countries, emerging powers like Brazil, India, other democracies that might fulfill their criteria,” Clinton advocated a series of expanding partnerships in addition to the Partnership for Peace, Adriatic Charter, Mediterranean Dialogue, Istanbul Cooperation Initiative, Contact Country, Trilateral Afghanistan-Pakistan-NATO Military Commission and others that take in over a third of the nations in the world:

“How do we cooperate across geographic distance with countries in other hemispheres, different geopolitical challenges? And there is a modern living example of that with the NATO ISAF commitment in Afghanistan.

“In many ways, it’s quite remarkable, the success of this alliance. Yesterday at the London conference on Afghanistan, as you know, the United States, under President Obama, has agreed to put 30,000 more troops in Afghanistan. And member nations, NATO and ISAF – the international partners – have come up with a total of 9,000 more troops….NATO is leading the way, but NATO has to determine in what ways it can cooperate with others. I think that the world that we face of failing states, non-state actors, networks of terrorists, rogue regimes – North Korea being a prime example – really test the international community. And it’s a test we have to pass. Now, there are some who say this is too complicated, it is out of area, it is not our responsibility. But given the nature of the threats we face, I don’t think that’s an adequate response.

“[C]yber security breaches, concerted attacks on networks and countries, are likely to cross borders. We have to know how to defend against them and we have to enlist nations who are likeminded to work with. Similarly, with energy problems, attacks on pipelines, attacks on container ships, attacks on electric grids will have consequences far beyond boundaries. And it won’t just be NATO nations. NATO nations border non-NATO nations.”

A small consortium of Western nations, two in North America and 26 in Europe – though most of the latter are nothing more than slavishly subservient junior partners – has appointed itself, for its own interests, the arbiter of world affairs in all matters from judging the political legitimacy of governments to who receives energy supplies from whom to the most urgent question of all, when and against whom wars can be launched. [13]

Clinton’s speech in Paris has signaled her country’s intention to formalize and extend that role throughout the world in the 21st century.

Thanks Australia.to. News.

Hillary Clinton and George Stepanopoulous Related? (VOD)

Acclaimed author Henry Louis Gates is getting ready for the debut of his new show on PBS, “Faces of America,” in which he explores the genetic history of various celebrities. On Good Morning America today, Gates revealed host George Stephanopoulous’s genetic history, and discovered that he likely shares an ancestor with Hillary Clinton.

Hillary Clinton Quitting after these 4 Years? Possibly.

Maybe a run for President? Hmm? Please! In an interview aired this evening Secretary of State Hillary Clinton suggested she is not interested in serving more than four years should President Obama win a second term.

Clinton was asked by PBS’s Tavis Smiley whether she could “imagine yourself doing all four years and, if asked, doing it for another four years.”

She replied “No, I really can’t.”

Clinton clarified that she was referring to serving in a second term, saying “the whole eight, I mean, that that would be very challenging.  But I, you know, I don’t wanna make any predictions sitting here.”

Later Clinton again ruled out another run for the presidency, something she has maintained for months.

She said she was “absolutely not interested.”

In an interview with ABC’s Cynthia McFadden in October, Clinton also ruled out a run for her old Senate seat or for New York governor.

Thanks ABC

Hillary Clinton will Discuss Iran on London Trip!

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will hold talks on Iran’s nuclear programme while she is in London this week for global meetings on Yemen and Afghanistan, a US official said Wednesday.

Clinton is due to hold bilateral talks with representatives from the six world powers involved in negotiations over Iran’s nuclear ambitions, on the sidelines of discussions on Yemen on Wednesday and Afghanistan on Thursday.

The United States, Germany, China, France, Britain and Russia have been negotiating with Tehran over its nuclear programme amid concerns that it is secretly developing fissile material for nuclear weapons — which Iran denies.

“Iran will be a fairly important element of her trip,” the US official said, adding that Clinton would also raise the issue during bilateral talks in London with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.

“We’re working on the possible elements of a (UN) Security Council resolution and to take stock of existing Security Council resolutions and what additional actions can be taken to implement those.

“Those conversations are ongoing and they will continue for some time.”

Thanks Cnn.

Hillary Clinton gets to Skip State of the Union Address. How Come she is so LUCKY!

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton got a pass last week from President Obama to skip Wednesday night’s State of the Union speech. (We had heard she begged to be excused, but apparently it didn’t come to that.)

Seems that there’s an important international meeting in London Wednesday on battling radicalization in Yemen and then another, long-planned, conference on Thursday on development and security in Afghanistan.

When the Wednesday meeting was “locked in” recently, we were told, the State Department and the National Security Council staffs agreed she had to be in London. These are both big administration priorities. Key allies will be gathering there for Yemen, an uber-concern of late, especially since the Christmas airplane bombing attempt.

And everyone who’s anyone — including maybe the neo-Soviets and the Chicoms and possibly even the Iranians — will be there for the Afghanistan confab.

Clinton laid out the situation in a meeting last week with Obama and he agreed she should go.

But London does not qualify as an “undisclosed location.” So this means there will be two Cabinet officers not attending the speech: Clinton and the designated hold back in case of terrorist attack. (Or in case everyone falls asleep at the same time.)

Thanks Washington Post.

Hillary Clinton Hailed Iraqis “Courage” after Deadly Car Bombings

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Monday hailed Iraqis’ “courage” after a set of deadly car bombings, saying extremists were trying to upend progress toward democracy.

Clinton linked the violence to Iraq’s election due on March 7 which is seen as a crucial step in consolidating democracy ahead of a US military exit next year.

“When people believe in the political system and that they can chart their own future, then that poses a direct rebuke to those who try to govern by fear, intimidation and violence,” Clinton told reporters.

“We unfortunately believe that that there will be continued efforts by the terrorists — by Al-Qaeda in Iraq, in particular — to try to upend the commitment of the Iraqi people toward a democratic future,” she said.

“The Iraqis themselves by their actions are demonstrating a great deal of courage,” she said at a joint news conference with Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini.

At least 36 people were killed and 71 wounded in three apparently coordinated car bombings against hotels in Baghdad.

Thanks AFP.

Hillary Clinton on Internet Freedom & China

This is long but interesting.

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE

Remarks by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Internet Freedom, January 21, 2010

The Newseum, Washington, D.C.

SECRETARY CLINTON: Thank you very much, Alberto, for not only that kind introduction but you and your colleagues’ leadership of this important institution. It’s a pleasure to be here at the Newseum. The Newseum is a monument to some of our most precious freedoms, and I’m grateful for this opportunity to discuss how those freedoms apply to the challenges of the 21st century.

Although I can’t see all of you because in settings like this, the lights are in my eyes and you are in the dark, I know that there are many friends and former colleagues. I wish to acknowledge Charles Overby, the CEO of Freedom Forum here at the Newseum; Senator Richard Lugar* and Senator Joe Lieberman, my former colleagues in the Senate, both of whom worked for passage of the Voice Act, which speaks to Congress’s and the American people’s commitment to internet freedom, a commitment that crosses party lines and branches of government.

Also, I’m told here as well are Senator Sam Brownback, Senator Ted Kaufman, Representative Loretta Sanchez, many representatives of the Diplomatic Corps, ambassadors, chargés, participants in our International Visitor Leadership Program on internet freedom from China, Colombia, Iran, and Lebanon, and Moldova. And I also want to acknowledge Walter Isaacson, president of the Aspen Institute, recently named to our Broadcasting Board of Governors and, of course, instrumental in supporting the work on internet freedom that the Aspen Institute has been doing.

This is an important speech on a very important subject. But before I begin, I want to just speak briefly about Haiti, because during the last eight days, the people of Haiti and the people of the world have joined together to deal with a tragedy of staggering proportions. Our hemisphere has seen its share of hardship, but there are few precedents for the situation we’re facing in Port-au-Prince. Communication networks have played a critical role in our response. They were, of course, decimated and in many places totally destroyed. And in the hours after the quake, we worked with partners in the private sector; first, to set up the text “HAITI” campaign so that mobile phone users in the United States could donate to relief efforts via text messages. That initiative has been a showcase for the generosity of the American people, and thus far, it’s raised over $25 million for recovery efforts.

Information networks have also played a critical role on the ground. When I was with President Preval in Port-au-Prince on Saturday, one of his top priorities was to try to get communication up and going. The government couldn’t talk to each other, what was left of it, and NGOs, our civilian leadership, our military leadership were severely impacted. The technology community has set up interactive maps to help us identify needs and target resources. And on Monday, a seven-year-old girl and two women were pulled from the rubble of a collapsed supermarket by an American search-and-rescue team after they sent a text message calling for help. Now, these examples are manifestations of a much broader phenomenon.

The spread of information networks is forming a new nervous system for our planet. When something happens in Haiti or Hunan, the rest of us learn about it in real time – from real people. And we can respond in real time as well. Americans eager to help in the aftermath of a disaster and the girl trapped in the supermarket are connected in ways that were not even imagined a year ago, even a generation ago. That same principle applies to almost all of humanity today. As we sit here, any of you – or maybe more likely, any of our children – can take out the tools that many carry every day and transmit this discussion to billions across the world.

Now, in many respects, information has never been so free. There are more ways to spread more ideas to more people than at any moment in history. And even in authoritarian countries, information networks are helping people discover new facts and making governments more accountable.

During his visit to China in November, for example, President Obama held a town hall meeting with an online component to highlight the importance of the internet. In response to a question that was sent in over the internet, he defended the right of people to freely access information, and said that the more freely information flows, the stronger societies become. He spoke about how access to information helps citizens hold their own governments accountable, generates new ideas, encourages creativity and entrepreneurship. The United States belief in that ground truth is what brings me here today.

Because amid this unprecedented surge in connectivity, we must also recognize that these technologies are not an unmitigated blessing. These tools are also being exploited to undermine human progress and political rights. Just as steel can be used to build hospitals or machine guns, or nuclear power can either energize a city or destroy it, modern information networks and the technologies they support can be harnessed for good or for ill. The same networks that help organize movements for freedom also enable al-Qaida to spew hatred and incite violence against the innocent. And technologies with the potential to open up access to government and promote transparency can also be hijacked by governments to crush dissent and deny human rights.

In the last year, we’ve seen a spike in threats to the free flow of information. China, Tunisia, and Uzbekistan have stepped up their censorship of the internet. In Vietnam, access to popular social networking sites has suddenly disappeared. And last Friday in Egypt, 30 bloggers and activists were detained. One member of this group, Bassem Samir, who is thankfully no longer in prison, is with us today. So while it is clear that the spread of these technologies is transforming our world, it is still unclear how that transformation will affect the human rights and the human welfare of the world’s population.

On their own, new technologies do not take sides in the struggle for freedom and progress, but the United States does. We stand for a single internet where all of humanity has equal access to knowledge and ideas. And we recognize that the world’s information infrastructure will become what we and others make of it. Now, this challenge may be new, but our responsibility to help ensure the free exchange of ideas goes back to the birth of our republic. The words of the First Amendment to our Constitution are carved in 50 tons of Tennessee marble on the front of this building. And every generation of Americans has worked to protect the values etched in that stone.

Franklin Roosevelt built on these ideas when he delivered his Four Freedoms speech in 1941. Now, at the time, Americans faced a cavalcade of crises and a crisis of confidence. But the vision of a world in which all people enjoyed freedom of expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear transcended the troubles of his day. And years later, one of my heroes, Eleanor Roosevelt, worked to have these principles adopted as a cornerstone of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They have provided a lodestar to every succeeding generation, guiding us, galvanizing us, and enabling us to move forward in the face of uncertainty.

So as technology hurtles forward, we must think back to that legacy. We need to synchronize our technological progress with our principles. In accepting the Nobel Prize, President Obama spoke about the need to build a world in which peace rests on the inherent rights and dignities of every individual. And in my speech on human rights at Georgetown a few days later, I talked about how we must find ways to make human rights a reality. Today, we find an urgent need to protect these freedoms on the digital frontiers of the 21st century.

There are many other networks in the world. Some aid in the movement of people or resources, and some facilitate exchanges between individuals with the same work or interests. But the internet is a network that magnifies the power and potential of all others. And that’s why we believe it’s critical that its users are assured certain basic freedoms. Freedom of expression is first among them. This freedom is no longer defined solely by whether citizens can go into the town square and criticize their government without fear of retribution. Blogs, emails, social networks, and text messages have opened up new forums for exchanging ideas, and created new targets for censorship.

As I speak to you today, government censors somewhere are working furiously to erase my words from the records of history. But history itself has already condemned these tactics. Two months ago, I was in Germany to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The leaders gathered at that ceremony paid tribute to the courageous men and women on the far side of that barrier who made the case against oppression by circulating small pamphlets called samizdat. Now, these leaflets questioned the claims and intentions of dictatorships in the Eastern Bloc and many people paid dearly for distributing them. But their words helped pierce the concrete and concertina wire of the Iron Curtain.

The Berlin Wall symbolized a world divided and it defined an entire era. Today, remnants of that wall sit inside this museum where they belong, and the new iconic infrastructure of our age is the internet. Instead of division, it stands for connection. But even as networks spread to nations around the globe, virtual walls are cropping up in place of visible walls.

Some countries have erected electronic barriers that prevent their people from accessing portions of the world’s networks. They’ve expunged words, names, and phrases from search engine results. They have violated the privacy of citizens who engage in non-violent political speech. These actions contravene the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, which tells us that all people have the right “to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.” With the spread of these restrictive practices, a new information curtain is descending across much of the world. And beyond this partition, viral videos and blog posts are becoming the samizdat of our day.

As in the dictatorships of the past, governments are targeting independent thinkers who use these tools. In the demonstrations that followed Iran’s presidential elections, grainy cell phone footage of a young woman’s bloody murder provided a digital indictment of the government’s brutality. We’ve seen reports that when Iranians living overseas posted online criticism of their nation’s leaders, their family members in Iran were singled out for retribution. And despite an intense campaign of government intimidation, brave citizen journalists in Iran continue using technology to show the world and their fellow citizens what is happening inside their country. In speaking out on behalf of their own human rights, the Iranian people have inspired the world. And their courage is redefining how technology is used to spread truth and expose injustice.

