"At this moment, there is no consensus, and there is no agreement to take any action," Mrs. Clinton told reporters just before leaving Honduras to fly to Cairo for President Obama's speech to the Islamic world on Thursday.

On one level, it seems a sterile debate: Cuba has said often and loudly that it does not want to rejoin the organization. But on a deeper level, the meeting has showcased Latin America's resurgent political left, which has seized on Cuba as an issue with which to press the United States.

It has also dramatized the challenges that Mr. Obama will face as he seeks to engage old American foes, on his own timetable. While a few Latin American leaders praised Mr. Obama's overtures to Cuba, his cautious steps seemed only to redouble their calls to go further and faster.

One after another, the leaders stepped forward to demand that the 47-year-old suspension of Cuba's membership be lifted immediately. Several condemned it as a relic of the cold war.

"We cannot leave San Pedro Sula without correcting that other day that will live in infamy," said President Jose Manuel Zelaya of Honduras, referring to the organization's meeting in 1962 at which Cuba was banned.

"Our brothers and sisters in Cuba," Mr. Zelaya said, "have been suffering for so long as a result of the blockade that has been imposed by one of the most powerful economies in the world."

Mrs. Clinton said the Obama administration wanted to turn the page with Cuba, too. But the United States has insisted that the Cuban government demonstrate it is ready to uphold the democratic principles enshrined in a 2001 charter adopted by the Organization of American States.

The United States first proposed a resolution that would keep the ban on Cuba in place but lay out a path for it to be reinstated. Nicaragua argued for lifting the suspension without conditions, while two resolutions by Honduras and other countries sought to find a middle ground.

American negotiators have since agreed to lift the suspension, but to make Cuba's participation contingent on its adherence to democratic principles. They would also require Cuba to petition for membership.

"We think we've succeeded in raising a lot of questions in the minds of O.A.S. members," Mrs. Clinton said. But she added, "Since we don't agree with the bare-bones proposal, if there's no action, that's fine with us, because we think action has to be better thought out."

American officials did not rule out that Nicaragua and Venezuela might force a vote on readmitting Cuba without any conditions. And they might be able to round up a majority of members.

That would be a stinging repudiation of the United States, which supplies 60 percent of the financing for the O.A.S., and of the Obama administration, which has made reaching out to Cuba one of its diplomatic hallmarks.

Mrs. Clinton seemed tired but satisfied, she said, that the United States had moved the debate "very dramatically."

Whatever the outcome, the debate over Cuba has provided a pretext for left-wing leaders - both fresh faces and old stalwarts - to take aim at the United States. Sometimes it was difficult to tell whether they were complaining about Cuba's exclusion or other old grievances against the United States.

President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, a former guerrilla leader, described the Cuban ban as an act of American imperialism. And indeed Cuba today derides the organization as a tool of Washington.

While Mr. Ortega said Mr. Obama had "shown good will," he said the president was trapped by the policies of his predecessors. "The O.A.S. continues to be an instrument of domination of the United States," he said. "That's why this meeting took on a very deep meaning."

SAN PEDRO SULA, Honduras, June 2 -- Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was confronted Tuesday with a barrage of criticism about U.S. policy toward Cuba, as Latin American countries pressed to readmit the island nation to the Organization of American States after a 47-year ban.

The diplomatic tug of war underscored how U.S. isolation of Cuba, long a hot-button topic in the United States, has emerged as a barrier in the Obama administration's outreach efforts.

Every nation in the hemisphere but one -- the United States -- has reestablished full diplomatic relations with the island's communist government, and most members of the OAS, the main forum for political cooperation in the hemisphere, want to readmit Cuba.

Clinton told reporters that the Obama administration was "pretty much by itself" in insisting that Cuba be allowed to return only if it abided by the democratic principles enshrined in OAS documents, such as elections and freedom of the press.

The meeting highlighted the declining U.S. role in Latin America, as countries there have diversified their political and economic relations and a growing number of leftist parties have come to power.

U.S. officials admitted privately that there might be enough votes to readmit Cuba with few or no conditions -- an outcome that would be embarrassing for Washington. That outcome seemed unlikely, however, because several key foreign ministers, including Clinton, were leaving the talks Tuesday night.

The fight over Cuba was largely symbolic, because that country's leaders have shown little interest in returning to the OAS. But Latin American governments view U.S. policies toward the island as a symbol of its historical clout in the region.

The push to lift the ban on Cuba came from U.S. adversaries in the region, including Nicaragua and Venezuela, as well as from countries governed by moderate leftists, such as Brazil.

In a speech opening the conference, Manuel Zelaya, the leftist president of Honduras, lashed out at the U.S. economic embargo on Cuba and the OAS decision in 1962 to banish Cuba.

"We have to fix the error of '62," he said. "We can't leave this assembly without repairing this infamy against the people."

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, a onetime leftist guerrilla, said at a news conference that the 1962 decision against Cuba was no longer valid because it was made when most Latin American and Caribbean governments were "stuck with tyrannies, dictatorships, that were instruments of domination of U.S. policy."

"The U.S. wants to use [the OAS] as an instrument of domination over our people," he said.

Ortega said that, although President Obama represented new U.S. leadership and had "shown goodwill," he has not reversed Bush administration policies on Iraq, Afghanistan and the Guantanamo Bay military prison.

"The president has changed, but not the policies," Ortega said.

The Obama administration has moved to improve relations with Cuba, ending restrictions on visits by Cuban Americans and allowing U.S. telecommunication companies to operate there. It also has won agreement from Havana to begin talks on immigration and direct mail service.

Throughout her three-day visit to Central America, which began in El Salvador, Clinton reiterated the Obama administration's efforts vis-a-vis that of its predecessor.

"I want to emphasize the United States under President Obama is taking a completely new approach to our policy toward Cuba," Clinton told Caribbean foreign ministers before the OAS assembly on Tuesday.

Playing to sensitivities in the region, she said that Washington might have been guilty in the past of "perhaps not listening." After meeting with El Salvador's new leftist president on Monday, she said that Obama was also viewed as "left of center."

The possibility of the OAS readmitting Cuba has outraged some U.S. lawmakers and Cuban American groups, as well as human rights organizations.

SAN PEDRO SULA, Honduras (AP) - Top officials from members of the Organization of American States will take on one of the Western Hemisphere's most divisive topics, Cuba, when they meet here on Tuesday, possibly leaving the United States in the lurch.

Amid near unanimous calls from the region for Cuba to be allowed to rejoin the 34-nation group without conditions, the United States is insisting that the communist island's government make democratic reforms before becoming eligible.

Despite U.S. President Barack Obama's tentative overtures to Cuba, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who will attend Tuesday's meetings, says any move to allow Cuba to rejoin the group must be accompanied Cuban moves toward pluralism, releasing political prisoners and respecting basic human rights.

"We believe it is in the best interests of the Cuban people and our region to be more integrated in the region," she said on Monday in El Salvador where she witnessed the inauguration of new Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes in that country's first peaceful transfer of power from conservative to socialist since the end of a 12-year civil war.

