BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made an unannounced visit to Iraq on Saturday and said she saw no sign that the country was sliding back into sectarian warfare despite recent suicide bombings.

Making her first trip to Iraq as secretary of state, Clinton said the United States would keep supporting the Iraqi government as Washington prepares to withdraw all its troops from the country by the end of 2011.

Clinton landed on a military transport plane a day after two female suicide bombers blew themselves up outside a Shi'ite Muslim shrine in Baghdad, killing 60 people in the deadliest single incident in Iraq in more than 10 months.

It was the third major attack in two days, bringing the two-day death toll to at least 150 people.

Recent high-casualty attacks have fanned fears of a resurgence in violence. President Barack Obama has ordered U.S. combat troops to prepare to pull out of Iraqi cities in June and there are doubts about the effectiveness of Iraqi forces.

Asked if the latest bloodshed could rekindle sectarian warfare, Clinton replied: "I see no signs of that at this time.

"I think the suicide bombings ... are, in an unfortunately tragic way, a signal that the rejectionists fear that Iraq is going in the right direction," she added, speaking to reporters in Kuwait late on Friday before flying to Baghdad on Saturday.

Clinton noted that the worst single attack in the Northern Ireland conflict -- an August 1998 car bomb that killed 29 people in the town of Omagh -- occurred after the 1998 Good Friday accord that largely ended the sectarian struggle.

She suggested the nation had turned a corner and that Iraqi society had wearied of the violence.

"In any conflict, there comes a point -- sometimes it's far later than we would wish -- where a critical mass of people on all sides just say 'enough,'" she said.

TOWN HALL MEETING

In a whirlwind visit, Clinton plans to meet Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, to be briefed by Gen. Ray Odierno, the U.S. commander in Iraq, and to meet privately with a group of Iraqi women.

She said the highlight of her day was likely to be a "town hall" meeting with about 150 Iraqis, as well as U.S. officials, at the U.S. embassy, saying this was a first for a senior U.S. official in Baghdad.

"I want to listen. I want to respond to their concerns and questions. And I want some feedback and ideas about ... how we are going to make this transition as successful as possible," Clinton said.

The sectarian warfare and insurgency unleashed by the 2003 U.S.-led invasion have receded sharply over the past year, but Iraqi security forces still face huge challenges as they take on policing and military operations from the United States.

A national election scheduled for the end of the year has also heightened apprehensions as political parties and armed groups jostle for dominance of the oil-producing nation.

By Arshad Mohammed, Reuters, April 25, 2009

BAGHDAD - Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton arrived here Saturday to reassure Iraqis that the United States will support them, even as it withdraws combat troops. But with Iraq reeling from a week of deadly suicide bombings, she got a jittery reception from a country that still plainly relies on the United States for security, stability, and economic survival.

In an encounter with Iraqi students, journalists, and activists, Mrs. Clinton was peppered with questions about how the United States can help Iraq in ways large and small - from building confidence in the Iraqi armed forces to supplying farmers with more up-to-date machinery.

Mrs. Clinton, making her first visit to Baghdad as secretary of state, promised to help Iraq with these and other issues. But, she told the audience of 120, there were some things Iraq has to do for itself.

"The more united Iraq is, the more you will trust the security services," Mrs. Clinton said in response to a question about the army from a young Iraqi journalist, wearing a blazer and white shirt. "The security services have to earn your trust, but the people have to demand it."

Mrs. Clinton insisted that the suicide bombings, which killed 160 people and injured hundreds more, did not mean that Iraq was returning to the sectarian violence that convulsed the country two years ago.

Yet her first stop in Baghdad was to get a briefing on the security situation from the American commander in Iraq, Gen. Ray Odierno. Security concerns also came up immediate in Mrs. Clinton's meeting later in the day with Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki.

"Our meeting in 2007 really took place during very difficult circumstances," Mr. Maliki said as they sat shown, "But the security situation, and the situation generally, improved afterward."

Mrs. Clinton, who had flown in from Kuwait on a military transport plane, was greeted in Baghdad by the new American ambassador to Iraq, Christopher R. Hill; the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen; and the Iraqi foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari. She was then driven to the new American embassy in a heavily-armed motorcade.

"In Iraq, there will always be political conflicts," Mrs. Clinton said to reporters on Friday evening, before setting off on the unannounced visit. "But I really believe that Iraq, as a whole, is on the right track."

She characterized the latest violence as the last gasp of "rejectionists" who fear the government will succeed in creating a united and peaceful Iraq. The suicide bombings, she said, are "in an unfortunately tragic way, a signal that the rejectionists fear that Iraq is going in the right direction."

Mrs. Clinton has been a regular visitor here, coming three times as a senator to chart the progress of a war she voted to authorize, but later said had been mismanaged by the Bush administration. She said she was pleased to be back, though the attacks have cast a shadow over her visit.

While the violence is far below the worst levels in 2007, 18 major attacks this month have kindled fears that Baathist jihadist elements could be reconstituting themselves into a smaller, but still deadly, insurgency that will exploit the withdrawal of American troops between now and 2011.

Mrs. Clinton compared these latest suicide bombings to a spectacular terrorist attack that occurred several months after the Good Friday peace accord ended years of conflict in Northern Ireland.

At times, her analysis echoed that of former Vice President Dick Cheney and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Mr. Cheney spoke of the insurgency being in its "last throes," during a period of relentless violence; Mr. Rumsfeld talked of "dead-enders" who kept fighting a lost cause.

On Friday, Gen. David Petraeus, the head of the military's Central Command, testified before a House appropriations committee that the suicide bombers may have been part of a militant network based in Tunisia. Four of the bombers, he said, were from Tunisia.

Mrs. Clinton said she did not have specific information on the bombers, but said: "We've seen suicide bombers from many countries in Iraq over the last six years. It's unfortunate that young men, and occasionally even a young woman, would travel to Iraq to kill other people in that way."

The violence did not curtail Mrs. Clinton's crowded schedule for her brief visit. In addition to her official meetings, she played host at a roundtable of Iraqi women - something she has done in previous trips to Iraq. And she roamed the stage at the town-hall meeting of Iraqis.

This is a format Mrs. Clinton savored as a presidential candidate, and that, as secretary of state, she has used from South Korea to Belgium. But the audience in Baghdad seemed less dazzled by her celebrity than in those countries, and more worried about America's commitment.

Among those questioning Mrs. Clinton was a middle-aged human rights activist, who asked whether the Obama administration, consumed by the economic crisis, had put Iraq on the back burner.

"Let me assure you, and repeat what President Obama said," she replied. "We are committed to Iraq; we want to see a stable, sovereign, self-reliant Iraq." But, she added, there is a transition underway.

Other Iraqis asked Mrs. Clinton for American help with projects like reducing illiteracy and generating water. They wanted a pledge that the United States would help reintegrate people detained by American forces on suspicion of terrorist activities. And they wanted help bringing back disenfranchised groups like the Chaldeans, many of whom fled Iraq.

When time ran short after nearly an hour, Mrs. Clinton promised to hold another town hall on her next visit to Iraq.

"Is that a promise?" a woman in the audience shouted in English. "That's a promise," Mrs. Clinton replied.

Mr. Hill, the new American ambassador, beat Mrs. Clinton to Baghdad by one day. He was confirmed by the Senate on Tuesday after a lengthy process that was held up by Republican senators, who objected to his lack of experience in the Arab world and his handling of negotiations with North Korea over its nuclear weapons program.

In Iraq, Mr. Hill will spearhead the shift in emphasis by the United States from military to civilian operations. Some Iraq experts said the American civilian presence here had been lacking momentum since the departure in February of the last United States ambassador, Ryan C. Crocker.




