tagged w/ Hillary Clinton
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Shortly after Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak announced the appointment of a new Vice President, Omar Suleiman, on January 29, 2011, two of his bodyguards were killed in what was seen as an organized attack on Suleiman's motorcade. The news about this assassination attempt came to the forefront only yesterday, February 4, 2011. During a White House press conference, as journalists questioned White House Press Secretary Gibbs about the attempt, he declined to 'go there'.
But on Friday, US Press Secretary Clinton did not remain silent. According to Reuters, Mrs. Clinton said on Friday, during the Security Conference in Munich, that unconfirmed reports of an assassination attempt on Egypt's vice-president put into "sharp relief" the challenges of the standoff between government and protesters. This morning, Xinhua local media reported that Egyptian security officials denied a failed assassination attempt on Egypt's vice president.
Continue reading on Examiner.com: As Clinton talks about attempt on Suleiman, Egypt denies attack - National Foreign Policy | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/foreign-policy-in-national/as-clinton-talks-about-attempt-on-suleiman-egypt-denies-attack#ixzz1D67YNfOyShortly after Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak announced the appointment of a new Vice... more
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Dousing the importance of both the Egyptian Vice President and Prime Minister's speeches today, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke on national television a few minutes ago to reiterate that the violence and loss of life as witnessed by the world in Egypt is unacceptable. She strongly stated that the US was condemning the events that were being reported, such as aggression against reporters and peaceful demonstrators. She reminded the Egyptian government that peaceful demonstrations, freedom of speech and freedom of the press are pillars of a democratic regime. She called on the government to stop the violence.
How do we know Mubarak is responsible for the bloodshed?
Prior to the unleashing of so-called pro-Mubarak supporters in Cairo, the photos we received from all corners of Egypt did not show bloodshed. Even when we saw pictures of the Egyptian police early on, they refrained from their usual 'beatings' and eventually disappeared from the streets entirely.
Continue reading on Examiner.com: Hosni Mubarak directly responsible for deaths and wounded in Egypt clashes - National Foreign Policy | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/foreign-policy-in-national/hosni-mubarak-directly-responsible-for-deaths-and-wounded-egypt-clashes#ixzz1Cw1KFWnlDousing the importance of both the Egyptian Vice President and Prime Minister's... more
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Dousing the importance of both the Egyptian Vice President and Prime Minister's speeches today, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke on national television a few minutes ago to reiterate that the violence and loss of life as witnessed by the world in Egypt is unacceptable. She strongly stated that the US was condemning the events that were being reported, such as aggression against reporters and peaceful demonstrators. She reminded the Egyptian government that peaceful demonstrations, freedom of speech and freedom of the press are pillars of a democratic regime. She called on the government to stop the violence.
How do we know Mubarak is responsible for the bloodshed?
Prior to the unleashing of so-called pro-Mubarak supporters in Cairo, the photos we received from all corners of Egypt did not show bloodshed. Even when we saw pictures of the Egyptian police early on, they refrained from their usual 'beatings' and eventually disappeared from the streets entirely.
Continue reading on Examiner.com: Hosni Mubarak directly responsible for deaths and wounded in Egypt clashes - National Foreign Policy | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/foreign-policy-in-national/hosni-mubarak-directly-responsible-for-deaths-and-wounded-egypt-clashes#ixzz1Cw1KFWnlDousing the importance of both the Egyptian Vice President and Prime Minister's... more
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The bros check in on the Egyptian revolution.
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On Monday, January 31, 2011, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called for an unprecedented ambassador meeting comprising of U.S. envoys to 180 countries, nearly all of America's 260 embassies, to discuss the year's foreign policy priorities in Washington DC. Officials indicate that this is the first global meeting of this kind.
On the agenda, according to reports in the Associated Press, are topics such as Wikileaks and Egypt.
Clinton expects to also meet personally with ambassadors to Middle Eastern countries to talk about the situation in Egypt.
Continue reading on Examiner.com: Secretary of State Clinton wants global gathering of ambassadors - National Foreign Policy | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/foreign-policy-in-national/secretary-of-state-clinton-wants-global-gathering-of-ambassadors#ixzz1CdV7ZFHaOn Monday, January 31, 2011, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called for... more
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Egypt is a key ally of the US in the Middle East.