"We think that there is an opportunity for Cuba to be more involved, but at the same time, we want to see the peaceful transfer of power that we saw this morning possible for the Cuban people," Clinton said. "We don't see those as mutually exclusive."

Faced with a solid bloc of countries opposed to the conditions, U.S. officials are hoping to stall a vote on reversing Cuba's nearly 50-year-old suspension from the OAS without demands for change.

But the region's growing number of socialist leaders, spearheaded by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, Bolivian President Evo Morales and Funes are pressing for a vote, and U.S. officials are unsure how the meeting will proceed.

Even though Cuba has expressed no interest in rejoining the bloc and the organization generally makes decision by consensus, proponents can push ahead with a resolution that needs only a two-thirds majority, or 23 votes, to pass.

Such a vote would put Clinton in a difficult position because regional and U.S. officials believe there are easily enough countries in favor. Diplomats have been scrambling to reach consensus on a compromise resolution but as of late Monday had been unable to do so.

The administration is toeing a delicate line as it reaches out to Cuban leader Raul Castro and by extension his ailing brother Fidel by lifting restrictions on money transfers and travel to the island by Americans with family there.

Cuba agreed over the weekend to a U.S. proposal to resume immigration talks with Washington that former President George W. Bush suspended in 2003 and to negotiations on restarting direct mail service between the two countries. It has also proposed exploring cooperation on counternarcotics and -terrorism as well as on disaster preparedness.

But the Castros have repeatedly said they want a full lifting of the decades-old U.S. embargo on Cuba, something the administration has refused to consider without reforms. That stance has left the United States increasingly isolated.

Clinton will attend Tuesday's meeting as the representative of the last country in the Western Hemisphere without full diplomatic ties with Cuba.

El Salvador had been the only other one, but in his first act as president, Funes on Monday restored his country's diplomatic relations with Cuba that had been broken in 1961.

The signing ceremony to commemorate that event was held in the same room at the presidential palace in San Salvador where Clinton and Funes later held their joint press conference.

SAN SALVADOR (Reuters) - Two decades after Marxist rebels battled U.S.-armed governments in El Salvador, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Monday celebrated the presidential inauguration of a leftist leader of the rebels' party and called it a testament to democracy.

Clinton joined officials from about 75 countries at the inauguration of Mauricio Funes, leader of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front or FMLN, a party of former Marxist guerrillas that has softened its traditional anti-American stance under Funes.

"It's a real testament to the strength and durability of democracy in the Americas," Clinton said of the inauguration as she arrived in El Salvador on Sunday for a three-day visit to Latin America.

Funes is a former TV journalist who hosted local news programs critical of past governments. He won El Salvador's presidential election in March.

It was a momentous victory for the left in a nation where memories of a civil war that killed 75,000 people, many by right-wing death squads, hang heavy over politics.

The inauguration of Funes ends two decades of rule by the conservative and pro-U.S. ARENA party. Clinton said in a Miami Herald editorial on Monday the peaceful transfer of power between two formerly warring parties was indicative of changes in the region.

"Elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere, democratic elections and free market economies have become the norm over the past 15 years," she said.

"Today in El Salvador, I am joining other leaders from around the world in celebrating the historic inauguration of President-elect Funes and the promise of democracy to transform people's lives," she said.

Funes already has named a cabinet with more pro-business centrists than ex-guerrillas from the party's Marxist past, and he has pledged to work with the United States on joint issues like migration, street gangs and drug smuggling.

He has said he will have his own style of leftist government and has no reason to model himself after Venezuela's socialist President Hugo Chavez or Nicaragua's staunch leftist Daniel Ortega -- neither of whom attended the inauguration.

PRESSURE OVER CUBA

But Funes also repeated in his inauguration address his pledge to restore diplomatic and cultural ties with Cuba, leaving the United States as the last country in the region without ties with the communist nation.

Clinton is expected to attend a meeting of the Organization of American States in Honduras, where other countries are expected to press for Cuba's re-entry to the group over U.S. objections.

Some 2.3 million Salvadorans live in the United States and the money they send home is key to the economy.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton vowed Monday to fight for gay rights, calling for all nations to stop violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Clinton made the appeal ahead of the 40th anniversary this month of New York's Stonewall Riots, often seen as the launch of the US gay rights movement, in which gays and lesbians fought back against police who raided their bars.

"The example set by those fighting for equal rights in the United States gives hope to men and women around the world who yearn for a better future for themselves and their loved ones," said Clinton, a former senator from New York.

While acknowledging that gays and lesbians still had a long path to equality in the United States, Clinton deplored that gays in some parts of the world live in constant fear of arrest or violence.

"The persecution of gays and lesbians is a violation of human rights and an affront to human decency, and it must end," she said.

"As secretary of state, I will advance a comprehensive human rights agenda that includes the elimination of violence and discrimination against people based on sexual orientation or gender identity."

Under President Barack Obama, the United States has switched gears from the previous George W. Bush administration by supporting a United Nations resolution calling for the global decriminalization of homosexuality.

Homosexuality is punishable by death in seven countries -- Iran, Mauritania, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen.

Last month, Congressman Howard Berman said Clinton had promised him that the State Department would offer equal benefits to partners of homosexual US diplomats stationed overseas.

Clinton in her statement saluted the service of "our lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender employees in Washington and around the world."

AFP, June 1, 2009

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is trying to ease long-standing resentment of U.S. policies in Latin America by showing up this week for events that highlight Washington's awkward history with the region.

Clinton attended the inauguration of El Salvador's first leftist president on Monday. The new leader comes from a party of a former Marxist rebel group that fought a 12-year war against successive conservative governments and a military supported by billions of dollars in aid from Washington.

On Tuesday in Honduras, Clinton planned to be at a top-level meeting of the Organization of American States that will test the Obama administration's new openness toward Cuba.

In two days of events in El Salvador, Clinton repeatedly stressed that she and President Barack Obama were committed to a "new approach to the region," one that emphasized engagement and cooperation and not ideological battles.

"We have to build a more positive relationship," she told employees at the U.S. Embassy in San Salvador after new Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes was sworn in.

"We have to recognize that our country is not perfect either, that some of the difficulties that we had historically in forging strong and lasting relationships in our hemisphere are a result of us perhaps not listening, perhaps not paying enough attention," Clinton said.

Funes is a one-time journalist and member of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, which fought U.S.-backed Salvadoran regimes from 1980 to 1992. His inauguration marked the country's first peaceful transition of power from right to left since the end of the war.

"By putting aside old conflicts and coming together in a peaceful transition of power, you have affirmed the strength and durability of your democracy," Clinton said in a brief statement played on a local radio station.

She pledged a commitment to renewed U.S. cooperation in the region.

"In El Salvador and throughout the region, we are focused not on old battles but on new partnerships that improve lives, advance democratic principles and promote the common good," she told a meeting of regional trade and foreign ministers on Sunday.

"And we seek to work in a spirit of mutual respect with those who share our goal to make the Americas more peaceful and more prosperous," Clinton said.

