Politics took a day off in Dallas on Friday, as Hillary Rodham Clinton and Kay Bailey Hutchison offered life lessons to young women and discussed their own successes, defeats and frailties.

The event at The Women's Museum, dubbed "Stories From the Top: Their Odyssey," attracted more than 400 people, mostly women, who paid $175 a ticket to see their role models.

Most were not disappointed.

Clinton, the Democratic secretary of state, and Hutchison, the Republican senior senator from Texas, spoke to each other like close sisters, rather than political adversaries who share almost nothing in common.

The highlight of the 55-minute conversation occurred when Hutchison interrupted Clinton to weigh in on the former New York senator's historic but unsuccessful presidential campaign last year.

"The most incredible thing I saw in you during this period was your ability to keep a happy face, a confident face, when you were getting so many disappointments," Hutchison said.

Hutchison noted that Clinton was able to get over her loss and help Barack Obama win the White House.

"That character is why you're secretary of state today," she said.

WFAA-TV (Channel 8) anchor Gloria Campos, the moderator of the program, had asked both women about their "a-ha moments" that shaped their outlooks.

"I had an a-ha moment that I wasn't going to be the Democratic nominee for the president of the United States," Clinton said. "That was a different kind of a-ha moment."

Clinton spoke only briefly about foreign policy, telling the crowd she spent the morning with the president rolling out the administration's goals for Afghanistan.

Later Friday night, she was scheduled to receive an award from Planned Parenthood in Houston.

Hutchison, who plans to run for governor, did not discuss her campaign or incumbent Rick Perry.

Most of the day was centered on encouraging young women to aim high. Several all-girls schools were in the audience.

"You have to decide whether you're going to give up or soldier on," Clinton said about overcoming adversity.

Hutchison said that as a young woman, she had to get past self-doubt. She said preparation and experience is important in reaching goals.

"Girls, especially, have been afflicted with this," she said. "With experience, I have learned that I absolutely can do anything."

Clinton said her job - and Hutchison's rise as well - often made them loners.

"It is somewhat lonely and isolating to have to think about what we're facing, but it's also a privilege to do it with our states and countries," she said.

By GROMER JEFFERS JR., The Dallas Morning News, March 27, 2009

Conference Will Host at Least 80 Countries

TEHRAN, March 26 -- Iran said Thursday that it would attend a U.N. conference on Afghanistan proposed by the United States, and urged a regional solution to the "crisis."

Foreign Ministry spokesman Hassan Qashqavi said Iran had yet to decide whom to send to next Tuesday's international meeting in The Hague, which will be attended by U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and delegates from more than 80 countries.

State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid welcomed news of Iran's participation, which followed President Obama's offer of a "new beginning" in relations. But he said Clinton had no plans for a "substantive" meeting with Iranian officials at the forum.

"This conference is about reaching a regional consensus about Afghanistan. It is not a conference about U.S.-Iranian relations," he said.

Clinton said this month Iran would be invited to the meeting on Afghanistan, which battles a growing Islamist Taliban insurgency, in a U.S. overture which recognizes the Shiite Muslim power's influence on its troubled neighbor.

Iran and the United States have not had diplomatic ties for three decades and are at odds over Iran's nuclear work.

But analysts say they share an interest in ensuring a stable Afghanistan, where violence is at its highest level since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion.

"Iran will participate," Qashqavi said. "The level of participation is not clear."

Clinton is expected to provide details of a review of U.S. strategy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan, which is set to be released before the conference.

Iran says that the United States is failing in Afghanistan but that Iran is ready to help its eastern neighbor.

Obama last month ordered the deployment of 17,000 extra U.S. troops to the country. Iran has often called for U.S. forces to leave the region, saying they are making the situation worse.

Qashqavi said Iran would also attend a separate meeting on Afghanistan in Moscow this week.

In a major shift from the policies of his predecessor, George W. Bush, who sought to isolate Iran over nuclear work the West suspects is aimed at making weapons, Obama has offered to extend a hand of peace to Iran if "it unclenches its fist."

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said Saturday that he had so far seen no change in U.S. behavior but that Iran would respond to any real policy shift by the United States. Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful power purposes

By Frederik Dahl and Zahra Hosseinian, Reuters, March 27, 2009

To many of us, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was simply stating the obvious when she acknowledged Wednesday that U.S. demand for illegal drugs has fortified Mexican narco-mafias and fueled that country's drug violence. But Mexico had not heard such a high-level U.S. official accept shared responsibility for generating and solving the drug wars, and the positive reviews Clinton has been getting remind us that a little mea culpamea culpa goes a long way.

The day before she arrived in Mexico City, on her first visit as secretary of State, the Obama administration promised to address the problem of southbound weapons trafficking and money laundering. Clinton also sought to quell fury over recent U.S. intelligence assessments that Mexico risks becoming a "failed state" along with other countries riven by violence, such as Pakistan. President Felipe Calderon had grown accustomed to unqualified praise from the Bush administration, which sought to bolster the remaining right-of-center governments in Latin America, and was blindsided by the sudden talk of no-go areasin Mexico coming from U.S. military and law enforcement quarters. In a joint meeting with Clinton, Mexican Foreign Secretary Patricia Espinosa pointedly noted that there are many places in both countries where the two women wouldn't venture.

In her role as diplomat in chief, Clinton clarified that the Obama administration does not hold the position that our next-door neighbor is about to collapse into chaos. Clinton is right that the Mexican state and civil society remain strong, and certainly Mexico is able to send the army into any municipalityto calm the drug violence, as it has done recently in Ciudad Juarez. But in scores of towns, the civil government and local police are not able to confront the traffickers without the help of the army. The drug cartels have killed thousands and control many more through threats, bribes and taxes. No matter what you call it, that's a problem that both countries must resolve together, as the violence is seeping across the border.

Some Mexicans bristle at taking Black Hawk helicopters and other military aid from the behemoth to the north. Critics say "help" and "cooperation" usually come with strings that suggest U.S. meddling. The United States must remain cognizant of those sensitivities, while staying engaged and supplying aid. Because left unchecked, the drug traffickers will pose a threat to Mexico's stability and, therefore, to our own.




Los Angeles Times, March 27, 2009

HOUSTON - Helping women's reproductive and health rights flourish is an important part of U.S. efforts to develop democracy around the world and defeat extremism, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said during a speech Friday.

"A society that denies and demeans women's rights and roles is a society that is more likely to engage in behavior that is negative, anti-democratic and leads to violence and extremism," Clinton said at Planned Parenthood Federation of America's national conference in Houston.

Clinton spoke to the organization after being honored for her work on behalf of women's health and reproductive rights. She was endorsed by Planned Parenthood during her unsuccessful bid for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.

She told the conference women's reproductive and health rights will be key issues in President Barack Obama's foreign policy.

Only a few hours earlier, Clinton had been in Washington, D.C., for President Obama's announcement he was deploying 4,000 more U.S. military troops into Afghanistan as part of an effort to defeat al-Qaida terrorists in that country and in neighboring Pakistan.

