Heard Around the Hillary-Sphere

Here are some news stories which directly and indirectly relate to our Secretary of State:

On our diplomatic relations with Russia:

It looks like Hillary has undone the damage that Joe “I think out loud” Biden’s statements were in danger of doing with respect to our diplomatic relationship with Russia:

Russia is no longer concerned about the remarks from US Vice President Joe Biden, who said that the Russian economy would be “withering.” The Kremlin believed US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who said that Washington considered Russia “a great power.”

Joe Biden criticized Russia in his recent interview with The Wall Street Journal. The statements, which he released, produced an impression as if Moscow and Washington did not even intend to reset the relations between the two countries. Biden particularly stated that the economic crisis would gradually weaken Moscow, and Russia would eventually be forced to make serious concessions to the West.

It later turned out that the White House did not support Biden’s remarks. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs stated that the US administration was greatly interested in resetting the relations with Russia. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in her interview with the WSJ that every country faces its own problems.

“Now every country faces challenges… The Russians know we have continuing questions about some of their policies and they have continuing questions about some of ours,” Clinton said.

The Secretary of State added that Washington had never considered itself the one in charge as far as the USA’s relations with Moscow were concerned.

“Mrs. Clinton calmed us down,” a Kremlin source told RIA Novosti news agency Wednesday.

Kremlin’s spokesman Sergei Prikhodko wondered after the publication of the controversial interview with Mr. Biden, who was shaping the US foreign policy – the president or the members of his team. Now it seems that the situation has been made clear, and Moscow tends to trust Clinton more than Biden…

On the seemingly never-ending crisis in Honduras:

A key U.S. senator asked the Obama administration on Thursday to explain in detail its policy on the Honduran political crisis, warning that otherwise Senate confirmation may be delayed for a U.S. diplomatic nominee for Latin America.

“The complexity of events that led up to the Honduran crisis has given rise to questions regarding U.S. policy,” Senator Richard Lugar, one of the Senate’s most respected voices on foreign policy, wrote to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The United States has refused to recognize the Honduran government led by Roberto Micheletti, which took over the Central American nation after President Manuel Zelaya was ousted by the Honduran military on June 28.

Lugar told Clinton he shared her support for mediation by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias in the month-old dispute over whether Zelaya should be allowed to return to his post.

But he also appealed to the State Department to provide a detailed clarification of U.S. policy to “interested Members” — an apparent reference to several of his fellow Republicans, who charge Washington is trying to reinstate a left-wing government in Honduras…

On Secretary Clinton handling the N. Ireland portfolio, en toto:

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said that she plans to use the power of her office to actively assist the peace process for the foreseeable future.

Making her first public comments since speculation emerged last week that she would take the post of Special Envoy to Northern Ireland, Mrs Clinton said that she has “spent many years in this — on this issue. I care deeply about the outcome”.

“I know the players. I stayed closely in touch with them when I was in the Senate so I’ve made it clear that I and my team are on call to help in any way we can, as the continuing decisions have to be made to realise the full benefits of a Northern Ireland at peace and moving toward the kind of prosperity they’re looking for,” she said.

Mrs Clinton said that the progress made since the Good Friday Agreement was forged means that the special envoy role has changed dramatically from the days when her husband first appointed George Mitchell to the post.

[snip]

Mrs Clinton said that, despite the fact that she is overseeing special envoys to the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well on-going diplomacy with India, Russia and China, “this is one that we’re going to really keep a close eye on”.

“I’ve been in consultations with representatives of the Irish government, the British Government, the Northern Ireland leadership, and we’re going to be as helpful as we can,” she said.

Asked why she wanted to be involved in Northern Ireland given the many other more pressing global issues at hand, she said: “I think that this one issue has had so much work already done that having a specific person outside of government assigned to it didn’t make, to me, as much sense as me and my team, people who work on European affairs who have the responsibility for Ireland and the UK, who are involved in a day-to-day way with furthering our goals in Europe, and myself — that we’d be the ones to take stewardship over this.”

There has been a lot of buzz in the US and international media about Secretary Clinton’s upcoming trip to key states in Africa, including the troubled Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC):

Clinton will travel to Goma, a city flooded with refugees since the 1994 genocide in neighboring Rwanda, as part of her seven-nation tour starting next week, said Johnnie Carson, the assistant secretary of state for Africa.

Clinton will meet with some victims of sexual violence, which has soared since the government launched an offensive against rebels in January.

“The secretary is deeply concerned about the gender-based violence which is occurring in the eastern Congo,” Carson said.

Clinton “will underscore America’s commitment to try to end this gender-based violence and will meet with some of the victims who have suffered from it,” he said.

The United Nations says nearly 3,500 women have been raped – with perpetrators from both sides of the conflict – since the start of the year.

Secretary Clinton and President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia, April 21, 2009(Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

And along those lines, I ran across more commentary about the heart-breaking story of alleged gang rape tearing apart a town in Arizona with a large, tight-knit Liberian community- this is from CNN and quotes Liberia’s current President, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf (who met with Secretary Clinton at the State Dept. months ago), who has made it a cornerstone of her work as President, to crack down on sexual violence in Liberia:

The allegation is shocking: an 8-year-old girl lured to a storage shed with the promise of chewing gum, pinned down and sexually assaulted by four boys, none of them older than 14.

[snip]

The prosecutor who charged the four boys called the crime “heartrending” and “deeply disturbing.” But to those familiar with Liberia, the west African nation where the families of all of the children are from, the crime and response are both part of a sadly familiar story.

“It’s something that happens every day in every community in Liberia,” said Tania Bernath, a researcher for the human rights group Amnesty International.

The country was racked by a brutal civil war for most of 14 years. During that time, rape was used by fighters on all sides as a tool of war and a way to spread terror and demoralize enemies.

A United Nations report in 2004, the year after much of the fighting stopped, estimated that 60 to 70 percent of all women in the nation had been the victims of sexual violence.

A 2006 government report said that of 1,600 women surveyed, 92 percent reported some kind of sexual violence, including rape.

“They would have cases where they would rape the wife in front of the husband — things like that, really breaking down communities,” said Bernath, who spent several years in Liberia working for a relief organization.

[snip]

In 2005, Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf became Africa’s first elected female head of state.

Shortly afterward, the country enacted a law making rape a crime for the first time. Before that, only gang rape had been explicitly outlawed, and advocates say anarchy in the country meant any law added to the books during the civil war wouldn’t have been enforced anyway.

Johnson-Sirleaf has made cracking down on rape and changing attitudes about it a top priority. She condemned the alleged attack in Phoenix and said defending rape is not a part of the nation’s culture.

“Those parents should know that things have changed in Liberia,” she told CNN last week. “No longer do we tolerate this. This is not a question of shame on the family. It’s a question of the assault of a young child, and that cannot be tolerated.”[emphasis added]

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