In the presence of Jordan's foreign minister on Wednesday, Secretary of State Clinton issued a message to President Mubarak, suggesting that his government should take immediate action if it wanted to avoid an outcome similar to that of Tunisia, where a popular uprising unseated the country's dictator, Zine al-Abedine Ben Al, on January 14, 2011.
Mrs. Clinton urged Mubarak and his government not to disrupt social networking sites which help organize peaceful protests, and not to crack down on peaceful demonstrations. It would appear that the Egyptian government is tone deaf to this request, as well as similar requests which have come from the European Union
Continue reading on Examiner.com: US admin urges Mubarak to make political reforms - National Foreign Policy | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/foreign-policy-in-national/us-admin-urges-mubarak-to-make-political-reforms#ixzz1CBSMCGVNEgypt is a key ally of the US in the Middle East.
In the presence of Jordan's... more
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Zionists rejoice!
Israel investigates itself and finds that it acted in accordance with international law.
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday expressed his satisfaction with the findings of Turkel Commission, which probed the Israel Defense Forces raid on a Gaza-bound ship last May and found that Israeli soldiers acted in accordance with international law during the operation.
"The truth is simple," said Netanyahu. "IDF soldiers defended themselves and their country. It is not only their privilege but also their duty and the State of Israel stands behind their actions."Zionists rejoice!
Israel investigates itself and finds that it acted in accordance... more
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US Secretary Of State Hillary Clinton fell on her face while boarding a flight to Oman.
As airline staff leapt in to help her, the lights in the boarding area were switched off to protect her modesty.
Too late!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFSvVN_ndUcUS Secretary Of State Hillary Clinton fell on her face while boarding a flight to... more
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richjm
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Top 50 Most Popular Women On Internet.No surprise to anyone is Lady Gaga making the list as the top buzzed about female for 2010. Kim Kardashian is number 23 on the list which is quite a shocker.Top 50 Most Popular Women On Internet.No surprise to anyone is Lady Gaga making the... more
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kamoo
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The US State Department is offering $30 million to fund projects fostering “freedom of expression and the free flow of information on the Internet and other connection technologies in East Asia, including China,” and in other regions, particularly the Near East. From Ars Technica:
Need to get around a Chinese government firewall? Burning to smuggle your samizdat writings past Iranian Internet censorship? Hoping to blog with impunity in Burma? Uncle Sam wants to help. The US government has a $30 million pot of money to spend on “Internet freedom” programs around the world, and it’s not afraid to make a few enemies.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last year gave a major speech on Internet freedom and the new “Information Curtain” of censorship that has fallen in some parts of the world. In that speech, she said that State would support development of tools that can bypass Internet censorship. She also outlined a program in which State would fund mobile phone apps that allow people to rate government ministries on responsiveness and efficiency and that can ferret out corruption through crowdsourcing. The hardware is already in the wild, she said; all what’s needed is some money to make it worth developers’ time.
This year, State has $30 million for such projects, and it’s asking interested parties to apply for the cash. Top on its list of wants: “counter-censorship technology” that can bypass firewalls and filters. Such tools may be general (like Tor) or can be specific to individual governments. China and Iran can probably look forward to some US-funded encryption and circumvention tools coming their way in the near future.
The grants are available to nonprofit organisations and universities unaffiliated with designated terrorist organizations or, presumably, with Wikileaks.
GO TO STORY:
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2011/01/us-offers-30-million-to-scale-the-great-firewall/The US State Department is offering $30 million to fund projects fostering... more
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It is disappointing to see the same president who ran on his constitutional law professor bona fides devote so much time and effort to discrediting WikiLeaks and working up charges against its founder, Julian Assange. WikiLeaks, like the New York Times before it with the publication of the Pentagon Papers, has committed no crime. If the law of the land holds true, the administration will get nowhere with the foolish notion that Assange can be tried for conspiracy under the Espionage Act for doing what major media outlets do every day: publishing classified information about the government. The claim that somehow WikiLeaks is different because it allegedly encouraged sources to come forward is a red herring: even if the charge proves true, this is what journalists at every major media outlet in the country do every day.