By Mark Landler, The New York Times, April 25, 2009

BAGHDAD - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton assured Iraqis on Saturday that the Obama administration would not abandon their country even as it presses ahead with plans to withdraw American troops amid a recent surge in violence.

Clinton said the drawdown would be handled in a "responsible and careful way" and would not affect efforts to improve Iraq's security forces, or complete reconstruction and development projects.

But Iraqis, and particularly their security forces, need to overcome sectarian and other differences if they are to build a united, secure nation, she said.

"Let me assure you and repeat what President Obama said, we are committed to Iraq, we want to see a stable, sovereign, self-reliant Iraq," she told a nervous but receptive crowd at a town hall meeting at the U.S. Embassy in the capital.

"We are very committed, but the nature of our commitment may look somewhat different because we are going to be withdrawing our combat troops over the next couple of years," Clinton said.

On her first trip to Iraq as America's top diplomat, Clinton said the country has made great strides despite a recent surge in violence. High-profile attacks this past week primarily targeted Shiite worshippers. More than 150 people, many of them Iranian pilgrims, have died.

Ahead of her arrival, Clinton said the attacks are a sign that extremists are afraid the Iraqi government is succeeding.

"I think that these suicide bombings ... are unfortunately, in a tragic way, a signal that the rejectionists fear that Iraq is going in the right direction," Clinton told reporters aboard her plane.

Violence is at its lowest since the months following the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. But sectarian attacks have exposed gaps in security as Iraq takes over from U.S. forces in protecting the country.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has ordered a military task force to investigate the attacks as well as shortcomings that allowed the assailants to slip through. The government on Saturday also ordered heightened security at major Shiite shrines.

The Pentagon plans to hand over responsibility for most urban security in about three months as part of the administration's goal of a complete exit of forces by the end of 2011.

U.S. officials say they remain committed to a June 30 deadline to move all forces outside major cities, including Baghdad. But the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. Raymond Odierno, has said American troops could "maintain a presence" in some cities if requested by the Iraqis.

"Frankly, some people are afraid," said one participant in the town hall who said many questioned the ability, competence and neutrality of Iraq's security forces, given the U.S. withdrawal plan.

"There is nothing more important than to have a united Iraq," Clinton replied. "The more united Iraq is, the more you will trust your security services. The security services have to earn your trust but the people have to demand it."

"We will be working closely with the Iraqi government and the Iraqi security forces as we withdraw our combat troops, but we need to be sure that all of you are supporting a strong, nonsectarian security force and we will work to try and help make that happen," she said.

Clinton was met at the airport by the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen and the new U.S. ambassador in Baghdad, Christopher Hill.

By MATTHEW LEE, Associated Press, April 25, 2009

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Saturday urged Iraqis to overcome their divisions as a spate of suicide bombings revived fears of a renewed sectarian war when U.S. troops withdraw.

Making a brief visit to Baghdad, her first since becoming secretary of state, Clinton sought to reassure Iraqis of U.S. support as Washington prepares to withdraw all its troops by the end of 2011.

The U.S. diplomat arrived on a military transport plane a day after two female suicide bombers blew themselves up outside a Shi'ite Muslim shrine in Baghdad, killing 60 people in the deadliest single incident in Iraq in more than 10 months.

It was the third major attack in two days, bringing the death toll since Thursday to at least 150 people.

The attacks have fanned fears of a resurgence in violence as the United States prepares to pull its combat troops out of Iraqi cities by the end of June, to end all combat missions in August 2010 and to bring all forces home by the end of 2011.

At a town hall meeting with about 150 Iraqis at U.S. embassy, an Iraqi journalist bluntly said many Iraqis are afraid of what will happen when U.S. troops leave and that people did not trust Iraqi security forces.

UNITED IRAQ

"There is nothing more important than to have a united Iraq," Clinton replied. "The more united Iraq is, the more you will trust the security services. The security services have to earn your trust but the people have to demand it."

The sectarian warfare and insurgency unleashed by the 2003 U.S.-led invasion have receded sharply over the past year, but Iraqi security forces still face huge challenges as they take on policing and military operations from the United States.

A national election scheduled for the end of the year has also heightened apprehensions as political parties and armed groups jostle for dominance of the oil-producing nation.

Asked Friday if the latest bloodshed could rekindle sectarian warfare, Clinton replied: "I see no signs of that at this time.

"I think the suicide bombings ... are, in an unfortunately tragic way, a signal that the rejectionists fear that Iraq is going in the right direction," she told reporters in Kuwait before flying to Baghdad Saturday.

In a whirlwind visit, Clinton met Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and Gen. Ray Odierno, the U.S. commander in Iraq, and spoke privately with a group of Iraqi women, some of whom were widowed in the last six years of sectarian strife.

At the town hall meeting, she answered question after question from Iraqis about what the United States could do to help them with everything from education and agriculture to the empowerment of women and the rights of minorities.

At one point, Clinton said she knew that it would not be easy to knit together Iraqi society.

"I know how hard this will be," she said. "My own country has struggled for many years with all kinds of divisions and yet, as you know, we have just elected an African American president, someone who is leading all Americans, not just one group or another group."




By Arshad Mohammed, Reuters, April 25, 2009

WASHINGTON (AP) - A president's first Cabinet meeting, like the White House Easter Egg Roll, is a spring rite that's more photo op than substantive event.

Barack Obama gathered his Cabinet members around a White House table Monday and asked them collectively to find $100 million in cost cuts over the next three months. That's a fraction of a fraction of the federal deficit, and it quickly drew ridicule from pundits and Republicans.

In truth, however, Cabinet meetings have not been the place to go for serious policymaking since, say, perhaps the Lincoln administration.

Modern-day Cabinet officials help implement policies, and they can be important symbols and spokesmen in their fields, such as housing or agriculture. Those from the four most prominent agencies - Defense, Justice, State and Treasury - might serve as key advisers on topics that tend to dominate an administration's attention.

But for many years, the work of making final, tough policy decisions has been handled by the president and a small group of close advisers, nearly all of whom work at the White House, not at the Cabinet agencies scattered throughout Washington. With few exceptions, Cabinet members visit the White House now and then for carefully staged events, and then return to their headquarters to await marching orders on top issues.

"There is no Cabinet government here, and there's not going to be," said Paul Light, an authority on White House organizations at New York University. "We haven't had real Cabinet government since, oh, I don't know when."

That's not to say Obama's Cabinet lacks star power. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is one of the world's best-known figures. The president also recruited four governors or former governors. Janet Napolitano of Arizona is Secretary of Homeland Security, Tom Vilsack of Iowa heads the Agriculture Department, and Gary F. Locke of Washington heads Commerce.

Health and Human Services had the only empty chair at Monday's meeting because Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius has yet to be confirmed by the Senate. Her absence was a reminder of another role that Cabinets sometimes play: producers of presidential headaches.

The HHS job was supposed to go to former Sen. Tom Daschle of South Dakota, but his failure to pay certain taxes on time scuttled his nomination.

Daschle was to be a White House-based "health czar" as well as HHS secretary. When his nomination collapsed, Obama decided to split the jobs, with Sebelius at HHS and Nancy-Ann DeParle directing the White House health reform office.

Obama still has a few czars with overlapping duties, however. They include Carol Browner, widely known as the "climate czar," although her title is director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change.

It took Obama three tries to fill the Commerce Department post. If Locke is not a household name outside Washington state, he is in good company, for many Cabinet officials have kept low profiles.

Taking the trophy, perhaps, was Samuel Pierce, the Housing secretary under President Ronald Reagan, who mistakenly greeted his appointee at a reception as "Mr. Mayor."

Obama is on chummy terms with his Cabinet, for now at least. "I'm extraordinarily proud of the quality of this Cabinet," he said Monday, before photographers and reporters were quickly escorted out.