Funes has promised good relations with the United States but El Salvador will no longer be the sure supporter of U.S. policies it was under the previous conservative government that allied itself closely with President George W. Bush's administration.

In his inauguration speech, he vowed to restore ties with Cuba, leaving the United States as the last country in the Western Hemisphere without full diplomatic relations with the nation.

On Tuesday in Honduras, the 34 countries in the Organization of American States may vote on whether to reverse Cuba's nearly 50-year-old suspension from the group.

U.S. officials, who insist that Cuba must first make democratic reforms, want to stall a vote.

Although Obama has signaled some willingness to back away from a half-century of U.S. policy toward the communist country, his administration says it will not support any effort to get Cuba back into the OAS until it changes its political system.

A vote could put the U.S. on the spot. Although the OAS generally operates by consensus, a two-thirds majority vote, or 23 countries, is all that's needed for a resolution to pass.

Clinton said Sunday the Obama administration was committed to a "new approach to the hemisphere and to Cuba" and was pleased Havana has accepted a U.S. proposal to resume suspended immigration talks and restore direct mail links between the two countries.

"We have said that we look forward to the day when Cuba, if it so wishes, can rejoin the OAS," she said, adding, however, that "we believe that membership in the OAS comes with responsibilities and that the we must all hold each other accountable."

By MATTHEW LEE , The Associated Press, June 1, 2009

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) - A federal court in Brazil has ruled that a New Jersey father should get custody of his 8-year-old son, whose mother took him to the South American nation after their divorce and died there, the man's lawyer said Monday.

Attorney Patricia Apy, who represents David Goldman, said she was notified of the decision Monday afternoon. The ruling calls for the boy to be turned over to his father on Wednesday, Apy said.

The boy's Brazilian mother took him to Brazil in 2004. She remarried and never returned to the United States. She died last year of complications from the birth of another child.

Eight-year-old Sean Goldman was being raised by his stepfather.

A Brazilian lawyer for the mother's family said he will appeal the decision to return the boy.

"Many times the boy has expressed his desire to stay in Brazil," attorney Sergio Tostes told local Globo TV. "We are doing everything we can to see justice prevail."

A telephone call to David Goldman's home in Tinton Falls connected to an answering machine with a full inbox Monday night.

U.S. Rep. Christopher Smith, a Republican from New Jersey, intervened in Goldman's case in February and traveled to Brazil with him. While Smith was there, Goldman was able to meet with his son for the first time in nearly five years.

The case got high-level attention with international diplomatic overtones this spring when the U.S. House and Senate called on Brazil to permit the boy's return, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton made the same request and the presidents of the U.S. and Brazil discussed the matter.

Clinton said Goldman's case is an example of a problem around the world. She said there were nearly 50 U.S. children in similar situations in Brazil who should be returned to the U.S. - and more around the world.

Clinton brought up the subject while speaking Monday at a joint news conference in San Salvador, El Salvador, with newly inaugurated Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes.

"It's taken a long time for this day to come, but we will work with the Goldman family and the Brazilian government with the goal of ensuring this young boy's return," she said.

Apy said Monday night that she had not received a copy of the Brazilian court decision but expected to get one and have it translated from Portuguese into English on Tuesday.

The order calls for the boy's immediate return, Apy said.

"The court has made remarkable conditions to be able to facilitate that happening," she said.

"I am incredibly heartened by the resolve shown the Pakistani people, government and military," Clinton said in an interview with USA TODAY. She was in El Salvador for the inauguration of President Mauricio Funes.

Pakistan's army has attacked Taliban strongholds throughout the Swat Valley.

Members of the Taliban, the fundamentalist Muslim movement that ruled Afghanistan until its ouster in 2001, had moved into the Swat Valley and gradually taken control.

In April, Clinton told a congressional committee that the Pakistani government of President Asif Ali Zardari "is basically abdicating to the Taliban and to the extremists."

Since then, Pakistani troops have attacked the Taliban throughout the region and will have cleared them from major cities and towns in a matter of days, said Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, a Pakistani army spokesman.

The military has recaptured Mingora, the Swat Valley's main urban center. Abbas said clearing rural areas could take months.

Clinton disagreed Monday with Zardari's complaints in a recent interview that the United States has not delivered on its promises of aid to Pakistan. "We have no money to arm the police or fund development, give jobs or revive the economy. What are we supposed to do?" Zardari said in the interview in The New York Review of Books

"I certainly understand the anxiety of anyone in Pakistan; they have taken on this really important challenge of trying to take on the Taliban, but we've been providing aid. We already disbursed $110 million for the displaced people. We've got that out very quickly," Clinton said. "So I think it may be moving more quickly than perhaps the president knows, but there's a lot more to be done, and we're going to try to tee it up and get it delivered as quickly as possible."

Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, will travel to Pakistan this week to meet with officials, said Robert Wood, State Department deputy spokesman.

Today, Pakistani troops rescued dozens of students, teachers and staff from a boys school who had been taken captive by militants in the northwest, the Pakistani military said.

Abbas said 80 people, 71 of them students, were found by forces in the Goryam area.

"An exchange of fire took place, but the miscreants-terrorists fled the scene when they saw the strength of the armed forces," he said.

Administration officials characterized the move as another in a series of American overtures to Iran. The United States has not had relations with Iran since the American Embassy in Tehran was seized by protesters in 1979; the country's diplomats have not been formally invited to American events since then.

"It is another way of saying we are not putting barriers in the way of communicating," said one administration official. "It is another way of signaling that there is an opportunity that should not be wasted."

A second official said the ban no longer made sense, at a time when the United States was actively engaging with Iranian officials elsewhere. In March, the administration's special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard C. Holbrooke, chatted with Iran's deputy foreign minister, Mohammad Mehdi Akhondzadeh, at a conference in The Hague.

The authorization to issue the invitations was disclosed by a senior State Department official on the eve of a three-day visit to Latin America by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the new policy was not public.

Even as the United States reaches out to Tehran, it is trying to reclaim American influence in Latin America, where Iran has made inroads while the United States has been waging wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

On Monday, Mrs. Clinton was in El Salvador to attend the inauguration of Mauricio Funes, whose election as president represents the first time the country has swung to the left since its civil war ended in 1992. She will be in Honduras on Tuesday for a meeting of the Organization of American States. The United States is expected to face intense pressure from Cuba's neighbors to reinstate the island's membership in the group.

Mrs. Clinton has said Iran's rising influence in the region is "quite disturbing." In May, she told State Department employees that the Bush administration's policy toward Latin America had created an opening for Iran and China, which are using commercial and other assistance to bolster anti-American leaders like Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua.

"They are building strong economic and political connections with a lot of these leaders," she said. "I don't think that's in our interest."

While Iran's influence in the region is dwarfed by that of China - which is a huge buyer of raw materials from Latin American countries - Tehran's role has touched a nerve among senior administration officials like Mrs. Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who has also spoken publicly about it.

