Hillary Clinton exclusive interview on international relations

US Assistant Secretary Philip J. Crowley, in his daily press briefing at the Department of States, said Secretary Hillary Clinton will be discussing how to combat terrorism with India.

This afternoon, Secretary Clinton will have a bilateral discussion with Home Minister Chidambaram of India. They will discuss the importance of expanded cooperation on counterterrorism following the Mumbai attack last November and of building a strong relationship among our senior national security officials. This is his first visit to the United States as home minister and is an important element of our expanded strategic dialogue launched by the Secretary and External Affairs Minister Krishna during the Secretary’s visit to India in July. And I think the home minister has or will meet with a wide range of U.S. officials while here, including officials at the Justice Department, FBI, and at the White House

Crowley said.

Excerpts of the daily press briefing:

“George Mitchell, our ambassador for Middle East Peace, will depart the United States tomorrow night, will be in discussion with officials from Israel and the Palestinian Authority Sunday, Monday, Tuesday. Some of that schedule is still being worked. He will have other stops in the region following his stops to talk with Israeli officials and Palestinian officials, and we’ll announce those sometime once they’re firmly established,” Crowley said.
“Special Envoy Gration – Scott Gration is in Juba, Southern Sudan today, where he was involved in discussions with the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement and the National Congress Party as part of our significant action to try to implement the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. And later today, he will hold a roundtable discussion with members of the Sudanese diaspora who have returned to the country to contribute their skills and knowledge to progress in Sudan.
“I’ll anticipate one question. Assistant Secretary Jeff Feltman is in Libya today for a wide-ranging bilateral discussion with his counterparts and looking at ways to promote peace and stability in the region. They will be discussing a wide range of bilateral issues.
“And finally, we certainly are very pleased with the way that the AeroMexico 576 hijacking was resolved without loss of life or injury, and we applaud the Government of Mexico and AeroMexico authorities for their decisive and competent handling of the incident. We greatly appreciate the personal involvement of senior Mexican officials in coordinating directly with our Embassy to ensure the safety of American citizens on board. There were 17 American citizens among the passengers, and our consular officials from our Embassy were at the airport to meet with and offer assistance to those American citizens who were on board that flight,” the Assistant Secretary said.

Q-A session:

What’s your take on the Iranian proposal that was submitted yesterday?

Well, we – obviously, the Swiss ambassador, among other ambassadors, received the Iran proposal yesterday. It is not really responsive to our greatest concern, which is obviously Iran’s nuclear program. We are consulting with our other P-5+1 colleagues. There will be a conference call tomorrow involving the political officers to talk about next steps.
As our ambassador in – to the IAEA, Glyn Davies, said very compellingly yesterday, he reiterated, as we continue to, that we are willing to engage Iran in direct diplomacy based on mutual respect and mutual interests, and we seek a willing partner. But I think that as we consult with our P-5+1 colleagues, we’ll be looking to see how ready Iran is to actually engage, and we will be testing that willingness to engage in the next few weeks.

When you say not – it’s not really responsive, what does that mean?

Well, obviously, we have a wide range of interests, common interests, and concerns about Iran. And I should emphasize it’s not just the concerns of the United States. It is the concerns of the international community. Iran is not in compliance with its NPT, IAEA, or UN obligations. And so we have offered through Javier Solana to have Iran join the P-5+1 in discussions about, in particular, our nuclear issues, but we have other issues of concern in terms of Iran’s role and behavior in the region, its support of terrorism over many, many years. We would like to see Iran choose a different path. So there are a number of ways in which we have offered to and remain willing to engage Iran –