By CHARLES BABINGTON, The Associated Press, April 21, 2009

WASHINGTON, - The release of pirates by NATO forces sends the wrong signal and the alliance must discuss ways that they could be brought to justice, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Monday.

On Sunday, NATO forces foiled an attack by Somali pirates on a Norwegian oil tanker, and detained seven gunmen only briefly after hunting them down under cover of darkness, NATO officials said. A day earlier, Dutch commandos freed 20 Yemeni hostages and also briefly detained seven pirates.

Speaking after meeting Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen, Clinton said the two agreed "it sends the wrong signal" to the pirates operating off the coast of Somalia.

She said the United States and others would work to hold "these pirate-criminals" accountable for the actions, adding that the "Contact Group on Piracy Off the Coast of Somalia" would meet in New York in early May to discuss the issue.

"We are going to have to determine the best way to bring pirates to justice after they are captured and there will have to be additional discussion of this at NATO, as well," she said at a joint news conference with Verhagen.

"The minister and I agreed that we will take this matter to NATO," she added.

"If the Dutch navy had been operating under the EU (European Union), they could have turned over the pirates for trial. NATO has not provided that authority so we need to coordinate this, we need to move very quickly to do so. ... try to get this resolved," she said.




Reuters, April 20, 2009

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is to testify before a House appropriations subcommittee Thursday as the debate about President Obama's Afghanistan policy kicks into gear.

Clinton will testify about Obama's $83.4 billion war supplemental before the State and Foreign Operations Subcommittee. The budget covers continuing operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Her testimony likely will focus on the diplomacy side of the request. Obama's request contains $7.1 billion that would go to diplomatic efforts and foreign aid, including $1.6 billion for Afghanistan, $1.4 billion for Pakistan and $700 million for Iraq.

The supplemental request, once the primary focus of lawmakers trying to end the war in Iraq, has won support from key Democratic and Republican leaders. But some staunchly anti-war lawmakers have said they oppose Obama's Afghanistan plan because it represents a potentially unending military commitment.

Gen. David Petraeus, the commander of U.S. Central Command, which is in charge of both conflicts, is expected to testify before a closed hearing Wednesday and an open hearing Friday.




By Mike Soraghan, The Hill, April 20, 2009

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Representatives of 24 nations will meet next month in New York to look at legal measures in the fight against piracy off Somalia, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Monday.

Clinton said the United States wanted to "seek more effective ways to hold these pirates criminally responsible for their actions, which threaten not only the lives of merchant seamen, but the security of critical maritime routes."

"There will be, at our request, a meeting of the International Piracy Contact Group in New York City in early May," she told reporters.

"We're going to have to determine the best way to bring pirates to justice after they're captured," she said as she met Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen.

The contact group met for the first time in January. It consists of 24 nations including the regional players along with the African Union, European Union, NATO and United Nations.

Clinton's predecessor, Condoleezza Rice, had called for the contact group to share intelligence and coordinate activities in the absence of an effective government in Somalia, which has lacked central authority for nearly two decades.

The new US administration has pledged to step up the fight against pirates from Somalia after a US cargo ship was seized earlier this month.

US Navy snipers ended the standoff by rescuing captain Richard Phillips and shooting dead three pirates. US forces captured a four pirate, a teenager, who will reportedly go on trial in New York.

US government agencies met on Friday to formulate a common response to piracy after Clinton called for more drastic action against pirates, including seizing their assets or hauling them to court.

Piracy is expected to be a key issue when donors to Somalia meet on Thursday in Brussels.

AFP, April 21, 2009

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) - The U.S. has formally asked New Zealand to send its elite Special Air Service combat troops back to Afghanistan for a fourth tour of duty, the foreign minister said Sunday.

The U.S. request was made following a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in Washington earlier this month, Murray McCully told TV One. While Clinton asked for troops, she did not specifically request the commando unit, he said.

The government is likely to agree to send the elite troops, which last served in the untamed southern portion of Afghanistan in 2006.

New Zealand has committed to help fight terror, posting troops in Afghanistan and providing navy ships and maritime surveillance airplanes to patrol the Gulf of Hormuz between Iraq and Iran.

McCully said the government would consider resource and capacity issues before making a decision on the U.S. request. The deployment also depends on other conflicts in the South Pacific, he said.

McCully said a detailed review of defense forces would be completed by August.

New Zealand already has 140 troops serving in a provincial reconstruction team in the Afghan province of Bamiyan, northeast of the capital, Kabul. The team has been there since 2003 and is to remain until at least September 2010.

Violence has risen across Afghanistan in the past three years as a Taliban-led insurgency has gained steam. President Barack Obama has ordered an additional 21,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan this summer to bolster the record 38,000 already in the country.

The Associated Press, April 19, 2009

Eager to promote budget-cutting efforts by all federal agencies, Obama will hold the meeting a day before the Senate Finance Committee is scheduled to vote on his last nominee, Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, as secretary of Health and Human Services.

Outside experts say Obama's Cabinet is among the latest to be filled since Inauguration Day was moved up six weeks, to Jan. 20, in 1937. The delays were caused by ethics problems that forced his first nominees for the Commerce and Health and Human Services departments to withdraw, and the more extensive vetting process that followed.

If she is confirmed by the Senate, Sebelius will complete a Cabinet that experts say is the most diverse in history. It will have seven women and nine racial and ethnic minorities among its 21 members - and only eight white men. Average age: 54.

"He has a majority-minority Cabinet," says Paul Light, an expert on presidential appointments at New York University. "In terms of white males, they're in the minority now."

Bill Clinton, the last Democratic president, had five women and six minorities in a first Cabinet that he said "looks like America" - one more in each category than George W. Bush had. Obama has shattered those numbers:

* There will be seven women with Sebelius, led by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

* There are four African-Americans, including the first as attorney general, Eric Holder. There are three Asian-Americans and two Hispanics.

* Seven Cabinet members are in their 40s, eight in their 50s and six in their 60s. The youngest is Peter Orszag, director of the Office of Management and Budget, who just turned 40. The oldest is Eric Shinseki, 66, who heads the Department of Veterans Affairs.

* The closest Obama comes to having a southerner is former Dallas mayor Ron Kirk, the U.S. trade representative. Three each hail from California, New York, the District of Columbia and Obama's home state of Illinois.

* The president has a preference for previous office-holders. His Cabinet includes four former governors, two ex-senators, and three former House members.

* Obama's effort to have a bipartisan Cabinet was set back a bit when his second Commerce secretary nominee, Republican Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, withdrew because of ideological differences. That leaves former GOP congressman Ray LaHood of Illinois as Transportation secretary and Robert Gates, a holdover from Bush's administration who considers himself a Republican, as Defense secretary.

The delay in completing the Cabinet hasn't stopped Obama's major initiatives. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's confirmation was stalled because he underpaid federal income taxes for several years, and his top deputies still aren't confirmed. Yet the administration pushed through a $787 billion economic stimulus package and other recession-fighting measures.

Obama called for overhauling the nation's health care system for the first time since Clinton's failed effort in 1994, without the benefit of a Health and Human Services secretary. His first nominee, former Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle, withdrew because of tax underpayments.

The delay is the longest in at least 20 years. Dick Cheney became President George H.W. Bush's Defense secretary in March 1989. Janet Reno became Clinton's attorney general in March 1993. "Any organization works better when there's somebody sitting in the first chair," says Calvin Mackenzie, government professor at Colby College.

Who's who in Obama's Cabinet

President Obama holds his first Cabinet meeting on Monday, but the Cabinet still isn't complete. Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius' nomination as secretary of Health and Human Services is scheduled for a Senate committee vote Tuesday, which could lead to Senate confirmation this week.