"The specter of Iran raises red flags in a way that China doesn't, because China tends to respect the American sphere of influence," said Julia E. Sweig, a Latin American expert at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Iran's motives are murkier, according to administration officials. It has cultivated wide-ranging economic ties with Venezuela and, to a lesser extent, Nicaragua. But it has also been linked to the bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires in 1994, which killed 85 people.

Iran is not known to have a big presence in El Salvador, officials said, and it was not represented at Mr. Funes's inauguration. But the change in power after 17 years of a pro-American right-wing government could offer an opening.

Mr. Funes's victory continues the ascension of the political left across Latin America; some analysts worry he will adopt the anti-American rhetoric of Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador. His party, the F.M.L.N., has its roots in guerrillas who fought El Salvador's American-backed army in the 1980s and 1990s. But Mr. Funes is viewed as more centrist than his party. American officials said Mrs. Clinton's presence was meant to signal that Washington would not take El Salvador for granted.

"Some might say President Obama is left of center," Mrs. Clinton said after meeting with Mr. Funes.

Speaking earlier to American diplomats, she alluded to the vagaries of American influence in the region.

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) - A journalist from a party of former Marxist guerrillas is becoming El Salvador's first leftist president Monday, promising to remain friendly with the United States while restoring ties with Cuba.

Mauricio Funes' inauguration brings to power the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front that fought for 12 years to overthrow U.S.-backed conservative governments until laying down their arms in 1992.

Plucked from outside the party ranks, the bespectacled television journalist helped the movement shed a radical image that alienated many Salvadorans scarred by the devastating civil war.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is attending the inauguration and called it a testament to the strength of democracy in the Americas.

"Since Mauricio Funes' election earlier this year, we have witnessed a peaceful transfer of power between two formerly warring parties," Clinton wrote in Monday's Miami Herald.

Funes, 49, replaces President Tony Saca, whose staunchly conservative government was one of the most steadfast U.S. allies in the region - the last to pull its troops from Iraq earlier this year.

Funes has promised to stay on good terms with the United States, and he has a chance at a fresh start as the first Latin American leftist to rise to power since President Barack Obama took office.

But El Salvador will no longer be a sure supporter of U.S. policies unpopular nearly everywhere in the region.

Funes has vowed to restore ties with Cuba, leaving the United States as the last remaining country in the Western Hemisphere with no formal relations with the island. And on Tuesday in Honduras, the 34 countries in the Organization of American States will vote on whether to reverse Cuba's 50-year-old suspension from the group.

Although Obama has signaled some willingness to back away from a half-century of U.S. policy toward the communist country, his administration says it will not support any effort to get Cuba back into the OAS until it changes its political system.

However, the U.S. government has signaled no intention of making an issue of the new Salvadoran leader's attitude toward Cuba, and Funes has said he will maintain the same relationship with leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez as Obama has, keeping his distance but being respectful.

Chavez was attending Monday's inauguration, but during his presidential campaign, Funes made a point of not meeting Chavez, who has kept up his anti-American rhetoric following Obama's election.

Obama personally congratulated Funes on his victory.

Funes' inauguration further consolidates a leftward shift across Latin America and brings a second former U.S. foe to power democratically.

Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega returned to Nicaragua's presidency in 2006, two decades after his Sandinista government fought U.S.-backed Contra rebels. Leftist governments now predominate in Central America.

Funes rose to prominence as a TV host outspoken about corruption and he has no governing experience. He inherits an economic recession, widespread gang violence, and a population bitterly polarized over his party's rise to power.

Funes has promised fiscal austerity while raising funds for education and health care by cracking down on tax evasion and possibly imposing an alcohol and tobacco tax.

He will have to compromise both with more radical members of his party and with the outgoing Arena party, which will have enough seats in the single-house Congress to block key measures such as the budget and foreign debt approvals.

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) - A diplomatic tug-of-war over Cuba's outcast status in the Organization of American States takes center stage at the group's meeting this week in Honduras, testing U.S. efforts to engage the communist nation.

Numerous Latin American countries are pushing to reverse the 1962 expulsion of Cuba from the 34-country group, although the Cuban government insists it has no interest in returning.

An OAS official told The Associated Press that a decision on clearing the way for Cuba to rejoin the group could be postponed unless there is a consensus. In that case, Tuesday's meeting could produce a statement supporting efforts to find a solution. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who arrived in El Salvador on Sunday, is scheduled to attend.

In a positive development in U.S.-Cuban relations, a State Department official said Sunday that Cuba has agreed to resume talks with the administration on legal immigration of Cubans to the United States and on direct mail service.

Cuba has also proposed exploring cooperation on fighting terrorism and drug trafficking, and on hurricane and other disaster preparedness, according to the official, who said the Cubans had informed the administration on Saturday of its willingness to talk.

The official spoke shortly before Clinton left Washington for San Salvador where she was meeting Sunday with foreign and trade ministers from 16 nations in the region and will attend Monday's inauguration of new Salvadoran president Mauricio Funes before the OAS meeting.

U.S. officials say they are ready to support lifting the resolution that suspended Cuba from the OAS, but want to tie readmission to democratic reforms in Cuba. Nicaragua, backed by Venezuela, Bolivia and others, favors an approach that would declare Cuba's expulsion an error and remove all legal hurdles to it regaining its membership.

Diplomats at OAS headquarters in Washington have tried frantically to forge a compromise. Nicaragua has threatened to press for a vote on its proposal.

Albert R. Ramdin, the OAS' assistant secretary general, sought to play down the prospect of a final agreement on Cuba's status. "Theoretically we can always vote, but in practical political terms it seems that it's not an option," Ramdin said in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, the meeting site.

A vote could put the U.S. on the spot. Although the OAS generally operates by consensus, a two-thirds majority vote, or 23 countries, is all that's needed for a resolution to pass.

One senior U.S. official involved in the negotiations would not rule out the possibility that Clinton might skip the meeting unless there was a compromise acceptable to the U.S. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the negotiations.

The administration is committed to a set of principles the OAS approved in 2001 that enshrines democracy as a right of all people in the Western Hemisphere.

The meeting comes at a delicate time in President Barack Obama's outreach to Cuba. Already, his administration has lifted travel and financial restrictions on Americans with family in Cuba. In addition Sunday's news that Cuba has consented to restarting immigration talks, Cuba has expressed a willingness to cooperate with the U.S. on fighting terrorism and drug trafficking, and on hurricane disaster preparedness.

Cuban leader Raul Castro and his ailing brother, Fidel, have reacted coolly to the easing of restrictions and demanded an end to the decades-old U.S. embargo on the island.

U.S. officials have ruled that out - and Cuba's return to the OAS - until Cuba makes moves toward democratic pluralism, releases political prisoners and respects fundamental rights.

But Cuba's Communist Party daily Granma ended a three-day denunciation of the OAS on Friday by saying Cuba "does not need the OAS. It does not want it, even reformed. We will never return to that decrepit old house of Washington."

Some in the OAS, notably the socialist presidents of Nicaragua and Venezuela, Daniel Ortega and Hugo Chavez, maintain that neither the United States nor the OAS can dictate what Cuba has to do to return.