Now, all societies recognize that free expression has its limits. We do not tolerate those who incite others to violence, such as the agents of al-Qaida who are, at this moment, using the internet to promote the mass murder of innocent people across the world. And hate speech that targets individuals on the basis of their race, religion, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation is reprehensible. It is an unfortunate fact that these issues are both growing challenges that the international community must confront together. And we must also grapple with the issue of anonymous speech. Those who use the internet to recruit terrorists or distribute stolen intellectual property cannot divorce their online actions from their real world identities. But these challenges must not become an excuse for governments to systematically violate the rights and privacy of those who use the internet for peaceful political purposes.

The freedom of expression may be the most obvious freedom to face challenges with the spread of new technologies, but it is not the only one. The freedom of worship usually involves the rights of individuals to commune or not commune with their Creator. And that’s one channel of communication that does not rely on technology. But the freedom of worship also speaks to the universal right to come together with those who share your values and vision for humanity. In our history, those gatherings often took place in churches, synagogues, mosques and temples. Today, they may also take place on line.

The internet can help bridge divides between people of different faiths. As the President said in Cairo, freedom of religion is central to the ability of people to live together. And as we look for ways to expand dialogue, the internet holds out such tremendous promise. We’ve already begun connecting students in the United States with young people in Muslim communities around the world to discuss global challenges. And we will continue using this tool to foster discussion between individuals from different religious communities.

Some nations, however, have co-opted the internet as a tool to target and silence people of faith. Last year, for example, in Saudi Arabia, a man spent months in prison for blogging about Christianity. And a Harvard study found that the Saudi Government blocked many web pages about Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity, and even Islam. Countries including Vietnam and China employed similar tactics to restrict access to religious information.

Now, just as these technologies must not be used to punish peaceful political speech, they must also not be used to persecute or silence religious minorities. Now, prayers will always travel on higher networks. But connection technologies like the internet and social networking sites should enhance individuals’ ability to worship as they see fit, come together with people of their own faith, and learn more about the beliefs of others. We must work to advance the freedom of worship online just as we do in other areas of life.

There are, of course, hundreds of millions of people living without the benefits of these technologies. In our world, as I’ve said many times, talent may be distributed universally, but opportunity is not. And we know from long experience that promoting social and economic development in countries where people lack access to knowledge, markets, capital, and opportunity can be frustrating and sometimes futile work. In this context, the internet can serve as a great equalizer. By providing people with access to knowledge and potential markets, networks can create opportunities where none exist.

Over the last year, I’ve seen this firsthand in Kenya, where farmers have seen their income grow by as much as 30 percent since they started using mobile banking technology; in Bangladesh, where more than 300,000 people have signed up to learn English on their mobile phones; and in Sub-Saharan Africa, where women entrepreneurs use the internet to get access to microcredit loans and connect themselves to global markets.

Now, these examples of progress can be replicated in the lives of the billion people at the bottom of the world’s economic ladder. In many cases, the internet, mobile phones, and other connection technologies can do for economic growth what the Green Revolution did for agriculture. You can now generate significant yields from very modest inputs. And one World Bank study found that in a typical developing country, a 10 percent increase in the penetration rate for mobile phones led to an almost 1 percent increase in per capita GDP. To just put this into context, for India, that would translate into almost $10 billion a year.

A connection to global information networks is like an on-ramp to modernity. In the early years of these technologies, many believed that they would divide the world between haves and have-nots. But that hasn’t happened. There are 4 billion cell phones in use today. Many of them are in the hands of market vendors, rickshaw drivers, and others who’ve historically lacked access to education and opportunity. Information networks have become a great leveler, and we should use them together to help lift people out of poverty and give them a freedom from want.

Now, we have every reason to be hopeful about what people can accomplish when they leverage communication networks and connection technologies to achieve progress. But make no mistake – some are and will continue to use global information networks for darker purposes. Violent extremists, criminal cartels, sexual predators, and authoritarian governments all seek to exploit these global networks. Just as terrorists have taken advantage of the openness of our societies to carry out their plots, violent extremists use the internet to radicalize and intimidate. As we work to advance freedoms, we must also work against those who use communication networks as tools of disruption and fear.

Governments and citizens must have confidence that the networks at the core of their national security and economic prosperity are safe and resilient. Now this is about more than petty hackers who deface websites. Our ability to bank online, use electronic commerce, and safeguard billions of dollars in intellectual property are all at stake if we cannot rely on the security of our information networks.

Disruptions in these systems demand a coordinated response by all governments, the private sector, and the international community. We need more tools to help law enforcement agencies cooperate across jurisdictions when criminal hackers and organized crime syndicates attack networks for financial gain. The same is true when social ills such as child pornography and the exploitation of trafficked women and girls online is there for the world to see and for those who exploit these people to make a profit. We applaud efforts such as the Council on Europe’s Convention on Cybercrime that facilitate international cooperation in prosecuting such offenses. And we wish to redouble our efforts.

We have taken steps as a government, and as a Department, to find diplomatic solutions to strengthen global cyber security. We have a lot of people in the State Department working on this. They’ve joined together, and we created two years ago an office to coordinate foreign policy in cyberspace. We’ve worked to address this challenge at the UN and in other multilateral forums and to put cyber security on the world’s agenda. And President Obama has just appointed a new national cyberspace policy coordinator who will help us work even more closely to ensure that everyone’s networks stay free, secure, and reliable.

States, terrorists, and those who would act as their proxies must know that the United States will protect our networks. Those who disrupt the free flow of information in our society or any other pose a threat to our economy, our government, and our civil society. Countries or individuals that engage in cyber attacks should face consequences and international condemnation. In an internet-connected world, an attack on one nation’s networks can be an attack on all. And by reinforcing that message, we can create norms of behavior among states and encourage respect for the global networked commons.

The final freedom, one that was probably inherent in what both President and Mrs. Roosevelt thought about and wrote about all those years ago, is one that flows from the four I’ve already mentioned: the freedom to connect – the idea that governments should not prevent people from connecting to the internet, to websites, or to each other. The freedom to connect is like the freedom of assembly, only in cyberspace. It allows individuals to get online, come together, and hopefully cooperate. Once you’re on the internet, you don’t need to be a tycoon or a rock star to have a huge impact on society.

The largest public response to the terrorist attacks in Mumbai was launched by a 13-year-old boy. He used social networks to organize blood drives and a massive interfaith book of condolence. In Colombia, an unemployed engineer brought together more than 12 million people in 190 cities around the world to demonstrate against the FARC terrorist movement. The protests were the largest antiterrorist demonstrations in history. And in the weeks that followed, the FARC saw more demobilizations and desertions than it had during a decade of military action. And in Mexico, a single email from a private citizen who was fed up with drug-related violence snowballed into huge demonstrations in all of the country’s 32 states. In Mexico City alone, 150,000 people took to the streets in protest. So the internet can help humanity push back against those who promote violence and crime and extremism.

In Iran and Moldova and other countries, online organizing has been a critical tool for advancing democracy and enabling citizens to protest suspicious election results. And even in established democracies like the United States, we’ve seen the power of these tools to change history. Some of you may still remember the 2008 presidential election here. (Laughter.)

The freedom to connect to these technologies can help transform societies, but it is also critically important to individuals. I was recently moved by the story of a doctor – and I won’t tell you what country he was from – who was desperately trying to diagnose his daughter’s rare medical condition. He consulted with two dozen specialists, but he still didn’t have an answer. But he finally identified the condition, and found a cure, by using an internet search engine. That’s one of the reasons why unfettered access to search engine technology is so important in individuals’ lives.

Now, the principles I’ve outlined today will guide our approach in addressing the issue of internet freedom and the use of these technologies. And I want to speak about how we apply them in practice. The United States is committed to devoting the diplomatic, economic, and technological resources necessary to advance these freedoms. We are a nation made up of immigrants from every country and every interest that spans the globe. Our foreign policy is premised on the idea that no country more than America stands to benefit when there is cooperation among peoples and states. And no country shoulders a heavier burden when conflict and misunderstanding drive nations apart. So we are well placed to seize the opportunities that come with interconnectivity. And as the birthplace for so many of these technologies, including the internet itself, we have a responsibility to see them used for good. To do that, we need to develop our capacity for what we call, at the State Department, 21st century statecraft.

Realigning our policies and our priorities will not be easy. But adjusting to new technology rarely is. When the telegraph was introduced, it was a source of great anxiety for many in the diplomatic community, where the prospect of receiving daily instructions from capitals was not entirely welcome. But just as our diplomats eventually mastered the telegraph, they are doing the same to harness the potential of these new tools as well.

And I’m proud that the State Department is already working in more than 40 countries to help individuals silenced by oppressive governments. We are making this issue a priority at the United Nations as well, and we’re including internet freedom as a component in the first resolution we introduced after returning to the United Nations Human Rights Council.

We are also supporting the development of new tools that enable citizens to exercise their rights of free expression by circumventing politically motivated censorship. We are providing funds to groups around the world to make sure that those tools get to the people who need them in local languages, and with the training they need to access the internet safely. The United States has been assisting in these efforts for some time, with a focus on implementing these programs as efficiently and effectively as possible. Both the American people and nations that censor the internet should understand that our government is committed to helping promote internet freedom.

We want to put these tools in the hands of people who will use them to advance democracy and human rights, to fight climate change and epidemics, to build global support for President Obama’s goal of a world without nuclear weapons, to encourage sustainable economic development that lifts the people at the bottom up.

That’s why today I’m announcing that over the next year, we will work with partners in industry, academia, and nongovernmental organizations to establish a standing effort that will harness the power of connection technologies and apply them to our diplomatic goals. By relying on mobile phones, mapping applications, and other new tools, we can empower citizens and leverage our traditional diplomacy. We can address deficiencies in the current market for innovation.

Let me give you one example. Let’s say I want to create a mobile phone application that would allow people to rate government ministries, including ours, on their responsiveness and efficiency and also to ferret out and report corruption. The hardware required to make this idea work is already in the hands of billions of potential users. And the software involved would be relatively inexpensive to develop and deploy.

If people took advantage of this tool, it would help us target our foreign assistance spending, improve lives, and encourage foreign investment in countries with responsible governments. However, right now, mobile application developers have no financial assistance to pursue that project on their own, and the State Department currently lacks a mechanism to make it happen. But this initiative should help resolve that problem and provide long-term dividends from modest investments in innovation. We’re going to work with experts to find the best structure for this venture, and we’ll need the talent and resources of technology companies and nonprofits in order to get the best results most quickly. So for those of you in the room who have this kind of talent, expertise, please consider yourselves invited to help us.

In the meantime, there are companies, individuals, and institutions working on ideas and applications that could already advance our diplomatic and development objectives. And the State Department will be launching an innovation competition to give this work an immediate boost. We’ll be asking Americans to send us their best ideas for applications and technologies that help break down language barriers, overcome illiteracy, connect people to the services and information they need. Microsoft, for example, has already developed a prototype for a digital doctor that could help provide medical care in isolated rural communities. We want to see more ideas like that. And we’ll work with the winners of the competition and provide grants to help build their ideas to scale.

Now, these new initiatives will supplement a great deal of important work we’ve already done over this past year. In the service of our diplomatic and diplomacy objectives, I assembled a talented and experienced team to lead our 21st century statecraft efforts. This team has traveled the world helping governments and groups leverage the benefits of connection technologies. They have stood up a Civil Society 2.0 Initiative to help grassroots organizations enter the digital age. They are putting in place a program in Mexico to help combat drug-related violence by allowing people to make untracked reports to reliable sources to avoid having retribution visited against them. They brought mobile banking to Afghanistan and are now pursuing the same effort in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In Pakistan, they created the first-ever social mobile network, called Our Voice, that has already produced tens of millions of messages and connected young Pakistanis who want to stand up to violent extremism.

In a short span, we have taken significant strides to translate the promise of these technologies into results that make a difference. But there is still so much more to be done. And as we work together with the private sector and foreign governments to deploy the tools of 21st century statecraft, we have to remember our shared responsibility to safeguard the freedoms that I’ve talked about today. We feel strongly that principles like information freedom aren’t just good policy, not just somehow connected to our national values, but they are universal and they’re also good for business.

To use market terminology, a publicly listed company in Tunisia or Vietnam that operates in an environment of censorship will always trade at a discount relative to an identical firm in a free society. If corporate decision makers don’t have access to global sources of news and information, investors will have less confidence in their decisions over the long term. Countries that censor news and information must recognize that from an economic standpoint, there is no distinction between censoring political speech and commercial speech. If businesses in your nations are denied access to either type of information, it will inevitably impact on growth.

Increasingly, U.S. companies are making the issue of internet and information freedom a greater consideration in their business decisions. I hope that their competitors and foreign governments will pay close attention to this trend. The most recent situation involving Google has attracted a great deal of interest. And we look to the Chinese authorities to conduct a thorough review of the cyber intrusions that led Google to make its announcement. And we also look for that investigation and its results to be transparent.

The internet has already been a source of tremendous progress in China, and it is fabulous. There are so many people in China now online. But countries that restrict free access to information or violate the basic rights of internet users risk walling themselves off from the progress of the next century. Now, the United States and China have different views on this issue, and we intend to address those differences candidly and consistently in the context of our positive, cooperative, and comprehensive relationship.

Now, ultimately, this issue isn’t just about information freedom; it is about what kind of world we want and what kind of world we will inhabit. It’s about whether we live on a planet with one internet, one global community, and a common body of knowledge that benefits and unites us all, or a fragmented planet in which access to information and opportunity is dependent on where you live and the whims of censors.

Information freedom supports the peace and security that provides a foundation for global progress. Historically, asymmetrical access to information is one of the leading causes of interstate conflict. When we face serious disputes or dangerous incidents, it’s critical that people on both sides of the problem have access to the same set of facts and opinions.

As it stands, Americans can consider information presented by foreign governments. We do not block your attempts to communicate with the people in the United States. But citizens in societies that practice censorship lack exposure to outside views. In North Korea, for example, the government has tried to completely isolate its citizens from outside opinions. This lopsided access to information increases both the likelihood of conflict and the probability that small disagreements could escalate. So I hope that responsible governments with an interest in global stability will work with us to address such imbalances.

For companies, this issue is about more than claiming the moral high ground. It really comes down to the trust between firms and their customers. Consumers everywhere want to have confidence that the internet companies they rely on will provide comprehensive search results and act as responsible stewards of their own personal information. Firms that earn that confidence of those countries and basically provide that kind of service will prosper in the global marketplace. I really believe that those who lose that confidence of their customers will eventually lose customers. No matter where you live, people want to believe that what they put into the internet is not going to be used against them.