Still, we wonder at those who assert that the cables "demonstrate no misconduct by the U.S." (Floyd Abrams) or "provide very little evidence of double-dealing or bad faith in U.S. foreign policy" (Gideon Rachman). In fact, the U.S. Embassy cables, like the Pentagon Papers, show our government involved in systemic wrongdoing and wide scale deception. They present irrefutable evidence that this administration and its predecessor have been tampering with other countries' legal systems to prevent prosecutions against government employees for committing human rights abuses and transgressing international law under often-secret post 9/11 policies.
This April 1, 2009 cable reveals the U.S. trying to derail the prosecution of the senior architects of the Bush administration's torture program in Spain. The U.S. frets that "The fact that this complaint targets former Administration legal officials may reflect a 'stepping-stone' strategy designed to pave the way for complaints against even more senior officials." When it looks to Chief Prosecutor Javier Zaragoza to stall or derail the proceedings, he reassures them: while "in all likelihood he would have no option but to open a case" he does not "envision indictments or arrest warrants in the near future." (Untrue, by the way. Zaragoza and the U.S. may have succeeded in stalling the investigation, but this week CCR will take the next steps toward encouraging the judge assigned to the case to move forward despite the failure of the U.S. to respond to his inquiries.)
This February 6, 2007 cable shows the previous administration trying to prevent Germany from prosecuting the 13 CIA agents who abducted German citizen Khaled el-Marsi and flew him to Afghanistan for interrogation as part of the U.S. "extraordinary rendition" program--only to discover after many months that they had the wrong man. In public, Angela Merkel's office called for an investigation while Munich prosecutors issued arrest warrants for the agents. In private, the German Justice Ministry and Foreign Ministry reassured an anxious US that they were not interested in pursuing the case.
Like the NYT when it published the Pentagon Papers, WikiLeaks has been accused of irresponsibly dumping a large cache of top secret documents into the public domain that compromise the safety of our country and our allies. In fact, despite the hysterical claims of a variety of elected officials, there's been absolutely no documentation of any resulting harm, unless one counts the embarrassment of having Russian Premier Minister Vladimir Putin make fun of U.S. officials for trying to suppress free speech. WikiLeaks has only released 1,974 of the 251,287 cables in its possession, and none were classified as "top secret" (over half were not subject to classification at all). Finally, while its offer to go over redactions with the State Department prior to publication was ignored, the five major newspapers that have been publishing the cables have gone to great lengths to communicate with each other and the State Department regarding redactions.
Our government, as journalist and constitutional lawyer Glenn Greenwald has noted, increasingly wishes to operate through a one-way mirror where all of its citizens' activities are open for surveillance while the activities of the government itself increasingly take place behind a wall of executive privilege, untouchable even by judicial oversight. But democracy demands the cleansing light of openness as a guard against the abuses of power. We should thank WikiLeaks for shedding light on governmental wrongdoing. Now let us hope that the U.S. public, as well as its politicians and media, will consider investigating these abuses at least as important as maligning the messenger.
Vince Warren is the Executive Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights
To Go To Article:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/vincent-warren/wikileaks-and-democracy_b_805498.htmlIt is disappointing to see the same president who ran on his constitutional law... more
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1. The leak and its consequences. When WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange called my cellphone on a Friday afternoon in November, I could barely hear him. The conversation, held amid the usual tumult of Rome's airport on a weekend, was strangely short. Assange talked slowly, making sure to pronounce each word carefully, his deep, almost baritone voice, reducing itself almost to a whisper at the end of each sentence. A few moments before the conversation, I had noticed how the Italian police seemed particularly interested in the little luggage that I was carrying, and that as the phone had rung, they were examining the cloth that I had used to wipe the screen of my iPad. Were they looking for drugs, or explosives, or both?