When foreign ministers meet on Tuesday in San Pedro Sula, the U.S. will be the only country in the hemisphere without full diplomatic relations with Cuba. El Salvador, the only other OAS member without such ties, planned to restore them on Monday when Funes takes office.

Funes is the first Salvadoran president from the leftist Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front.

The FMLN is the second former Central American foe of the United States to take power democratically since Nicaragua elected Sandinista leader Ortega in 2006. It's one more lurch to the left in Latin America.

Now, I know that it is fashionable in commencement speeches to be idealistic, and that may sound so, but at the root of my conviction is a strong sense of reality. Because you see, I don't think we have a choice. We can sit on the sidelines, we can wring our hands, we can retreat into cynicism, and we know what the results will be: We will cede the field to those whose ideologies are absolutely anathema to people of conscience and faith all over the world. So our positive interdependence, which is a fact, will prepare us to meet these challenges. But they can no longer be seen just as government-to-government. There is a time and an opportunity, and with the new technologies available, for us to be citizen diplomats, citizen activists, to solve problems one by one that will give in to hard work, patience, and persistence, and will then aggregate to the solutions we seek.

Now, I know we cannot send a special envoy to negotiate with a pandemic, or call a summit with carbon dioxide, or sever relations with the global financial crisis. To confront these threats and to seize the opportunities that they also present, we need to build new partnerships from the bottom up, and to use every tool at our disposal. That is the heart of smart power. But smart power requires smart people, people who have gone the distance for their education, who have opened themselves up to this increasingly complex and interconnected world, and this changing global landscape requires us to expand our concept of diplomacy.

By Hillary Rodham Clinton, May 31, 2009

The decisions, conveyed to the State Department on Saturday in diplomatic notes, represent another step in the gradual unlocking of relations under the Obama administration, after nearly 50 years of a trade embargo that many in the hemisphere say has outlived its usefulness.

"Greater connections," Mrs. Clinton said, "can lead to a better, freer future for the Cuban people. These talks are in the interest of the United States, and they are also in the interest of the Cuban people."

Mrs. Clinton is in El Salvador for the presidential inauguration on Monday of the leftist leader Mauricio Funes. As one of his first acts, Mr. Funes has said he will restore diplomatic relations with Cuba, leaving the United States as the only country in the Americas without such ties.

On Tuesday, Mrs. Clinton plans to attend a meeting in Honduras of the Organization of American States. Members of the group want to make an even clearer break with the past by moving to readmit Cuba, which the organization expelled in 1962, citing its alliance with the Communist bloc. Mrs. Clinton has fended off calls for Cuba to be offered membership until Havana moves to accept the group's democratic principles. On Sunday, she reiterated that the United States would oppose the efforts of several Latin American countries to immediately reinstate Cuba.

"We believe that membership in the O.A.S. comes with responsibility, and that we must all hold each other accountable," she said. Cuba, for its part, has said it has no interest in returning to an organization that the official newspaper Granma referred to recently as "that decrepit old house of Washington."

The measures proposed by Cuba, while incremental, came in response to overtures from the United States, and may blunt criticism that Washington is not moving fast enough. There had been speculation that Mrs. Clinton might skip the meeting in Honduras if there was no compromise on Cuba, but American officials signaled that she was now likely to go.

President Obama began his outreach to Cuba two months ago by lifting restrictions on travel by Cuban-Americans, and on the remittances those living in the United States send home.

Earlier this month, the Obama administration signaled its willingness to reopen a higher-level channel with Havana by proposing meetings on migration. Those efforts appear to have gained momentum after a summit meeting in April in Trinidad at which Mr. Obama told Latin leaders that "the United States seeks a new beginning with Cuba."

The migration talks date back to the 1990s, when Cuba and the United States tried to curtail a flood of refugees who fled the island, often on flimsy rafts. President George W. Bush halted them in 2003, largely suspending regular communication with Havana. He cited Cuba's policy on exit visas, its treatment of repatriated Cubans and surveillance of dissidents.

WASHINGTON - The Obama administration reiterated emphatically on Wednesday that it viewed a complete freeze of construction in settlements on the West Bank as a critical step toward a peace accord between Israel and the Palestinians.

Speaking of President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said, "He wants to see a stop to settlements - not some settlements, not outposts, not 'natural growth' exceptions." Talking to reporters after a meeting with the Egyptian foreign minister, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, she said: "That is our position. That is what we have communicated very clearly."

Mrs. Clinton's remarks, the administration's strongest to date on the matter, came as an Israeli official said Wednesday that the Israeli government wanted to reach an understanding with the Obama administration that would allow some new construction in West Bank settlements.

The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, is expected to focus on the issue of settlement expansion when he meets with Mr. Obama on Thursday in Washington. Mr. Abbas and other Palestinian leaders have said repeatedly that they see no point in resuming stalled peace negotiations without an absolute settlement freeze.

Mr. Obama and other senior American officials have called on the government of Benjamin Netanyahu, the leader of the right-wing Likud Party who became prime minister almost two months ago, to halt all settlement activity.

Some Middle East peace analysts in Washington interpreted Mrs. Clinton's comments as a sign that the administration was determined to change Israel's policy on settlements rather than accept a compromise.

Dan Meridor, the Israeli minister of intelligence, and other senior Netanyahu aides returned to Jerusalem on Wednesday from meetings in Europe with Mr. Obama's Middle East envoy, George J. Mitchell, and other American officials. The purpose was to continue discussing issues raised in last week's Netanyahu-Obama meeting, including Mr. Obama's objections to settlement expansion.

Mr. Mitchell has been negotiating reciprocal measures with Israel's Arab neighbors, in which they would take steps, like granting visas to Israeli citizens or allowing Israel to open trade offices in their capitals, in return for Israel's action on settlements. But administration officials say the onus is on Israel to show progress. Almost 300,000 Israelis now live in settlements in the West Bank, excluding East Jerusalem, among a Palestinian population of some 2.5 million. Much of the world considers the 120 or so settlements a violation of international law.

Mr. Netanyahu says his government will not build any new settlements and will take down outposts erected in recent years by settlers without proper government authorization. But he insists that his government will allow building within existing settlements to accommodate what he terms "natural growth."

Israel says it reached understandings with the Bush administration - some formal, some informal and some tacit - on building within settlements. For example, construction was limited in small outlying settlements but more tolerated in large ones in areas that Israel intends to keep under any deal with the Palestinians. "We want to work to reach understandings with the new administration" that are "fair" and "workable," said the Israeli official. He was speaking on condition of anonymity because the issue was still under discussion.

But the tenor of Mrs. Clinton's comments Wednesday indicated to some analysts that the Obama administration was unlikely to budge from its position, even at the risk of putting Mr. Netanyahu's government into jeopardy.

"She is stripping away whatever nuance, or whatever fig leaf, that would have allowed a deeply ideological government to make a settlement deal that is politically acceptable at home," said Aaron David Miller, a public policy analyst at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. "They've concluded, 'We're going to force a change in behavior.' "

Within the Israeli government, however, there is a consensus that the ever-growing settler population must be accommodated.