And censorship should not be in any way accepted by any company from anywhere. And in America, American companies need to make a principled stand. This needs to be part of our national brand. I’m confident that consumers worldwide will reward companies that follow those principles.

Now, we are reinvigorating the Global Internet Freedom Task Force as a forum for addressing threats to internet freedom around the world, and we are urging U.S. media companies to take a proactive role in challenging foreign governments’ demands for censorship and surveillance. The private sector has a shared responsibility to help safeguard free expression. And when their business dealings threaten to undermine this freedom, they need to consider what’s right, not simply what’s a quick profit.

We’re also encouraged by the work that’s being done through the Global Network Initiative, a voluntary effort by technology companies who are working with nongovernmental organizations, academic experts, and social investment funds to respond to government requests for censorship. The initiative goes beyond mere statements of principles and establishes mechanisms to promote real accountability and transparency. As part of our commitment to support responsible private sector engagement on information freedom, the State Department will be convening a high-level meeting next month co-chaired by Under Secretaries Robert Hormats and Maria Otero to bring together firms that provide network services for talks about internet freedom, because we want to have a partnership in addressing this 21st century challenge.

Now, pursuing the freedoms I’ve talked about today is, I believe, the right thing to do. But I also believe it’s the smart thing to do. By advancing this agenda, we align our principles, our economic goals, and our strategic priorities. We need to work toward a world in which access to networks and information brings people closer together and expands the definition of the global community. Given the magnitude of the challenges we’re facing, we need people around the world to pool their knowledge and creativity to help rebuild the global economy, to protect our environment, to defeat violent extremism, and build a future in which every human being can live up to and realize his or her God-given potential.

So let me close by asking you to remember the little girl who was pulled from the rubble on Monday in Port-au-Prince. She’s alive, she was reunited with her family, she will have the chance to grow up because these networks took a voice that was buried and spread it to the world. No nation, no group, no individual should stay buried in the rubble of oppression. We cannot stand by while people are separated from the human family by walls of censorship. And we cannot be silent about these issues simply because we cannot hear the cries.

So let us recommit ourselves to this cause. Let us make these technologies a force for real progress the world over. And let us go forward together to champion these freedoms for our time, for our young people who deserve every opportunity we can give them.

Thank you all very much. (Applause.)

*Senator Lugar was not a co-sponsor of the VOICE Act. Senator Kaufman was one of the co-authors and leading co-sponsors.

Thanks FT.

Hillary Clinton goes “On the Record,” about Haiti

This is a rush transcript from “On the Record,” January 18, 2010. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, FOX NEWS HOST: Over the weekend we did go to Haiti with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. She went “On the Record.”

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HILLARY CLINTON, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: Good to see you, Greta.

VAN SUSTEREN: Obviously in a horrible situation.

CLINTON: It is, but I’m very pleased you’re here on the ground, as you often are.

VAN SUSTEREN: Obviously, this isn’t our country, and we are desperately trying to help, and we need the cooperation of their government. What is the state of the government to help us?

CLINTON: They’ve been hit very hard, but we just had an excellent meeting with the president and the prime minister. And they were very specific about what they’re trying to achieve.

Clearly, their highest obligation is to get necessities to the people who are living, to clear the streets of the corpses, and that is a very tragic job that has to be done, and to begin working on the electricity, the transportation, the telecommunications, you know, the nuts and bolts of how they get up and going again.

VAN SUSTEREN: You are down here just a couple days after this happened. How long can we sustain this? And are we getting help from other foreign governments? And how are you coordinating that so we can collectively make this work out?

CLINTON: We are getting an outpouring of help. First and foremost the United Nations, despite suffering their own horrific losses, are here, are getting stood up. We saw a lot of U.N. trucks.

We have a great group of other countries in our hemisphere and beyond. We are beginning to meet, and I talked with many of my counterparts, the foreign ministers around the world.

So there is going to be an international effort. The key is coordinating it, and to make sure that we are each doing what we can do best.

Watch Greta’s interview with Secretary of State Clinton

Now, there isn’t anybody who could have gotten this airport open and up and running besides the United States military in the time that we did it. We are going to be looking at the pore to make sure we can take information and expertise we have and try to get that port up and going

So the teams that are here, there are I think 30 search-and-rescue teams, six of those are Americans and the others are from all over the world. Everybody has been saving lives. It is really heartwarming. And from my perspective what the world is doing on behalf of this terrible tragedy is a great tribute us to.

VAN SUSTEREN: In our great zeal to help, and we came in the other day at this airport, you think it would be so easy to take over an airport, but it is not. I don’t think people realized we had to work something out. What did you have to be able to have the authority to do that?

CLINTON: We’re here as a humanitarian assistance and disaster relief mission. That’s what the United States military is here for. They are here as we all are at the invitation of the Haitian government that knows they need help.

And this airport is a perfect example. There’s only one runway. This is not ideal. Thank goodness it was not damaged. If the earthquake had knocked this runway out I don’t know where we would be in terms of trying to help.

So we went to the Haitian government. We said we were ready to help. They asked for our help. We negotiated an agreement so that the United States military could get it open and prioritize the flights in and out, because, as you can tell, it’s a small airport, but we’ve made it very busy and we’ve got to be sure people are safe coming in and out.

VAN SUSTEREN: So we have all these supplies, cargo coming in, and we’re shipping it out into the country. But the things like hospitals, and we would like to help in the hospitals — does the United States have to work out agreements there? Is there any sort of resistance?

If we can help in those hospitals, because we are hearing horrible stories there.

CLINTON: The Haitians have said we need all the help we can get. It’s a question of getting to where the help is need, setting up a facility, making sure it’s well-staffed and well-equipped. There are military hospitals by a number of countries being set-up around the affected area. There will have to be more.

We are also trying to resupply and support the Haitian hospitals that are still operating. Before I got on the plane this morning I got an e- mail from Dr. Paul Farmer who you has a long history here in Haiti and Partners in Health, which he was one of the founders of. He has a team working in one of the hospitals, giving me a report.

So it is all hands on deck. Everybody in our government and all these other governments are doing our best.

VAN SUSTEREN: We see the men and women of our military here. What is with the U.S. embassy?

CLINTON: Our ambassador is the chief of mission. Everybody in country is reporting to him. He’s coordinating the civilian and the military assistance. General Keen, who is the military commander on the ground works closely with our ambassador. Our ambassador negotiated the agreement with the Haitian government to get this airport open and have our folks help to prioritize.

So literally there’s more work than any human being can do in a 24 hour period. But everybody is working hard. What we want to make sure we are prioritizing and coordinated, and that’s my goal.

VAN SUSTEREN: I think it is interesting to show the all hands on deck — even your staff was out last night hustling at drug stores around Washington, D.C., buying all sorts of items to bring. So it really is really all hands on deck.

CLINTON: It really is. It is the best of America. And I’m so proud of our State Department, our USAID, our military, all of our private citizens, the generosity of the American people.

This is a terrible, horrible catastrophe for the people of Haiti, but I think that the outpouring from America and beyond should give them some reason to hope.

Thanks Fox News.

Hillary Clinton Bringing Aid to the Haitian People… Cigrettes?

Another thing people like to blame my gal Hillary for. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in earthquake ravaged Haiti over the weekend as she personally delivered a cargo plane full of much-needed supplies, many of which were personally purchased by her and her staff.

Mrs. Clinton brought toothbrushes, toilet paper, bagels, donuts, socks, underwear, deodorant, fruit loops, and soap. However, several conservative websites and chatrooms ridiculed Clinton because among the supplies she brought to dying people were cigarettes.

Addiction is no laughing matter.

Thanks Sports Pig!

Hillary Clinton in the Shadows of Obama?

It was never going to be easy to be secretary of state in the shadow of a president who won the Nobel Peace Prize within months of taking office.

And that is what Hillary Clinton has perhaps found. President Obama has made such an impact on the world, partly from not being George W Bush, that she is sometimes left as an also-ran. Just as she was in the presidential elections.

It is the president who has re-fashioned American foreign policy from one widely seen as confrontational, into one in which he says he seeks engagement.

He, not Hillary Clinton, has set the agenda for America.

It was he who insisted on taking time with his advisers to debate sending reinforcements to Afghanistan.

It was he who reached out to the Muslim world.

It was he who insisted to the Israelis that they had to freeze settlements if there were to be further Middle East peace talks.

It was he who held out his hand to Iran, hoping for an unclenched fist. It will be he who will determine whether at some stage to move from sanctions to military action.

It was he who led the US negotiations over global warming, an issue which has not enthused her much.

Hillary Rodham Clinton (as she prefers to be called, emphasising her own family name as well as that of her husband) is finding it a hard task to fashion a distinctive diplomatic role for herself.

That is not uncommon among secretaries of state. Many have been swallowed up by history. Only those with strong personalities and willing and able to grasp the reins of foreign policy (under a president willing to leave that to them) have thrived at the time and in the memory.

Henry Kissinger under President Nixon and John Foster Dulles under President Eisenhower were modern titans. George Schultz for Ronald Reagan and James Baker for George Bush senior did some hard deal-making in their day. But who studies the works of Christian Archibald Herter, also a secretary of state under Eisenhower, and William P Rogers, who preceded Kissinger under Nixon?

It was a risk for Barack Obama to bring his rival into the administration’s tent. She is at heart more hawkish than he is and has had to tone this down. A crisis could yet arise when her instincts clash with his.

She has also had to accept that the infamous “0300 call” election advertisement was an empty, and unedifying, threat, which diminished her.

The ad was hardball stuff and attacked her election rival’s lack of foreign policy experience. Over pictures of sleeping children, the commentary said: “It’s 3am and your children are safe and asleep. But there’s a phone ringing in the White House… who do you want to answer the phone?”

Hillary Rodham Clinton is now happy for Barack Obama to answer that phone.

‘Celebrity’

She also has strengths. She is well-known and well-liked by her international colleagues and audiences. As Joe Klein of Time magazine put it: “She is an international celebrity with a much higher profile than any of her recent predecessors and the ability – second only to the President’s – to change negative attitudes about the US abroad.”

The administration is only a year old. Secretary Clinton will not be dissatisfied with her image. It is her achievements that remain in doubt.

How much of an adviser can she really be to someone who knows his own mind? Is she skilled enough at the hard graft of negotiating to be able to deliver what the president wants? And what happens if they have a major disagreement?

Thanks BBC.

Hillary Clinton, “Long Term Effort to Help Haiti.”

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Thursday the United States will provide long-term assistance to help Haiti recover from this week’s devastating earthquake.

“This is going to be a long-term effort. We have the immediate crisis of trying to save those lives that can be saved, to deal with the injured … to try to provide food, water, medical supplies, some semblance of shelter,” Clinton said on NBC’s Today show.

She said the U.S. government was also prepared to work with the Haitian government and other international partners to begin rebuilding the stricken country.

“This calamity has affected 3 million people. It has caused the collapse of ten of thousands of buildings. We know that there will be tens of thousands of casualties,” Clinton added without providing specific numbers on fatalities.

Clinton said in a separate interview on CNN that a U.S. military team had reopened the airport so that heavy aircraft could begin to arrive.

She also pledged U.S. help for the crippled Haitian government. “The authorities that existed before the earthquake are not able to fully function. We’re going to try to support them as they re-establish authority,” she told CNN.

Clinton said a 7,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping force was helping to maintain order and would receive help controlling looting and other violence from the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne Division later on Thursday. “The peacekeeping force … is out on the streets, they’re clearing streets, they’re bringing law and order,” Clinton said on NBC.

The Pentagon was sending an aircraft carrier, which she said would arrive soon, and three amphibious ships, including one that can carry up to 2,000 Marines.

“We’ve got a very coordinated, aggressive response going on,” Clinton, who cut short a trip to the Pacific to return to Washington and deal with the crisis, said on CNN.

“We’ve sent some of our crack search and rescue teams into Port-au-Prince. They’re beginning their work. We’re coordinating with the Haitian president, President Preval.”

Thanks Reuters.

Japanese foreign minister visits Hawaii for talks with Clinton

The Japanese foreign minister is visiting Hawaii for talks with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about the relocation of a U.S. Marine Corps base in Okinawa.Katsuya Okada is meeting with military leaders at the U.S. Pacific Command on Monday. He’s also paying his respects at Punchbowl, the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.He will meet Clinton on Tuesday and discuss the fate of the U.S. Marine Corps airfield at Futenma in Okinawa.The U.S. and Japan agreed in 2006 to move Futenma to another part of Okinawa. But Okinawa residents oppose the move and want the airfield shut down.Clinton is stopping in Honolulu en route to Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea

Clinton Says To Meet This Week On UN Iran Sanctions

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says the United States and its five negotiating partners in the P5+1 will meet in New York at the end of this week to discuss possible sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program.

Clinton told reporters aboard her State Department plane while en route to Hawaii today that the Obama administration has concluded the best way to pressure Tehran to come clean on its nuclear ambitions is to impose sanctions aimed at the country’s ruling elite.

Clinton said the final go-ahead on sanctions has not yet been made, but added that administration officials are moving in that direction after consulting with allies and other nations.

Iran has balked at coming to an agreement on curtailing a nuclear program that the United States and other countries fear is aimed at building atomic weapons.

U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters in Washington today that some P5+1 talks also could take place when U.S. Undersecretary of State William Burns travels to Moscow on January 13 and Madrid on January 14.

The P5+1 includes the permanent five members of the UN Security Council — the United States, France, Britain, Russia and China — plus Germany.

compiled from agency reports.

Thanks Radio Free.

Hillary Clinton Doesn’t Believe Reports That Chuck Schumer Stabbed her in the Back

Hillary Clinton and her campaign insiders don’t believe reports that Sen. Chuck Schumer stabbed her in the back – despite reports in a blockbuster book that he did just that.

“Game Change” by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin revealed that Schumer and other powerful Dems urged Barack Obama to run – knowing that Clinton planned to. The pair wrote that Schumer even told Obama pal Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) to “take a two-by-four” to Clinton in 2007.

One source said the secretary of state and Schumer (D-N.Y.) talked by phone yesterday and she told him that she “paid it no mind.”

“She said it was just one of the many things in the book that she didn’t believe was at all true,” the source said.