La noticia en otros webs
webs en español
en otros idiomas
The powerful machinery of the state is designed to suppress the flow of truth and keep secrets secret
It may yet emerge that the US Embassy in Madrid broke the law in pursuing its interests
Assange, as far as I could tell at that time, was willing to give EL PAÍS access to 250,000 cablegrams sent between the US State Department and its embassies in around 30 countries, garnered as a result of the largest leak of secret documents in history. When we talked again, two days later, this time in much greater depth, the full magnitude of the undertaking that has become known as "cablegate" began to make itself clear. At the same time, I began to realize the repercussions that publishing the material would have on US foreign policy, as well as on the reputation of the US government; that of its allies; its enemies; for the future of journalism; and on the debate regarding freedom of information in Western democracies.
Nearly a month after The Guardian, The New York Times, Le Monde, Der Spiegel, and EL PAÍS began publishing the leaked information, we can draw at least one initial conclusion. Rather than sparking an acute state of supranational security crisis, as predicted by some observers, Washington and Europe's political elites have reacted with a mixture of irritation and embarrassed annoyance that is extremely informative as to the true scope and meaning of the WikiLeaks documents.
Before a single line had been published, there had been a barrage of public and private admonishment, with grave warnings emanating from Washington about irresponsibility and illegality. Editors involved in the project were told that publishing the material in our power - both the stories written by our reporters and the cables they were based on - would endanger dozens of lives, ruin diplomatic efforts in the fight against global terrorism and irrevocably weaken the international coalition led by the United States by exposing its allies to such embarrassing situations that it would hinder or prevent future cooperation.
I was far from surprised when US President Barack Obama described the leaks as deplorable, and much less when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton repeated his condemnation, using almost the same words, at the press conference she held in Washington to condemn WikiLeaks and express her regret at the decision by the five newspapers concerned to ignore the pleas of her government not to publish. What the material soon revealed confirmed the State Department's worst fears, and triggered bitter complaints by diplomats worldwide. Not only were reprehensible actions and orders exposed; the cables also provided ample evidence of the doublespeak engaged in by Washington's allies on a range of topics.
2. America, just doing its job. I don't have the details at hand right now, but it seems clear that the US Administration soon concluded that its initial strategy of condemning the publication of confidential information and predicting diplomatic apocalypse, was not having the desired result. So a new, very different strategy was crafted that soon found its way into countless editorials and opinion pieces in major newspapers, magazines and television networks in the US and elsewhere.
This new spin, endorsed mainly by conservative media outlets, showed that rather than being duplicitous, US diplomats are unafraid to criticize the governments of the countries they are based in, and highly skilled at dealing with wily foreign leaders.
Rather than showcasing Washington's failures, the leaked cables show that in private, officials actually live up to the same high-minded principles proclaimed in public. In short, the United States shows greater regard for international security than for its own interests.
In the case of Spain, the homegrown version of this spin in much of the media was that the leaked cables are of little value, telling us nothing that we didn't already know, and thus not worth reporting on. This approach was picked up on by radio and television commentators and chat shows, where journalists would sit around dismissing the content of the cables, playing down their likely impact, and ignoring, either through sheer laziness - or for political reasons - the mounting tide of interest that the leaked documents were creating both at home and around the world.
3. CLICK HERE TO GO TO FULL SYORY
http://www.elpais.com/articulo/english/Why/PAIS/chose/to/publish/the/leaks/elpepueng/20101223elpeng_3/Ten1. The leak and its consequences. When WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange called my... more
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by Sunny
3rd January, 2011 at 10:30 am
The US government is stepping up security in Afghanistan to stop smuggling, after WikiLeaks cables embarrassingly showed that millions of dollars were leaving the country by nefarious means.
According to a secret cable released by WikiLeaks, Ahmed Zia Massoud, a former Afghan vice president, visited the United Arab Emirates last year carrying $52 million in cash. Mr. Massoud has denied the report. Beyond the flow of money to Dubai, millions of dollars more are believed to be smuggled through border crossings, and American officials fear at least some of the money is being funneled to Afghan insurgents taking shelter in Pakistan’s tribal regions.
You’d think right-wingers in the US would be happy that someone is exposing their tax dollars being wasted, no? But that’s not even the big story….
