US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was headed to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) yesterday to target an epidemic of sexual assault in the violence-torn nation after wrapping up a trip to Angola where she pushed democratic reform and trade.
Clinton was scheduled to leave Angola after signing a new agreement with health officials to fight HIV/AIDS and meeting Angolan President Eduardo dos Santos, who has ruled for 30 years and has been criticized for postponing a presidential vote scheduled for this year.
In the Congolese capital of Kinshasa, she will visit a hospital founded by former NBA star Dikembe Mutumbo, a native of Congo, and hold a town hall meeting. Today she is to travel to the east of the country to meet victims of rapes and other sexual crimes.
While in the eastern city of Goma, Clinton also plans to meet Congolese President Joseph Kabila to press his government on democratic reform and fighting corruption in the wake of a brutal conflict that at its height drew in a half dozen of the country’s neighbors.
She delivered a similar message in oil-rich Angola, which is struggling to rebuild after 27 years of war that ended in 2002.
On Sunday, she urged Angola’s government to build on successful legislative elections held last year — the first in 16 years — by holding presidential elections as soon as possible and dealing with the legacy of 27 years of civil war.
“We look forward to Angola building on this positive step, including the adoption of a new constitution, investigating and prosecuting past human rights abuses and holding a timely, free and fair presidential election,” she said.
“So, Mr. Minister, we have our work cut out for us,” she said.
Clinton stressed the need for greater accountability and transparency in Angola’s petroleum sector, particularly with revenue from exports, which account for nearly 60 percent of the country’s GDP, officials traveling with her said.
Clinton came to Luanda on the third leg of a seven-nation trip to reinforce the US’ presence in a country where it increasingly is competing for energy resources with China. However, she downplayed any concern about China’s activities in the country.
“I am not looking at what anyone else does in Angola,” Clinton said.
BEYOND WASHINGTON: Although historically the US has been the partner of choice for military exercises, Jakarta has been trying to diversify its partners, an analyst said Indonesia’s first joint military drills with Russia this week signal that new Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto would seek a bigger role for Jakarta on the world stage as part of a significant foreign policy shift, analysts said. Indonesia has long maintained a neutral foreign policy and refuses to take sides in the Russia-Ukraine conflict or US-China rivalry, but Prabowo has called for stronger ties with Moscow despite Western pressure on Jakarta. “It is part of a broader agenda to elevate ties with whomever it may be, regardless of their geopolitical bloc, as long as there is a benefit for Indonesia,” said Pieter
US ELECTION: Polls show that the result is likely to be historically tight. However, a recent Iowa poll showed Harris winning the state that Trump won in 2016 and 2020 US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris courted voters angered by the Gaza war while former US President and Republican candidate Donald Trump doubled down on violent rhetoric with a comment about journalists being shot as the tense US election campaign entered its final hours. The Democratic vice president and the Republican former president frantically blitzed several swing states as they tried to win over the last holdouts with less than 36 hours left until polls open on election day today. Trump predicted a “landslide,” while Harris told a raucous rally in must-win Michigan that “we have momentum — it’s
CARGO PLANE VECTOR: Officials said they believe that attacks involving incendiary devices on planes was the work of Russia’s military intelligence agency the GRU Western security officials suspect Russian intelligence was behind a plot to put incendiary devices in packages on cargo planes headed to North America, including one that caught fire at a courier hub in Germany and another that ignited in a warehouse in England. Poland last month said that it had arrested four people suspected to be linked to a foreign intelligence operation that carried out sabotage and was searching for two others. Lithuania’s prosecutor general Nida Grunskiene on Tuesday said that there were an unspecified number of people detained in several countries, offering no elaboration. The events come as Western officials say
TIGHT CAMPAIGN: Although Harris got a boost from an Iowa poll, neither candidate had a margin greater than three points in any of the US’ seven battleground states US Vice President Kamala Harris made a surprise appearance on Saturday Night Live (SNL) in the final days before the election, as she and former US president and Republican presidential nominees make a frantic last push to win over voters in a historically close campaign. The first lines Harris spoke as she sat across from Maya Rudolph, their outfits identical, was drowned out by cheers from the audience. “It is nice to see you Kamala,” Harris told Rudolph with a broad grin she kept throughout the sketch. “And I’m just here to remind you, you got this.” In sync, the two said supporters