The usually talkative Schumer, pressed on the report, refused to comment yesterday, but vehemently denied the account over the weekend. Several sources said Camp Clinton knew Schumer encouraged Obama to run, but that he also warned the future President he’d back Hillary once she jumped in. And they say Schumer delivered.

“Chuck did everything we asked,” said one Clinton campaign hand.

The insiders suspect the reporting stems from the fact that senators like to leave the impression they have more to do with everything than they really do.

“Chuck sometimes likes to take too much credit so he can say, ‘I did that,’” one source said.

The book has also landed Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) in hot water, reporting he once said he thought Obama could do well because he was “light-skinned” and didn’t speak with a “Negro dialect.” Reid apologized and the President accepted over the weekend. Still, Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele said yesterday Reid should step down because he’s racially insensitive, even as Steele is facing his own charges of racial insensitivity.

Steele angered Native Americans last week by using the phrase “honest injun” to show how seriously he believes the GOP doesn’t need a new, more modern message.

Native Americans, including Republicans, slammed the remark as a racial slur.

“Well, if it is, I apologize for it,” Steele said on “Fox News Sunday.”

Thanks Daily News.

Not to be Out Done, Hillary Clinton Visits New Zealand

The US Secretary of State is coming to New Zealand for talks with the Prime Minister on Friday next week … but she’s not coming to Wellington.

An official State Department website provides the following information on her one-day visit:

On January 15, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will travel to Auckland, where she meets with senior New Zealand officials, including Prime Minister John Key. In addition, the Secretary engages in discussions with New Zealand citizens and meets with U.S. and New Zealand veterans at the Auckland War Memorial Museum.

The previous day, the much-travelled Secretary of State will have been in Papua New Guinea:

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton travels to Papua New Guinea on January 14 where she holds bilateral meetings as well as meet with local civil society leaders to discuss environmental protection and women’s empowerment.

Thanks Wellington Scoop.

Hillary Clinton Stops in OZ for the 1st Time as Secretary of State

HILLARY Clinton will visit Canberra and Melbourne this month on her first trip to Australia as US Secretary of State.

One year after President Barack Obama’s inauguration, his top foreign affairs adviser has been dispatched on her first mission to Canberra for the AUSMIN talks on January 17 and will also go to Melbourne.

Ms Clinton visited Australia as first lady in 1996 during Bill Clinton’s presidency.

The global fight against terrorism and Australia’s role in Afghanistan will likely dominate the defence talks, to be attended by Ms Clinton, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates, Australia’s Foreign Minister Stephen Smith and Defence Minister John Faulkner.

A spokesman was last night unable to say what Ms Clinton would do in Melbourne.

Ms Clinton’s visit, which has been the subject of rumour for weeks, comes at a critical time for US relations worldwide.

The Christmas Day airline bombing attempt has injected new urgency into global efforts to improve airline security and tackle al-Qa’ida in Afghanistan and Yemen. Australia has about 1500 troops in Afghanistan and there is no sign the US expects a bigger commitment.

Ms Clinton will visit Hawaii, Papua New Guinea, New Zealand and Australia on the trip.

Her predecessor, George W. Bush’s secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, visited Australia in January 2008 after Kevin Rudd was elected prime minister.

Assassination Plot Against Hillary Clinton by Somali Born Crazy

Thank God this didn’t happen. Danish authorities have expanded the investigation into the attempted murder of an illustrator who drew a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed, with the suspect accused of having plotted a similar murder attempt against U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Kurt Westergaard, 74, knows that the cartoon he drew of the prophet with a bomb instead of a turban will always haunt him. He has had police protection ever since the cartoon row turned violent in 2006. Danish authorities had arrested three suspects who allegedly plotted to murder him.

This past Friday, the threat became real. Around 10 p.m., a 28-year-old Somali-born resident of Denmark wielding an ax broke into Westergaard’s house near Aarhus.

The cartoonist was able to flee into a “panic room” in his home. Police arriving at the scene shortly afterward shot the attacker in the leg and the hand. He has since been held in custody and charged with attempted murder.

Danish intelligence officials linked the man, who has not yet been identified, to an East African Islamist militia allied with al-Qaida. Police Monday searched three homes, two of which belong to the suspect’s relatives, in order to find out whether the man acted alone.

Danish newspaper Politiken said the man has also been suspected of trying to assassinate Hillary Clinton during her visit to Kenya this past summer. The man was apparently held by Kenyan authorities but released due to lack of evidence, the newspaper said. Danish authorities had since monitored him. However, they had no idea he was planning to kill Westergaard.

The Organization of the Islamic Conference condemned the attack on Westergaard’s life, saying it “runs totally against the teachings and values of Islam.”

Thanks UPI.

Westergaard’s drawing — showing the prophet wearing a turban shaped like a bomb with a lit fuse — was first published by Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten in 2005 as part of a collection of cartoons dealing with Islam.

Reprints of the cartoons in 2006 triggered violent protests all over the world that killed more than 50 people. They also sparked a boycott of Danish products and attacks on Danish institutions in Muslim countries.

Hillary Clinton a Winner, Nancy Pelosi a Loser according to new Gallup Top Political Poll

Americans have spoken: The top political winners of 2009 are Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton and Sonia Sotomayor, a Gallup poll indicated.

President Barack Obama also finished in the winner’s circle in addition to the first lady, the secretary of state and the newest Supreme Court justice, results of the Gallup Poll released Monday indicated.

Michelle Obama has the broadest support with 73 percent of respondents calling her a “winner” in U.S. politics this year, while 21 percent said she was a “loser,” the Princeton, N.J., polling agency said. Clinton’s rating is nearly as positive.

Respondents reacted to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., whom half of all Americans identify as a political loser, Gallup said. More than half say the same of Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., who shouted “You lie” when Obama addressed Congress on healthcare, as well as South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, who is losing his wife after admitting to an affair and who is under a state ethics investigation.

Nearly half of Americans — 46 percent — call Sarah Palin a winner, but slightly more — 49 percent — call her a loser. About equal numbers of Americans call Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and radio talk host Glenn Beck winners and losers, Gallup said.

Results are based on nationwide telephone interviews with 1,025 national adults conducted Dec. 11-13. The margin of error is 4 percentage points.

Thanks UPI.

Prosecutors were Ready to Indict the Clinton’s on the Lewinsky and Whitewater Scandals

Poor Hillary. Just leave those Clintons alone, Christ! In a new book set for release on February 16th, author Ken Gormley says prosecutors were prepared to indict both former President Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton. The planned indictments were related to both the Lewinsky scandal and the Clinon’s Whitewater dealings. Excerpts from the book were first released on the Politico website last Thursday.

In the book, entitled ”The Death of American Virtue: Clinton vs. Starr”, Monica Lewinsky says she has no doubt that Bill Clinton lied to a grand jury about their relationship.

“There was no leeway on the veracity of his statements because they asked him detailed and specific questions to which he answered untruthfully,” Lewinsky said about Clinton’s grand jury testimony, according to the book.

Gormley also claims in the book that former Secret Service Director Lewis Merletti believed that the FBI was suspicious that he had conspired with Clinton in order to get the top spot at the agency. Merletti claimed that an FBI agent accused him of concealing Clinton’s affair with Lewinsky. Merletti denies that accusation.

Independent counsel Kenneth Starr’s office spent years and millions of dollars in the 1990’s on the investigation into Clinton’s affair with Lewinsky and the efforts to conceal it. The scandal eventually led to Clinton’s impeachment by the House of Representitives. The five-year probe by Starr also looked into the Clintons’ Whitewater business dealings, as well as the suicide of deputy White House counsel Vincent Foster. Starr also investigated the firing of White travel office workers and accusations that White House officials misused FBI files.

According to the book Starr’s successor, Robert Ray, informed Bill Clinton that he was prepared to prosecute the ex-president . In the book Gormley says Ray “took steps to instill the fear of God in the White House.”

“I wanted them to know I was coming,” Ray said. “I was fully of the view that if I was not prepared to carry out the threat, it wasn’t worth making.”

Clinton made a deal with prosecutors to avoid indictment on Jan. 19th 2001, his last full day as president. Clinton admitted he gave false testimony in the Lewinsky matter, in return for a promise to drop the threat of indictment. As part of the deal, the president admitted he gave false answers in a January 1998 deposition, but insisted he didn’t do so knowingly, which is crucial in obtaing a conviction for the crime of perjury.

That in itself would appear to be a lie, as the grand jury questions about Clinton’s involvement with Lewinsky were reportedly very specific. Unless Clinton was unconscious during his sexual encounters with Lewinsky it seems it would have been impossible for him to have “unknowingly” lied.

The book also says that prosecutors under Starr wanted to formally indict Hillary Rodham Clinton in 1998 on charges that she and a former law partner lied about her business dealings with Madison Guaranty, a failed savings and loan connected to friends James and Susan McDougal.

An indictment was drafted against Clinton and Webster Lee Hubbell to be filed in Arkansas federal court, the book says.

In December 1994, Hubbell pleaded guilty to federal mail fraud and tax evasion charges in connection with his handling of billing at the Rose Law Firm, a firm with partners that once included Hillary Clinton and Vince Foster. Judge George Howard sentenced Hubbell to 21 months in prison.

In 1998 Hubbell and his wife were indicted on 10 counts of conspiracy, tax evasion and mail fraud. District Judge James Robertson later threw out the charges, ruling that Independent Counsel Ken Starr had overstepped his authority in bringing forth the Hubbell indictment.

Hubbell was indicted for a third time later in 1998, this time for fraud and lying to the House Banking Committee and federal banking regulators. Hubbell resolved those charges in a plea agreement with Starr and was sentenced to a year of probabtion.

Susan McDougal eventually spent 18 months in prison for refusing to testify before the Whitewater grand jury.

“Yet the consensus was that any effort to prosecute Mrs. Clinton would be extremely risky,” Gormley writes in the book. Prosecutors believed that “getting an Arkansas or a Washington grand jury to indict the First Lady seemed like a long shot.”

Thanks Examiner.

Hillary Clinton the Most Pro-Gay Secretary of State America has ever had

Keep up the good work! Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been nothing short of a rock star when it comes to denouncing international homophobia. On September 11 this year, she made it a point to talk about how international gay rights are part of the Obama administration’s human rights agenda. On World AIDS Day this year, she drew the connections between criminalization of homosexuality and the HIV pandemic. And just this week, Clinton blasted Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act, calling it out as a piece of legislation that would violate human rights and take away human dignity.

Fierce advocate for gay rights? Yeah, there’s one in the White House. But it might not be the one with the fancier desk and the oval-like office.

Clinton’s condemnation of Uganda’s anti-gay bill came during a widely-publicized speech on the human rights policies of the Obama administration. Coupled with stinging remarks to countries that foster gender inequality, the speech continued a focus on global homophobia that has been a part of Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State since practically day one.

“Governments should be expected to resist the temptation to restrict freedom of expression when criticism arises, and be vigilant in preventing law from becoming an instrument of oppression, as bills like the one under consideration in Uganda to criminalize homosexuality would do,” Clinton said.

Clinton joins nearly 99 percent of the world, it seems, calling for Uganda to dump its Anti-Homosexuality Bill. For now the country continues to resist international pressure to drop the bill, making Uganda even less popular than the Taliban. Which is exactly the type of human rights company the country will deserve if it passes the Anti-Homosexuality Bill.

While human rights activists continue to be mixed on the Obama administration’s first year in office, Clinton deserves credit for keeping international gay rights on this White House’s radar screen. Years of George W. Bush and Condoleezza Rice resulted in very little action on anything pertaining to global homophobia.

Yet within Clinton’s first few months in office, the United States signed onto a UN statement calling for the worldwide decriminalization of homosexuality. And Clinton also pushed the Obama administration to announce that it would offer benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees.

There’s a tendency to focus on the executive branch of government and wonder why we’ve seen very slow movement on issues like repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” or the Obama administration’s weird defense of laws like the Defense of Marriage Act. Clearly, this is a White House that deserves heat and continued pressure from LGBT rights activists.

But it’s also important to recognize that on the international scene, this country has never had a more pro-LGBT Secretary of State. The Clinton brand, in all its glory, has made human rights for LGBT people around the globe a part of its story.

Maybe Hillary Clinton wasn’t the best Presidential candidate last year. But she may just become the best Secretary of State, at least when it comes to sending a message that the human rights of queer folk deserve to be protected.

Thanks Michael Jones.

Hillary Clinton: U.S. to Follow Appeal in Knox Murder Case

The United States will provide consular support for U.S. exchange student Amanda Knox as she appeals her conviction in Italy in a high profile murder case, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Monday.

I understand that there will be appeals taken, and we will follow that. And of course, I stand ready to meet with anyone who wishes to discuss this case further,” Clinton said.

The American student from Seattle was sentenced by an Italian court to 26 years in prison and jailed her ex-boyfriend for 25 years after they were found guilty of murdering Knox’s British roommate, 21-year-old Meredith Kercher, during a drunken sex game.

Kercher was found semi-naked with her throat slit in the bedroom of her apartment in Perugia.

Lawyers for the two defendants said they would appeal the verdict while Knox’s family denounced what they called a “failure of the Italian judicial system.” The defense has questioned DNA and other evidence used in the case.

State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said on Monday the United States had no reason to believe justice had been mishandled.

Clinton said the United States would continue to extend consular support to Knox through her appeal as per normal procedure. “Our consular affairs personnel have been in regular contact with her and with her family,” she said.

The November 2007 murder was followed by an 11-month trial in the university town of Perugia, where Knox had been studying on a year abroad. In 2008 a man was sentenced for his part in the murder.

Prosecutors had sought life for the defendants, but a jury handed them lesser sentences after 14 hours of deliberation because they were young and had no criminal records.

Thanks Reuters.

Rumor: Hillary Clinton will run for VP in 2012 and President in 2016

Hillary Clinton lost the Democratic Party’s nomination for the Presidency in 2008 and rival Barack Obama took the White House, beating the GOP candidate John McCain in the November election. This all but ruined any plans that Clinton might have had to run again in 2012, as Obama would – barring any unforeseen events or circumstances – be the incumbent candidate. Now it seems that Clinton may have a shot still, it will just take awhile longer.

Lets hope this is true! The hottest rumor in Washington D.C. right now is that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton could replace Vice President Joe Biden on the 2012 Obama re-election ticket. It would serve as a reward for her work at State, as well as prepare her for a 2016 run. Some strategists think that Biden would be too old to run for president at that point.