The big story is that the New York Times has gone through the cables to expose this:
To a greater degree than previously known, diplomats are a big part of the sales force, according to hundreds of cables released by WikiLeaks, which describe politicking and cajoling at the highest levels. It is not surprising that the United States helps American companies doing business abroad, given that each sale is worth thousands of jobs and that their foreign competitors do the same. But like the other WikiLeaks cables, these offer a remarkably detailed look at what had previously been only glimpsed — in this case, the sales war between American diplomats and their European counterparts.
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The documents also suggest that demands for bribes, or at least payment to suspicious intermediaries who offer to serve as “agents,” still take place. Boeing says it is committed to avoiding any such corrupt practices.
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King Abdullah II of Jordan, a longtime ally and recipient of billions of dollars in United States aid, told the ambassador in 2004 that “even though the latest Airbus offer was better than Boeing’s he intended to make a ‘political’ decision to have Royal Jordanian buy Boeing aircraft,” a State Department cable said, although the United States still had to help Boeing secure the deal.
It looks like the deals are quite cosy. Billion of dollars in ‘aid’ from the US government goes to dictators, who then use the money to buy expensive planes from US companies, with complete support and ‘perks’ from the US state department and senior diplomats. That keeps the dictators in business and human rights abuses swept under the carpet, and keeps American jobs subsidised by the US taxpayer. It also makes big corporations like Boeing and Airbus lots of money, and keeps the diplomatic oils greased.
The best defense of WikiLeakse so far comes from the Spanish paper El Pais itself, which has published this brilliant editorial.
The Spanish on why Freedom of Speech & Press is so Important. // Current http://ow.ly/3xuQH
No really – read the whole thing – it comprehensively destroys the naysayers, smear-merchants and useful-idiots who wanted to keep this all a secret.
A key paragraph:
Political classes on both sides of the Atlantic convey a simple message that is tailored to their advantage: trust us, don’t try to reveal our secrets; in exchange, we offer you security.
But just how much security do they really offer in exchange for this moral blackmail? Little or none, since we face the sad paradox that this is the same political elite that was incapable of properly supervising the international financial system, whose implosion triggered the biggest crisis since 1929, ruining entire countries and condemning millions of workers to unemployment and poverty. These are the same people responsible for the deteriorating quality of life of their populations, the uncertain future of the euro, the lack of a viable European project and the global governance crisis that has gripped the world in recent years, and which elites in Washington and Brussels are not oblivious to. I doubt that keeping embassy secrets under wraps is any kind of guarantee of better diplomacy or that such an approach offers us better answers to the problems we face.
I bet most of 2011 is going to be dominated by WikiLeaks related controversies.
For Full story: http://www.pickledpolitics.com/archives/11290by Sunny
3rd January, 2011 at 10:30 am
The US government is stepping up... more
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2010 can be defined as the year of WikiLeaks. The whisteblowing website first made headlines around the world in April when it released a video of a U.S. helicopter gunship indiscriminately firing on Iraqi civilians killing 12 people, including two Reuters news staff. In July, WikiLeaks created a bigger firestorm when it published more than 90,000 classified U.S. military war logs of the war in Afghanistan. Then in October, WikiLeaks published some 390,000 classified U.S. documents on the war in Iraq—the largest intelligence leak in U.S. history and the greatest internal account of any war on public record. And in November WikiLeaks began releasing a giant trove of confidential State Department cables that sent shockwaves through the global diplomatic establishment. Throughout it all, WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange were targeted by the U.S. and other governments around the world. We play our interviews with Assange and with Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg.
CLICK ON THE LINK BELOW TO GO TO THE VIDEO:
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/12/31/julian_assange_on_wikileaks_war_and?sms_ss=email&at_xt=4d1e25d016b1f1e4%2C02010 can be defined as the year of WikiLeaks. The whisteblowing website first made... more
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The former United States ambassador to France suggested "moving to retaliation" against France and the European Union (EU) in late 2007 to fight a French ban on Monsanto's genetically modified (GM) corn and changes in European policy toward biotech crops, according to a cable released by WikiLeaks on Sunday.
Former Ambassador Craig Stapleton was concerned about France's decision to suspend cultivation of Monsanto's MON-810 corn and warned that a new French environmental review standard could spread anti-biotech policy across the EU.
