Source: Associated Press
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton says she will attend a U.N. Security Council meeting Tuesday to lend her support to Syrians seeking democratic change.

This article titled “Gay rights must be criterion for US aid allocations, instructs Obama” was written by Karen McVeigh in New York, for The Guardian on Wednesday 7th December 2011 00.03 UTC

President Barack Obama has instructed officials to consider how countries treat their gay and lesbian populations when making decisions about allocating foreign aid.

In the first US government strategy to deal with human rights abuses against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) citizens abroad, a presidential memorandum issued on Tuesday instructs agencies to use foreign aid to promote such rights.

Gay and lesbian lobby groups have reported an increase in human rights abuses across Africa and parts of the Middle East.

Obama is among international leaders who have condemned a bill proposed in Uganda that would make some homosexual acts a crime punishable by death. The Ugandan parliament recently reopened debate on the bill, which had been abandoned after an international outcry.

In a speech in Geneva to mark international human rights day, secretary of state Hillary Clinton backed the presidential directive. “I am not saying that gay people can’t or don’t commit crimes,” she said. “They can and they do. Just like straight people. And when they do, they should be held accountable. But it should never be a crime to be gay.”

Clinton has called for greater protection of sexual minorities and the safety of those seeking asylum. In June, she welcomed a UN resolution on equal rights for all, regardless of sexual orientation.

Clinton compared the struggle for gay equality to difficult passages toward women’s rights and racial equality, and said a country’s cultural or religious traditions are no excuse for discrimination. “Gay rights are human rights, and human rights are gay rights,” she said.

Among US measures, the state department will lead a group to direct agencies to provide a “swift and meaningful” response to serious incidents that threaten the human rights of LGBT people abroad, Obama said. Agencies are directed to combat the criminalisation of LGBT status or conduct abroad, protect vulnerable LGBT refugees and asylum seekers, and engage international organisations in the fight against such discrimination. Agencies are instructed to report on progress within 180 days.

Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney argued gay rights should not be a test for US engagement abroad. “I will be looking at foreign aid, whether it meets our national security interests and, number two, whether these nations are friends of ours and are willing to be friendly with us in ways when it matters the most,” he said on Fox News.

The Texas governor, Rick Perry, went further. “Promoting special rights for gays in foreign countries is not in America’s interests and not worth a dime of taxpayers’ money,” a Perry campaign statement said.

It was unclear whether those countries that target and discriminate against gay and lesbians would have their funding cut.

The latest state department report cites countries including US allies such as Saudi Arabia as having human rights issues over treatment of homosexuals.

The UN Human Rights Council passed the resolution on equal rights for all by a narrow margin, despite strong objections from African and Muslim countries.

While the US, the EU and Brazil backed the effort, the move drew strong criticism from Russia, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, and Pakistan, among others.

In October this year, USAID made an announcement that it “strongly encourages” businesses contracted with USAID to go beyond mandatory non-discrimination protections, to prohibit job bias for LGBT employees and other workers.

Among the top 10 countries granted economic and military assistance from the US, according to USAID, are Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, Egypt Pakistan, Sudan, West Bank/Gaza, Ethiopia, Kenya and Columbia.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010

Source: CBS
During a visit to the Philippines, protesters targeted Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s motorcade, splattering the cars in paint.

Source: CBS
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday condemned Iran and called for tougher sanctions after a recently-discovered plan to assassinate Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States.

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This article titled “Pakistani PM: US promises not to repeat Bin Laden raid” was written by Julian Borger, diplomatic editor, for The Guardian on Thursday 21st July 2011 15.19 UTC

Pakistan’s prime minister, Yousuf Raza Gilani, says he has received US assurances there will be no repeat of the unilateral raid that killed Osama Bin Laden in May.

Gilani’s remarks, in an interview with the Guardian, contradict assertions by the US president, Barack Obama, and other American officials that US forces would take similar action against other al-Qaida leaders if necessary.

Gilani was speaking in London at a time when Pakistani relations with the west, particularly the US, are at a low in the wake of the raid on Bin Laden’s hideout in the Pakistani town of Abbottabad on 2 May.

After the special forces operation, US officials voiced suspicions that Bin Laden must have had a network of local supporters, possibly inside the Pakistani state, while Pakistani leaders were outraged not to have been consulted over the raid inside their territory.

“Since we were sharing information with US and there was a tremendous relationship with the CIA and ISI [Inter-Services Intelligence], therefore we could have done a joint operation in Abbottabad, but it didn’t happen. Therefore we had a lot of reservations,” Gilani said.

He added: “They have assured us in future there will be no unilateral actions in Pakistan, and there would be co-operation between both agencies.”

The Pakistani prime minister said he had received the assurance personally from the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton. In her public statements, however, Clinton has declared the US would strike unilaterally against other top militants if others did not.

She said in May: “We’ve made it clear to people around the world that if we locate someone who has been part of the al-Qaida leadership, then you get him or we will get him.”

Speaking to the BBC just before his visit to Britain the same month, Obama was equally blunt on the issue. He said: “We are very respectful of the sovereignty of Pakistan. But we cannot allow someone who is planning to kill our people or our allies’ people – we can’t allow those kind of active plans to come to fruition without us taking some action.”