John Edwards Wanted to Make Deals With Hillary Clinton & Obama for VP!

In scumbag news of the day! A senior adviser to former North Carolina senator John Edwards approached representatives for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in an effort to secure a vice presidential nomination during the 2008 election, according to a new book by Obama’s campaign manager David Plouffe.

Edwards’ adviser told the Obama campaign that the former trial lawyer preferred him and wanted to know if the pair could run as a ticket, Plouffe writes in “The Audacity to Win.”

The conversation took place shortly before the South Carolina primary in January 2008, in which Edwards finished third. A week later he exited the presidential race.

After Obama would not cut a deal with Edwards, Plouffe said, the Edwards’ adviser said he planned to take the proposition to the Clinton campaign.

Obama went on to win the presidential race. Clinton was appointed U.S. secretary of state.

Hillary Clinton Loves Her Some David Miliband, U.K. Foreign Secretary

OOOOHHH! Hillary Clinton has a crush! US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has lavished praise on her UK counterpart David Miliband in an interview with Vogue magazine.

Mrs Clinton described the 44-year-old foreign secretary as “vibrant, vital, attractive, smart”.

The two politicians have met several times since Mrs Clinton took up her role January.

The article also quotes Mr Miliband as returning the compliment, saying Mrs Clinton was “delightful to deal with”.

In a lengthy piece in Vogue the interviewer jokes at one stage about having a crush on Mr Miliband after talking to him on the phone because of his British accent.

“Well, if you saw him it would be a big crush. I mean, he is so vibrant, vital, attractive, smart. He’s really a good guy. And he’s so young,” Mrs Clinton replied.

Mrs Clinton’s first visit to the UK in her new role, in February, saw much being made in the British press of the fact she has referred to the “special relationship” between Britain and the US.

Speaking to Sky News at the time Mr Miliband said she “couldn’t have been warmer” and praised Mrs Clinton’s “remarkable record”.

Thanks BBC.

Hillary Clinton Vows to Continue to Help the Philippine’s!

This just in from the Wall Street Journal:

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton vowed Thursday to continue American military support for the Philippines’ efforts to root out al Qaeda-linked insurgents, despite calls from some Filipino nationalists for the Philippine government to renegotiate the terms of the legal framework enabling U.S. troops to operate there.

Speaking in Manila, Mrs. Clinton also continued to apply pressure on Myanmar, repeating recent calls for the unconditional release of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi as the U.S. prepares for a summit with Southeast Asian states — including Myanmar — at an Asia-Pacific leaders summit in Singapore this weekend.

Since 2005, U.S. troops have provided training and surveillance support for Philippine troops in their fight against a violent Islamist separatist group known as Abu Sayyaf. The group made a name for itself kidnapping and sometimes killing foreign tourists, and is closely tied to the Jemaah Islamiyah terrorist group, which operates across Southeast Asia.

But the U.S. presence in the islands — usually no more than 600 troops at a time — rankles some leftist and nationalist groups in the Philippines, whose Senate in 1991 voted to end an agreement allowing the U.S. to run permanent bases in the islands. The Philippine Senate recently passed a nonbinding resolution calling on the government to renegotiate the 1999 Visiting Forces Agreement, which enables U.S. forces to train and assist Philippine troops even though it no longer maintains permanent bases there.

Senators complained that U.S. troops are given special privileges in the Philippines — such as the right to be detained in the U.S. Embassy if they violate Philippine laws. So far, the Philippine government hasn’t responded to that call.

“I would just reiterate that the United States stands ready to assist our friends in the Philippines who are seeking to counter terrorism and the threat of extremism and we will be willing to support them in any way that is appropriate that they request,” Mrs. Clinton said at a news conference in Manila, the Associated Press reported.

The U.S. and Philippine militaries consider the U.S. mission there a success. It revolves around providing humanitarian assistance and infrastructure development as well as training and surveillance. A similar program was later applied in western Iraq’s Anbar province to win over local chieftains.

Since the U.S. entered the Philippine conflict, the Abu Sayyaf has seen its numbers drop from 2,000 guerrillas to a few hundred operating in the thick interior of Jolo island, 600 miles south of Manila.

Last month, Philippine troops uncovered a large underground bunker complex on the island in a fresh blow against the rebels, while a larger Muslim insurgent group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front has increasingly looked towards negotiating a peace agreement with the Philippines government.

On Myanmar, which is also known as Burma, Mrs. Clinton said no bilateral meetings are planned this weekend between U.S. President Barack Obama and the leaders of the military-led Southeast Asian state. But Mr. Obama is expected to meet Myanmar leaders in a group forum involving multiple heads of state from across Southeast Asia.

The U.S. in recent months has launched an effort to engage with Myanmar’s reclusive leaders to persuade them to allow greater political freedoms. Washington, along with the European Union, also imposes strict economic sanctions on the country to encourage reform, and Mrs. Clinton has said the U.S. needs to see a concrete commitment to democratic reforms in Myanmar before it can re-think its sanctions policy.

The leaders of Southeast Asian countries, including Myanmar, are scheduled to meet with Mr. Obama this weekend on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Singapore.

Hillary Clinton Says Russia on the Same Side About Iran

Does my gal Hillary know something we don’t know? Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says the U.S. and Russia are on the same page when it comes to dealing with Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

Clinton did not get any specific pledges to impose tougher sanctions on Iran in her meeting with Russian leaders in Moscow last week.

But in an interview conducted by “Newsweek’s” Russian edition, Clinton said Washington and the Kremlin are in “full agreement” on how to proceed if diplomatic means are not enough to ensure Tehran won’t develop nuclear weapons.

The interview appeared in the German newspaper “Die Welt”.

In it, Clinton said both Russia and the U.S. are committed to using diplomacy in the dispute with Iran.

She added, quote, “if we are not successful, we will consider other steps.” Clinton also praised the Kremlin for abandoning plans to deliver high-grade S300 air defense missiles to Iran.

Hillary Clinton Revives Help for Darfur

HILLARY CLINTON has promised a new relationship with Sudan if the Khartoum regime end violence and humanitarian abuses in Darfur.

The US secretary of state will tomorrow unveil her proposals to stop the six-year war in the region.

The conflict began in February 2003 when ethnic African rebels took up arms against the Arab-dominated Sudanese government in Khartoum.

United Nations officials say the war has claimed at least 300,000 lives. Some 2.7million people were driven from their homes and, from 2003 to2005, it was called the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

Hillary Clinton More Popular than Obama… Good!

A new Gallup poll shows that the number of people who have a favorable impression of Barack Obama has fallen to its lowest point since he became president. Fifty-six percent say they have a favorable impression of Obama, versus 40 percent who say they have an unfavorable impression. (Four percent say they have no opinion.) Historically, a president’s personal favorable rating has often been higher than his job approval rating; right now, Gallup has Obama’s job approval at 52 percent.

In January, just before Obama took office, 78 percent of those surveyed by Gallup had a favorable impression of him, with just 18 percent having an unfavorable impression. By March, the favorable number had fallen to 69 percent, where it would stay virtually unchanged for four months: 67 percent in May, and 66 percent in July. Now, it has tumbled ten points to 56 percent.

Obama’s favorable rating has fallen most markedly among Republicans: In January, 60 percent said they had a favorable impression of him, versus just 19 percent today. More ominous for the president’s political prospects is the fact that he is also down significantly among independents, from 75 percent in January to 52 percent today. Among Democrats, Obama has slipped a little but is still extremely strong, going from 95 percent in January to 89 percent today.

Gallup points out that in this latest survey, Hillary Clinton is now more popular than Obama. Sixty-two percent say they have a favorable impression of the Secretary of State, versus 34 percent who have an unfavorable impression. That’s a big change from the height of the battle for the Democratic nomination last year; in February 2008, just 48 percent had a favorable impression of Mrs. Clinton, versus 49 percent who had an unfavorable impression.

Hillary Clinton Would Have Hired Obama… as what?

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Wednesday that if she had won presidential election, Barack Obama would “absolutely” have served in her Cabinet.

Recalling the conversation she had with then-president-elect Obama about her joining the administration during an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” Clinton said that she was at first surprised when the president offered her the secretary of state post.

“It was, you know, about … five, six days after the election. And my husband and I were out for a walk, actually, in a, sort of, preserve near where we live in New York. And he had his cell phone in his pocket. It started ringing in the middle of this, you know, big nature preserve,” Clinton said. “Instead of turning it off, he answered it. And it was President-elect Obama wanting to talk to him about some people he was considering for positions.”

Clinton said she then picked up the phone thinking Obama wanted to talk generally about Cabinet picks when he surprised her by asking the former New York senator and Democratic rival to become his chief diplomat.

“He said I want you to be my secretary of state. And I said, ‘Oh, no, you don’t,’” Clinton recalled. “I said, ‘Oh, please, there’s so many other people who could do this.’

“But, you know, we kept talking. I finally began thinking, look, if I had won and I had called him, I would have wanted him to say yes,” Clinton continued. “And, you know, I’m pretty old-fashioned, and it’s just who I am. So at the end of the day, when your president asks you to serve, you say yes, if you can.”

Asked if she would have made the same call to Obama if she had been elected president, Clinton responded: “Absolutely. Absolutely. Oh, of course.”

Additionally, Clinton backed up her statement from earlier in the week that she will not run for president a second time.

“I have absolutely no interest in running for president again. None. None,” she said. “I mean, I know that’s hard for some people to believe, but, you know, I just don’t.”

“I feel like I have had the most amazing life in my public service,” the secretary of state continued. “And for the last 17 years, ever since my husband started running for president, I have been, you know, in the spotlight, working hard. And this job is incredibly all-encompassing. So I think I’m looking forward to maybe taking some time off.”

Hillary Clinton to Retire?

Hillary Clinton Retire? NO!!!

This from NYMAG:

What with this Barack Obama fellow always hogging the spotlight, Hillary Clinton has kept out of the public eye more so than at any time in the past, oh, eighteen years or so. Which is odd, considering that she’s actually one of the highest-ranking officials in government. Some people assume that this means she’s been marginalized in the administration, but Hillary tells Ann Curry that she finds such thoughts “absurd” — she’s just “delegating”! And who would blame her? What kind of psychopath would actually want to personally handle all the various international quandaries going on around the world? But because nobody believes Hillary can be satisfied with anything but the presidency, Curry asks the question that every interviewer is legally required to ask of her until the day she dies: Will she run again? “No,” Hillary replies with her trademark burst of somewhat maniacal laughter. “I’m looking forward to retirement at some point.”

Laura Bush Talks About White House and Hillary Clinton

Things have changed dramatically for Laura Bush since she and President George W. Bush left the White House nine months ago after two terms and eight tumultuous years.

This morning FOX411 caught up with the former first lady at the More Magazine Reinvention Convention (hosted by the magazine’s Editor in Chief, Lesley Jane Seymour), where she spoke to a group of women with daughter Jenna looking on.

In her talk, Mrs. Bush confessed that life changed the minute she departed Washington, and while there are a few things she really misses, first and foremost she’s now relishing her freedom.

“My husband is retired, my children are grown and out of the house, I still have my 90 year-old mother who I see all the time and I’m sort of free as a bird!” she said. “We knew what life was like after the Presidency thanks to George’s dad, George Sr. and mother, Barbara Bush. We went straight back to Midland, Texas and went to our ranch house with several couples of our best friends. That first night we knew everything had changed when George was out in the driveway directing all the luggage!”

“We have friends that have been our friends for our whole life,” she continued. “We are very fortunate. They are our friends before the White House and after the White House. It’s very important to cultivate those friendships.”

Mrs. Bush says much of her time since leaving the White House has been devoted to getting their new house in order. “George and I have a new house that is not furnished. Everything we had before the White House is in the ranch house, so I’ve been furnishing the house, which is fun. George says it’s sort of like playing dollhouse and I’ve always liked that since I was a little girl.”

The one thing she misses most is the White House art. “I’ve had the chance to collect art now that we are home and that was something that I will miss – the magnificent art collection that we will never have a chance to live with again. We were very fortunate.”

The former first couple are now living in Dallas, and Laura Bush is now working with the arts community there. “I’ve been very happy to be home. Dallas has been very welcoming and is a dynamic and vibrant city. I’m the honorary chairman of the opera and new performance hall, so that’s been fun.”

She feels for the Obamas, who have two young daughters to raise, and credits the Clintons with setting a rule for press coverage on children living in the White House. “Fortunately, because Bill and Hillary had asked the press to let Chelsea have a normal life, we had a precedent for Barbara and Jenna. The press gave them some room to grow and make mistakes, which every college student does!” she laughed. “When Barbara and Jenna did make the front page once, Luci Johnson wrote a letter saying her mother, Lady Bird, had told her, ‘Just remember, don’t do anything you wouldn’t want on the front page of the New York Times, because if you do it, it’ll be there!’”

Mrs. Bush had the ladies roaring with laughter, when she admitted some of her White House memories. “Cheri Blair [Former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair's wife] and I loved to commiserate about the press…and other things! George says that any time he was kind of like, ‘Why me?’, I always said ‘Hey buster, you volunteered for this!’ I volunteered too, I didn’t get paid for it, but I was along 100 percent.”

The former first lady said she gained great respect for Hillary Clinton as she watched her difficult campaign for the 2008 election. “Our campaigns are so long and so brutal that the people who finally win are almost self-selected because they have emotional and physical stamina to run for office. As I watched Hillary Clinton during her run, I had and have a lot of admiration for her. It’s tough every day. It’s not just physical or emotional, but just the chance of saying one thing that gets blown up by the media!”

Something Laura Bush managed not to do during her whole talk. (Except maybe the Hillary Clinton thing.)

Barbra Streisand Brings in the Celebs to her Village Show

This just in from the Daily News: Now, mind you I could have gone and seen her yet my cat didn’t make it into the top 20 of her contest. Sucks, I know: The last time Barbra Streisand played a club as small as the one she poked into Saturday night, a subway ride cost 5 cents and President Kennedy sat in the White House.

Saturday night, another former President came to see her play that teeny space – Bill Clinton, along with current Secretary of State Clinton, and their daughter Chelsea.

Though the 97 highly-prized tickets to this free show, held at the Village Vanguard, were meant to go to fan club lottery winners, a clutch of the powerful did manage to find their way in, including Nicole Kidman, Sarah Jessica Parker, and, naturally, the star’s husband, James Brolin.