"As we integrate our military and civilian assets with a mission for disrupting and defeating al-Qaida in Pakistan and Afghanistan, we cannot lose sight that assisting women's development in those countries is part of America's strategy to be successful," she said.

Clinton said there are models tied to infant mortality rates that can predict which regions in the world experience political upheaval.

"Countries with higher infant mortality rates are more susceptible to political upheaval," she said. "It's connected to a lower quality of life and a lower quality of life is a byproduct of inadequate health care and inadequate family planning options."

Clinton said she was grateful for being given Planned Parenthood's Margaret Sanger Award - the organization's highest honor. It is named after the group's founder.

A short video before Clinton's speech highlighted some of her work in support of women's reproductive and health rights, including:

- A 1995 speech Clinton delivered while first lady during the U.N. Conference on Women in Beijing in which she criticized China, without naming it directly, for the practice of sterilization and forced abortion, and for preventing many women from attending or participating fully in the conference.

- Her efforts in 2006, when she was a U.S. senator from New York, to block the confirmation of then President Bush's nominee for Food and Drug Administration commissioner until the FDA approved over-the-counter sales of the morning-after pill.

Clinton's visit to Houston capped off a busy week of travel for the secretary of state.

Earlier this week, she visited Mexico for two days after President Obama's administration pledged to send more money, technology and manpower to secure the border in the U.S. Southwest and help Mexico battle drug cartels.

While in Mexico, Clinton pledged the U.S. would stand "shoulder to shoulder" with Mexico in its violent struggle against the cartels.

By JUAN A. LOZANO, The Associated Press, March 27, 2009

N. Korea Diplomat Will Be on the Job Only Part Time

Next week, as President Obama embarks on his first major overseas tour, North Korean engineers will be finalizing preparations for the launch of a three-stage rocket that theoretically could reach Alaska -- a launch that Pyongyang has announced will take place as Obama visits Europe.

Whether coincidentally timed or not, North Korea's plans serve as a stark reminder that the isolated communist state with a stockpile of plutonium often tries to force its way onto the policy agenda. Pyongyang has claimed that it will seek to place an experimental communications satellite into orbit -- and it has warned that any effort to impose sanctions for the rocket test would rupture international efforts to eliminate its nuclear programs.

North Korea presents one of the biggest foreign policy challenges for the Obama administration. But though Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has appointed a bevy of special envoys to deal with other specific international flashpoints, the North Korea assignment is a part-time job.

Envoy Stephen W. Bosworth, a well-regarded Korea expert, is also dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in Massachusetts. He said in an interview that he is not giving up his deanship and is "planning on spending a day or two in Washington every week or two and probably a week every four to six weeks, depending upon the pace, in Asia."

That arrangement has concerned a number of North Korea experts, who fear that a part-time position both diminishes the job and sends the message that the Obama administration has essentially decided it will manage the North Korea issue, rather than attempt to resolve it.

"Steve Bosworth is a highly capable diplomat with exactly the right experience to take this on, but there are already grumblings in Tokyo and Seoul that Washington is only interested in containing the problem," said Michael J. Green, who was the top Asia adviser in the White House during the Bush administration.

"I think the real test will not be whether Ambassador Bosworth is full time, but how the administration responds to North Korea's likely missile test in April. Japan and South Korea want a firm response, but China is balking this time. A tepid response at the Security Council would confirm the worst suspicions about the administration's intentions."

Mitchell B. Reiss, who once served as a part-time special envoy for the Irish peace process, said Bosworth's distance from Washington may be an advantage. "It gives you a better perspective, and you do not get nibbled to death by bureaucratic details and minutiae," he said. "Northern Ireland is very different than North Korea, and I'm very pessimistic. But I think Steve is really good. He has a reservoir of trust and goodwill that is virtually unparalleled."

Bosworth and senior State Department officials insisted that the part-time nature of his duties does not mean the administration is stepping away from the North Korea issue. They say he has been fully engaged -- for instance, attending meetings yesterday at the State Department with Japanese and South Korean envoys on how to deal with the possible rocket launch.

Bosworth replaced career diplomat Christopher R. Hill, who handled negotiations with North Korea as assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs. Hill, who has been nominated to be ambassador to Iraq, devoted much of his attention to the North Korea issue, which members of Obama's transition team thought had detracted from his other responsibilities. So Clinton created the envoy position and will nominate a new assistant secretary for East Asian affairs, expected to be Kurt Campbell, head of the Center for a New American Security.

In addition, Clinton elevated Hill's deputy, Foreign Service officer Sung Kim, to be the principal U.S. negotiator at the now-suspended six-nation talks on North Korea's nuclear program, a role previously played by Hill.

"I will not be the day-to-day representative in the six-party negotiations," Bosworth said, adding that he will focus more on broader policy issues, including bilateral negotiations with North Korea. "Ideally one would like to meet with the leader," Kim Jong Il, he said. "I would like to reach higher in the foreign ministry than we have been able to."

The new envoy said key periods when he must be at the school are fairly predictable. "A lot of what I do for Fletcher, I can do on the road," he said. "I don't see a major problem. I think that it is manageable. I am fortunate in that I have extremely good people in both operations, and I will rely heavily on them."

Bosworth said it was a surprise to him when Clinton called and offered the job. By coincidence, he was visiting North Korea when rumors began circulating that he would be tapped.

"As I told the North Koreans, I had not had a single conversation with anyone in the Obama administration about anything. But as soon as I returned from Beijing, I was asked to call the State Department and ended up talking to the secretary," he said. "She was very explicit that, in her view, this could be done in coordination with the deanship."

The six-nation talks have been stalled for months over a dispute about North Korea's verification procedures. Last October, President George W. Bush removed North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, thinking he had a deal on verifying North Korean nuclear claims, but Pyongyang later said there was no such agreement.

"We have got to deal with it," Bosworth said, referring to the North Korean nuclear arsenal. "It has strategic urgency. You can't simply let it cool, not only because of its implications for us but also because of its implications for countries in the area, including our two allies [Japan and South Korea]. So we've got to be seen to be dealing with this. That being said, it sure is not easy."

By Glenn Kessler, The Washington Post, March 28, 2009

MONTERREY, Mexico (AP) - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton says Iran has a role to play in the region that includes neighboring Afghanistan and she hopes it will be constructive.

Clinton told reporters in Monterrey, Mexico, on Thursday that the United States will continue to reach out to Iran, even though earlier efforts were unsuccessful. President Barack Obama's outreach to Iran in a video message recently was rebuffed by Iranian leaders.

Iran has accepted an invitation to a conference on Afghanistan next week at The Hague, Netherlands, that also will be attended by the U.S.

Clinton says there are going to be difficult obstacles to engaging with Iran in the short run, but the U.S. will keep trying.

By MATTHEW LEE, The Associated Press, March 26, 2009

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton traveled to Mexico on Wednesday with a blunt mea culpa, saying that decades of U.S. anti-narcotics policies have been a failure and have contributed to the explosion of drug violence south of the border.

"Clearly what we've been doing has not worked," Clinton told reporters on her plane at the start of her two-day trip, saying that U.S. policies on curbing drug use, narcotics shipments and the flow of guns have been ineffective.

