It has become a recurring theme of US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s early travels as the chief diplomat of the US: She says that US policy on a given issue has failed and her foreign listeners fall all over themselves in gratitude.
On Friday, Clinton said in Santo Domingo that the uncompromising policy of the administration of former US president George W. Bush toward Cuba had not worked. That, she said, was why US President Barack Obama decided earlier this week to lift restrictions on travel and financial transfers for US residents with relatives in Cuba.
“We are continuing to look for productive ways forward, because we view the present policy as having failed,” Clinton said at a news conference in the sun-dappled capital of the Dominican Republic, hours before flying to join Obama at the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago.
The contrition tour goes beyond Latin America. In China, Clinton told audiences that the US must accept its responsibility as a leading emitter of greenhouse gases. In Indonesia, she said the American-backed policy of sanctions against Myanmar had not been effective. And in the Middle East, she pointed out that ostracizing the Iranian government had not persuaded it to give up its nuclear weapons ambitions.
Like other leaders around the world, Clinton’s host, Dominican Republic President Leonel Antonio Fernandez, responded effusively on Friday, hailing the secretary and her boss, Obama, for their view on Cuban policy, which he said took “great courage” and could utterly transform the political landscape of Latin America.
“President Obama is paving a new road,” he said. “It is recognition of the fact that previous policies have failed. Fifty years of a policy that has not generated the originally sought purposes can be called a failure.”
In fact, Clinton’s aides clarified, she was not condemning the half-century-old trade embargo against Cuba, which the Obama administration has not yet agreed to lift. Rather, her reference was to the strict travel and financial restrictions imposed by the Bush administration.
But it hardly seemed to matter. For a senior US official — someone who almost became president — to declare that the US had erred, makes a major impact on foreign audiences.
Clinton drew a similarly gratified response when she said in Mexico recently that the huge US appetite for drugs was fueling the booming narcotics trade in the region.
She repeated that message in the Dominican Republic on Friday, saying: “We acknowledge we have a responsibility, and we have to act in concert with you.”
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
RSS