USA Today, April 20, 2009

PORT AU PRINCE (AFP) - Haiti's Senate elections were marred by sporadic violence, forcing authorities to cancel polling in parts of the country, as turnout remained low across the impoverised Caribbean nation.

Election council president Frantz-Gerard Verret announced the cancellations after hundreds of demonstrators protested at ballot stations as voting got underway.

Haitian President Rene Preval, who voted after returning from the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad, said he would not comment on the election cancellations until polling results were in.

More than 4.5 million Haitians were eligible to appoint 12 senators out of 78 candidates, although voter apathy prompted a low turnout following years of broken political promises.

Haiti, hit hard in recent months by a series of hurricanes and natural disasters, continues to battle chronic poverty and corruption.

Despite advances in some areas, Preval said last week that "stability is still fragile and needs reinforcement," citing drug trafficking, which he called "an enemy of the rule of law, an enemy against the functioning of democratic institutions."

On a whirlwind visit to Haiti, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Thursday she was "encouraged" by an international donors conference in Washington that pledged some 324 million dollars to help the country.

She said the United States will give Haiti 57 million dollars in extra aid this year as part of the aid package announced at Tuesday's conference led by the Inter-American Development Bank and the Haitian government.

"I believe we still have work to do," Clinton said. "Haiti deserves our help."

AFP, April 20, 2009

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton welcomed Cuban President Raul Castro's willingness to hold talks on political rights in the communist country and said the U.S. is studying his offer.

"We have seen Raul Castro's comments," Clinton told reporters in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, before holding a town hall meeting with local residents. "We welcome this overture. We're taking a very serious look at it."

Castro said in Venezuela yesterday that Cuba has sent word to the U.S. privately and in public "that we are willing to discuss everything -- human rights, freedom of the press, political prisoners."

The prospect of warming relations between the U.S. and Cuba came after President Barack Obama moved to lift some restrictions on travel and remittances to the island and to allow American communications companies such as AT&T Inc. to establish service to the nation. Obama didn't remove a 47-year- old embargo on most trade with Cuba.

Obama will arrive today in Trinidad and Tobago for the Fifth Summit of the Americas, where Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has said he will advocate for eliminating the U.S. embargo on Cuba, the only nation not invited to the meeting of 34 hemisphere leaders. Chavez has also threatened to withhold his support for the summit's draft resolution.

'Good Faith'

The change in the U.S.'s travel and remittances policy was "a show of good faith on the part of the United States that we want to recast our relationship," Obama said yesterday at a news conference in Mexico City. "Now a relationship that effectively has been frozen for 50 years is not going to thaw overnight."

Former Cuban President Fidel Castro said his country doesn't represent a threat to U.S. security and is open to talks with its neighbor.

"We don't fear dialogue, nor do we need to invent enemies, and we don't fear debating ideas," Castro, 82, said yesterday in a "reflection" sent via e-mail. "We believe in our convictions and with them we have defended and will continue to defend our homeland."

The U.S. has maintained a trade embargo against Cuba since 1962, when Castro expropriated the land of U.S. citizens and companies. In recent years, U.S. farmers have been allowed to export goods to the island, opening a new market. Cuba was the 10th biggest market for U.S. corn from September through February, according to the U.S. Agriculture Department.

Cuban leaders have blamed the embargo for the Caribbean nation's economic and social problems.

By Matthew Walter, Bloomberg, April 17, 2009

WASHINGTON - Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton sharply rebuked the government of Pakistan on Wednesday, accusing the country's leaders of surrendering large tracts of territory to the Taliban and saying that the country's instability is a "mortal threat" to world peace.

"I think that the Pakistani government is basically abdicating to the Taliban and to the extremists," Mrs. Clinton told the House Foreign Affairs Committee as she responded to questions on an array of topics.

The secretary's words were striking, aimed as they were at a nation that Washington has described as a key ally in the international campaign against terrorism. Her remarks may have been aimed not just at Pakistan's rulers but at American lawmakers reluctant to provide more money for a region that has been a trouble spot.

The Obama administration is seeking nearly $76 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as to bolster security in Pakistan. The porous border area between Pakistan and Afghanistan has been a spawning ground for Al Qaeda terrorists.

Mrs. Clinton spoke during an exchange with panel members about a recent agreement by the Pakistani president, Asif Ali Zardari, under prodding from religious conservatives within his country, to allow the imposition of harsh Islamic law in the Swat Valley. That development that was seen by outside analysts as an admission that Islamabad was losing its grasp of some of its territory.

Moreover, Mrs. Clinton said, the deterioration of security in nuclear-armed Pakistan "poses a mortal threat to the security and safety of our country and the world."

After accusing the Pakistani government of caving in to the Taliban, Mrs. Clinton went on in more scathing detail. "If you talk to people in Pakistan, especially in the ungoverned territories, which are increasing in number, they don't believe the state has a judiciary system that works," she said.

"It's corrupt, it doesn't extend its power into the countryside. So the government of Pakistan, however it is constituted, which is of course their business, not ours, must begin to deliver government services."

Otherwise Ms. Clinton warned, "they are going to lose out to those who show up and claim that they can solve people's problems, and then they will impose this harsh form of oppression on women and others."




By David Stout, The New York Times, April 22, 2009

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton welcomed Cuban President Raul Castro's willingness to hold talks on political rights in the communist country and said the U.S. is studying his offer.

"We have seen Raul Castro's comments," Clinton told reporters in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, before holding a town hall meeting with local residents. "We welcome this overture. We're taking a very serious look at it."

Castro said in Venezuela yesterday that Cuba has sent word to the U.S. privately and in public "that we are willing to discuss everything -- human rights, freedom of the press, political prisoners."

The prospect of warming relations between the U.S. and Cuba came after President Barack Obama ATmoved to lift some restrictions on travel and remittances to the island and to allow American communications companies such as&T Inc. to establish service to the nation. Obama didn' t remove a 47-year- old embargo on most trade with Cuba.

Obama will arrive today in Trinidad and Tobago for the Fifth Summit of the Americas, where Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has said he will advocate for eliminating the U.S. embargo on Cuba, the only nation not invited to the meeting of 34 hemisphere leaders. Chavez has also threatened to withhold his support for the summit's draft resolution.

'Good Faith'

The change in the U.S.'s travel and remittances policy was "a show of good faith on the part of the United States that we want to recast our relationship," Obama said yesterday at a news conference in Mexico City. "Now a relationship that effectively has been frozen for 50 years is not going to thaw overnight."

Former Cuban President Fidel Castro said his country doesn't represent a threat to U.S. security and is open to talks with its neighbor.

"We don't fear dialogue, nor do we need to invent enemies, and we don't fear debating ideas," Castro, 82, said yesterday in a "reflection" sent via e-mail. "We believe in our convictions and with them we have defended and will continue to defend our homeland."

The U.S. has maintained a trade embargo against Cuba since 1962, when Castro expropriated the land of U.S. citizens and companies. In recent years, U.S. farmers have been allowed to export goods to the island, opening a new market. Cuba was the 10th biggest market for U.S. corn from September through February, according to the U.S. Agriculture Department.

Cuban leaders have blamed the embargo for the Caribbean nation's economic and social problems.

By Matthew Walter, Bloomberg, April 17, 2009

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said that US policy towards Cuba has failed, welcoming an offer to talk from the Cuban president.

She said the US was "taking a serious look" at how to respond to President Raul Castro's comments, which she called an "overture".

Mr Castro had said he was ready for discussions covering human rights, political prisoners and press freedom.

The US passed a law this week easing restrictions on Cuban Americans.

The move will allow Cuban Americans to visit relatives in Cuba and send money home more easily.

Veto threat

Correspondents say a series of exchanges between the US and Cuba suggest that both sides appear to be making efforts to find a way to end their 50-year stalemate.