"Our insatiable demand for illegal drugs fuels the drug trade," she added. "Our inability to prevent weapons from being illegally smuggled across the border to arm these criminals causes the deaths of police, of soldiers and civilians."

Clinton appeared to go further than any senior government official in recent years in accepting a U.S. role in the long-contentious issue of the Latin American narcotics trade. In the past, U.S. politicians have accused Mexico, the main gateway for cocaine, heroin and other drugs entering the United States, of not doing enough. But two years ago, President Felipe Calderón unleashed the Mexican military on traffickers, a move that has contributed to an explosion of violence by drug gangs. More than 7,000 Mexicans have been killed in the bloodletting since January 2008, with the gangs battling authorities and one another for supremacy.

Mexicans, sensitive to slights from their richer northern neighbor, have reacted with outrage in recent weeks as the U.S. Joint Forces Command and some senior U.S. officials have suggested that the drug problem is so severe that Mexico is losing control of parts of its territory.

Clinton sought to soothe the wounded feelings, praising Calderón's "courage" and announcing that the Obama administration is seeking $66 million in new funding for extra helicopters for the Mexican police. She also pledged further unspecified steps to block the movement of guns southward, and acknowledged that proceeds from drugs sold in the United States -- an estimated $15 billion to $25 billion a year -- support Mexican drug gangs.

Clinton's comments came at the start of a U.S. blitz to emphasize support for Mexico's embattled government and improve relations with Latin America. The Obama administration announced Tuesday that it is sending hundreds more agents and extra high-tech gear to the border to intercept weapons and drug proceeds heading south. U.S. border states have become alarmed about a possible spillover of the drug violence, and Congress has held hearings on the drug war.

Clinton vowed to press for swift delivery of equipment promised under the Merida Initiative, a three-year $1.4 billion package of anti-drug assistance to Mexico and Central America. Mexican officials and U.S. lawmakers say there are long lag times for helicopters and other desperately needed gear. In addition, Mexicans complain that Congress has approved only $700 million of the $950 million that the Bush administration requested for the program since it began last year.

Clinton was greeted warmly by Mexican Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa, who called her a "close friend" at a news conference. The Mexican official said that "we recognize very much these efforts that are now being undertaken by U.S. authorities" to combat the flow of guns and drug proceeds into Mexico.

But Mexican officials have indicated that they are hoping for more U.S. action. The Obama administration is trying to draw up a broader regional strategy on the drug problem to ensure that traffickers chased from one country do not simply move to another, aides said. One reason Mexico has emerged as a major drug hub is because the routes for trafficking Colombian cocaine have shifted away from the Caribbean islands.

Clinton's visit comes as some prominent Latin Americans are urging the United States to reexamine its drug policies. Last month, former presidents of Brazil, Colombia and Mexico called on the United States in a report to consider legalizing marijuana use and focusing more on treatment for drug users. Obama has emphasized his support for expanded treatment facilities, although not for allowing marijuana use.

In addition to Clinton, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. plan to visit Mexico in the coming weeks, leading up to a mid-April trip by Obama. The president will then attend the Summit of the Americas, a gathering of the region's 34 democratically elected heads of state and government, on April 17 and 18 in Trinidad and Tobago.

In comments to U.S. reporters, Clinton called for a new approach to tackling the drug problem, noting that "we have been pursuing these strategies for 30 years."

"Neither interdiction [of drugs] nor reducing demand have been successful," she said.

Clinton's assessment appeared to be at odds with some conclusions by U.S. anti-drug officials. The Drug Enforcement Administration says that Mexican traffickers have had an increasingly hard time getting their shipments into the United States, in part because of U.S. military and law enforcement operations against their transportation networks.

"The seizure rates are off the charts for the last three or four years," Michael Braun, who recently retired as a senior DEA official, told a congressional hearing this month.

While emphasizing the U.S. desire to cooperate on drugs, Clinton said she wanted her trip to also illustrate the broad range of issues the two countries routinely work on together, including the environment and education. She announced $720 million in funding to modernize border crossings in an effort to promote trade, and said both sides are trying to resolve a dispute over allowing Mexican trucks into the United States that had led Mexico to place tariffs on dozens of U.S. products.

"The relationship we have with Mexico is much broader and deeper" than the drug issue, she said.

Clinton is planning to travel Thursday to Monterrey, Mexico's business capital, before heading back to Washington.

By Mary Beth Sheridan, The Washington Post, March 26, 2009

MEXICO CITY (AP) - Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Wednesday warned North Korea that firing a missile for any purpose would be a "provocative act" that would have consequences. North Korea is loading a rocket on a launch pad in anticipation of the launch of a communications satellite between April 4 and 8, U.S. counterproliferation and intelligence officials said. North Korea announced its intention to launch the satellite in February, but regional powers worry the claim is a cover for the launch of a long-range missile capable of reaching Alaska.

Clinton told reporters during a visit to Mexico City that the U.S. believes the North Korean plan to fire a missile for any purpose would violate a U.N. Security Council resolution barring the country from ballistic activity. She linked a missile launch to the future of talks between the U.S., North Korea and four other nations aimed at ending North Korea's nuclear weapons program.

"We have made it very clear that the North Koreans pursue this pathway at a cost and with consequences to the six-party talks, which we would like to see revived," Clinton said.

"We intend to raise this violation of the Security Council resolution, if it goes forward, in the U.N.," she said. "This provocative action in violation of the U.N. mandate will not go unnoticed and there will be consequences."

National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair said earlier this month that all indications suggest North Korea will in fact launch a satellite. However, North Korea faked a satellite launch in 1998 to cloak a missile development test.

In 2006, North Korea launched a Taepodong-2 that blew up less than a minute into flight.

Both the satellite launch rocket and long-range missile use similar technology, and arms control experts fear even a satellite launch would be a test toward eventually launching a long-range missile.

South Korea, the U.S. and Japan have urged North Korea to refrain from launching a satellite or missile, calling it a violation of the Security Council resolution. North Korea insists it has the right to develop its space program and on Tuesday warned the U.S., Japan and its allies not to interfere with the launch.

In Seoul, officials at South Korea's National Intelligence Service and the Defense Ministry were not available for comment.

South Korea's chief nuclear envoy, Wi Sung-lac, said Wednesday after returning from talks with his Beijing counterparts that a launch would trigger a response.

"If North Korea launches rocket, certain countermeasures are unavoidable," he said. He refused to elaborate, saying the measures, including any sanctions, would be discussed among U.N. Security Council member nations.

It probably won't be clear if the latest launch is a satellite or a missile test until footage can be analyzed after the event; the trajectory of a missile is markedly different from that of a satellite.

Analysts have been watching for signs of a satellite or missile on the launch pad in Musudan-ni, the northeast coastal launch site. Satellite imagery from March 16 showed progress toward mounting a rocket, with a crane hovering over the launch pad, said Christian LeMiere, an editor at Jane's Intelligence Review in London.

LeMiere said that once the rocket is mounted, scientists would need at least a week to fuel and carry out tests before any launch. Images from earlier this month did not indicate the rocket or missile had been mounted, he said.