Streisand staged this miraculously rare appearance to send up a flare about her new CD, “Love Is The Answer,” out Tuesday.

Like the new CD, last night’s 13-song, 80-minute set featured the kind of woozy saloon songs Streisand first crooned nearly half a century ago at nearby clubs like the Bon Soir.

Streisand appeared comfortable and chatty in the tight surroundings.

“This is hysterical,” she said as she mounted the stage. “Are we a box of sardines here or what?”

But once she sang, Streisand couldn’t have taken her mission more seriously.

Not only did the singer go back to the kinds of low-lit standards she crooned in her youth, but she performed them with the sort of spare support she has rarely allowed in the decades since.

As on the “Love Is The Answer” CD, a four-man jazz combo backed her.

Their arrangements provided only the most teasing encouragement to Streisand, allowing her to use the songs as her own, wide platforms.

And use them she did.

Seldom has Streisand applied her actorly skills to songs with such specificity and intelligence.

In the opening “Here’s To Life,” the 67-year-old Streisand brought a lifetime’s worth of experience to her phrasing. She exuded relief, wariness, humor, wonder, and appreciation.

Her “Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most” nailed every ounce of the song’s sophisticated ache, while she brought the crowd to its feet with her acute take on Jacques Brel’s “Ne Me Quitte Pas.”

Streisand’s tone sounded as bell-like as ever, and her range skipped the scales with a balletic ease.

She inhabited the songs with complete authority, something she never could have mustered in her youth.

Those people who got to see this fleeting sight certainly could count themselves among life’s luckiest.

Michelle Obama DID NOT Want Hillary Clinton as VP!

In what may not go down well with Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama didn’t favour the current Secretary of State as husband Barack Obama’s vice-presidential nominee in the race to White House, a new book has claimed.

According to the book, Barack and Michelle: Portrait of an American Marriage, Michelle instead favoured Joe Biden, the President’s eventual choice.

“Do you really want Bill and Hillary just down the hall from you in the White House? Could you live with that?” Michelle reportedly told her husband who later appointed the Former US First Lady as his Secretary of State.

Eminent author Christopher Andersen has claimed in his book that Michelle was also “fascinated” by the choice of the unknown Sarah Palin as Senator John McCain’s vice-presidential pick, according to excerpts in the ‘New York Daily News’.

The book has also revealed that it was Michelle who persuaded her husband to use the winning campaign slogan “Yes We Can!” during his 2004 senate race, even after Obama thought the phrase was “childish” and “corny” when his adviser David Axelrod proposed it.

But, Michelle told him: “It will work. Trust me.”

Moreover, Andersen, who has so far penned 28 books, including best-sellers on the Clintons, Princess Diana and Caroline Kennedy, has claimed Obama dragged his feet over marriage and that Michelle talked to friends about adoption because of early difficulties conceiving.

However, according to the book, despite her husband’s long absences on the campaign trail, Michelle never questioned his fidelity. “He’s never given me reason to doubt him,” she said.

Hillary Clinton Reaches Out to Muslim Communities

Hillary Clinton reached out to Muslim communities at home and abroad by hosting an “iftar” at the State Department Monday evening. “Iftar” refers the one meal participating Muslims have each day after fasting from sun-up to sun-down for one month, in observation of Ramadan — the holiest period of each year and the ninth month in the Islamic calendar.

“The nearly seven million Muslims in our country have enriched our culture, have made us stronger, because of contributions that many of you and others across America have given to us,” Clinton said before the meal, to guests comprised of diplomats and prominent members of Muslim American communities in the U.S.

Also speaking before the meal was the State Department’s new Special Representative to Muslim Communities, Farah Pandith, sworn-in Monday morning by Secretary Clinton.

“This holy month of Ramadan provides us with these wonderful opportunities to reflect on the principles of a faith that is practiced by more than a billion women and men worldwide. As we fast, we are asked to think of the other, to be cognizant of the importance of respect for all, and to renew our efforts to do good deeds,” said Pandith.

“It is as American to have pad thai, as it is a pizza,” she joked.

Clinton acknowledged that the relationship between Muslim communities and other Americans has not always been harmonious. After the attacks of September 11, 2001– committed by violent extremist Muslims from parts of the Middle East, many Muslim Americans faced outright hostility and prejudice in the U.S.

Clinton extended the message of peace Obama delivered last June in a speech at a university in Cairo, Egypt, directed at Muslims across the world.

“Because whatever god you pray to, or whether you even believe at all, we all need to work for the same goals — a world where our children can live together in peace and prosperity, and fulfill their own god-given potentials.”

Clinton ended her remarks jovially.

“Let us recommit ourselves to achieving our common goals, inspired by common values,” she said. “And now, please enjoy your food!”

Thanks ABC.

Watch clip below for remarks:

http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=8586193

Hillary Clinton to meet Manuel Zelalya this Week on the Honduras Situation

This from AP: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is to meet Thursday with Manuel Zelaya to discuss the deadlock following his ouster as president of Honduras in a June 28 coup, her spokesman said Tuesday.

“On Thursday Secretary Clinton plans to meet with him to discuss the best way forward on the situation in Honduras,” State Department spokesman Ian Kelly told reporters.

He recalled that Zelaya was in Washington this week for a range of talks, including with the Organization of American States (OAS).

The United States has been piling pressure on Honduras coup leaders since after they rejected a settlement, with plans in the works to cut off nearly 150 million dollars in US assistance.

Foreign ministers from seven nations and the head of the OAS returned empty-handed last week after failing to persuade Honduras’ de facto leader Roberto Micheletti to step aside.

The US State Department said it was ready to take further measures after already halting most visa services in Honduras, revoking visas for the interim regime and suspending 35 million dollars in military aid.

Pics from Ted Kennedy Funeral

Hillary Clinton on the Passing of Sen. Ted Kennedy

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday mourned Edward Kennedy as a friend and mentor whose work lifted millions of Americans, putting aside friction over her presidential campaign.

Clinton called the senator, whose death at age 77 drew a curtain on half a century of leadership by the iconic liberal family, “one of our nation’s finest statesmen and a dear friend.”

“His legacy will live on in the hearts and minds of millions of Americans who are freer, healthier and more prosperous because of his efforts,” she said in a statement.

“As he said, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die,” she said, quoting from Kennedy’s celebrated concession speech when he lost his 1980 presidential bid.

The Kennedy family was close to Clinton and her husband Bill Clinton when he was president. Bill Clinton famously cited an early meeting with President John F. Kennedy, the senator’s late brother, as an inspiration to enter politics.

On Wednesday, Bill Clinton paid tribute to Kennedy as “one of the most influential leaders of our time” praising his efforts to promote healthcare reform.

“His big heart, sharp mind, and boundless energy were gifts he gave to make our democracy a more perfect union,” the former president said in a statement.

The Clintons had barely concealed their hurt when Ted Kennedy threw his weight behind now President Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton in last year’s race for the Democratic Party’s White House nomination.

Hailing Obama’s “extraordinary gifts of leadership and character,” an ailing Kennedy devoted the energy of his last campaign to elect the nation’s first African-American president.

Hillary Clinton nonetheless praised Kennedy as a “generous mentor and a thoughtful colleague” when they served together in the Senate.

“We worked together to raise the minimum wage, improve education and champion the cause we shared so deeply: ensuring that all Americans have access to quality, affordable health care,” said Clinton, who as first lady led a failed bid to bring health care to millions of uninsured Americans.

Clinton said that since becoming the nation’s top diplomat she had again turned to Kennedy’s advice “on how to make America a force for peace and progress around the world.”

Hillary Clinton and Rogue Nations

In my favorite gal Hillary Clinton news from Fox News: In the last few weeks, a former president traveled to North Korea to negotiate the release of two imprisoned Americans; a U.S. senator flew to Burma to bargain for the release of yet another American; and envoys of the reclusive North Korean regime have come to the U.S. for talks with America’s former ambassador to the United Nations.

And throughout all of it, one question grows: Where is America’s top diplomat, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton?

The missions by former President Bill Clinton and Virginia Sen. Jim Webb to secure the release of Americans held in North Korea and Burma detoured sharply around Clinton’s State Department.

And two diplomats from North Korea were meeting privately Wednesday with New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson — a Clinton family pariah whose decision to back Barack Obama in last year’s presidential campaign earned him a barbed comparison to Judas.

These developments certainly have not curbed the narrative that Clinton has been marginalized in the Obama administration.

“She has been the most low-key secretary in recent times,” said Nile Gardiner, director of the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at the conservative Heritage Foundation. “There does appear to be two different tracks of U.S. diplomacy at this time: One headed by Hillary Clinton and another headed by an array of different figures….

“What we have is an immensely confusing patchwork of foreign policy initiatives without any real central coherence.”

This “mercenary-style approach,” Gardiner said, enables U.S. adversaries to adopt a “divide-and-rule strategy” with the Obama administration.

Observers have noted that Clinton has a particularly contentious relationship — or non-relationship — with officials from North Korea, which could pose a barrier to both sides in future negotiations.

In a bizarre name-calling exchange last month during Clinton’s trip to Asia, she compared the North Koreans to “unruly children” demanding attention, and Pyongyang’s foreign ministry retaliated by calling her a “funny lady” who sometimes “looks like a primary schoolgirl and sometimes a pensioner going shopping.” The ministry was quoted as calling her remarks “vulgar” and saying “she is by no means intelligent.” The State Department returned fire with another tapestry of put-downs.

So perhaps it came as no surprise when Kim Jong Il summoned not the secretary of state, but her husband — more of a rock star, less of a prickly pear — in exchange for the release of two jailed American journalists.

But the global fanfare surrounding the mission and its successful conclusion appeared to get under the secretary’s skin, though the Obama administration was still involved in the North Korean operation.

In a flash-in-the-pan moment that came to overshadow pretty much all positive aspects of her lengthy tour through Africa, Clinton snapped at a university student in the Congo who asked her what her husband thought about a multibillion-dollar Chinese loan offer.

“Wait, you want to know what my husband thinks?” she responded. “My husband is not the secretary of state. … I am not going to be channeling my husband.”

For a secretary of state who was recently grounded due to a broken elbow, contributing to speculation that she was being sidelined, the student’s question was quite literally adding insult to injury — though it turned out the student apparently meant to ask about President Obama’s opinion.

On top of that, Webb, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relation Committee’s East Asia and Pacific Affairs Subcommittee, just secured the release of American John Yettaw, who was sentenced to seven years in jail in Burma for sneaking into opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s home.

In another duo of breakthroughs, Webb met with Senior Gen. Than Shwe and Suu Kyi herself – though Suu Kyi’s detention still stands.

Now Richardson, who has previously traveled to North Korea on special missions, is hosting diplomats from that country in his home state. Emerging briefly from talks he told reporters Wednesday the session is a “hopeful sign” of improving ties.

Reportedly, the North Koreans once again requested the terms for the meeting. And the governor’s office is saying Richardson is not representing the Obama administration.

So who is?

Robert Schadler, senior fellow in public diplomacy at the American Foreign Policy Council, said these meetings set an unhelpful standard.

“It does set something of a precedent and it allows the other side to appear to gain more because they’ve gotten their negotiator of choice,” he said.

But Schadler said when American prisoners or hostages are involved, particularly in countries where the United States does not have formal diplomatic relations, it presents a tricky situation for the diplomatic establishment in Washington.

The administration, he said, does not want to encourage American hostage-taking by returning every imprisonment with an official visit from Washington. It also does not want to breach its own longstanding decision to sever ties with those countries.

Instead, Schadler said, hostage negotiation falls in the hands of “people in the gray area,” which presents another problem in that these people are not always publicly vetted for that job.

Looking ahead, Clinton has another pair of diplomatic challenges, which she has so far handled from afar.

One is the detention of three American hikers in Iran. Last weekend, Clinton renewed the call for them and others to be released, issuing a statement to “once again urge Iran’s leadership to quickly resolve all outstanding American citizen cases.”

According to Britain’s Sky News, she has also urged Scotland’s justice system not to release Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, convicted in the deadly 1988 bombing of a Pan Am flight over Lockerbie. The Libyan government wants Megrahi transferred to Libya.

In Clinton’s favor, public opinion seems to be on her side, even as Obama’s approval numbers drop.

The latest FOX News poll, of 900 registered voters last week, showed 66 percent of people approve of the job she’s doing as secretary of state. Obama’s approval rating was at 53 percent.

Hillary Clinton Boogies Down African Style (VOD)

Hillary Clinton Texting in Africa

Oh, it’s nice Obama is letting Hillary out of the country. Ahead of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s seven-nation trip to Africa this week, the Obama administration is texting all Africans who sent a question or comment during last month’s Ghana visit.

This time the administration isn’t asking to hear from Africans, but wants them to follow Hillary’s trip on America.gov, Facebook, and Twitter using the searchable term #HillaryAfrica.

Thousands of Africans sent in questions before, during and after President Obama’s speech in Ghana. The president answered selected questions chosen from various African journalists in a podcast shortly after returning to Washington, D.C., but as an immediate response, anyone who registered received highlights of the speech, and will continue to receive updates from the administration.

The latest text message urged Africans to take note of Hillary’s trip. The text begins: “Following Obama’s historic trip, Sec. Clinton visits Africa.”

Yuck!

Hillary Clinton to End Ties With Britain If They Release Records

An interesting article from our friends at the Daily Mail UK. Hillary Clinton has threatened to end intelligence sharing with Britain if the High Court publishes its findings on what happened to former terror detainee Binyam Mohamed.

Letters from the U.S. Secretary of State and the CIA to the Government warn they will cease co-operation with British counterparts if two judges release details about Mr Mohamed’s alleged torture.

Human rights campaigners yesterday claimed the threat – which could put British lives at risk – was merely a ‘ smokescreen’, but Foreign Secretary David Miliband insisted it was serious.

As if to reiterate the matter last night Mrs Clinton, speaking in Washington, said intelligence sharing was ‘critically important’ to Britain and the U.S.

The details of the threat were revealed yesterday during a long-running – and increasingly bitter – court battle between the Foreign Secretary and former Guantanamo Bay inmate Mr Mohamed.

At the centre of the affair are seven paragraphs of a court judgment which Mr Mohamed claims prove that British agents colluded in the torture he endured after being arrested in 2002.

He has repeatedly claimed that British agents were complicit in his torture after he was arrested in Pakistan.