Mark Regev, a spokesman for Mr. Netanyahu, said the final status of the existing settlements would be determined in negotiations with the Palestinians. "In the interim, normal life should be allowed to continue in those communities," Mr. Regev said.

In an interview with Army Radio on Monday, Ehud Barak, the defense minister and leader of the center-left Labor Party, gave a hypothetical example of a family of four that originally moved into a two-room home in a settlement. "Now there are six children," he said. "Should they be allowed to build another room or not?" He added, "Ninety-five percent of people will tell you it cannot be that someone in the world honestly thinks an agreement with the Palestinians will stand or fall over this."

In an effort to show good will, Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Barak have been underscoring their willingness to take down 22 small outposts that are illegal under Israeli law, and that were supposed to have been removed under the 2003 American-backed peace plan known as the raod map. That plan specified that Israel should halt "all settlement activity (including natural growth)."

In the early hours of Wednesday morning, the police removed some sheds and a tent from two tiny outposts in the Hebron area. Another small outpost was demolished in the Ramallah region last week, but new shacks have already appeared there. None of the three outposts were on the list of 22, but the measures against them prompted furious reactions from the hard right.

Many religious Jewish nationalists say it is their right to settle in the biblical heartland of the West Bank, which they call Judea and Samaria. Other Israelis cite security for holding on to the areas captured in the 1967 war.

WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton warned on Wednesday that North Korea faces consequences for its nuclear and missile tests and denounced its "provocative and belligerent" threats.

Clinton also underscored the firmness of the U.S. treaty commitment to defend South Korea and Japan, U.S. allies in easy range of North Korean missiles.

Clinton's stern statement came after North Korea threatened military attacks against U.S. and South Korean warships and called Seoul's decision to join an international program to intercept ships suspected of aiding nuclear proliferation tantamount to a declaration of war.

"North Korea has made a choice" to violate U.N. Security Council resolutions, ignore international warnings and abrogate commitments made during six-nation nuclear disarmament talks, Clinton said.

"There are consequences to such actions," she said, referring to discussions in the United Nations meant to punish North Korea for its nuclear and missile tests.

Clinton did not provide specifics, saying only that the intent of diplomats was to "try to rein in the North Koreans" and get them to fulfill commitments made in the nuclear talks.

Clinton said she was pleased by a unified international condemnation of North Korea that included Russia and China, North Korea's only major ally and the host of the currently stalled disarmament talks.

The success of any new sanctions would depend on how aggressively China implements them.

Despite her tough words, Clinton held out hope that North Korea would return to six-nation disarmament talks and that "we can begin once again to see results from working with the North Koreans toward denuclearization that will benefit, we believe, the people of North Korea, the region and the world."

The North Korean army called South Korea's actions a violation of the armistice the two Koreas signed in 1953 to end their three-year war, and said it would no longer honor the treaty.

At the White House, spokesman Robert Gibbs played down North Korea's angry rhetoric. He said Wednesday that North Korea's threats against South Korea will not give it the attention Pyongyang wants and will only add to its isolation.

Gibbs said North Korea has threatened to end the armistice many times in past decades but the peace has held.

The Pentagon was still testing and analyzing particle matter taken from clouds in the region to confirm that the North's detonation was, indeed, a nuclear explosion. A senior Pentagon official said U.S. military jets were to take a second sampling later this week.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton urged Israel in unusually blunt terms Wednesday to completely halt settlements on land that Palestinians claim as part of a future state of their own.

In remarks to reporters at the State Department, Clinton said President Barack Obama had made clear last week during talks at the White House with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that stopping settlements is a key part of moving toward a deal establishing a Palestinian state alongside Israel.

"He wants to see a stop to settlements - not some settlements, not outposts, not 'natural growth' exceptions," Clinton said, referring in the last case to population growth on existing Israeli settlements in the West Bank from births and from allowances for adult offspring of settlers to buy homes near their parents.

"We think it is in the best interests (of the peace process) that settlement expansion cease," Clinton added, with Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit at her side. "That is our position. That is what we have communicated very clearly. ... And we intend to press that point."

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is putting settlements at the center of his talks with Obama at the White House on Thursday, and he has said he won't resume peace talks without a freeze. Clinton was having dinner Wednesday with Abbas.

Obama has made clear that he supports the creation of a Palestinian state, and in remarks last week he noted that under a previous arrangement known as the "roadmap," which dates to the Bush administration, the Israelis agreed to halt West Bank settlements, along with certain steps by the Palestinians.

"Settlements have to be stopped in order for us to move forward," Obama said. "That's a difficult issue. I recognize that, but it's an important one and it has to be addressed."

The U.S. considers Israel's 121 settlements to be obstacles to peace, since they are built on territory claimed by the Palestinians. Netanyahu sees it differently, raising concerns of a looming rift with Washington.

Netanyahu says he is willing to resume peace talks immediately but has not said he supports the creation of a Palestinian state.

Netanyahu also says existing Israeli settlements should continue to expand to accommodate "natural growth" in their populations. He also has ruled out ceding sovereignty in east Jerusalem, which Palestinians want as the capital of a future state. Israel captured the area in the 1967 Mideast war and annexed it.

Clinton was more explicit in her comments about freezing settlements than her predecessor, Condoleezza Rice, who said last Nov. 7 on a visit to the West Bank: "Settlement activity, both actions and announcements, is damaging for the atmosphere of negotiations. And the party's actions should be encouraging confidence, not undermining it. And no party should take steps that could prejudice the outcome of negotiations."

In his joint appearance with Clinton at the State Department on Wednesday, Gheit was asked by a reporter whether the Obama administration differs from the Bush administration in its approach to the issue of human rights in Egypt.

Gheit said Obama administration officials express their concern but also listen. "And that is very important to listen and to understand where you come from" and to explain U.S. reasoning, he added. "I think they are very much different than the Bush administration. I wouldn't characterize by that as good or bad, but there are differences, in attitude at least."

WASHINGTON (AP) - Journalist Roxana Saberi, recently freed after four months in an Iranian prison, met Wednesday with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and expressed thanks for the support she received during her confinement.

"When I found that I had this support while I was in prison, I gained a lot of strength and hope and I didn't feel so alone any more," Saberi told reporters as she stood beside Clinton, with her parents seated nearby. Saberi did not take questions.

Clinton said she was relieved that Saberi was set free.

"This was a matter of great concern to our country, certainly to the Obama administration and to me personally - not only as secretary of state but as a mother," Clinton said. "My heart went out to Roxana and to her parents every single day."

The 32-year-old journalist arrived in the United States Friday from Vienna, where she spent a week recuperating after her release from prison in Iran. Saberi was arrested in late January and convicted of spying for the United States in a closed-door trial that her Iranian-born father said lasted only 15 minutes.

She was freed May 11 and reunited with her parents, who had come from Fargo, N.D., to Iran to seek her release. An Iranian appeals court reduced her sentence to a two-year suspended term.