By MATTHEW LEE and PAMELA HESS, The Associated Press, March 25, 2009

Hillary Rodham Clinton, like her boss, is in something of a honeymoon period as well.

Today, the secretary of state is in Mexico to sell the Obama administration's revamped plan to deal with Mexican drug cartels. She made her first big foreign trip to Asia, where she won generally high marks, though she dismayed human rights advocates when she seemed to soft-pedal the issue in China.

And she's riding high in the polls.

According to the CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll, 71 percent of Americans approve of her job performance and 23 percent disapprove.

Her predecessor, Condoleezza Rice, had lower approval ratings in similar polls, weighed down by the unpopular war in Iraq. In December 2006, her rating was 57 percent, and in March 2005 it was 61 percent.

The new survey, conducted March 12-15, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.




By Foon Rhee, The Boston Globe, March 25, 2009

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, on a two-day visit to Mexico, accepts that the U.S. market for narcotics and a cross-border trade in U.S. guns contribute to Mexico's drug violence.

Reporting from Mexico City -- In candid comments aimed at reassuring a sensitive neighbor, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton accepted Wednesday that the United States shares blame for Mexico's drug violence, and promised more equipment and support to help the country's war against traffickers.

Clinton said the U.S. has a duty to help since it is a major consumer of illicit drugs and a key supplier of weapons smuggled to cartel hit men.

"We know very well that the drug traffickers are motivated by the demand for illegal drugs in the United States, that they are armed by the transport of weapons from the United States to Mexico," Clinton said during a news conference with Mexican Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa. "We see this as a responsibility to assist the Mexican government and people."

Mexico's leaders are defensive over commentary in the United States suggesting that their nation is in danger of becoming a "failed state." Mexican President Felipe Calderon two weeks ago labeled such talk as "false, absurd," and challenged the United States to clean up its own act by curbing drug use and arms trafficking.

Calderon even wondered aloud whether a campaign to discredit the Mexican government was afoot.

Clinton used the opportunity of her first visit to Mexico as secretary of State to try to soothe those fears. On the trip down, she told U.S. reporters traveling with her that "our insatiable demand for illegal drugs fuels the drug trade."

And she acknowledged that U.S. anti-drug policies have failed, noting that "clearly, what we have been doing has not worked and it is unfair for our incapacity . . . to be creating a situation where people are holding the Mexican government and people responsible."

Once in Mexico City, she described Calderon's 2-year-old war against drug-trafficking organizations as "courageous."

In response, Calderon issued a statement urging that "binational cooperation in this area should be strengthened."

The Obama administration is already taking some steps in that direction. Clinton said Washington hopes to provide $80 million worth of Black Hawk helicopters to Mexico. Some of the funds would come out of the $700 million already approved by Congress in security aid for Mexico under a three-year, $1.4-billion program called the Merida Initiative.

The Black Hawks would be in addition to five Bell helicopters already funded by the aid package. U.S. officials have said it could take until next year to deliver the five aircraft, prompting complaints from Mexican officials.

"We're going to see what we can do to cut that time," Clinton said during the news conference, after meeting with Calderon and Espinosa.

Clinton is to tour a police training facility today and travel to the northern city of Monterrey, a business hub that has also seen a big jump in drug-related violence.

Her two-day stopover is, in part, a customary get-acquainted call by the top diplomat of a new U.S. administration. But the visit comes at a delicate moment.

Mexico's escalating drug violence, especially near the U.S. border, and a brewing trade dispute over cross-border trucking, have caused long-standing bilateral tensions to percolate.

A day before Clinton's arrival here, the Obama administration announced that it would send hundreds of additional federal agents and intelligence analysts to the border to target drug cartels and keep the violence that has killed more than 7,000 people in Mexico in the last 15 months from spilling into the United States.

Skeptics on the U.S. side question whether the plan goes far enough to ensure that serious violence doesn't cross the border. Mexican officials privately expressed doubt about whether the plan devotes enough resources to put a real dent in arms trafficking and money laundering.

At a hearing Wednesday in Washington, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) said he planned to request funding to boost resources and hire additional law enforcement and investigative personnel to work to halt the flow of drugs and guns across the southern border.

"The administration's latest response to the southwest border violence represents a significant first step forward," said Lieberman, chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

"Our government is really mobilized, but it's going to be a long fight."

Mexico's military-led offensive has roiled the country's drug underworld, leading to gunfights between soldiers and hit men as well as brutal feuding between rival trafficking groups.

More than 6,000 people died in drug-related violence last year alone.

Mexican leaders have been irked by comments from Washington, including by the U.S. national intelligence director, Dennis C. Blair, suggesting that Mexico is losing ground to the criminal syndicates.

Clinton took issue with depictions of Mexico as a state in danger of collapse.

"I don't believe there are any ungovernable territories in Mexico," she said, "but I remember very well when we had such a crime wave 15, 20 years ago, there were many parts of cities in our country that people didn't feel safe going to."




By Ken Ellingwood, Los Angeles Times, March 26, 2009

As Hillary Clinton flies to Mexico for a high-level summit, a new national poll indicates seven in 10 Americans are happy with the job she's doing as secretary of state.

Seventy-one percent of people questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released Wednesday said they approve of how Clinton is handling her job as America's top diplomat. Fewer than one in four disapprove.

"Nine in 10 Democrats approve of Clinton -- that's no surprise," said Keating Holland, CNN's polling director. "But by a 50 percent to 43 percent margin, Republicans also think she is doing a good job at the State Department. That's an interesting result for a polarizing figure like Clinton."

The poll's release comes as Clinton teams up with Mexican officials to kick off weeks of meetings intended to find ways to fight drug violence on both sides of the U.S.-Mexican border. The Obama administration on Tuesday announced a major increase in security funding and agent deployments along the border.

"Since taking office in January, Clinton has been at the White House nearly every day, meeting with President Obama, Vice President [Joseph] Biden and other members of the Cabinet and national security staff," said CNN State Department producer Elise Labott. "The secretary maintains close ties with her former colleagues on Capitol Hill and meets regularly with congressional leaders."

The former first lady, senator from New York and one-time primary rival to Obama already has clocked close to 60,000 miles in her first two trips overseas -- one journey to China, the other to the Middle East and Europe -- since becoming secretary of state in January.

Clinton was met by large crowds and warmly received by world leaders on both trips, although "she met some criticism in Beijing, where she was criticized for a lower-key approach that seemed to downplay the importance of human rights in the overall relationship with China," Labott said.

"Her aides said she wanted a new approach to dealing with China's human rights record, including less public criticism and more private discussions, which may prove more productive in changing Chinese behavior."

Clinton's approval rating is higher than that of her boss: The same CNN/Opinion Research poll put Obama's approval rating at 64 percent, 7 percentage points lower than Clinton's.

Clinton has a couple of advantages over Obama in public opinion today, Holland said.

"She hasn't had a prominent role in the administration's economic or budget policies," he said. "There haven't been any international issues that have caused as much outrage as the AIG bonuses. And her name wasn't on the ballot in November, so any partisan animosity to her that is left over from 2008 is not as fresh in the public's mind."