Lawyers for Mr Miliband told Lord Justice Thomas and Mr Justice Lloyd Jones that the threat by America had been assessed as having a ‘high-risk threshold’.

Yesterday, Lord Justice Thomas pointed out that the paragraphs in themselves did not pose any threat to national security.

He said: ‘So the U.S. has taken the position that this is so serious that it is prepared to reassess its relationship with the UK and put lives at risk?’

Mr Miliband’s legal team said both Mrs Clinton and the CIA had written to him to insist the information remain secret.

By publicly acknowledging the threat to U.S./UK intelligence sharing arrangements, Mrs Clinton has ‘ridden to the rescue’ of Mr Miliband, human rights activists said.

They claimed that by ‘hiding behind’ the U.S. threat, Mr Miliband was able to continue concealing the ‘ugly truth’ about British involvement in torture abroad.

Mr Mohamed has claimed British intelligence agents knew about – and were complicit in – his torture in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Morocco.

The contentious seven paragraphs are a summary of 42 CIA documents, which are said to confirm his claims.

While in detention, Mr Mohamed says he was hung up by straps, beaten and had his genitals mutilated with a scalpel to make him confess to a ‘dirty bomb’ plot.

Karen Steyn, appearing for the Foreign Secretary, said Mrs Clinton and the CIA had written official letters warning that under the new Obama administration, the U.S. would review its intelligence sharing agreement with the UK if the court releases the information.

Mrs Steyn went on to say that disclosure of the seven paragraphs ‘could reasonably be expected to cause considerable damage to the national security of the UK’.

The only reason Mr Miliband opposes the disclosure of the seven paragraphs, she told the court, was to protect the national security and international relations of the UK.

However, Guy Vassall-Adams, representing the various media groups who are backing Mr Mohamed’s battle to publish the information, argued that the Foreign Office’s stance did not pass the ‘common sense test’.

He said it was highly unrealistic to suggest that the publication of seven paragraphs would cause the U.S. authorities to be so ‘upset and shocked’ that they might refuse to share vital intelligence with the UK in the future.

Mr Vassall-Adams said such a situation was ‘unthinkable’ in the light of the historical alliance between the two nations.

In previous hearings the judges have expressed frustration at not being allowed to release the information.

Both judges yesterday seemed unwilling to rely on Mrs Steyn’s representations of Mr Miliband’s opinion.

Lord Justice Thomas insisted a transcript of the hearing be sent to Mr Miliband so that there was ‘no wriggle room’.

Ethiopian-born Mr Mohamed came to the UK as a 16-year-old asylum seeker and lived here for seven years. Shortly after September 11, 2001, he was picked up by the American secret service in Pakistan.

Accused of being a terrorist, he was held for six and a half years in U.S. custody.

Mr Miliband has repeatedly insisted Britain ‘abhors’ torture and never orders or condones it. Speaking after talks with Mrs Clinton yesterday, he said not disclosing allies’ intelligence was a ‘fundamental principle’.

Mrs Clinton added: ‘The issue of intelligence sharing is one which is critically important to our two countries and we both have a stake in ensuring that it continues to the fullest extent possible.’

Hillary Clinton Tours Africa Next

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is to tour seven African countries, starting on 5 August.

The visit is to highlight President Barack Obama’s commitment to making Africa a US foreign policy priority.

While in Africa, Mrs Clinton is set to speak at the Africa Trade and Economic Cooperation Forum (AGOA) in Kenya.

Her office in Washington says this is the earliest in any US administration that both the US president and secretary of state have visited Africa.

Global hunger and agricultural issues will also feature highly in her discussions with African leaders.

Kenya is her first stop, where she is set to address the AGOA forum on new approaches to development, investment and broad-based economic growth.

Kenya is also the birthplace of the US president’s father.

Mr Obama visited Ghana earlier this month – his first visit to sub-Saharan Africa since being elected president.

Mrs Clinton will also visit South Africa, Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, Liberia, and Cape Verde.

She will also meet Somalia’s President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, president of Somalia, whose forces are battling Islamist insurgents.

Hillary Clinton on a Female President!

This is from my gal Hillary. Clinton said on Sunday she hoped there would a female U.S. president in her lifetime but ruled out the chance she would run again. She’s bluffing. I hope.

Now secretary of state in the Cabinet of her onetime rival President Barack Obama, Clinton said it was a “daunting” challenge for a woman to run for president.

“It will take the right woman who can make the case and win the votes and get elected. I am certainly hoping it will happen in my lifetime,” she told NBC’s “Meet the Press” program.

When pressed whether she would run again, she said, “I have absolutely no belief, in my mind, that that will happen.”

Clinton declined comment on the presidential prospects for outgoing Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, who was Republican contender Senator John McCain’s running mate in last year’s race.

Pressed on whether she thought Palin had the right attributes to be president, Clinton replied: “That is up to the voters to determine.” She added that putting together an election campaign was a complicated venture.

“I am just going to leave it at that,” she said. “I do want to see a woman elected. I hope it is a Democratic woman who represents the type of approach that I happen to favor.”

Hillary Clinton Running For President Again??? You Be the Judge

In sad news for the time being but please read between the lines. There is apparently no such thing as a simple yes or no when it comes to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and questions about another run for the White House.

Clinton, 61, seemed to go further Sunday than she had previously in shutting the door to another presidential campaign, following her defeat for the Democratic nomination last year by President Barack Obama.

“Well, you know, I say no, never, you know, not at all. I don’t know what, what else to say,” Clinton said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” after host David Gregory noted that she left some wiggle room in an interview last week in Thailand.

But then Gregory followed up by asking, “Are you saying you wouldn’t entertain another run?”

Clinton’s response was less clear: “I have absolutely no belief in my mind that that is going to happen, that I have any interest in it happening. You know, as I said, I, I am so focused on what I’m doing.”

In the interview on Thai television, Clinton said, “I don’t know, but I doubt very much that anything like that will ever be part of my life.”

Hillary Clinton WILL Get Our Kidnapped Soldier Back!

As I mentioned yesterday about the kidnapped prisoner in Afghanstan U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the United States is doing everything it can to find and free an American soldier captured by the Taliban in Afghanistan. Good. Obama finally loosened up the reins a bit.

Clinton made her comments Monday to a U.S. television network ABC while on her trip to India.

U.S. military officials have denounced the Taliban’s release of a video showing captured Private Bowe Bergdahl. They said the use of the 23-year-old soldier for propaganda purposes is against international law.

Clinton called the video “outrageous” and said it was, in her words, a “real sign of desperation” on the part of the militants.

Taliban insurgents posted the 28-minute video on a Web site Saturday. Bergdahl went missing from his base on June 30.

Meanwhile, NATO officials said a British fighter jet has crashed at the coalition’s largest base in southern Afghanistan, injuring the two pilots.

NATO officials said the crash occurred early Monday at Kandahar air base. Officials said the two pilots ejected from the aircraft and were taken to the base’s hospital for treatment. No one else was hurt.

The incident came one day after a civilian helicopter crashed at the same base, killing 16 people. There is no indication that insurgent activity caused either crash.

It also is the fourth aircraft to go down in last few days.

In other developments, Britain’s Defense Ministry says a British soldier was killed in an explosion in southern Helmand province Sunday.

In western Farah province, Afghan officials said a roadside bomb killed 11 civilians and injured at least two others.

Also Sunday, German forces killed at least two Afghan civilians in the northern province of Kunduz after they opened fire on a vehicle approaching at high speed.

Hillary Clinton “Frustrated” Over Vetting Process

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Monday she is frustrated over the failure to name a new head of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which she calls a priority.

Clinton, addressing USAID staff who asked why there was no administrator and deputy six months into President Barack Obama’s administration, complained about what she called an increasingly burdensome vetting process.

“We’ve worked very hard with the White House on looking for a candidate,” said Clinton who has promised a shift from the Bush administration’s reliance on military force to a balance between defense, diplomacy and development.

“The clearance and vetting process is a nightmare. It takes far longer than any of us would want to see, it is frustrating beyond words,” the chief US diplomat told hundreds of USAID staff and contractors.

“I pushed very hard last week when I knew I was coming here (USAID) to get permission from the White House to be able to tell you that help is on the way and someone will be nominated shortly,” Clinton added.

“The message came back: we’re not ready,” she said.

But she said Alonzo Fulgham, whom the White House appointed as acting administrator, is representing their interests every day at meetings with the State Department and other agencies.

Clinton said some good prospects for the job were daunted by the vetting process.

She said prospective candidates — who were not wealthy but otherwise financially sound — were turned off by the need to hire lawyers and accountants as they prepare for background checks.

“It is ridiculous,” Clinton said.

She also complained about the kinds of questions asked.

“First of all, you have to remember everywhere you’ve lived since you were 18,” she said.

“And then one of my all time favorite questions: please tell us every foreign national you know.”

Some candidates may be Americans who have family members still living in other countries, adding they find it “ridiculous” that they will have to list the names of every relative so that they can all be interviewed.

“You’re sensing my frustration,” Clinton said.

Thanks AFP.

Hope Davis Replaces Julianne Moore as Hillary Clinton!

This from Reuters; Julianne Moore is stepping out of the role of Hillary Clinton and will be replaced by Hope Davis.

A scheduling conflict with another commitment, the feature “The Kids Are All Right,” has forced Moore to exit the film “The Special Relationship.” The HBO Films/BBC Films project chronicles the unique and sometimes turbulent political relationship between newly installed British Prime Minister Tony Blair and U.S. President Bill Clinton in the late 1990s.

Dennis Quaid will play President Clinton. Michael Sheen, who played Blair in “The Queen” and in the British television movie “The Deal,” will take on the role again. Helen McCrory is cast as Cherie Blair, a role she played opposite Sheen in “The Queen.”

Oscar-nominated screenwriter Peter Morgan, who wrote the movie, had planned to make “Special Relationship” his directorial debut but pulled out from helming duties last month, with Richard Loncraine stepping in to direct.

Davis, who co-starred on HBO’s “In Treatment” this past season, is currently on Broadway in the Tony Award-winning play “God of Carnage” for which she received a Tony nomination.

If They Don’t Listen Iran Will Have More Sanctions!

My gal Hillary Clinton said that Washington would call for more sanctions against Iran if the White House policy of engagement with Tehran failed. She then stated that the U.S. outreach to Iran may not work given the country’s recent repression of protests after a disputed election.

“It may not be possible, in which case we would ask the world to join us in imposing even stricter sanctions on Iran to try to change the behavior of the regime,” Clinton said in an interview with Venezuelan television station Globovision, broadcast late on Tuesday. “We have seen in the last weeks that Iran has not respected its own democracy,” she said.

The United States has joined Russia, China, France, Germany and Britain in inviting Iran to talks to resolve the nuclear dispute.

We shall see!

Hillary Clinton Cancels Overseas Trip

My favorite gal, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has canceled plans to travel to Italy and Greece this week because she is still recovering from surgery on her broken elbow.

Clinton fell at the State Department last Wednesday and had surgery on Friday. Did Obottom push her? I’m wondering.

She had planned to travel to Trieste, Italy, for meetings with her Group of Eight counterparts on Iran, the Middle East peace process and the war in Afghanistan. She also planned to attend a gathering of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe on Corfu, where talks were expected to center on the Russia-Georgia dispute.

The cancellation was announced by Deputy Secretary of States James B. Steinberg. He said that he would represent the United States at the Greek forum while Undersecretary of State William Burns will attend the meetings in Italy.

Feel better!

US Sec. of State Clinton Talks About Plight of Refugees

My gal US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who I believe is still being underused said on Saturday that the plight of refugees as a challenge to global security, health and economic development.

In remarks prepared to coincide with World Refugee Day on Friday, Clinton said the fates of an estimated 34 million refugees and internal displaced people had “broad repercussions for their families, their countrymen, and all people everywhere.

“The plight of refugees has an impact on regional and global security; the threats that cause people to flee their homes en masse are dangers to the world at large,” she said.

“Their plight impacts economic development; most refugees have no means to support their families or contribute to their nations’ prosperity.”

“Their plight impacts health and education; disease is rampant in many camps, while educational resources for refugee children are limited.”

Love her!

US and Pressure to Include Cuba in the OAS

The United States is facing pressure over its Cuba policy at the annual meeting of the Organization of American States (OAS), being held in Honduras.

Most Latin American countries want the Caribbean island to return to the group, from which it was expelled in 1962, without preconditions. But US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Cuba should only return if it passed democratic reforms.

Mrs Clinton said no consensus had been reached on the first day of the summit. Cuba, which was expelled from OAS after the 1959 communist revolution, has said it will not accept membership if offered.

Cuban Foreign Ministry official Carlos Fernandez said reversing the expulsion would be “a good sign for the Organization of American States” but that his country had no intention of rejoining the group.

But in a meeting with Caribbean leaders, Mrs Clinton said that while the US looked forward to Cuba rejoining the group, “membership in the OAS must come with responsibilities. “It’s not about reliving the past. It’s about the future and being true to the founding principles of this organisation,” she said. “I’m confident we can come up with a common way forward.”

Mrs Clinton has now left the summit but said negotiations would continue in her absence, the Associated Press reported.

Israel Doesn’t Listen to US to End Settlement Work

Israel will defy the West. In particular the United States! They will continue to allow construction in West Bank settlements despite US calls for a freeze on its work, a government spokesman says.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who said all such activity should cease doesn’t matter to the Israeli’s.

Her comments came hours before Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was due to meet US President Barack Obama. Mrs Clinton said on Wednesday there must be no exceptions to President Obama’s demands for Israel’s settlement work to stop.

Speaking to reporters after a meeting with her Egyptian counterpart, Mrs Clinton said that the president was “very clear” with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at their recent meeting that there should be a stop to all settlements.

“Not some settlements, not outposts, not natural growth exceptions,” Mrs Clinton said. “We think it is in the best interest of the effort that we are engaged in that settlement expansion cease.”

Correspondents say it is the first time in years that US officials have been so vocal in calling for a settlement freeze in the Palestinian territories.

Sec. of State Hillary Clinton Offering Same Sex Benefits in Her State Department

Some good news coming out of the the Obama Administration which should be the Clinton Administration. In a policy shift, the US State Department will offer equal benefits and protections to same-sex partners of American diplomats, The New York Times reported.