U.S. officials had said the charges against Saberi were baseless and repeatedly demanded her release.

Saberi, who grew up in Fargo and moved to Iran six years ago, has dual citizenship.

Discussions are under way at the United Nations "to add to the consequences that North Korea will face coming out of the latest behavior with the intent to try to rein in the North Koreans" so the country's leaders resume fulfilling their obligations and moving toward denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, she said.

She said she was pleased at the unified international response, including China and Russia, in responding with a "very specific condemnation" of North Korea and working to develop a "very firm resolution" going forward.

Clinton said she hoped there would be a chance for North Korea to return to the multinational talks on its denuclearization that will benefit "the people of North Korea, the region, and the world."

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Tuesday called her Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov to ask for a "unified" response from the world community to North Korea's nuclear tests, spokesman Ian Kelly said.

In the call, Clinton "reiterated the importance of a quick, unified response to North Korea's provocative action," Kelly told reporters.

He noted that Clinton had reached out to her counterparts from China, South Korea, Japan and Australia on Monday.

"She, of course, remained actively engaged in making sure that the international community conveys a strong message to North Korea that North Korea will pay a price for the path they are on if they don't reverse that particular course they are on now."

North Korea announced Monday it had carried out what it termed a successful nuclear test -- following a first one in October 2006 -- in defiance of international pressure to abandon its weapons-grade nuclear program.

The reclusive Stalinist resorted the same day to test firing three short-range missiles.

The international community and the UN Security Council on Monday condemned the nuclear test and decided to prepare a resolution which is likely to include new sanctions against Pyongyang.

But Kelly stopped short of using the word "sanctions," saying only that the United States sought a "strong" document.

"We are now involved with our partners up there on working on a resolution in accordance with the council's responsibilities," Kelly said.

"And we look forward to working with our colleagues on the council to craft a strong, unequivocal and unified response to North Korea's grave violation of international law," he added.

Kelly noted that Russia and China, two permanent veto-wielding members of the UN Security Council which usually oppose sanctions, had made "very strong statements" after the nuclear test.

A foreign ministry source in Russia, which this month chairs the Security Council, said his government would support firm UN action but ruled out isolating the Stalinist regime.

"Most likely, the adoption of a tough UN Security Council resolution is unavoidable. The reaction should be fairly serious, because the authority of the Security Council is at stake," the source told Interfax news agency.

But he also said that "a blockade, isolation, any sort of cordons sanitaires are not a subject of discussion.... The door to negotiations should always remain open."

China, North Korea's closest and most powerful ally, Monday voiced "resolute opposition" to the secretive regime's nuclear test in a rare instance of open criticism between the two communist neighbors.

The Chinese foreign ministry also said in a statement that North Korea, one of the world's most isolated regimes, should halt actions that could aggravate tensions in the region.

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) - Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has made a surprise return to her law school alma mater. She picked up an honorary degree 36 years after getting her law degree from Yale University. Graduates celebrating commencement Monday erupted in cheers as Clinton was introduced.

In keeping with Yale tradition, the names of honorary degree recipients are a closely held secret.

Clinton says the graduates should "use every creative gene you have" to work for the public good. She also urged them to apply for work in the Obama administration and the State Department.

The 60-year-old Clinton met her husband, former President Bill Clinton, at Yale.

Sculptor Richard Serra and writer John McPhee are among the others receiving honorary degrees from Yale this year.

WASHINGTON - The State Department will offer equal benefits and protections to same-sex partners of American diplomats, according to an internal memorandum Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton sent last week to an association of gay and lesbian Foreign Service officers.

Mrs. Clinton said the policy change addressed an inequity in the treatment of domestic partners and would help the State Department recruit diplomats, since many international employers already offered such benefits.

"Like all families, our Foreign Service families come in different configurations; all are part of the common fabric of our post communities abroad," Mrs. Clinton said in the memorandum, a copy of which was provided to The New York Times by a member of the gay and lesbian association.

"At bottom," she said, "the department will provide these benefits for both opposite-sex and same-sex partners because it is the right thing to do."

A senior State Department official confirmed the new policy, though he did not say when it would take effect.

Among the benefits are diplomatic passports, use of medical facilities at overseas posts, medical and other emergency evacuation, transportation between posts, and training in security and languages.

Gay and lesbian diplomats have lobbied the State Department for these benefits for several years. Under current policy, they note, diplomats with domestic partners could be evacuated from a hazardous country by the American government while their partners were left behind.

The State Department had declined to provide some benefits to the partners of diplomats, invoking the Defense of Marriage Act, which limited federal recognition of same-sex unions.

Mrs. Clinton was asked about the issue in February at her first town-hall-style meeting with department employees. "I view this as an issue of workplace fairness, employee retention, and the safety and effectiveness of our embassy communities worldwide," she said, to applause.

Influential lawmakers also pushed for the changes - even drafting legislation requiring the State Department to offer these benefits - until Mrs. Clinton assured them that she would address the issue.

At a hearing last week on financing for the State Department, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Representative Howard L. Berman, welcomed news of the planned change in policy. Mr. Berman, Democrat of California, introduced a former ambassador to Romania, Michael Guest, who left the Foreign Service in 2007, citing unfair treatment of his partner, Alex Nevarez.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) - Former President Bill Clinton became the U.N.'s first special envoy to Haiti on Tuesday, bringing an unmatched combination of local popularity and global star power to help a country devastated by political turmoil, poverty and natural disasters.

Haitians - at least those old enough to have heard of Clinton - welcomed the international attention they said he will bring to their desperate nation and some expressed optimism that he can help alleviate poverty.

"If he can make the U.N. work better with Haiti and gets us more money, that would be good," said John-Peter Lacoure, a 24-year-old college graduate who cannot find a job despite his economics degree.

But many Haitians said their problems are too great for any one person to fix.

"Where we are now, the only one who can help us is God," said Patrick Pierre, 47, hawking cell phone cards on the dusty street where the U.N. is based.

Clinton - who will be paid $1 a year and travel to Haiti several times annually - said he is honored.

"I believe Haiti is better positioned to make progress for all its people than at any time since I first visited in 1978," he said in a statement. "Last year's natural disasters took a great toll, but Haiti's government and people have the determination and ability to ... lay the foundations for the long-term sustainable development that has eluded them for so long."

Clinton is well-regarded in Haiti for using the threat of U.S. military force to oust a dictatorship in 1994, then sending Army troops and Marines to pave the way for the return of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who had been deposed in a coup. Aristide was again ousted in a 2004 rebellion and flown into exile on a U.S. plane.

Clinton's popularity could help temper the feelings of many Haitians toward the U.N. peacekeeping force. Many see the "blue helmets," who have been the country's only real security since 2004, as unwanted occupiers and ask why they haven't done more to alleviate poverty in a country where 80 percent of people live on less than $2 a day.

U.N. officials say the peacekeepers' mandate only covers security, and that the soldiers go beyond their required duties by sometimes carrying out development and disaster assistance.