US President Barack Obama has said it is now up to Cuba to make the next move if relations are to be further improved.

He said the US expected Cuba to "send signals that they're interested in liberalising". He also cautioned that relations would not mend "overnight".

Mrs Clinton made her comments about Cuba in the Dominican Republic, ahead of the Summit of the Americas that begins in Trinidad and Tobago later on Friday.

"We are continuing to look for productive ways forward because we view the present policy as having failed," she said at a press conference.

"We welcome his comments and the overture they represent, and we are taking a very serious look at how to respond," Mrs Clinton said.

Cuba is excluded from the summit, which includes 34 members of the Organisation of American States (OAS), though Latin American leaders have been calling for the communist country to be readmitted.

OAS Secretary-General Jose Miguel Insulza said on Friday he would ask the organisation's members to readmit Cuba, 47 years after it was suspended.

Mr Insulza said he would put the proposal to a meeting of the OAS general assembly in Honduras at the end of May.

Speaking to Latin American leaders in Venezuela on Thursday, President Castro said he had sent word to the US government "in private and in public" that he is open to negotiations as long as they are "on equal terms".

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said he would veto the final declaration from the OAS summit because of Cuba's exclusion.

BBC News, April 17, 2009

TEHRAN - Iran has sentenced an Iranian-American journalist, Roxana Saberi, to eight years in prison after convicting her of spying for the United States, her lawyer said Saturday.

The State Department has called the charges against Ms. Saberi, 31, baseless and has asked for her release.

On Saturday, a White House spokesman, Robert Gibbs, said President Obama was "deeply disappointed" by the sentencing. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton issued a statement saying, "We will continue to vigorously raise our concerns to the Iranian government."

The sentencing could complicate political maneuvering between Iranian and American leaders over Iran's nuclear program, an issue that kept relations icy during much of the Bush administration. Mr. Obama recently made overtures to Tehran about starting a dialogue over the nuclear program, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran responded positively.

When asked how the case might affect relations with Iran, Mr. Gibbs said, "What we think is important is that the situation be remedied."

Ms. Saberi's sentencing sets the case apart from other recent detentions of people with dual citizenship. Two Iranian-American scholars, Haleh Esfandiari and Kian Tajbakhsh, were arrested in 2007 and accused of trying to overthrow the government, but they were released on bail before their trials began.

The verdict came after an unusually swift trial, which started last Monday and was conducted behind closed doors.

Ms. Saberi's lawyer, Abdolsamad Khoramshahi, told the official Iranian news agency, IRNA, that he had been told he could appeal the case, and said he would.

It is difficult to judge how politics may have affected the case.

Abbas Milani, director of Iranian studies at Stanford University, said Ms. Saberi's trial and sentence might reflect an attempt by hard-line elements in Iran to poison any efforts to draw closer with the new United States administration.

"The radical wing, opposed to the idea of rapprochement with the U.S., and influential in the judiciary, is using the case to make such a change in U.S.-Iran relations more difficult," Mr. Milani said. "It is part of a pattern. Every time the two countries come close to the moment of truth, radicals manufacture a crisis that renders negotiations more difficult."

The other possibility, he said, is that Tehran is trying to increase its leverage heading into any eventual negotiations with Washington.

Saeed Leylaz, a political analyst in Iran, said he believed that his country wanted to use Ms. Saberi in negotiations with the United States, but would not keep her for long because it would tarnish its human rights record.

Iran has also been pressing for the release of three Iranian officials whom the United States took into custody in 2007 in Iraq. The men, who Iran says are diplomats, were arrested at Iran's consulate in northern Iraq. United States forces have said the men had links to the Revolutionary Guards.

Some diplomats have suggested that another American who many believe is being held in Iran, Robert Levinson, a former F.B.I. agent, may be viewed as a high-value chip in a possible prisoner swap. Mr. Levinson traveled to Iran in 2007 on what his family said was a business trip and has been missing since then.

Ms. Saberi was arrested in January on the charge of buying alcohol. The Foreign Ministry said later that she was accused of working as a reporter without press credentials, but the prosecutor's office said this month that she was put on trial for spying. She is being held in Evin Prison in Tehran.

She has lived in Iran for six years. She has worked for National Public Radio and the BBC. Iranian authorities revoked her press card in 2006.

In a statement released Saturday, Vivian Schiller, the president and chief executive of NPR, said, "We are deeply distressed by this harsh and unwarranted sentence."

In an interview with NPR, Ms. Saberi's father, Reza Saberi, who was in Iran but not allowed into the courtroom, said his daughter was coerced into making incriminating statements. "They told her if she made the statements they would free her," according to a transcript on the NPR Web site. "It was a trick."

He also said that his daughter wanted to go on a hunger strike, but he added that she was weak and that he feared it would be dangerous to her health.

By NAZILA FATHI, The New York Times, April 18, 2009

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton commended Zimbabwe's unity government on Saturday for progress in implementing reforms but said more must be done.

In a message to the Zimbabwean people, timed to coincide with the country's 29th anniversary of independence from Britain, Clinton made no mention of when or whether the United States would lift targeted sanctions or offer substantial aid to help rebuild the shattered nation.

"We commend the efforts the transitional government has undertaken and the progress it has achieved towards reforms that will benefit the Zimbabwean people," Clinton said in a statement to mark Zimbabwe National Day.

"The United States encourages the government to continue those important steps as it works for a more promising future for Zimbabwe," she said.

Zimbabwe's economy is in ruins with hyperinflation and unemployment at around 90 percent. Millions are in need of food aid and the country's infrastructure and institutions in shambles.

On Friday, U.S. officials told Reuters there were no immediate plans to lift targeted U.S. sanctions or give major aid until there was firm evidence that President Robert Mugabe was serious about sharing power with opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai.

The two formed a unity government in February following bitter post-election feuding and a clampdown by Mugabe's forces against the opposition.

Mugabe has blamed his country's economic collapse on Western sanctions but the United States and others counter that the cause of financial decline was his own mismanagement and authoritarian rule.

U.S. targeted sanctions against Zimbabwe include financial and visa restrictions against selected individuals tied to Mugabe, a ban on transfers of military items and a suspension of non-humanitarian aid.

Western donors and foreign investors want to see political and economic reforms, such as reversing nationalization plans, before pumping in large amounts of cash to Zimbabwe.

The United States is a key humanitarian aid donor to Zimbabwe and Clinton pledged continued U.S. help.

"The United States has long stood with the people of Zimbabwe in their times of need and will continue to do so," she said in her statement.

On April 8, the United States canceled an advisory warning Americans against travel to Zimbabwe, saying conditions had improved on the ground but that the political situation still remained very "fluid."

Zimbabwe's new finance minister is expected to attend meetings in Washington next week of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

The World Bank said on Thursday it was willing to help Zimbabwe recover from its economic crisis but it was critical for the country's institutions to restore democracy and human rights.




By Sue Pleming, Reuters, April 18, 2009

WASHINGTON (AP) - The U.S. on Saturday praised Zimbabwe's unity government for making progress toward reform as the African nation celebrated the 29th anniversary of its independence from Britain.

The congratulatory statement from Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton came one day after the State Department disclosed that it had lifted a travel advisory that warned Americans against visiting Zimbabwe. Still, the Obama administration said the political situation in Zimbabwe remains unpredictable and could deteriorate quickly.

Clinton said the U.S. commends "the efforts the transitional government has undertaken and the progress it has achieved toward reforms that will benefit the Zimbabwean people. The United States encourages the government to continue those important steps as it works for a more promising future for Zimbabwe."

The unity government was formed in February, after months of political deadlock and economic misery, with Robert Mugabe, in power since independence, as president and his nemesis Morgan Tsvangirai as prime minister.