You said it’s not really responsive to our greatest concern, which is –

Well, the – I think in –

So what does that mean? That they’re not –

– in the package yesterday, Iran reiterated its view that, as far as it is concerned, its nuclear file is closed. And as Ambassador Glyn Davies said very clearly yesterday, that is certainly not the case. There are many outstanding issues. Iran has failed to meet its obligations, has failed to cooperate sufficiently with the IAEA. So we remain open to direct dialogue with Iran. If we can get to that point, we would expect to engage on the full range of issues, including our concerns about Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
And we – as Ambassador Davies reiterated yesterday, Iran has an opportunity here, and we hope that it will seize the opportunity, answer the questions that the international community has on its nuclear program, and move assertively to become a nation in good standing once again with the IAEA. And then there is room to explore how Iran can exercise the rights that it feels it has under the NPT. But as we emphasized yesterday and again, with rights comes responsibilities, and Iran is failing to live up to its responsibilities. But we would expect that should Iran indicate that it is, in fact, willing to engage the United States, other countries, that we would obviously want to talk about the nuclear issue among many others.
The Russian foreign minister said today there was something that – he looked at the paper that the Iranians submitted and said there was something in there that they could work with. So it sounds like you disagree with that statement.
Well, I think that that’s why we’re going to have a close consultation with all of our P-5+1 partners, including Russia. We expect that follow-on call to happen tomorrow. And then from there, we would think that we’d have a common approach on how to respond to the Iranian proposal. And I think we remain willing to engage Iran, if it chooses to do so.

What is the U.S. position on events in Lebanon, where the prime minister-designate has failed –

Any other issues on Iran or –
I was just going to follow up on the –
Okay. I’ll come back to you in a second.

So didn’t yesterday’s teleconference happen?

There was a teleconference yesterday, and the next one will occur tomorrow.

Do you have a readout? Any readout from that you can give us?

Well, I think we were touching base and – but we will – we obviously – we have a consistent position with our P-5+1 partners and want to make sure that we have a common strategy going forward. And we hope to kind of craft that common approach beginning tomorrow, and then I would think that we’ll have a – find a way to respond formally to the Iranian proposal.
Yes.
I mean, obviously, Lebanon is in the process of carrying out, in accordance with their political process, putting together a new government. That process continues, and we continue to look forward to working with the next Lebanese Government and hope it will stay on a path towards building a sovereign and stable Lebanon that is committed to peace, including full implementation of the UN Security Council resolutions. And we hope that both sides will resolve the impasse quickly and respect the process that’s outlined in the Lebanese constitution, put together a government that will serve the interests of its people.

Are you concerned about stability in the country because of this delay in forming a government?

I mean, obviously, our hope is that this will continue according to the processes laid out in the Lebanese constitution. We would like to see a government put in place sooner rather than later. I don’t think we have any immediate concerns, but we certainly hope that all the parties in Lebanon will engage peacefully and appropriately, and because it’s important that they put a government in place and that government take action in the interests of its people.

P.J.?

Yeah.

A former employee of ArmorGroup North America says that he alerted the State Department back in 2007 that some of the guards at the Embassy in Kabul were not only visiting brothels during work hours, but may have also been involved in sex trafficking. Did the State Department ever seriously look into these allegations?

Well, first of all, let me – I have a caution that because this is now an ongoing legal matter, I’ve got to be very careful and I cannot comment on any issue that might be subject to a lawsuit that has been filed. Just to start out, I’m sure you’ll have several questions in this area, I mean, the State Department continues to fully investigate allegations regarding ArmorGroup. We continue interviews. I think we’ve had more than 150 over the past week.
Just to bring you up to date, a total of eight guards have been removed from the contract and have departed Afghanistan, four additional guards resigned of their own accord and have also left the country; additionally, two managers were removed from the contract, two others resigned; one has departed Afghanistan, two others will depart tomorrow. So a total of personnel who are no longer part of the ArmorGroup contact – contract is 16.
This is a contract that is in its third year, initial year plus for option years, so it’s – we have had concerns about this contract over time, both related to performance and conduct. And we have aggressively overseen this contract, beginning in day one back in July of 2007. In a number of cases, because of improper behavior by contract personnel, we have asked the – that they be removed, and that has happened.
I’m not going to talk about specific allegations. Some of that may be the subject of this lawsuit. But in our view, it’s important that we have aggressively overseen this contract since it was let in March of 2007 and went into force in July of 2007. Part of that aggressiveness is that over time, to use a technical term, cure notices which – where we identify specific deficiencies in the contractor’s performance, we’ve issued nine of them over the past two years. In each time – in each case, the contractor has come back with a corrective action plan that we found satisfactory, and, in fact, that was subsequently implemented.
But it’s important that at no time, in our view, was the security of the Embassy ever threatened or compromised.