Clinton's approval rating is also 10 percentage points higher than the one her predecessor, Condoleezza Rice, had in March 2005, then two months into her tenure as secretary of state.

The CNN/Opinion Research poll of 1,019 Americans was conducted by telephone March 12-15. The survey's sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.




By Paul Steinhauser, CNN, March 25, 2009

Hillary Clinton arrives Wednesday with a new border security plan that signals greater cooperation between the two countries.

Mexico City and Washington - The United States unveiled Tuesday a beefed-up, multiagency security plan for the US-Mexico border that reflects President Obama's recognition of the "two-way" street responsible for rising drug violence. The plan allows Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to emphasize cooperative action when she visits the embattled southern neighbor Wednesday.

The border security policy includes the formation of a new FBI-directed Southwest Intelligence Group, relocating 100 federal agents to the border to curtail gun trafficking, and sending more federal agents to Mexico to coordinate counternarcotics operations. But it does not endorse Texas Gov. Rick Perry's call for National Guard troops on the border.

Mexico's drug war is spreading north. US officials say Mexican drug cartels now operate in some 200 American cities. The new plan - which combines both the $1.4 billion, multiyear antidrug plan Congress approved last year (the Merida Initiative), and new money from this year's stimulus - is designed to increase cooperation with Mexico.

The new initiative - coordinated by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and announced by her and senior State Department and Justice officials in a White House briefing - also underscores the growing concerns in US border states, and in Washington, over signs of spillover violence. Last year, more than 6,000 people were killed in Mexico's drug war. It's no accident that one of Homeland Security's border-focused efforts is called Operation Firewall.

Yet the new plan Secretary Clinton will explain to her Mexican counterparts also reflects a new recognition from the Obama administration of "co-responsibility" for drug-related violence and lawlessness. President Obama suggested this perspective when he spoke earlier this month of a "two-way situation" affecting the border. "The drugs are coming north; we're sending funds [laundered drug money] and guns south," he told reporters.

New era of co-responsibility?

The recognition of co-responsibility is both a welcome shift in US thinking for Mexico, and a reflection of reality, border security analysts say. "Both sides are recognizing more and more that there is no way Mexico can do this without the US contributing significantly," says Roderic Ai Camp, a Mexico expert at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, Calif. "US demand, arms shipments back to Mexico, laundered money back to Mexico, all of those factors contribute significantly to the success of drug cartels."

Some experts note that this administration's emphasis on cross-border cooperation is not new. The US has supported President Felipe Calderón's get-tough approach to drug cartels, including the deployments of thousands of troops across the country. The Merida Initiative, a three-year, $1.4 billion plan to help Mexico and Central America combat drug infiltration, was passed last year.

What strikes some about the Obama initiative is that it reflects not just the gravity of Mexico's situation, but in fact an increasingly mature binational relationship. If the US can undertake an ambitious security initiative with multiple levels of law-enforcement cooperation, it's because there is a state and official players to work with, says Michael Shifter, vice-president for policy at the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington.

"Mexico is facing a grave challenge and a threatening level of violence, but we're not talking Afghanistan here," says Mr. Shifter. "Mexico is a state that has built up its governmental capacities and effectiveness in recent years, but it's also a neighbor that is now under stress and needs reinforcement."

Clinton's two-day trip, which includes meetings in the capital and the industrial city of Monterrey, will be followed by visits from Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano and Attorney General Eric Holder, who will attend an arms trafficking conference next month. President Obama will stop in Mexico on his way to the Summit of the Americas next month in Trinidad and Tobago.

"Mexico is in the middle of a very difficult war against organized crime. ... and [Mexican President] Calderón needs to show that he has control of Mexico," says Ana Maria Salazar, a national security specialist in Mexico and former official in President Clinton's administration. "The best scenario coming out from the trips, more than specific projects, is the tone that denotes that the US recognizes its responsibility to work with the Mexican government."

Mexico's drug problem is a US problem

It's typical for high-level meetings to mark the beginning of an incoming administration, but this flurry of US attention comes amid intense congressional interest and growing pressure in the US to address Mexico's spiraling violence. "Mexico's security situation is no longer a foreign policy issue only; it's now on the domestic agenda too," says Andrew Selee, director of the Woodrow Wilson Center's Mexico Institute.

On Monday, Mexico laid out its own initiative ahead of Clinton's visit: In a public challenge to the cartels, it announced it would offer up to $2 million each for information leading to the arrest of the 24 top drug lords.

Not all have hopes that the string of visits by top US officials will deliver anything other than the status quo. "There are no new ideas in Mexico; basically down here all they have talked about is staying the course," says Dan Lund, a political analyst and president of the MUND Group in Mexico City.

While security will dominate Clinton's visit, she arrives in the midst of a trade dispute, prompted by the US suspension of a pilot program to allow Mexican long-haul trucks to travel on highways in the US. Mexico, which says the decision violates the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), responded last week by placing tariffs on 90-odd US exports - worrying US farmers and manufacturers at a time when both economies are slackening.

But most analysts say that security will overshadow all other topics, including immigration reform and economic integration.

"If you didn't have 6,000-plus deaths [in the drug fight], we would not see so many people going to Mexico in the beginning of the [Obama] administration," says Shannon O'Neil, a Latin America expert at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. But there is an upside. "What is happening is there is recognition by the US government that [security] is a mutual problem. Given this, there is an opportunity to form a real partnership that spans beyond security... which depends on so many issues, like trade and economic issues and migration."

By Sara Miller Llana and Howard LaFranchi, The Christian Science Monitor, March 25, 2009

Poland wants the U.S. to honor its agreement to build a missile defense base in its country but the Obama administration is sending signals that it intends to scrap the plan as part of a security deal with Russia.

As the Obama administration sends signals that it intends to give up missile defense in Europe as part of a security deal with Russia, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Tuesday sought to reassure a fellow NATO member -- Poland -- that the U.S. is not abandoning its Eastern Europe ally.

"As members of NATO, we take seriously our alliance commitments and I'm very confident that we will work through any issues that lie ahead -- on any front," Clinton said.

Missile defense is the primary issue between Washington and Warsaw. Poland wants the U.S. to honor its agreement to build a missile defense base in its country.

Poland's president has said that scrapping the project to improve ties with Russia would be an unfriendly gesture toward Poland.

Russia says missile defense in Europe is unnecessary and provocative. Moscow even has threatened to deploy short-range missiles in its westernmost region, bordering Poland, if the U.S. goes ahead. But the rhetoric has since cooled.

Officially, the administration has not said whether it intends to go ahead with the missile defense sites in Poland and the Czech Republic. It has stuck to the language that Obama used as a presidential candidate -- that missile defense must be proved reliable and cost effective.

Missile defense was a favorite of the Bush administration, but it never has been popular among Democrats. Obama's election was seen widely as signaling a death knell for the proposed European leg of the missile defense system, which would be linked to an existing network of interceptors in Alaska and California and radars elsewhere. Scaling back missile defense ambitions also could produce some of the big savings Obama seeks in a period of tight budgets.

In Brussels on Sunday, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski told Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Calif., that Poland took significant political risk signing a pact in August with the U.S. approving a missile defense system in the country.