"Country team Paris recommends that we calibrate a target retaliation list that causes some pain across the EU since this is a collective responsibility, but that also focuses in part on the worst culprits," Stapleton wrote to diplomatic colleagues.
President George W. Bush appointed Stapleton as ambassador to France in 2005, and in 2009, Stapleton left the office and became an owner of the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team. Bush and Stapleton co-owned the Texas Rangers during the 1990s.
Monsanto is based in St. Louis.
The EU's 1998 approval of MON-810 corn has since expired. In recent years, several European countries joined France in banning MON-810 and similar biotech crops while the products are reassessed in light of research showing they could harm the environment and human health.
It is not clear if Stapleton's retaliation scheme was ever implemented.
"In our view, Europe is moving backwards not forwards on this issue with France playing a leading role, along with Austria, Italy and even the Commission ... Moving to retaliation will make clear that the current path has real costs to EU interests and could help strengthen European pro-biotech voices," Stapleton wrote.
MON-810 is engineered to excrete the Bt toxin, which is poisonous to some insect pests. A stacked version of MON-810 is also engineered to be resistant to glyphosate, a herbicide first popularized by Monsanto under the brand name Roundup.
The debate in France over Monsanto's GM products has grown ugly in recent years.
A recent Truthout report detailed the story of Dr. Gilles-Eric Seralini, a scientist at the University of Caen in France. Seralini's supporters claim the scientist has faced intimidation from within the French scientific community after he published several studies showing Monsanto GM corn and glyphosate posed risks to human health.The former United States ambassador to France suggested "moving to... more
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Richard Holbrooke, U.S. Special Rep. for Afghanistan and Pakistan, has died, a senior administration official confirms.
Holbrooke dies days after heart surgery
From Jill Dougherty and Elise Labott, CNN
December 13, 2010 7:47 p.m. EST
U.S. diplomat Richard Holbrooke is "a towering figure in American foreign policy," President Barack Obama says.
Washington (CNN) -- U.S. diplomat Richard Holbrooke has died, a senior administration official told CNN Monday evening.
Holbrooke had undergone surgery in the past three days to repair a tear in his aorta, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Monday.
"He had a very serious medical emergency on Friday," Clinton said at a news conference in Quebec, Canada, with foreign ministers from Canada and Mexico. "He has received excellent care including many hours of surgery in the last three days. He is stable but still in very critical condition."
Earlier, a State Department official said Holbrooke was "absolutely fighting in an unbelievable way." Holbrooke remains unconscious after an additional procedure to aid circulation following the initial surgery on his aorta, the main artery of the body, the State Department said.
At a holiday reception for U.S. diplomats later Monday, President Barack Obama praised Holbrooke as "simply one of the giants of American foreign policy" who has served the nation "with distinction for nearly 50 years," including his work in negotiating the 1995 Dayton Accords that ended the Bosnian war in the former Yugoslavia.
"As anyone who has ever worked with him knows -- or had the clear disadvantage of negotiating across the table from him -- Richard is relentless," Obama said. "He never stops. He never quits. Because he's always believed that if we stay focused, if we act on our mutual interests, that progress is possible. Wars can end. Peace can be forged."
Holbrooke in critical condition
The president said he and his family were praying for Holbrooke's recovery, "and I know that everyone here joins me when I say that America is more secure -- and the world is a safer place -- because of" his work.
"And he is a tough son of a gun, so we are confident that, as hard as this is, that he is going to be putting up a tremendous fight," Obama said.
Holbrooke, the special U.S. representative on Afghanistan and Pakistan, is getting "fantastic care" at George Washington University Hospital, the State Department official said.
It is the same hospital where Ronald Reagan was taken after being shot in 1981. Holbrooke was taken there Friday after feeling ill at the State Department.
Clinton expressed appreciation for what she called an outpouring of concern and support from "presidents, prime ministers, foreign ministers" who have called the State Department since news of Holbrooke's illness broke.
His surgeon continues to meet with the family to gives frequent updates, and Holbrooke "is receiving great support from a broad and growing community of family and friends," the State Department official said.