Zimbabwe's government intends to relax media restrictions as part of a plan meant to restore basic rights, heal political scars and boost international trust, the state newspaper recently reported. Zimbabwe is desperate for foreign aid and wants to see an end to penalties imposed by the United States and European countries.

Clinton said the U.S. "has long stood with the people of Zimbabwe in their times of need and will continue to do so."

The State Department's traveling warning had cited government instability, a failing economy and the near collapse of the country's public health system.

Spokesman Robert Wood said Friday the department had canceled the advisory on April 8.

"The political-economic situation is still unpredictable but we lifted the restrictions because there was a return of basic medical, food and fuel services," Wood said.

He said the department would continue to monitor conditions inside Zimbabwe and would issue another travel advisory if necessary.

"We're just gauging the situation as we see it on the ground and responding accordingly," Wood said at his daily briefing.

On its Web site, the State Department advised that the "political situation in Zimbabwe remains fluid

The Associated Press, April 18, 2009

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton today took the concept of her listening tours online with a "Digital Town Hall of the Americas" held live from the Dominican Republic. But it did not go without a hitch. Though a press release announcing the question and answer session touted the social media technology used to broadcast the event as a "robust information resource," streaming video was frequently marred by technical difficulties. Clinton's opening remarks and responses to questions were interrupted by prolonged stretches of blank screen or an offline signal.

When the world was able to tune into Clinton, it saw a diplomat eager to emphasize a new direction in American foreign policy -- one based on cooperation and mutual understanding. In her introduction and responses to a handful of questions, Clinton stressed the United States wanted to work with South and Central American nations to combat drug trafficking, reduce poverty, and curb greenhouse gas emissions.

Clinton emphasized that there are ties of culture and geography that bind the Western Hemisphere together and will help neighboring countries address threats to their security and prosperity.

"Whether we are from South America, Central Amrica, North America, or the Caribbean, we are all America," Clinton said.

Clinton's live web-based discussion took place just prior to the fifth Summit of the Americas, which is being held this weekend in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. The summit comes at a critical point in the relationship between the United States and Latin America. The Obama administration has been assiduously working to strengthen ties in a part of the world that has seen the rise of several anti-American leaders in recent years.

There is some evidence that efforts are beginning to reap dividends. As Clinton noted in response to a question, a loosening of trade restrictions by the Obama administration prompted Raul Castro to say he would be open to talks with the United States on human rights and press freedoms. Clinton called the comment "very welcome" and said that she and the president were seriously considering their response.

During her discussion, Secretary Clinton fielded questions that were submitted online related to the world financial crisis, educational funding for developing nations, global warming, and the drug trade.

The secretary said she shared concerns by Latin American countries that the faltering economy would encourage protectionism in her own country that would have a devastating impact on the region's poorer nations. She said that the president was committed to ensuring that such measures do not take place and cited the recent G20 summit as evidence that the world's larger economies would not abandon their commitments to developing countries.

Labeling education as "the linchpin of progress," Clinton said that the United States will send $30 million in funding to build and support schools throughout the region. Clinton also said her country was committed to working with local governments to encourage parents to keep their kids in the educational system longer. She said that might even include paying parents to compensate them for the lost income associated with preventing their children from joining the work force.

Beyond educational improvements, Clinton said that the United States would work to address demand for drugs in its own borders that was fueling the increasingly violent drug business throughout South and Central America. But she said that progress was only possible if the citizens of these countries engage in a "public outcry" against drug traffickers.

Perhaps the most telling break with Bush era policies came in the secretary's response to a question related to global warming. Clinton said that the Obama administration was committed to taking "long overdue" steps to reduce consumption of greenhouse gases and would work towards reaching a binding global agreement at the United Nations' climate change conference this winter. Though she admitted the United States had a substantial role to play in addressing threats to the environment, she said that Latin America's bountiful natural resources meant that it also needed to do more.

"We've got to stop the destruction of the rainforest," Clinton said. "They are within national boundaries, but have global consequences.'

From drug addiction to economic inequality, Clinton proposed a similar solution to almost every problem that was raised - teamwork.

"We are committed to working with all of you to keep our people safe and secure, to protect and harness our natural resource and to widen opportunities and prosperity," Clinton said at one point.




By Brent Lang, CBS News, April 17, 2009

U.S. Not Only Dealing With "Fire Raging" In Somalia But Also In N. Korea And Mexico

Asked about dealing with the root causes of Somalia's piracy problem this week, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said "you've got to put out the fire before you can rebuild the house. And right now, we have a fire raging." No kidding.

Although Somali pirates ultimately failed in their attempt to seize the U.S.-flagged Maersk Alabama and its crew, they did hold its captain for several days before Navy SEALs killed the pirates and rescued him, bringing a happy ending to what could have been a very ugly chapter in the modern history of American diplomacy and pirates. A second U.S.-flagged ship, the Liberty Sun, was able to avoid an attempt by pirates to board it. Meanwhile the pirates whom Clinton described as "criminals" and "armed gangs on the sea" continued to threaten other ships in the area.

Clinton announced several steps which ranged from sending an envoy to a Somalia-related meeting in Europe next week to tracking and freezing pirate assets to working more closely with shipping and insurance companies.

The secretary of state noted "we may be dealing with a 17th century crime, but we need to bring 21st century solutions to bear."

For good measure Clinton might have added the Obama administration was also trying to put out fires related to North Korea's nuclear program and Mexico's ongoing war against drug cartels - and that's just this week.

Reacting to the U.N. Security Council's reprimand of its most recent missile test, North Korea said it would expel international inspectors of the IAEA as well as four American technical experts who were in the country to monitor the dismantling of the Yongbyon nuclear facility. Pyongyang also said it would not return to the so-called Six Party Talks aimed at denuclearizing the Korean peninsula and would restart its nuclear reactor. Whether these steps were part of negotiating strategy or a true signal of North Korea's intentions was, as usual, not easy to interpret.

Administration officials played it low key, calling these moves a "backward step" and noting there had been "ups and downs" before in negotiations with Pyongyang. That seemed to imply Washington saw the moves as just another signal of a downturn in the diplomacy and perhaps a test of the Obama administration's attitudes toward North Korea. Washington got some support from Beijing whose Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Jiang Yu, maintained a call for "consensus" and repeated Washington's view by being "far-sighted in paying attention to the big picture, together striving to advance the six-party talks process."

President Obama's first trip south of the border starts in Mexico City where he'll continue his administration's effort to cooperate more with Mexico in its war against drug cartels, an ongoing battle which has claimed thousands of lives in the past year alone. The U.S. is being asked to do more to stop the flow of assault weapons and cash which fuel the cartels' ability to fight law enforcement and there is always the question of what Washington can or will do to reduce the demand for drugs here at home.

The administration named Alan Bersin as a "border czar" to work with Mexico and coordinate solutions to the problems on this side of the border. Whether the Obama administration can put out this fire or merely manage to keep it to a low simmer will depend not just on good intentions but also on whether it wants to exercise political muscle. A key test of that will be how hard it tries to keep assault weapons from being purchased here for use in Mexico.

From Mexico Mr. Obama heads to Port-of-Spain, Trinidad to attend a meeting of the heads of government from every state in the hemisphere - except for Cuba. This is the fifth Summit of the Americas and the President is expected to hear Washington blamed for the region's economic downturn and for its continued policy of keeping a trade embargo in place against Cuba.

President Obama has signaled his response, in an op-ed appearing in a number of newspapers across the region ahead of the summit, admitting Washington's attention to the region has often waned. "We have too easily been distracted by other priorities," he said, and committing his administration "to the promise of a new day." On Cuba, Mr. Obama has already taken steps to ease the travel of Cuban-Americans to Havana although he has not yet taken on the politically more difficult task of ending the trade embargo.

Leaders in the region have heard promises from Washington before. Many, many times.