"Russian generals, and even the Russian president, still continues to threaten us with the deployment of medium-range missiles in our immediate vicinity," he said. "So we signed with the previous administration. We patiently wait for the decision of the new administration and we hope we don't regret our trust in the United States."

"I don't think you will," said Taucsher, who is widely expected to be nominated as the new under secretary of state for arms control.

Tauscher suggested the U.S. could develop a suite of short-and medium-range missile shields, and thereby "bolt" from the long-range system for which Poland was to be one of three sites.

But NATO's supreme commander for Europe who spoke to reporters after Senate testimony, seemed to disagree.

"The third site implementation is given based upon a threat of assessment," said Gen. Bantz Craddock. "I think that stands. Until that changes, I think the impact on U.S. national security are evident, so I will let that stand."

By James Rosen, Fox News, March 24, 2009

NEW YORK (AP) - Sen. Charles Schumer reached out to gay leaders earlier this month and convened a meeting at an upscale Manhattan restaurant to make an important announcement: He was supporting gay marriage after years of opposing it. The response from the crowd was swift. "The room applauded," recalled Alan Van Capelle, the executive director of Empire State Pride Agenda, who helped organize the dinner at Gramercy Tavern.

The reversal marked a significant shift for the Democratic senator and gave further momentum to gay marriage in New York, where every other statewide Democratic official supports such unions.

Schumer's change, some political observers suggested, stemmed from pressure to bring his position on gay marriage in line with the other officials, while coming at a time when support for same-sex unions is strong in New York. Also, it's likely New York's gay rights interest groups, which played a role in Democrats retaking control of the state Senate last November, were pressing Schumer to change his position.

"At this point we have a fair amount of knowledge that supporting gay marriage in the Northeast is not the kiss of death politically" that it could be as recently as a decade ago, said Lee Badgett, director of the Center for Public Policy and Administration at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and research director at the Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation Law and Public Policy at UCLA.

If anything, Schumer's support for gay marriage is likely to bolster momentum for legalizing gay marriage in New York, where a gay marriage bill passed the Assembly in 2007.

Massachusetts and Connecticut legalized gay marriage while New Jersey and New Hampshire allow same-sex civil unions. In Vermont, where civil unions also are legal, the state Senate on Monday passed a same-sex marriage bill.

Although support of gay marriage is less damaging than it used to be, the normally publicity hungry Schumer did not really promote his change, quietly issuing a three-sentence press release instead. It was Empire State Pride Agenda that made the announcement Monday, followed by a brief statement later that night.

Schumer declined a request for an interview to discuss the change, but spokesman Josh Vlasto released a one-paragraph statement the next day that read: "I have thought long and hard about it. I have always believed that one of the great traits in America is we seek equality and should always strive to achieve it. We may not have been ready in 1996 when this issue first arose in Congress but I believe we are now."

In addition to supporting gay marriage, Schumer said he supported a repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act, which he had voted for in 1996.

"I'm surprised he didn't make more of a splash about it," said Tom McClusky, vice president of the Family Research Council's legislative arm. "Chuck Schumer likes cameras."

McClusky suggested that former Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's ascension to Secretary of State had something to do with the change of heart. Clinton opposed same-sex marriage, but her replacement, Kirsten Gillibrand, favors it. McClusky said that Clinton provided Schumer "cover" on the issue that disappeared after Gillibrand's announcement.

"He wasn't the only statewide elected Democrat who didn't support same sex marriage," he said.

But even with his newfound public position, Schumer's reversal isn't likely to have much impact nationally, political scientists say. The Defense of Marriage Act denies federal recognition of same-sex marriages and gives states the right to refuse to recognize such marriages.

"You'll need 60 votes in the U.S. Senate (to repeal the law)," said Justin Phillips, an assistant professor of political science at Columbia University. "It's hard to imagine at this point where those 60 votes would come from. I couldn't identify 60 senators who would support that right now."

The Empire State Pride Agenda said Schumer told gay leaders he would work "in the interim" toward changing federal laws and regulations to benefit legally married same-sex couples. Such an example would be tweaking federal tax codes to allow gay couples to file join returns.

"His support could not have come at a better time in our community," said Empire State Pride Agenda's Alan Van Capelle.

By MARCUS FRANKLIN, The Associated Press, March 24, 2009

Hillary Clinton's trip aims to right a rocky start

MEXICO CITY - In the first days of the Obama administration, U.S. officials have publicly questioned Mexico's ability to maintain control of its territory from drug traffickers and have scrapped a high-profile commitment promised under the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Not a smooth start to a relationship between neighbors that has often been bumpy.

At a time when drug cartels are brazenly assassinating top military officials and even extending their reach into the United States, analysts say Mexico and the U.S. cannot afford to be at odds; they need to be deepening their cooperation on security.

The first step to patching those early differences will come Wednesday when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visits Mexico to discuss a wide range of issues, including Immigration, trade and security.

In the next month, Clinton's trip will be followed by high-profile visits from Atty. Gen. Eric Holder and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, culminating with President Barack Obama's first trip to Mexico in mid-April.

Mexican Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa said she is confident in the long-term commitment of the U.S., pointing to Tuesday's announcement of border security measures as proof.

In a briefing, Espinosa called them "important actions of support in the frontal struggle that is being waged" by Mexico. Drug traffickers, she said, "are a threat to both countries."

Mexican President Felipe Calderon wasn't as pleased when the U.S. military recently lumped Mexico in the same category as Pakistan as governments at risk of a "rapid and sudden collapse."

Soon analysts began calling Mexico a "failed state" in which government institutions no longer function at a basic level.

National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair painted a harsh picture, saying Mexico had ceded control of parts of its territory.

That prompted Calderon to bristle in his reply: "Let them tell me where I don't govern." He also told an interviewer that the U.S. should look in the mirror and tend to corruption on its side of the border before pointing the finger at Mexico.

Piling on to these gloomy assessments have been other bouts of bad publicity, such as a leaked e-mail from former CIA chief George Tenet urging his son to scrap a vacation in Acapulco because of safety concerns.

Andrew Selee, director of the Mexico Institute at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C., said the early tension reflects the Obama administration's focus on other crises while not speaking with one voice toward Mexico.

At the same time, Mexico still clings to mistrust over U.S. actions, a sentiment that has been created over decades.

"The thing is, there probably is more of a consensus between the two countries than there has been in recent memory, probably ever," he said. "But the atmospherics of the past few weeks haven't lent themselves to that."

Another point of disagreement arose this month when the U.S. Congress canceled a pilot program that was allowing a small number of Mexican trucks to operate in the U.S. under a provision of NAFTA.

The Teamsters and other labor unions had fought the measure in court and on Capitol Hill, arguing that Mexican trucks are a safety risk and eventually would cost jobs for U.S. workers.

Mexico responded to the cancelation by raising tariffs on about 90 products—everything from sunglasses to chestnuts—although officials did not touch staples such as corn and wheat, which directly affect Mexican consumers.

In an interview, Mexican Deputy Economy Minister Beatriz Leycegui said authorities chose products that originate in 40 U.S. states so U.S. lawmakers would receive the maximum political pressure from constituents.