The newspaper said the shift was spelled out in an internal memorandum Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sent last week to an association of gay and lesbian foreign service officers. Such a trooper. Clinton said the policy change addressed an inequity in the treatment of domestic partners and would help the State Department recruit diplomats, since many international employers already offered such benefits, the report said.

“Like all families, our foreign service families come in different configurations; all are part of the common fabric of our post communities abroad,” Clinton said in the memorandum, a copy of which was provided to The Times by a member of the gay and lesbian association.

“At bottom,” the paper quotes Clinton as saying, “the department will provide these benefits for both opposite-sex and same-sex partners because it is the right thing to do.”

Thank you Ms. Clinton!

Sec of State Hillary Clinton Wants To Keep Cuba Out

The Obama administration doesn’t see Cuba as a memeber for the Organization of American States yet.

In congressional testimony Wednesday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Cuba shouldn’t be allowed to rejoin the group until it moves toward democracy, frees political prisoners and stops violating human rights. “Any effort to admit Cuba into the OAS is really in Cuba’s hands,” she said. “They have to be willing to take the concrete steps necessary to meet those principles.”

She continues: “If Cuba is not willing to abide by [the charter's] terms, then I cannot foresee how Cuba can be a part of the OAS, and I certainly would not be supporting in any way such an effort to admit it.” “We’re hoping that the members of the OAS will abide by their own charter.”

The government’s unwillingness to embrace democracy certainly isn’t doing Cuba’s economy any good.

Aww, schucks. Look at the super strength of the Obama Adminstration!

President Obama Speech on Funding Closing Gitmo Right Now 5/21/09

Obama giving a speech at the National Archive at this moment on bringing Gitmo terrorists to the United States and closing the base. He needs the funding to do this. It’s funny that the legislature rejected the bill 90-6.

He mentions that the economy is beginning to turn thanks to his new credit card bill. The crowd chuckles. He says his single most important thing he has to worry about is protecting the country. He mentions Al Queda about wanting to attack us… still. He’s rambling on and on about how great he is… nothing new. lol. He keeps on mentioning how we renewed our diplomacy around the world but doesn’t mention Sec. of State Clinton at all. Interesting.

He’s bringing up the Constitution and he follows it. Upholds it he says. Which somehow morphs into other soldier’s giving up because they will be treated better in America.

“Based on fear instead of insight,” Obama says. “Season of fear.”

Finally he gets to Gitmo.

First : He banned the use of enhanced interrogation techniques. Mentions waterboarding.

Second: Order of the closing of Gitmo. For 7 years we detained over 100 people there. Says we convicted only 3 convictions in 7 years. We met set back after setback. The Bush administration under their rule released a 3rd of all the detainees . Obama emphasized that. He thinks that is the main reason we should close it. It shows that we are barbarians throughout the world.

Third: Review of all cases at Gitmo. A misguided experiment that his administration has to deal with on a daily basis. It distracts him from other challenges facing America.

As president he doesn’t want this to fester. He is too busy to deal with this and so he wants to deal with it now and finish it once and for all.

Going to focus on Gitmo and detaining and security and transparency.

They are not going to release anyone if it will endanger our national security. Will not release anyone that will endanger the American people. They will put them in highly secure prisons. No one has ever escaped any high security prisons. They are treating them better than the Bush administrations.

Five Points about detainees:

-Try in Federal Courts.

-Detainees from abroad. Military commissions. Violations of laws of war.

-Who have ordered to be released by courts. The courts have spoken.

-Can be transferred safely to another country.

-Detainees that can not be prosecuted at Gitmo. This is his problem. He will NOT release the dangerous ones. He wants it to be clear that we must try the remaining prisoners by law. A legal regime… blah blah… he doesn’t stop talking….

Sorry it’s so haphazard. It’s my first press conference, lol.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Sending 110 Million to Pakistan

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Tuesday the United States was sending $110 million in emergency humanitarian aid to Pakistan, part of the administration’s new strategy for countering the appeal of Taliban militants in the nuclear-armed American ally. How nice.

Clinton detailed the aid package at the White House, saying the money is flowing to ease the plight of about 2 million Pakistanis who have fled fighting in the country’s Swat Valley and are living in squalid tent cities.

The White House said Prime Minister Gillani had appointed Brig. Gen. Nadeem Ahmad to lead the Pakistani relief effort. He was highly praised for his work in the relief effort after the 2005 earthquake in Kashmir. Pakistan’s army is engaged in major combat in Swat, in response to attempts by armed Islamic militants to solidify their hold on the region. Pakistan reluctantly undertook the offensive under pressure from the United States after Taliban fighters had taken positions within 60 miles of the capital, Islamabad. The military says more than 1,000 insurgents have so far been killed in the fighting.

President Barack Obama has spoken of the need to improve the lives of people in both Pakistan and Afghanistan as part of the administration’s new plan for linking the U.S. fight against the resurgent Taliban in the two countries.

How is this standing up against Bush’s Cowboy Diplomacy?

Send to Sec. of State Hillary Clinton To Protect Our Freedom of Speech!

Click on the link below and send to Sec. of State Hillary Clinton. We have to protect our Freedom of Speech.

http://michaelsavage.wnd.com/files/imagesSavage/LettertoSecofStateClintonFINAL.pdf

Here is an article in the SFGate newspaper:

In an unexpected twist, sharp-tongued, conservative talk show host Michael Savage, who in the past savaged Hillary Clinton as a “dangerous human being” and “fraudulent huckster,” has asked for help after being banned in Britain – from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Attorneys for the controversial San Francisco host of the syndicated “Savage Nation” radio show, say the ban is of a blatant human rights violation and formally asked Clinton on Thursday to demand that British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith “rescind the arbitrary and capricious decision” last week to “name and shame” 16 individuals, including Savage, who have been barred from entry into the country.

Smith made headlines – and raised eyebrows – when she included Savage on a list that also includes Islamic terrorists, Russian skinhead killers and neo-Nazis, saying that the individuals don’t represent the United Kingdom’s “values.”

“It’s ironic that the person Michael Savage is appealing to is someone who does not agree with him on 99 percent” of his political views, said attorney Richard Thompson, president and chief counsel of the Thomas More Law Center of Ann Arbor, Mich., which is representing Savage.

“But I think this is a case of the U.S. government protecting a U.S. citizen, regardless of what he said,” especially since it involves a violation of international treaties signed by both the United States and Britain, Thompson said.

He said Clinton should act on Savage’s behalf because it’s the right thing to do – to make a statement about the importance of protecting “the rights of an American citizen,” who happens to be the third-most-popular talk show host in the United States “and has done nothing illegal.” Savage is guilty of one thing alone, he said, “exercising his right to free speech.”

Savage – whose show reaches an estimated 8 million to 10 million listeners on nearly 400 stations nationwide, according to industry sources – told The Chronicle in an exclusive interview Thursday that “I’ve been very harsh on Hillary and Bill (Clinton) over the years.”

“But precisely for this reason, she should take my case. It would show that she can rise above partisan politics,” he said, “because Jacqui Smith is in violation of the European Union’s laws themselves.”

Savage acknowledged that this development is unexpected and said it underscores the oldest of political adages: “Politics makes strange bedfellows.”

Thompson’s letter to Clinton urges her to immediately “call upon the government of the United Kingdom” to undo the decision to put the outspoken right-wing host on a “least-wanted list.”

He argued to Clinton that the banning of Savage is both “arbitrary” and “suspicious” given that his show is not even broadcast in Britain and it has never been explained to Savage, who has had no contact with the British government.

Moreover, Thompson contends, the move by Smith is clearly illegal: Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights clearly protects the right to “freedom of expression.” Article 10 states that “this right shall include the freedom to hold opinions … and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers.”

Thompson also said that Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, signed by both the United States and Britain, “protects the right to freedom of expression.”

A U.S. State Department official, speaking on background, did not appear to support Thompson’s contention.

“We recognize that countries have the right to determine who is eligible to enter,” said the official, who declined to speculate on whether Clinton would act on the matter.

And Robin Newmann, spokesman for the British Consulate in San Francisco, responded in an e-mail that “His exclusion from the U.K. is both lawful and justified.”

The British Home Office, in making the announcement last week banning the 16 individuals, said Savage’s radio show constituted “engaging in unacceptable behavior by seeking to provoke others to serious criminal acts and fostering hatred which might lead to inter-community violence.”

Newmann said last week that “the U.K. has been able to ban people who promote hatred, terrorist activities and serious violence since 2005. During this time, 101 people have been excluded for unacceptable behavior, including animal rights extremists, right-to-life, homophobe and far-right extremists, as well as those who advocate hatred and violence in support of their religious beliefs.”

Newmann added that in 2008, Smith “introduced new measures that favored excluding people who have spread hatred.”

In releasing the list of 16, Smith issued a statement: “I refuse to extend that privilege to individuals who abuse our standards and values to undermine our way of life. Therefore, I will not hesitate to name and shame those who foster extremist views as I want them to know that they are not welcome here.”

But Savage said he does not intend to let the British home secretary have the last word.

He vowed Thursday that his representatives will appeal to the White House if necessary to seek redress – and said he intends to file a lawsuit against Smith herself later this week, charging her with defamation of character.

Hillary Higher Approval Than Obama?

It sucks to say I told you so. My gal Hillary, at the 100-day mark last week, finally beat Obottom. The most recent polls show Clinton with a whopping job approval rating of 71% as secretary of state, while the new President topped out at 65%.

Even among Hillary admirers, that lofty rating is a bit of a stunner, given her past reputation as one of the most polarizing figures on the American scene. ”She’s acting like a statesman and diplomat and representing her President instead of herself,” said a prominent Democrat. “She hasn’t gone off on her own as many predicted. It’s been very rehabilitating for her image.”

Her husband has helped the rehab by stifling, somewhat, his yen for headlines. Concerns that his fund-raising and foundations might pose conflicts of interest, which caused the only friction at her confirmation hearings, have not been realized, yet.

Hillary also has labored to smooth over the lingering rifts from the campaign with Obama and his inner circle, most notably Obotttoms wife, Michelle.

And she’s playing well with others. Clinton’s back at a Senate hearing last week. ”I couldn’t agree with you more,” Gates said repeatedly as Clinton rattled off talking points.

Obama has piled the diplomatic plate high for Clinton, tasking her with risky openings of China and Iran, while getting North Korea to disarm and bringing the Israelis and Palestinians back to negotiations.

But Clinton gave herself a pat on the back for her initial efforts in a 13-page “100 Day Report” put out by State, noting her visits to 18 countries and meetings with 150 foreign leaders while logging more than 71,000 air miles since taking office.

Clinton said she would give priority to “acknowledging our own errors where we have made them, which will serve as an example to others to do the same.

Please Bring Back The Heavy Hitter, Mrs. Clinton.

I’m wondering if people are starting to regret their vote. Ms. Hillary Clinton was back in the headlines yesterday. Appearing before the Foreign Affairs Committee, she warned that the Pakistani government now faces an “existential threat” from Islamic militants.

Even if she was a sore loser she was B. Hussein Obottom ardent supporter yesterday. When Clinton was asked about Dick Cheney’s assertion that the Bush administration’s interrogation policies helped make America safer, Clinton responded, “It won’t surprise you that I don’t consider him a particularly reliable source of information.”

Ms. Clinton has kept a low profile in not to upstage the president. It’s tough when the only two people in the administration are rock stars. Rock on Ms. Clinton.

This is Just Great!

Would You Like A Hand Job With That?

My favorite gal Hillary Clinton gave some reporters a great surprise. She gave them a number to the White House. The White House sex line.

A staffer mistyped the call in telephone number for a telephone conference about the NATO Summit with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and National Security Advisor Jim Jones. They were expecting to be on the phone listening to Clinton and Jones discuss foreign policy and security threats. Imagine their surprise when they were greeted by a recording by a phone sex line.

“Do you have any hidden desires? If you feel like getting nasty, then you came to the right place,” said a suggestive-sounding woman.

Asked for comment about this mishap, Deputy White House Press Secretary Bill Burton responded: “A corrected phone number on a press release is probably one of the stupider things FOX News has covered lately.”

Clinton to the Rescue!!!!

Again. It takes a Clinton to clean up Obottom’s mess. Sec. of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will begin a trip to Mexico today aimed at strengthening relations with America’s southern neighbor at a moment when it is facing an explosion of drug violence that is challenging the government’s control over its territory.

Hillary is the first of three Cabinet officials scheduled to travel to Mexico ahead of a visit by President Obama on April 16-17. She set out a day after the Obama administration announced it was rushing hundreds of law enforcement agents and extra equipment to the border to curb the flow of American guns and drug proceeds to Mexican traffickers.

Mexican authorities, who have long complained about a lack of U.S. action on the cross-border drug trade, cheered the announcement. Mexican Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa called it “consistent with the bilateral cooperation in the fight against organized crime.” But the Mexican government clearly is hoping for more.

More than 8,000 people have been slain in drug-related attacks in Mexico since January 2008, the result of rivalries between trafficking gangs and a backlash against President Felipe Calderón’s decision to use the military to combat narcotraffickers. The bloodshed has alarmed U.S. border states, which fear the violence could spread.

Clinton’s two-day visit to Mexico City and the northern city of Monterrey will focus on anti-drug cooperation, but she will also take in subjects such as trade, energy and the upcoming summit of the G-20 nations, which the leaders of the both countries will attend.

Video of the Day!

Hillary Clinton begins Pacific tour

The US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has kicked off her tour of the Pacific with a visit to Hawaii.

Mrs Clinton says the region felt neglected by the Bush administration and she pledged to re-engage with nations in the Pacific.

Her tour will take her to Papua New Guinea and New Zealand, and she’s expected to arrive in Australia for a brief visit on Sunday.

She’s accompanied by the US Defence Secretary Robert Gates and will hold talks with Australia’s Foreign Minister Stephen Smith and Defence Minister John Faulkner.

US Japan talks

Meanwhile, Mrs Clinton and her Japanese counterpart Katsuya Okada have begun talks in Hawaii to resolve a row over a US air base.

Both Mrs Clinton and Mr Okada have vowed not to let the dispute over the Futenma Air Base on the Japanese island of Okinawa undermine the US-Japan alliance.

Tokyo’s relations with Washington have been strained following Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama’s suggestion that the Futenma Airbase be moved off the southern island of Okinawa or even outside Japan altogether.

Mr Hatoyama, who took power in September, has pledged to review past agreements on US bases.

Thanks NZ Herald!