It’s Tuesday…*UPDATED*
So here’s the schedule (subject to change):
7:45 a.m. Secretary Clinton meets with Vice President Biden
10:15 a.m. Secretary Clinton holds a Town Hall Meeting with Department of State Employees Marking One Year at State
11:30 a.m. Secretary Clinton meets with Senator Jim Webb of Virginia, at the Department of State.
4:00 p.m. Secretary Clinton meets with Kurdistan Regional Government President Masoud Barzani, at the Department of State.PM Secretary Clinton departs for Foreign Travel.
**Don’t forget tomorrow evening Tavis Smiley Reports is airing it’s special on Secretary Clinton- check your local listings for times. Tomorrow is also the State of the Union so not sure if PBS will be showing that live (ie. pre-empting the show) or not. I hope not.
UPDATE: For those who have asked about Secretary Clinton’s upcoming travels, she is off to London and Paris:
Navigate:
Secretary of State Clinton will travel to London and Paris from January 26 to 29, 2010, the State Department announced.
Last week, when the White House announced that Obama’s State of the Union address would be January 27, diplomats said they were no longer sure if Clinton would attend the Yemen meeting in London.
But now it’s been decided that she will be at least one cabinet official not in the Capitol when Obama gives his address.
“In London, Secretary Clinton will attend a ministerial meeting on Yemen on January 27 and the International Conference on Afghanistan on January 28,” State Department spokesman PJ Crowley said in a statement.
Hill sources said the State Department had insisted they call the London gathering on Yemen a “meeting” and not a “conference” — as the Afghanistan part of the London foreign ministerial is called. The linguistic choice was apparently meant to signify Yemen shouldn’t be expecting a donors’ conference.
“The goal of the Yemen meeting is to consolidate international support for Yemen, coordinate assistance efforts, and reach agreement on assisting Yemen in its political and economic reform efforts,” the statement continued. “The objective of the London Conference on Afghanistan is to demonstrate the international community’s support for Afghanistan’s future and the agenda outlined by President Karzai in his November 19 inauguration speech. The meetings will focus on the implementation of our strategy in support of Afghanistan’s security, governance and development, and improved international civilian coordination.”
In Paris, Clinton will give a speech on European security…
And someone mentioned Ireland in the comments, so here is an update on that:
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton may need to be called in to rescue power-sharing negotiations in Northern Ireland, Sinn Fein says.
Sinn Fein minister Conor Murphy said Tuesday talks with the Democratic Unionist Party on transferring Ulster policing powers from London to Belfast have bogged down and Clinton may need to intervene to save Northern Ireland’s power-sharing institutions, The Times of London reported.
“Certainly the Americans are keeping a very close watching brief on this,” Murphy said. “I know she (Clinton) has spoken to people involved. This needs to be sorted out within hours, not days.”
The Times cited sources from Clinton’s office as confirming she had been in touch with those involved in the negotiations.
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Wait, so she’s traveling and she won’t be present at the SOTU? Does this mean that she’s ‘the one’–the member of the cabinet that isn’t there, in case something bad happens?
…oh, the logic my brain comes up with.
I would want her to be the one not there in case anything happened..for SO many reasons, lol.
Exactly. I like my Secretary of State in one piece, thank you. And if anyone in the cabinet is fit to take over in the case of an emergency, it’s her.
Yeap she won’t be there. Not sure if he will have someone else not there either. But Hillary wont be there.
Departs for foreign travel? So she’s back from Montreal…and where is she going next? She has apparently become “involved” in Northern Irish peace talks, as opposed to just being on standby.
She is going to london and paris, to talk about Yemen.
Oh London! Maybe there’ll be time for an impromptu stop in Northern Ireland if things keep going badly over there. (I’m Irish..what can I say? I want her there as often as possible!lol)
Yup, Rachel’s right on. I just added an update about her upcoming travel to provide more specifics. Sorry I didn’t do that earlier.
Here ‘s a good piece about Hillary and Haiti — I love her comment at the end:
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2010/01/26/2185565.aspx
Stacy- did you see the controversy over China’s threats about U.S. arms sales to Taiwan? I know how much you love China
.
I was wondering what you thought.
Also, the Dalai Lama’s envoys are going to Beijing which I know you know about because I saw your tweet yesterday about it. Do you think Beijing is just going through the motions or do you think some sort of compromise is possible?
JohnJ- Yes, I saw the reports of China’s all too predictable hissy fit and it’s becoming beyond tiresome. China always accuses the US govt of interfering in it’s affairs and yet they seem to not realize that they do the exact same thing to us. We are a sovereign nation- we do not need Communist China’s permission to trade with other nations, irrespective of whether China believes said nations should be within their control or not. We also do not need China’s permission to invite whom we damn well please to the WH- Obama never should have caved on having his meeting with the Dalai Lama and by all accounts the Chinese weren’t even *expecting* him too. China’s definition of “interference” essentially boils down to any nation doing anything they don’t like. They are irrational in this regard and it’s a BIG mistake to accommodate some of these requests given we will likely get very little in return- and that is something I said WAY back in the beginning of this administration and sadly, it has turned out to be largely true.
Now, it would be unrealistic of me or anyone else to totally downplay the importance of the U.S. having good ties with China- for better or worse they play a prominent role in seemingly everything we do and as Secy Clinton said, we sink or swim together. But the fact is that China does not get to call all the shots irrespective of how much our debt they continue to buy because to allow them to do so does not serve our short or long term national interest. It also makes us look like a bunch of desperate wimps.
What drives-and I say this almost every time I post about China- is how we seem to enjoy this unequal bargaining power secondary to our economic dependence on China. I say that because there is absolutely no sign that the brain-trusts in Washington have any inclination to decrease our economic dependence on the Communist country. Sadly, I think greed is largely to blame- more and more jobs are being sent overseas, U.S. manufacturing has practically ceased to exist and we continue to jeopardize consumer safety by importing products made with little to no adherence to even the most basic environmental and safety safeguards. Nope, Big Business is addicted to buying China’s tainted products made via cheap, inhumane labor.
As for Beijing’s plans for Tibet I hate to be cynical but I think they are simply doing a PR campaign. I think they have every intention of waiting out the Dalai Lama with the understanding that he is elderly and will not live forever, at which time they will probably appoint their own puppet Dalai Lama which will likely lead to a Tibetan uprising resulting in massive blood shed (on the part of Tibetans). They have done this in the past with other Buddhist spiritual leaders going so far as to kidnap and imprison those they feel jeopardize the state’s ability to control every aspect of Tibetan life. Why do I think that? Because they have done it before- as you may know in 1995 the Communist government kidnapped the 8-year-old Panchen Lama, Gendun Choekyi Nyima, and he has never been seen since. Amnesty International says he was/is the world’s youngest political prisoner:
http://www.democracynow.org/2005/4/25/birthday_of_imprisoned_panchen_lama_the who has never been seen since
It’s an outrage that I wish the U.S. would remind itself of every now and again.
John, I bet that’s the last time you’ll ask me a question about China!!
How come Hillary was so tough on China during her campaign but now she’s not? Does she believe in anything or is it all just dependent on the political mood of the moment? That’s why no one ever believes anything the Clintons say- one minute they are for something, the next minute they are against it- NAFTA, gay marriage, human rights in China, immigration. It all depends on the latest poll.
She’s not the president, that’s why. Hillary works for Obama. What you should be comparing our current China policy to is what Obama said in the campaign.