"It's remarkable how many messages of support (his wife, Kati Marton) and the family keep receiving from all corners: foreign ministers and ambassadors from around the world, President (Bill) Clinton, senators and congressmen, colleagues from this Af/Pak job, from Vietnam, from the Balkans, from the U.N., from the private sector," the official said.
Clinton and Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen have visited the hospital numerous times, according to the State Department source, who said: "They've each come three times, informally chatting with family members, friends and staffers, and really helping to buoy the assembled."
The State Department also said Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari called Holbrooke's wife Sunday morning.
Zardari told CNN's Reza Sayah that Holbrooke is a "fighter." He said he told Holbrooke's wife to be "brave."
"I'm sure he will fight for his life, and he will come out of it," Zardari said.
Asked to reflect on Holbrooke's impact on the Pakistani region, Zardari called him an "extremely hard-working man" who can "get things done which would otherwise take weeks to get through."
http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/12/13/holbrooke.illness/index.html?hpt=T1&iref=BN1Richard Holbrooke, U.S. Special Rep. for Afghanistan and Pakistan, has died, a senior... more
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Ms Clinton expressed concern about China’s economic rise and asked Mr Rudd: “How do you deal toughly with your banker?”
Mr Rudd responded by saying that China needed to be integrated into the international community, but that countries should be prepared to deploy force if everything goes wrong.
Mr Rudd told Ms Clinton that Australia’s intelligence community was keeping a close watch on China’s growing military power.Ms Clinton expressed concern about China’s economic rise and asked Mr Rudd:... more
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I was wondering how long it would take for Hugo Chavez to crawl out of his digs and make some pronouncement about the recent diplomatic cable leaks. As a matter of fact, I was reading more of the cables this morning regarding Argentina, the dynamics of the presidency held by both husband and wife, and the reaction of the State Department to Nestor Kirchner's death. Apparently, Hillary Clinton was concerned as to how Cristina Kirchner was holding up from a mental standpoint, and if she was on any medication to help her cope.
Chavez certainly picked up on this as well, as he suggested in Venezuela's El Universal that Hillary Clinton needed to have her head examined. He appeared on VTV, most likely the only channel left that he hasn't shut down, to criticize the United States, and congratulate WikiLeaks, which he said have demonstrated 'valor'.
As far as he's concerned, the United States doesn't really care much about the leaks one way or the other, but for its allies, he seemed to marvel at the amount of 'spying' that was done. He urged the US Secretary of State to resign in light of the magnitude of the revelations.I was wondering how long it would take for Hugo Chavez to crawl out of his digs and... more
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Brother Buzz watches the news about WikiLeaks.
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The U.S. and Washington hold grave fears about the security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons and Arab leaders are privately urging an attack on Iran, according to reports based on classified U.S. embassy cables leaked to major media news organizations by the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks.
The first tranche of more than 250,000 classified cables also says American officials were also told to spy on the United Nations’ leadership and get biometric information on its secretary general Ban Ki-moon.
These revelations alone would be likely to reverberate around the world. But the secret dispatches, which were obtained by WikiLeaks also reveal Washington’s evaluation of many other highly sensitive international issues.
These include a shift in relations between China and North Korea, high-level concerns over Pakistan’s growing instability, and details of clandestine U.S. efforts to combat al-Qaida in Yemen.
The UK’s The Guardian also reports U.S. diplomats had been ordered by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to spy on allies, including the UN. Top secret cables revealed that Mrs Clinton even ordered diplomats to obtain DNA data – including iris scans and fingerprints – as well as credit card and frequent flier numbers.
All permanent members of the security council – including Russia, China, France and the UK – were targeted by the secret spying mission, as well as the Secretary General of the UN, Ban Ki-Moon.
Work schedules, email addresses, fax numbers, website identifiers and mobile numbers were also demanded by Washington. The US also wanted ‘biographic and biometric information on UN Security Council permanent representatives.’
The request could break international law and threatens to derail any trust between the U.S. and other powerful nations.
More: http://www.theblogismine.com/2010/11/29/wikileaks-saudi-arabia-asked-the-united-states-to-bomb-iran/The U.S. and Washington hold grave fears about the security of Pakistan’s... more
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