But the sex trafficking brings us to a new level, at least the allegations. I mean, did the State Department ever look into that specific thing? And are there any criminal investigations dealing with people who are under contract from the U.S. Embassy?

I can only repeat what I just said. Where – over the course of the contract, where we have been aware of improper behavior by contract personnel, and we have had incidents where we have seen that and taken aggressive actions, those individuals were removed from the contract or removed from the country.

How many is that then, before this latest –

I don’t have a number. I’ll see if I can provide that to you.

Well, then how – if you don’t have a number, how do you know that they were removed?

That it’s been aggressive?

We know. I –
Wouldn’t that be the next logical question when one is putting together –
I don’t have –
– one’s guidance for this? I mean –
I will ask the question, and if I can – if we can provide an answer, I will do so.
The other thing is that I’m not sure I understand why it is you can’t – you can’t comment. The State Department is not actually named in this lawsuit. You’re not – you’re not being sued.
Well, at the –
So I guess, just to repeat Michelle’s question, what about the –
At the –
– have the sex trafficking allegations been looked at before? And is that –
At the advice of the appropriate authorities here within the Department of State, I’ve been cautioned not to comment on issues that may be directly relevant to the lawsuit that has been filed. That said, I will be happy to talk about the contract itself.
And we feel very strongly that our oversight has been aggressive. It began in the early stages of the contract. Why is that? It’s because we’ve set a high bar for this particular contract in this particular environment. The contract in Kabul, the static guard contract in Kabul, like the similar arrangement in Baghdad, these are unique circumstances. We have standing guards, local hires, guarding all of our facilities around the world, but in this particular case, the unique situations where our facilities are in the middle of conflict zones, and we have taken aggressive actions simply because we understood the threat to our personnel and our facilities in Kabul.
Much of the – of what has come to light in terms of the contractor performance is because we are the ones who identified those deficiencies, provided the notice to the contractor, and insisted on corrective action. So – and it was based on that performance, not perfect, but certainly, we felt, and continue to feel, that the Embassy has been adequately protected and our people have been safe.

So you’d describe ArmorGroup’s performance as not perfect?

Well, clearly, it’s not perfect. But –
Well, clearly – I mean –
We have issued nine –
– one could say that it’s a lot less than not perfect.
Over the course of two years, we’ve issued nine cure notices for a variety of issues, ranging from the number of people at a particular guard station to the language proficiency of particular guards in critical places. As we’ve described, I think before, there are places where language proficiency is more important than others. All of the guards who were hired under this contract were expected, under the terms of the contract, to have adequate English skills.

Well, what about the sex trafficking allegation?

Okay. I’m not going to talk about specific issues from –
But you just talked about the specific issue of the language training.
I just said –
That’s in the lawsuit as well.
I will – I make the general point where we have identified and been aware of misconduct by contractor personnel, we have taken aggressive action. That is the case in this most recent incident, and that was the case in other instances as well.
In –
We expect a high standard of performance and personal responsibility in the people who are working on these posts on behalf of the United States Government. And we feel we have taken aggressive action where we have seen problems evolve, and people have, in fact, been removed from the contract.
If I can get greater detail on that for you, I will. But I’m somewhat constrained because of the fact that this is now part of the lawsuit.
Yesterday, I asked Ian about the response that POGO got from the State Department to their 10-page letter to the Secretary. He said he was not – he hadn’t seen it. But I’m wondering if you have and whether you think that a – that referring this group to a web link for the daily press briefing from September 1st is an appropriate response to a detailed letter.
I don’t think it was an appropriate response.
And so has there been an –
I am not aware that we have yet responded formally to the POGO letter.