Long after Mr. Obama and Secretary Clinton return from the Caribbean these leaders will be the keenest of observers, waiting to find out if there will be sustained follow up from Washington this time or whether the current fires related to Somali pirates and North Korea's pouting leadership once again distracts attention from the hemisphere's problems.

By Charles Wolfson, CBS News, April 16, 2009

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) - Women selling hot peppers and black beans in a sprawling market in Haiti's capital talk of their unending economic woes, their hungry children and their dismal hopes that politicians will do anything about it.

As U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton arrived in Haiti on Thursday, the expectations of Haiti's people are dismally low. President Rene Preval escorted Clinton from the airport to the national palace for a private meeting.

Disappointment is widespread over unkept promises of aid to Haiti. The country has not yet recovered from last year's food riots and four tropical storms that killed nearly 800 people and caused $1 billion in damage.

Political tensions also are running high ahead of Sunday's long-delayed Senate elections, which some parties disqualified from running have threatened to disrupt.

In the noisy Croix-des-Bossales market, women fixate on their families' hunger as they bat beetles away from unsold piles of food.

"There's no money in this country because there isn't any work," said Therese Bejaman, 38, who sells coconuts imported from the neighboring Dominican Republic.

Bejaman's husband lost his job at the commercial port across the street a few years ago. Now their seven children, aged 6 to 18, depend on her traveling hours over washed-out roads to the border, where she pays about $5.60 for a dozen coconuts with hopes of making about 5 1/2 cents of profit on each one. It's not going well.

"They aren't selling fast," she said.

With other countries struggling amid the global economic crisis, aid to Haiti has been affected.

A donors conference Tuesday in Washington was a disappointment. It raised $324 million for Haiti but - despite entreaties by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, security council members, Bill Clinton and others - that amount was more than $600 million short of what the country needs for economic development and hurricane recovery.

Haitian Prime Minister Michele Pierre-Louis said Wednesday that the pledge is not as much as the country needs, but is more than she expected from donors, given the crisis.

But Haitian lawmakers said the international community has failed to keep its promises, leaving the country to struggle at a critical turning point.

Hillary Clinton told the donors' conference that the United States is providing nearly $290 million in non-emergency aid to Haiti this year. After meeting with Preval, she is expected to go to the Dominican Republic for a town-hall meeting.

The discussions will likely include a request to temporarily stay deportation orders against an estimated 30,000 Haitians in the United States, whose repatriations would further drain Haiti's resources by eliminating the money they send home. Preval may also ask for more relief from Haiti's heavy debt burden, estimated to include $1.6 million in payments to the World Bank each month.

Amid the glum atmosphere, there have been some incremental improvements in Haiti. In this market, some vendors have left their open-air stalls for a red and yellow building constructed last year by the Venezuelan government. Their shouts and staccato rhythms drummed out on glass soda bottles by soft drink sellers now echo off the building's metal roof.

And some staple foods are cheaper, a year after skyrocketing prices, especially for imported rice, fueled riots that torched parts of the capital and further discouraged investment.

Last year, Marie-Louie Louis sold the equivalent of a 2-pound coffee can full of rice from a Florida subsidiary of Stuttgart, Arkansas-based Riceland Foods for about $4.37. Now that costs $3.13.

Still, regular meals remain too expensive for most Haitians, 80 percent of whom live on less than $2 a day.

"The price has gone down, but only if you can afford it. Everyone else is going hungry," said 44-year-old Yuatte Jose, a mother of three who also is raising her late sister's orphaned twin daughters.

Down the road from the market lies Haiti's rundown parliament, where unemployed people beg for money and jobs outside the gates. Inside, legislators worry that unsolved problems will fester into more unrest and suffering.

Haiti faces more than a $125 million budget shortfall and its decimated economy, once a tourism and manufacturing hub, no longer supports any major industries. Security is provided by 9,000 U.N. peacekeepers as its police force struggles to rebuild.

The disappointing results of the donor conference at the Inter-American Development Bank will mean budget cuts and continued lags in job creation, Deputy Guy Georges said.

By JONATHAN M. KATZ, The Associated Press, April 17, 2009

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, April 16 -- The U.S. economic crisis touched down recently in the dusty town where Marie Rosita Simon ekes out a living selling sandals. Her brother, a New Jersey cabdriver, slashed his monthly $400 transfer to her by half because his business was off.

For Simon, that amounted to a 40 percent plunge in income for her family of five. Coming after a horrendous year in which food prices soared and hurricanes washed away her plantain and bean crops, the 43-year-old street vendor decided something had to go: dinner. And sometimes she can't provide breakfast for her children.

"They're hungry," she confessed.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton flew to Haiti on Thursday, en route to a summit with hemispheric leaders concerned that the global economic crisis could push Latin America and the Caribbean into another "lost decade." Haiti, a Maryland-size nation in which 80 percent of the population lives on less than $2 a day, offers perhaps the most worrisome example of how the recession could worsen poverty in the region's vulnerable countries.

Clinton told reporters Thursday that because of Haiti's dire economic situation, the Obama administration is considering granting temporary legal status to Haitians who have come to the United States illegally, so they could still keep sending money home. And she promised to continue helping Haiti rebuild its shattered economy, after the United States and other countries and organizations at a conference in Washington this week made pledges of $324 million in aid, far less than the $900 million sought by the Haitian government.

"Haiti deserves our help," Clinton said at a news conference in Port-au-Prince, the capital.

Shrinking remittances are one of the main ways the crisis could harm Latin America and the Caribbean. The cash sent home from immigrant nannies, hotel workers and gardeners from Los Angeles to Bethesda has ballooned to a $69 billion-a-year lifeline in the region in the past decade. It is particularly important for small countries such as Haiti, which received about $1.65 billion last year -- more than a quarter of the country's annual income.

These transfers have dropped 13 percent in the region in the first few months of the year, according to Luis Alberto Moreno, president of the Inter-American Development Bank.

In Haiti, the reduction in remittances can have dramatic long-term consequences. Most schools are private, and students are often kept home when parents can't pay the tuition, returning months or years later.

Jimmy Pierre-Sant, a 25-year-old in Cabaret, a plantain-growing town about 30 miles north of Port-au-Prince, is one of the indirect victims of the U.S. recession. Several months ago, his aunt in Winter Haven, Fla., was laid off from her factory job. Short of cash, she and other relatives have cut their bimonthly payments to Pierre-Sant's family from about $200 to $50. That meant he had to quit school yet again.

"I felt very bad about it. I'm the only one in my family who got to 11th grade. I was ahead of everybody. I loved school," Pierre-Sant, in a Bugle Boy T-shirt and plaid shorts, said as he sat on the concrete patio of his grandmother's shack, where he sells soft drinks from a cooler.

Simon, the sandal seller, who also lives in Cabaret, has managed to keep her two children and the niece she is raising in school. But at times there is only enough money for one meal a day.

"Sometimes I let them suffer in order to pay the school tuition. I never had to do that in the past," she said.

Clinton said the Obama administration was "looking carefully" at whether to suspend deportation of Haitians in the United States illegally and allow them to work temporarily. The Haitian government has requested that its immigrants abroad be awarded such a status, but the Bush administration had declined.

"We are going to be considering how best to help the people who are here continue to have those resources" sent by relatives in the United States, Clinton said at the news conference. She warned, however, that any such program would apply only to Haitians who had moved to the United States before Obama took office. "We don't want to encourage other Haitians to make the dangerous journey across the water," she said.

The crisis has shattered a period of economic improvement in Latin America and the Caribbean, which benefited from international growth and booming trade in recent years. Even Haiti had started to inch forward, after years of political turbulence and violence involving street gangs.