"It is important that Mexico defend the integrity of this treaty," said Leycegui, who oversees foreign trade. "These actions by the U.S. are protectionism."

At the same time, she said, "We are confident that this is an isolated action that does not reflect a confrontational turn in the relationship."

Sure enough, the dispute showed signs of cooling when Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced Tuesday that the U.S. plans to revive the pilot trucking program.

Mexican officials called that a positive first step.

Illinois escaped the brunt of the new tariffs, said Chris Manns, president of Traders Group Inc., a Chicago commodities firm that does business in Mexico. The initial worry was that Mexico would target key exports such as corn and soybean.

"They probably wouldn't be that foolish," he said.

Nonetheless, Illinois officials warned that while the tariffs might not resonate statewide, they could harm small businesses that make niche products, such as cosmetics.

Most goods faced new tariffs of 10 to 20 percent.

Notes Omar Mendoza of the state's Latin America Trade and Development Office in Mexico City: "They can't lose sight that it's the small companies, the medium-sized companies, that sustain the economy."

By Oscar Avila, Chicago Tribune, March 25, 2009

With major elections approaching over the next year and a half, leading New York Democrats are expressing deep concerns that the party has been thrown into turmoil by competing personal agendas, ideological rifts and a leadership void.

Democratic politicians and strategists warn that the strife threatens to undercut not only any chance of remaining competitive in the race for City Hall this year, but hopes of holding on to the Governor's Mansion and a United States Senate seat in 2010.

At the heart of the problem, Democrats say, is a party that has been unable to maintain any semblance of cohesiveness (or, more bluntly, discipline) as its most prominent leaders either struggle with their own political misfortunes or stand on the sidelines. They add that the departure of Hillary Rodham Clinton from New York politics has contributed significantly to the leadership void, with party operatives who had been loyal to her scattering to different camps.

"What you have is people exercising their own self-interests in an effort to fill a power vacuum in the party," said Scott Levenson, a Democratic political consultant.

Councilman Tony Avella, a Queens Democrat who is running for mayor, agreed, saying that there was "a general lack of leadership in the Democratic Party these days."

The mayoral race is heightening the frustrations. Rather than serving as a rallying point for Democrats, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's campaign for a third term has become, to many Democrats, a sign of the party's problems.

Mr. Bloomberg, a billionaire who is again bankrolling his own campaign, has lured top Democratic strategists, while prominent Democrats like Senator Charles E. Schumer and the City Council speaker, Christine C. Quinn, maintain what some say is a nonaggression pact with the mayor, once a Democrat, then a Republican who turned independent in 2007.

The situation has already led some Democrats to be pessimistic about the party's prospects in the mayoral race, nearly eight months before Election Day.

"Frankly, I don't see the party organizing against him," Assemblyman N. Nick Perry, a Brooklyn Democrat, said about Mr. Bloomberg. "I don't see the party committing a lot of its scarce resources to what most would consider an unlikely win."

On the surface, at least, Democrats ought to be riding high.

In November, the party won a majority in the State Senate, giving it control of the governor's office and both chambers of the Legislature for the first time since the New Deal.

Yet, for all the excitement the victory inspired among Democrats, a sobering realization began to set in: They are now responsible for what does or does not happen in Albany. And with the state in the middle of an economic storm, that has raised tensions in the party.

Just last week, Gov. David A. Paterson and leading Senate Democrats openly skirmished over how best to prevent sharp service cuts in the financially troubled Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

The governor - who supports tolls on the bridges over the East and Harlem Rivers - chided the Democrats for proposing an alternative plan that he called inadequate. He even suggested that he might seek Republican support to break the impasse.

To a large degree, Democrats trace the party's problem to the absence of a compelling leader to pull the disparate factions together.

As the highest-ranking Democrat in the state, Mr. Paterson ought to be that leader, but some party members say that several factors have weakened Mr. Paterson and left him vulnerable to a primary challenge next year, possibly from Andrew M. Cuomo, the attorney general.

First, there were the peculiar circumstances surrounding Mr. Paterson's ascension. As Eliot Spitzer's lieutenant governor, he got the job when Mr. Spitzer resigned over a prostitution scandal. Then there was a series of public missteps, including his clumsy handling of the selection of a senator to replace Mrs. Clinton.

Whether he can turn things around is a subject of intense speculation - and concern - in Democratic circles, given that he will be at the top of the party's ticket in 2010.

Many Democrats are particularly worried that Mr. Paterson faces the immediate task of trying to put together a budget in a time of economic peril. Already, his proposed cuts have drawn criticism from unions representing public employees and hospital workers, a crucial Democratic constituency.

"There's nothing good about it," said Assemblyman Karim Camara, a Brooklyn Democrat, referring to the governor's political standing. "But he has time to right the ship."

The appointment of Kirsten E. Gillibrand, a little-known congresswoman from upstate, to replace Mrs. Clinton has also exposed rifts in the party, largely along regional and ideological lines.

Ms. Gillibrand, who represented a conservative district that wraps around Albany, is viewed warily by liberal Democrats in New York City who have significant sway in the party's nominating process.

Liberals are troubled by a number of positions she held while in Congress, including her support of gun rights and for cracking down on so-called sanctuary cities like New York that do not enforce all immigration laws.

While Ms. Gillibrand has softened her stance on these issues, several Democrats from the New York metropolitan region, including two members of Congress, have indicated that they are considering challenging her in next year's primary. That prospect has alarmed some Democrats who believe that an acrimonious primary could leave their party with a weakened candidate heading into the general election.

Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries, a Brooklyn Democrat, said he believed that Ms. Gillibrand would, indeed, face a primary that would "serve as a proxy battle for several fault lines."

"There remain significant questions about the very conservative positions that she took during her time as a Congress member that have been unanswered," he said.

What is perhaps most immediately troubling to many Democrats is that the party may be unable to prevent Mr. Bloomberg from winning a third term.

The most recent sign of their pessimism came last week, when Representative Anthony D. Weiner, who represents parts of Brooklyn and Queens and is known to relish a fight, suggested that he might not run for mayor, after declaring his candidacy.

Mr. Bloomberg has managed to frustrate opponents like Mr. Weiner by recruiting Democratic operatives, including several who were part of Mrs. Clinton's organization before she became secretary of state.

If there is any consolation for Democrats, it is that the state Republican Party, after a series of election debacles, might be too feeble to capitalize on the Democrats' troubles, though the possibility of a prominent candidate - Rudolph W. Giuliani, for example - running in 2010 has generated some hope in Republican ranks.

By Raymond Hernandez and ROSS GOLDBERG, The New York Times, March 23, 2009

The State Department will significantly expand its presence in regional capitals in western and northern Afghanistan in coming months, part of the Obama administration's plans for a "surge" in civilians going to the country.

"As part of our expanding efforts in Afghanistan," Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in a cable sent Saturday to all Foreign Service officers, "the Department intends to create 14 additional FS positions in Herat and Mazar-e-Sharif."

The cable called the jobs "priority" assignments and "new opportunities" for diplomats about to bid on new postings for later this year.