Should they expect to get a more substantive response?

If and when we do respond substantively, I’ll let you know.

And can you just go – tell me broadly what are the rules for State Department contractors when it comes to visiting brothels?

We expect a high standard in terms of those who are working on behalf of the United States Government. And where we think that those standards have been compromised – and we have in the past seen and taken action in specific areas – those people have been removed from the contract.

Hugo Chavez, the president of Venezuela, has said today he intends to recognize the two breakaway Georgian regions, Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Any response to that reaction?

Well, we continue to believe, as do the vast majority of countries around the world, that South Ossetia and Abkhazia are part of Georgia, and that the solution is not recognizing their independence, but first stabilize the situation and then facilitating their reintegration into recognized Georgia. That Russia has found one country plus the Nicaraguan legislature to recognize the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia underscores how isolated that view is.
I think they also have Hamas.
Doesn’t change what I just said.
And is it not just – it’s not – it’s only the legislature in Nicaragua? It’s –
I believe so.
The Treasury announced yesterday that some sanctions against Sudan were being eased. Are you aware of that and do have any –
I’m not.

– explanation?

I’ll look into that.

You mentioned that George Mitchell is going back to the Middle East?

Will tomorrow. He’ll leave tomorrow – in Israel and the Palestinian Authorities on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday.

Any more details on who he’ll be meeting? And you mentioned he’d be going to some other foreign country.

Well, I think that – the who he will be meeting with and what order, that is still kind of being worked out. But we would expect meetings to begin probably on Sunday, but certainly on Monday and Tuesday. I certainly think he will meet with the usual high-level leaders, as he has in the past. He’ll make other stops in the region after that. They’re still – the order of those are still being worked out.

Hillary: 'My husband is not Secretary of State, I am'

Kinshasa, Congo Hillary Clinton has a message for the world: It's not all about Bill.
The secretary of state bristled Monday when - as she heard it – a Congolese university student asked what her husband thought about an international financial matter.
She hadn't travelled to Africa to talk about her husband the ex-president. But even there, she couldn't escape his outsized shadow.
She abruptly reclaimed the stage for herself.
"My husband is not secretary of state, I am," she snapped. "I am not going to be channeling my husband."
Clinton's presence, so bold in her historic presidential candidacy against Barack Obama, has sometimes been hard to see in the months she's served as the supposed face and voice of US foreign policy.
The president's ambitious travels have overshadowed her, heavyweight special envoys have been assigned to the world's critical hotspots, Vice President Joe Biden has taken on assignments abroad - and then last week her husband succeeded in a North Korean mission to free two journalists even as she landed in Africa on a seven-nation trip.
"You want me to tell you what my husband thinks?" she asked incredulously when the student raised a question about a multibillion-dollar Chinese loan offer to Congo.
"If you want my opinion, I will tell you my opinion," she said. "I am not going to be channelling my husband."
The moderator quickly moved on.
State Department officials said the student approached Clinton afterward and told her he had meant to ask what Obama, not Bill Clinton, thought about the Chinese loan. A senior Clinton aide said that Mrs. Clinton assured the student not to worry about it.
The student's question, according to the State Department translation, went like this: "Thank you. Mrs. Clinton, we've all heard about the Chinese contracts in this country. The interference is from the World Bank against this contract. What does Mr. Clinton think through the mouth of Mrs. Clinton and what does Mr. Mutombo think on this situation? Thank you very much."
It was unclear whether the French-speaking student or translator had erred. Either way, she was not pleased at the mention of her husband's name.
The Clintons have always been a complicated couple. An accomplished lawyer and politician in her own right, Hillary Rodham Clinton has struggled for decades to balance her interests and ambitions against his. She has supported his career while looking to blaze a trail of her own - at times proud of, and benefiting from, her husband's accomplishments, and at other times frustrated by his failings and his habit of overshadowing her, friends say.
The biggest controversy of Bill Clinton's career - an affair with a White House intern that led to impeachment proceedings - engendered rare sympathy for his wife and helped her win a Senate seat. One of his biggest political miscues - injecting race into her South Carolina primary with Obama - helped seal her defeat in the 2008 Democratic primary.
Since his presidency, Bill Clinton has spoken out about international financial and development aid to poor countries, one focus of his foundation's Clinton Global Initiative, making his opinion of interest abroad. But the stage in Kinshasa was his wife's, and she reacted instantly to a suggestion that he shared it.
She had been sidelined for weeks after she fell on her way to the White House in June and fractured her elbow, requiring surgery. Her aides acknowledged her frustrations stemming from the injury, which made her miss out on going to Russia with Obama and attending several European conferences.
But her aides and those in the White House have denied any rift or attempt to marginalize her.
After returning to action following her injury, Clinton made a round of TV appearances and a rousing speech - all in tune with Obama's priorities, but in her own voice.
She then resumed her frenetic pace, travelling to India and Thailand and then to Africa.
Hours after she left Washington for Africa a week ago, news broke that Bill Clinton had gone on a humanitarian mission to North Korea to win the release of Laura Ling and Euna Lee, two television journalists who had been arrested and sentenced to 12 years at hard labour.
She arrived in Kenya to find herself peppered with questions about his secret mission.
Clinton quickly recovered her cool Monday and moved on to other subjects. Just before the question that set off her anger, another student had asked if the U.S. and the West felt a need to apologize to the people of Congo for colonialism and postcolonial interference.
That brought a pointed rebuttal as well.
"I cannot excuse the past and I will not try," she said. "We can either think about the past and be imprisoned by it or we can decide we're going to have a better future and work to make it."