On Thursday, however, Gilani said any repeat of the Abbottabad raid would be “totally unacceptable”.

“Public opinion would further aggravate against the United States and you cannot fight a war without the support of the masses. You need the masses to support military actions against militants,” he said.

He said another raid would damage “not only our relationship, but also our common objective, to fight against militants. We are fighting a war and if we fail that means that it’s not good for the world. We can’t afford losing.”

After the raid against Bin Laden, the Pakistani government said it had stopped the US launching drones from its territory in pursuit of militants in tribal areas. Nevertheless, drone strikes on the Pakistani side of the border with Afghanistan have continued.

“We don’t allow our bases to be used. They have other bases they use,” Gilani said. Asked where those bases were, he replied: “I don’t know. You ask the Americans. This is a question to put to them.”

The prime minister said: “Drone attacks are against our strategy too, because we have been isolating the militants from the local population and when there are drone attacks they get united again.”

Gilani deflected questions on some of the other irritants in US-Pakistan relations. On the allegation this month by the US chairman of the joint chief of staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, that the Pakistani government had “sanctioned” the killing of journalist Saleem Shahzad, the prime minister said Mullen should present his evidence to the inquiry into the killing. He said he was not aware if the American had done so.

On FBI allegations this week that the Pakistani military, including the ISI, had spent $4m (£2.4m) on trying to influence US policy on Kashmir in Pakistan’s favour, and the arrest of a Kashmir separatist lobbyist alleged to have been involved, Gilani claimed he was not sufficiently well informed to comment. “I have been travelling. I don’t have full information,” he said.

On Wednesday night, Gilani told an audience of British and Pakistani business leaders at a London hotel that his country’s most important foreign relationship was with China.

“China is a rising power and Pakistan’s all-weather friend. This is a relationship that has no parallel. Uniquely, there are no downs but only ups in Pakistan-China relations. China is a source of pride and strength for us,” Gilani said.

The emphasis on the Chinese relationship has been a Pakistani government theme since the raid on Abbottabad and the cutting of US aid to Pakistan, but Gilani denied Islamabad was playing one world power off against another.

“We want to have relationships with both China and the United States. We don’t want to lose our relationship with the United States. We want to improve our relationship with the US [on the basis of] mutual respect and mutual interest,” the prime minister said.

However, he made it clear there was some way to go before that state was achieved. “It will take some time,” he said. “There can’t be a quick fix.”

Amid near-constant sniping from Washington, Gilani’s government found support from General David Petraeus, the departing US commander in Afghanistan who is soon to become CIA chief.

“I do believe they want to eliminate the al-Qaida presence and I do believe they want to eliminate the Taliban Pakistani presence,” Petraeus told journalists in Paris.

According to Reuters news agency, he said “it is credible [Pakistan] did not know” Bin Laden was hiding in Abbottabad.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010

Barack Obama’s friend and domestic terrorist Bill Ayers is speaking again. Gird your loins.

Hillary Clinton declared on overseas television that the Obama administration “will be bringing” a lawsuit against Arizona over the state’s new immigration law.

We all knew sleazy ass Eric Holder was “considering” a lawsuit, but it sounds like now the decider has decided.

Joe Biden and his wife Jill made a surprise appearance on Oprah today and Jill let a little secret slip…

The wife of Vice President-elect Joe Biden let it slip to Oprah Winfrey Monday that her husband had a pick of two jobs in the Obama administration. Jill Biden said President-elect Barack Obama gave Biden the choice of being secretary of state or vice president. The vice president-elect tried to hush his wife as soon as the words came out of her mouth, with a loud “shhh!” that sent the audience into laughter.

Damn, I wonder if Hillary knew she only got her job because Joe didn’t want it. That’s cold.

The NY Times is confirming that Hillary Clinton has decided to accept the secretary of state position. Clinton allegedly came to her decision after additional discussions with Barack Obama about his foreign policy intentions and what her role would be in them.

I think Hillary is a fine choice for secretary of state. She’s a shrewd and calculating politician to be sure, but in the primaries she wasn’t a shrinking violet when it came to national security unlike the president-elect. Obama certainly could have done a lot worse than picking Hillary Clinton. He could have chosen a peacenik buffoon like Bill Richardson which would have been a disaster — so we lucked out.

I’ve been pleasantly surprised by Obama’s pragmatic choices for some of the most important cabinet positions. His decision to keep Gates as Sec. Def. was a fantastic choice.

I’m gonna continue to sleep with one eye open however, as we wait for our untested and unvetted new president to take office. Even though some of his cabinet picks have certainly been a relief, I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. There’s something loony and left-wing just around the corner — I just don’t know what it is yet.

-Chris Jones

The Guardian is reporting that Hillary Clinton will accept the Secretary of State position offered by president-elect Obama.

Hillary Clinton plans to accept the job of secretary of state offered by Barack Obama, who is reaching out to former rivals to build a broad coalition administration, the Guardian has learned.

I’m a little surprised that Hillary is actually going for it. She’s giving up the opportunity to make an impact on policy for decades to come as a powerful U.S. Senator.

Even though I disagree with her on pretty much everything, I think she’s a fine choice for Secretary of State. She’s certainly competent and well versed on the issues, and has a fine reputation overseas.

-Chris Jones