President Obama's senior national security officials have proposed a new overall strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, which he is expected to approve this week. It includes sending hundreds of U.S. civilian officials to Afghanistan, increasing the size of the embassy and its outposts by about 50 percent -- to about 900 personnel.

Obama has authorized the deployment of 17,000 additional troops, with most headed to southern Afghanistan, where British, Canadian and U.S. forces are battling a resurgent Taliban.

The proportion of U.S. civilian officials to military forces in the country is small, compared with the ratios for other NATO members with troops in Afghanistan. Each of the U.S.-led provincial reconstruction teams outside Kabul, the capital, includes 50 to 100 military and Defense Department contractors, but none has more than a half-dozen civilian officials, even though the teams are charged with traditionally civilian tasks in fields such as development, agriculture and education.

The U.S. civilian presence in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif, where NATO troops are under Swedish command, has numbered one or two. The American presence in the western province of Herat, under Italian command, is similarly minuscule.

"We want to stand a little on our own" in "these critical places," said a senior U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

An initial group of seven officials will be sent to each of the cities, including public diplomacy, security, management and administrative personnel, as well as "reporting" officials. A State Department official said that Clinton had "personally approved" establishing the offices.

Still to be determined is whether the provincial reconstruction team offices will be redesignated, either as consulates, which require congressional approval, or as regional embassy offices.

The new posts, and other expanded civilian operations, will probably require expanded security. Xe, the private security company formerly known as Blackwater, holds the State Department contract for diplomatic security in Afghanistan.

The senior U.S. official said the department does not anticipate in Afghanistan a repetition of the difficulties encountered by the Bush administration in finding volunteers to go to Iraq. In addition to Foreign Service officers, the expanded civilian presence in Afghanistan will include recruits from other government departments and "full-time, temporary" government hires for special development tasks.

By Karen DeYoung, The Washington Post, March 24, 2009

It's not a trade war yet, but there could be one unless Washington backs away from a ban on Mexican trucks crossing the border.

This dispute has the potential to worsen relations between two major trading partners, shred the North American Free Trade Agreement without a genuine debate, and contribute to barely restrained worldwide pressures to raise protectionist barriers during a global downturn.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The State Department announced Monday that U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would attend a conference on Afghanistan next week but did not say whether she would meet Iranian officials there.

State Department spokesman Robert Wood said Clinton would be accompanied by U.S. special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, to the conference, which is set to be held on March 31 in the Dutch city of The Hague.

"The Hague ministerial should reaffirm the solid and long-term commitment of the international community to supporting the government of Afghanistan in shaping a better future for Afghanistan and its people," Wood said.

Clinton and Holbrooke are expected to provide details of a review of U.S. strategy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan, which is set to be released by the Obama administration before the Dutch conference.

Earlier this month, Clinton said Iran's foreign minister also would be invited to attend The Hague conference, setting up her first chance to meet a senior official from Tehran in her new role as top U.S. diplomat.

Last week U.S. President Barack Obama sent a video message to Iran's government and people in which he said Washington wanted to have "constructive ties" with Tehran.

In an about face from President George W. Bush's isolation policy of Tehran, the Obama administration has said it would like to engage Iran on a range of issues, from its nuclear program to assistance in stabilizing Afghanistan.

Wood said he knew of no meetings planned between Clinton and the Iranians, but also did not rule it out.

Iran has said it would be interested in attending the meeting in the Netherlands but has not yet said who could be there.

Former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice attended several conferences aimed at stabilizing Iraq, where Iran was also invited.

Rice exchanged pleasantries with Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki at those events but never had substantive talks with him.

By Sue Pleming, Reuters, March 23, 2009

Mexico's growing problems take center stage this week as a parade of U.S. Cabinet members start to descend on Mexico City before next month's visit by President Obama.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will arrive Wednesday and meet with Mexican President Felipe Calderón during a two-day trip to Mexico City and the northern city of Monterrey, trying to find common ground on contentious issues such as border violence and trade rules.

"We have a number of speed bumps in the relationship," said Harley Shaiken, director of the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of California-Berkeley. "The visit is meant to flatten them."

The issue grabbing the most attention, Shaiken said, is Mexico's crackdown on drug cartels, which has unleashed a wave of brutal murders in the border cities of Tijuana and Juárez.

Cartel violence killed 6,290 people across Mexico last year and more than 1,000 in the first eight weeks of 2009, according to Mexico's government.

Some of the violence has spilled into the USA, where Mexican drug cartels are believed to operate in 230 cities, according to a recent U.S. Justice Department report. Mexico has accused U.S. authorities of doing little to reduce drug use and interrupt the flow of drugs within the USA, even as thousands of Mexican troops fill the deserts and search cars at checkpoints along Mexico's interstates.

The United States has cut funding for the Merida Initiative, an aid package aimed at helping Mexico's drug fight. Congress recently trimmed the first chunk of aid to $300 million from $450 million.

Mexico wants the United States to restrict the sale of guns, which can end up in the hands of Mexican smugglers.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano earlier told USA TODAY that the United States plans to send a large contingent of federal agents to the border, but how many and how much will be spent are still to be announced.

Obama is likely to unveil more anti-crime proposals, said Raul Brangas, a professor of international relations at the University of the Americas in Puebla, Mexico. "He's seen the importance of having a safer border," Brangas said.

Napolitano and Attorney General Eric Holder have visits scheduled to Mexico next month before Obama's visit April 16-17.

Trade has become another flash point between the countries that share a 2,000-mile border. As U.S. companies struggle in the economic downturn, Mexico is afraid the United States may become more protectionist and backslide on the North American Free Trade Agreement, said Amy Glover, a member of Mexico's Council on Foreign Relations.

"One of the issues that will have to be raised is respect for NAFTA," Glover said.

During thepresidential campaign, both Obama and Clinton said they wanted to renegotiate the 1994 trade pact with Mexico and Canada to better protect U.S. workers.

This month, Congress challenged NAFTA by canceling funding for a pilot program that would allow Mexican trucks to travel on U.S. highways.

Mexico retaliated Thursday by slapping tariffs of 10%-45% on U.S. goods ranging from California almonds to Venetian blinds made in New Jersey.

Mexico is the United States' biggest trade customer after Canada, and the sanctions could affect $2.4 billion in U.S. exports.

Mexican officials want to talk to about joint strategies to jump-start both nations' economies, Glover said.

U.S. manufacturers employ thousands of people at their Mexican factories. In recent weeks, U.S. automakers have shut down factories in Saltillo, Toluca and other Mexican cities because of slumping sales. About 43,500 Mexicans work in auto plants, and thousands more for auto parts suppliers.

One hot topic during the Bush administration will probably be missing from the agenda this time: changes to U.S. laws to legalize millions of illegal immigrants, said S. Lynne Walker of the Institute of the Americas, a think tank in La Jolla, Calif., that specializes in Latin American economic issues.

"Any time there's a serious economic downturn, there's no way the United States can talk about immigration reform," Walker said. "Americans are standing in line for jobs ... so it's just not going to fly, politically."

By Chris Hawley, USA TODAY, March 22, 2009