Hillary Clinton leaves questions unanswered

By Atul Cowshish – Syndicate Features
There were probably divergent expectations in India and the US when the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, paid her first official visit to India. The Americans wanted India to agree on their formulation on capping the greenhouse gas emission, show an inclination to sign the NPT, remove all restrictions on trade with the US and share America’s benevolent view of Pakistan.
 None of these were on the wish list of her Indian interlocutors and differences remain, leaving no room for euphoria after her five-day visit. But maybe it was not so dismal. There is a feeling that contrary to the impression in most quarters in India, the Obama administration is not working to downgrade relations with India; it hopes to take them to a higher level—level three, or whatever it is called.
 It will too early to say that is achievable in the near future. Hillary Clinton failed to remove one strong impression in the country that the US has again gone back to ‘hyphenating’ its relations with India and its ‘arch enemy’ Pakistan—a major factor in erratic Indo-US relations in the past. Nothing more than symbolism should be read into her decision not to include Pakistan in her itinerary during her Indian visit. 
 While in India, Hillary Clinton spent a lot of time answering questions about terrorism, particularly terror activities that emanate from territories controlled by America’s foremost, long-standing ally in the region, Pakistan. Shorn of generalities, her replies did not suggest any shift in US policy, one that allows Pakistan to protect the ‘good militants’—the Jihadi ‘freedom fighters’—to continue with their business of exporting terror to India.
 Yes, she did say that a terrorist is a terrorist. The use of that phrase could be seen as more encouraging in India if Clinton had been equivocal in condemning India-specific terror outfits in Pakistan and the patronage extended to them by Pakistan army’s ISI. Not that a public rebuke will force Pakistan to demolish groups like Lashkar-e-Tayyeba, more so when even a muted protest from Pakistan sees US officials rushing to placate the Pakistanis.     
 Hillary Clinton was not able to dispel the notion that America has adopted a deliberate policy to appease Pakistan, even if it hurts Indian interests somewhere. It is not clear how can the US take relations with India to a higher level when America’s priority areas lies elsewhere in the region—China and ‘Af-Pak’.
 The US thinks that the situation in ‘Af-Pak’ area will not improve unless India addresses Pakistan’s largely imaginary security concerns on its eastern borders. The Hillary Clinton visit has done nothing to mitigate the misgiving that the US is pressurising India to address the Pakistani concerns without any asking for a reciprocal gesture from the latter.
 Hillary Clinton landed when a controversy was raging in India over the inclusion of the ‘B word’ (Balochistan) in a joint statement issued by the prime ministers of India and Pakistan after their talks in the Egyptian resort town of Sharm El-Shaikh. New Delhi probably missed an opportunity to call the Pakistani bluff on Balochistan during her visit. It might have also helped assuage the anger generated in the country over the inclusion of Balochistan in the joint statement of the two prime ministers.
 Hillary Clinton could have been asked to clarify for her Indian hosts what is the public, official stand of the US administration on the Pakistani gripe about India’s ‘large presence’ in Afghanistan and also the absurd allegations that India is behind all the trouble in Balochistan and the tribal areas of Pakistan—sending Gurkha soldiers to fight in the Swat valley and other lawless tribal areas!
 The American official in-charge of the Af-Pak region, Richard Holbrook, had only a few weeks ago rebuffed the Pakistanis by telling them that India had very small consulates in Afghanistan, implying they could not pose a threat to Pakistan. Clinton’s comment would have nailed the Pakistani propaganda.   