But that distinction is lost on Haitians who see armed soldiers rumbling by atop armored vehicles as they walk miles (kilometers) uphill to work, or catch glimpses of the high-walled mansions where international staff live. Protesters frequently jeer at soldiers with a derisive "baaaa" - referencing oft-repeated stories that peacekeepers have stolen families' goats.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon said in Geneva that Clinton will "bring energy, dynamism and focus to the task of mobilizing international support for Haiti's economic recovery and reconstruction."

Clinton will focus on economic and social development, leaving management of the peacekeepers to Ban's full-time representative, Hedi Annabi.

Ban's spokeswoman, former Haitian radio journalist Michelle Montas, said Clinton may improve the U.N.'s image in the country, but that was not why he was chosen.

"He is going to be an advocate for the Haitian people," Montas told reporters at the peacekeeping headquarters in Port-au-Prince. She said Clinton is the first special U.N. envoy to Haiti.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton prompted laughter in Washington when she announced the appointment without mentioning the new envoy's name or the fact that he is her husband: "Ban Ki-moon has chosen a high-profile envoy to raise the visibility of the needs of the people of Haiti."

Nearly 40 percent of Haitians are under 15, and many have never heard of Clinton. Yet the former president was greeted like a rock star during his last visit. Shrieking fans climbed over one another to shake his hand with nearly as much excitement as they reserved for rap star Wyclef Jean, who was also in the group.

Ban led that March trip to drum up more international support for Haiti, and said both he and Clinton left shocked at the country's situation.

Haiti was already in the midst of a food crisis and political deadlock when four tropical storms battered it last fall, killing some 800 people and doing $1 billion in damage. Hunger worsened, poverty deepened and hard-won stability threatened to come apart five years after a bloody rebellion.

Ban "felt that something had to be done," Montas told The Associated Press, adding: "He was convinced that there was a special effort needed."

But some Haitians said Clinton is not the answer. Silvio Sintlaire, 18, shook his head when asked about the former U.S. president, saying he had never heard of him.

"Haiti needs its own president who can help, so we can stop going through misery," he said as he roamed the capital trying to sell fluorescent light bulbs and TV antennas.

Clinton told a Senate Appropriations subcommittee that not only Israel but some Arab states as well are nervous about a nuclear Iran, and that could result in other nations beefing up their arsenals in response.

"That is not going to be in the interests of Iranian security and we believe that we have a very strong case to make for that," she said.

The Voice of America said the secretary told the committee the anxiety of Iran's neighbors could also solidify the region's resolve to settle the Palestinian question and remove the major flash point in the conflict between Israel and Iran.

Clinton said the Obama administration was committed to a dual Middle East strategy of blocking Iranian nuclear weapon development and finding a solution to the Palestinian issue.

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Justice Department is asking a judge to dismiss a lawsuit that argues Hillary Rodham Clinton cannot legally serve as secretary of state.

The suit filed by conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch is based on an obscure section of the Constitution called the emoluments clause. It says no member of Congress can be appointed to a government post if its pay was increased during the lawmaker's current term.

Clinton was a senator when the secretary of state's salary was raised to $191,300. Congress lowered the salary back to $186,600 so she could take the post.

The department says that remedy has been used so several other members of Congress from both parties could serve in the Cabinet, and it says the lawsuit has no merit.

The aid, she said, will be directed toward about two million people who have fled their homes because of the Pakistani Army's assault on Swat and other Taliban-held areas northwest of the capital, Islamabad.

While Mrs. Clinton said she hoped those refugees would be able to return to their homes soon, she praised the Pakistani government and military for its resolve in fighting the Taliban militants. Her endorsement was a striking shift in tone since her testimony before Congress last month, when she accused the Pakistani government of "abdicating to the Taliban."

"There is a real national mood change on the part of the Pakistani people that, you know, we are watching and obviously encouraged by," Mrs. Clinton said. "And I think it has to do with a recognition that this is no longer a part of their country that seems quite distant from population centers."

Despite her warmer words for Pakistan's government, Mrs. Clinton said little of this aid would flow directly to the Pakistani authorities. Most of it will flow to the United Nations and other international aid organizations. Pakistan has been criticized in the past for squandering American assistance.

The latest influx of aid comes on top of $60 million in humanitarian aid that the United States has sent to Pakistan since last August, and $400 million the administration has requested from Congress to improve the counterinsurgency abilities of the Pakistani military.

The administration is also turning to the American public to bolster its efforts, Mrs. Clinton said. It has set up a texting service by which people can use their cellphones to make $5 pledges to the people of Swat, a donation that will help supply them with tents, clothing, food and medicine.

Mrs. Clinton herself contributed $5 by texting the word Swat to the number 20222 on her cellphone, urging Americans to do likewise.

"If a million people in the United States gave at least $5," she said, "that would be $5 million. That would be a significant contribution from ordinary citizens, just, you know, people who care about what's happening."

This was Mrs. Clinton's second appearance at the White House podium since she became secretary of state, and it seemed calculated to throw the administration's support behind Pakistan on a day when President Obama was busy announcing new rules for automobile emissions and mileage standards.

The administration also wanted to encourage donations before a United Nations appeal for about $500 million in aid to Pakistan, which will be announced later this week.

While the bulk of the $100 million is coming from the State Department - channeled mainly through the Agency for International Development - the Pentagon will contribute $10 million for water trucks, food and large tents equipped with air-conditioning.

Mrs. Clinton emphasized that $26 million of the package was designated to buy grain from Pakistani farmers, which she said would take advantage of the country's bumper grain crop this year.

She acknowledged that previous American aid efforts in Pakistan had been haphazard. Indeed, Mrs. Clinton described American policy toward the country over the past three decades as "incoherent."

But she insisted that the Obama administration had put relations with Pakistan on sounder footing by mixing financial assistance with stern advice and counsel, of the kind she meted out in Congress.

"We have to have a relationship where we're very clear and transparent with one another," Mrs. Clinton said. "Where we're sitting across the table and we're saying, you know, what do you intend to do about what we view as an extremist threat to your country, which, by the way, also threatens us?"

Turning her attention to another country, Mrs. Clinton said she was glad the United Nations secretary general, ban Ki-moon, had appointed her husband, former President Bill Clinton, as a special envoy to Haiti. Mrs. Clinton visited Haiti recently to deliver about $300 million in American aid.

The meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations' Regional Forum is set for July with Thailand, the group's rotating chair this year, playing the host. Other ASEAN members are Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam.

"North Korea recently confirmed that its Foreign Minister (Pak Ui-chun) will attend the ARF slated for July 17-23. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also plans to attend it," Arthayudh Srisamoot at the Thai foreign ministry, told visiting South Korean journalists, Yonhap news agency reported.

If Clinton and Pak decide to hold a bilateral meeting, the report said it would be their first such which could help break the impasse in the six-nation talks on Pyongyang's nuclear disarmament.

North Korea, however, has said it does not plan to talk to the United States, accusing the Obama administration of flowing a policy similar to that of the previous Bush government.

Besides North Korea, other nations involved in its nuclear disarmament are the United States, China, Russia, South Korea and Japan.