But then global food prices soared last year, setting off riots across Haiti that toppled the government. While prices have eased, they have not returned to their old levels. Rice is still about 30 percent more expensive than in August 2007; cooking oil costs 50 percent more.

And residents are still trying to recover from four hurricanes that pounded Haiti last year, killing 800 people and causing $1 billion in damage.

In a sign of how strained family budgets are, many Haitians can't even afford to spend 12 cents to buy a mud cookie, a snack consumed by the poorest.

"There's no money," said Mona Pierre, as she mixed clay, water and shortening to make the cookies in a market near the impoverished Cite Soleil slum in Port-au-Prince.

Anne Hastings, director of Fonkoze, the biggest micro-credit institution serving the poor in Haiti, said she is turning away new borrowers for the first time since she began running the agency 13 years ago, since her bank credit tightened in the international financial crisis.

The combination of high food prices, the hurricane damage and the economic crisis could create a combustible situation in a country that is still so fragile that a 9,000-member U.N. peacekeeping force keeps order, said Hastings, a former management consultant in Washington.

"Everyone thinks we're going to explode any day now," she said.

A series of high-profile figures, including former president Bill Clinton, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and rap artist Wyclef Jean, have been trying to focus global attention on Haiti to ensure it is not ignored by nations focused on their own economic problems.

Haiti's best chance to emerge from crisis, they say, could be a special trade preference granted by the U.S. Congress that will allow this impoverished nation to export garments duty-free to the United States for nine years.

On Thursday, Clinton strolled through a huge factory in Port-au-Prince where rows of young men and women ran jeans and khaki slacks through sewing machines. Clinton noted that the nearly 500 workers earned two to three times the $2-a-day minimum wage.

"This is a direct result of actions taken by the U.S. Congress," she said. The trade preference program had created 11,000 jobs in Haiti so far, she said.

Clinton announced more than $50 million in additional funding for Haiti at the international conference Tuesday, including money for new roads to help get products to market.

The Haitian capital is full of reminders of what could happen if Haiti's economy continues to contract. In Petionville, a relatively upscale neighborhood, businesses still have spider-webbed windows that were attacked during food riots last year.

Mathias Pierre, 42, who grew up in a poor neighborhood but now runs a $2.5 million-a-year computer business, was stunned when protesters shattered the windows of his firm in Petionville.

"It created the fears we have today, that anything can happen," he said. "The level of poverty is too high."

By Mary Beth Sheridan, The Washington Post, April 17, 2009

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) - Dutch prosecutors are dusting off the oldest international felony in their country's books to tackle the 21st-century wave of piracy.

Five Somali pirates will be tried, likely next month, for the 17th-century offense of "sea robbery." The bandits were captured by the Danish navy in January following a failed attack on a Dutch Antilles-flagged cargo ship off Somalia's lawless coast.

Several more piracy suspects are in French jails awaiting trial. And a pirate who surrendered during Sunday's dramatic rescue of the American captain of the Maersk Alabama will be tried in New York, a U.S. official said.

As the international community grapples with the question of how and where to try captured pirates, the Netherlands and France have led the way by prosecuting them in their own courts. However, other countries are wary of hauling in pirates for trial for fear of being saddled with them after they serve out prison terms.

Several countries are now calling for piracy cases to be prosecuted in the Kenyan port city of Mombasa; there is even talk of setting up a special piracy tribunal there akin to the International Criminal Court in the Hague.

Lack of clarity on jurisdiction can lead to big headaches: The U.S. Navy once had a piracy suspect aboard a ship for seven months largely due to confusion over where he would be prosecuted.

The United States, Britain and European Union have now signed agreements allowing for piracy suspects to be handed over to Kenya for trial.

"Kenya has had a strong tradition of a solid Commonwealth legal system. There is a capacity and certainly they do have an ability (to try piracy cases)," said David Crane, a law professor at Syracuse University. Kenya is part of the Commonwealth of Britain and its former colonies.

In Paris, the French Defense Ministry said Friday that 11 pirates its forces seized in a raid Wednesday hundreds of kilometers (miles) off the Kenyan coast will be turned over to Kenyan authorities. The pirates will be brought to the Kenyan port of Mombasa on Monday on the French frigate Nivose, the ministry said.

Kenyan officials could not be reached for comment.

French authorities had said the pirates were planning an attack on the Liberian cargo ship, Safmarine Asia.

There are doubts that Kenya - which is still recovering from postelection turmoil in 2007 that left more than 1,000 people dead - would be able to handle the costly and complicated task of trying all or even most cases that emerge from the exploding piracy crisis in the Indian Ocean.

Mark Ellis, executive director of the International Bar Association, said Kenya's courts would need financial and logistical help coping with an influx of piracy cases as the country tries to rebound from its 2007 upheavals.

"Kenya has a number of challenges it is facing as a country and particularly as they affect the judicial system," Ellis said. "I don't think the hurdles are insurmountable, but it will take a much more structured and aggressive approach by the international community to assist Kenya in undertaking this type of trial."

Kenya's government says it would consider any U.S. request to try suspects on an individual basis. But a Kenyan Foreign Ministry official - speaking on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to address the issue - said he had heard no suggestion that a special piracy court be convened in Kenya.

The emphasis on Kenya as a possible host for piracy trials reflects many nations' fear that convicted Somali pirates would stay put after getting out of prison, and possibly their reluctance to get drawn deeper into the increasingly dangerous battle to stamp them out.

Some European nations have even dumped detained pirates back in lawless Somalia, said Pottengal Mukundan, director of the Commercial Crimes Services of the International Maritime Bureau in London.

"I think EU countries are concerned that if the pirates are convicted and spend time in prison, when they finish their sentence they may not be able to send them back to Somalia," Mukundan said.

An international tribunal could be a solution, but few experts believe a costly court could be set up exclusively for pirates.

"In reality it's not politically viable," said Crane, a former U.N. prosecutor who helped set up a special tribunal for Sierra Leone and indicted ousted Liberian President Charles Taylor.

"The trend always has been to deal with it domestically. I would prefer to see it done by regional African states who are being impacted by these pirates."

As for the pirate skiffs themselves, they are usually kept for evidence in potential prosecution. The only time when they are destroyed is when there is insufficient evidence to prosecute but enough suspicious paraphernalia - like ladders, weapons or hooks - to warrant dumping the occupants back on land and destroying the boat.

U.S. involvement in the fight against piracy hit the headlines with the rescue of the captain of the American-flagged Maersk Alabama. Navy sharpshooters killed three pirates holding the ship's captain in a lifeboat while a fourth pirate, Abduhl Wal-i-Musi, surrendered.

On Thursday, a U.S. official said Wal-i-Musi will face trial in New York, where the FBI office has a history of handling cases in Africa involving major crimes against Americans, including the al-Qaida bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. The U.S. official was speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to disclose information about an ongoing investigation.

Previously the U.S. turned to Kenya in 2006 to try 10 pirates captured by one of its warships. They were convicted and are serving prison sentences in Kenya of seven years each.

Washington has not ratified the U.N.-sponsored Law of the Sea, which allows signatories to bring pirates in for trial. But under international law, Wal-i-Musi can be prosecuted in the United States because the Maersk Alabama was flying a U.S. flag and Americans were attacked.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has promised efforts to get the treaty ratified. On Wednesday she unveiled a new strategy to fight pirates that includes attempting to seize their assets.

"These pirates are criminals, they are armed gangs on the sea. And those plotting attacks must be stopped," she said. "We may be dealing with a 17th-century crime, but we need to bring 21st-century solutions to bear."

Crane said the U.S. should seek to have piracy suspects tried locally.

Kenya is "probably the closest and best jurisdiction to do this," he said. "If I were the Obama administration, I would want to see Africans doing something about this."

By MIKE CORDER, The Associated Press, April 17, 2009