  Ambiguity and doubts about certain aspects of the Indo-US civil nuclear agreement—the issue of enrichment and reprocessing rights—have not been removed. The Americans remain sensitive about transferring certain high-end technologies to India and even military equipment, thus bracketing India with Pakistan, an established proliferation rogue.    
 It is perhaps not her fault if she was not asked to elaborate on her comment that for the US China is now the most important country. The poor human rights record of China attracts nothing more than a ritualistic notice in the US. The recent crack down on the Uighur Muslims in China did not invite the same harsh comments from the US as, say, the action of the Burmese junta against the protesting Buddhist monks.
 It need not be emphasised that the US cannot cultivate its relations with autocratic China without sacrificing at least something in its ties with democratic India. And China has been becoming more and more aggressive in is tone towards India, reaffirming is expansionist agenda in the region.
     A particular Indian concern has been the US obsession about the ‘end use’ of the military equipment that it might sell to India. Clinton should have been asked to tell India why a similar concern is missing in relation to the billions of dollars worth of aid and military equipment that the US and its allies regularly pump into Pakistan.
 With an internationally known nuclear smuggler as its icon, Pakistan has a history of irresponsible behaviour. The Americans know it for sure that Pakistan has been constantly increasing its nuclear stockpile and most of the money that is sent to Pakistan for ‘development’ is spent on purchasing military equipment. The Indian interlocutors failed to plod her about the relevance of giving Pakistan certain offensive artillery, aerial and naval weapons in the name of fighting militancy, knowing full well that Pakistan will use them against India.
 After the maiden visit of Hillary Clinton to India the loud cries that the new US administration, headed by Barack Obama, had chosen to downgrade relations with India might be muted. That might please the US because the Obama administration is struggling to salvage the battered American image in the comity of nations. But no hurried judgement can be made about the long-term impact of Hillary Clinton’s visit to India. .
 Hillary Clinton extended Barack Obama’s invitation to Manmohan Singh to visit the US late in November as the first foreign ‘state’ guest of the new US administration. Important though that kind of symbolism or ego messaging may be, it will be better to wait before making a surer assessment of the future course of Indo-US relations. The best that can be said about her visit is that she was able to tell India that it is still on the US radar; whether it is in the form of a blip or something bigger will be known in coming days.  

Clinton lands in Tokyo on Asia tour

Clinton says US relations with Asia are vital to 'meet the challenges of the 21st century' [Reuters]

Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, has arrived in Tokyo beginning her first foreign trip to Asia, pledging to work with the region on issues ranging from climate change to the economy.
Washington's top diplomat landed on Monday at the start of a tour that will also take her to Indonesia, South Korea and China.
Clinton has said her choice of destinations is intended to demonstrate a US commitment to working with Asian leaders on "problems that no one nation, including ours, can deal with alone".
Her tour marks a departure from a diplomatic tradition, which had established Europe or the Middle East as the first destination for new US secretaries of state.
"This region is indispensable to our efforts to seize the opportunities and meet the challenges of the 21st century,'' Clinton told reporters aboard her plane en route to Tokyo.
Top ally
Japan is Washington's top Asian ally, and economic issues are also expected to feature prominently in talks with Japanese officials.

"This region is indispensable to our efforts to seize the opportunities and meet the challenges of the 21st century" Hillary Clinton, US secretary of state.

Al Jazeera's Tony Cheng, reporting from Tokyo, said Clinton was expected to bring a message of support from the US for Japanese efforts to combat the effects of the world slowdown. He said she would also be looking to enlist support from the world's number two economy for a combined effort to help alleviate the crisis.
On the security front, talks are also expected to focus on efforts to end North Korea's nuclear programme - an issue Clinton has said remains "the most acute challenge to stability in northeast Asia".
In her first foreign policy speech delivered before the New York-based Asia Society on Sunday, she said the US was "ready to help prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons in Asia".
She also warned North Korea against any "provocative action and unhelpful rhetoric'' amid signs it is preparing for a long-range missile launch.
Clinton said the Obama administration was ready to engage with North Korea - and sign a formal peace treaty ending the 1950-53 Korean War – but only after North Korea dismantles its weapons programme.
"When they move forward on presenting a verifiable and complete dismantling and complete denuclearisation, we'd have a great openness to working with them," she said.
Under a landmark deal in 2007 with the United States, China, South Korea, Japan and Russia, North Korea agreed to eliminate its nuclear programme in exchange for aid and promised diplomatic concessions.
The talks stalled late last year when North Korea objected to demands for external inspections aimed at verifying disarmament.
Chinese agenda
In Indonesia, Clinton is expected to announce she will attend the annual meeting of foreign ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) in Thailand later this year.
She is also expected to declare the administration's intention to sign the association's Treaty of Amity and Cooperation, which the previous Bush administration had declined to do.
On her final stop in China, talks are expected to focus on the global economic crisis, climate change and clean energy, North Korea and health issues.
Human rights groups have expressed worries that their concerns appear to have been sidelined by the Obama administration.
Clinton has not said whether she plans to meet any human rights activists during her stay in Beijing, but said she would attend a town hall-style meeting and a church where the subject might be raised.
"We're not going to be shying away from talking about human rights issues, but we have a very broad agenda to deal with when it comes to dealing with China," she said.

Branding experts say Hillarys Smart Power slogan is just plain dumb

Washington, Jan 24 : Secretary of State Hillary Clintons description of her approach to diplomacy, Smart Power, is just plain dumb, marketing professionals have said.

The catchphrase is unclear and ripe for misinterpretation; FOX News quoted a group of experts, as saying.
Clinton, who was sworn in as Secretary of State on Wednesday, defined smart power at her Senate confirmation hearing as using the full range of tools available to the United States, including diplomatic, economic, military, political, legal and cultural tools.

Essentially, smart power is just more evidence of how bad the communication coaching Hillary gets and probably cost her the (presidential) campaign, said Rob Frankel, a branding expert and author of The Revenge of Brand X.

Frankel praised the concept, but slammed the execution.

The execution is where Hillary traditionally falls on her face. And whoever is advising her should be soundly whipped, he said.

Alan Siegel, founder and head of Siegel + Gale, a brand consultancy, described Smart Power as an unfortunate choice of words.


I dont think its good to say youre smart. I think its smarmy. Clinton should have used words like intelligent or sensitive instead, he said.

I think that Hillary Clinton is a really smart, articulate woman and I think she’’s going to be a good Secretary of State, but I dont think what we need now is more slogans. …

To say smart power is ridiculous, Siegel said. But Joseph Nye, the Harvard professor who coined the phrase, batted away the criticism.

To talk about international affairs and not talk about power is like to going to Shakespeare to see Hamlet and not have the prince of Denmark present, said Nye, who authored Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics.