If she felt so inclined, Hillary Clinton could probably take it easy in Africa this week. That's what the numbers seem to imply, anyway. U.S. leaders enjoy some of their highest job performance ratings there, up even further from their dizzying heights during the Bush administration, according to a Gallup poll released Monday.

In Kenya, for example, where she kicks off her seven-country tour of the continent on Wednesday, 93 percent of the population approves of U.S. leadership. That's up from 82 percent last year. Among the seven countries surveyed, the median approval rating sits happily at 87 percent, up from 80 percent last year.

Not surprisingly, a lot of that has to do with Clinton's boss. Africans are enormously excited about the Obama presidency. Obama earned himself even more good will with his recent stop in Ghana. And the fact that Clinton's trip this week is the longest she's taken since assuming her diplomatic post earns the administration even more brownie points.

But even with all that good cheer in the air, Clinton is in for a bumpy ride - and that's largely her own doing. The itinerary she designed has her engaging with a paralyzed unity government (Kenya), sitting down with the transitional government of a failed state (Somalia), advising the recalcitrant next-door neighbor of another hot zone (South Africa, regarding Zimbabwe), putting a spotlight on gender violence (Congo), and tackling oil politics in the Pakistan of Africa (Nigeria). "It's a pretty substantive trip. This is not a happy-talk-cakewalk kind of trip. It's a heavy lift," says Stephen Morrison, a vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "Goma's a s--hole ... [and] going to Nigeria at this moment is pretty gritty."

Why has she signed herself up for all this trouble? First and foremost, it's to prove she's got the chops. Africa is strategically important these days, both at home and abroad, so staking out a prominent space in the decision-making apparatus is key. It matters within the administration, which Obama has filled with Africa hands. Plus, it matters in a geopolitical sense: China's making inroads, AfriCom's still setting up shop, major foreign assistance funds are flowing, and - perhaps, most importantly - the U.S. gets more oil there than it does from the Middle East. Clinton has good reason to dig in now if she wants to be a player in the game going forward. And Hillary Clinton is not one to shirk a challenge like that.

By Katie Paul, Newsweek, August 04, 2009

NAIROBI, Kenya - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has arrived in Kenya on the first leg of a seven-nation tour of Africa.

Clinton flew Tuesday to Nairobi while her husband, former President Bill Clinton, was meeting with North Korean officials in Pyongyang in an effort to free two journalists imprisoned by the regime. She did not comment on her husband's trip when she arrived shortly after 11:30 a.m. EDT.

In Africa, Clinton will address an African trade forum, meet top Kenyan officials and pledge continuing support to the beleaguered president of Somalia's shaky interim government. From Kenya, Clinton will travel to South Africa, Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Liberia and Cape Verde.

By MATTHEW LEE, The Associated Press, August 4, 2009

NAIROBI, Kenya - The U.S. strongly criticized Kenya on Tuesday just hours before U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's arrived, saying the country should form an independent tribunal following last year's post-election violence.

The U.S. said Kenya's decision to instead use discredited local courts to try the suspects behind the violence that left more than 1,000 people dead will call into question whether there is any will to carry out reforms.

"The United States will stand firmly behind the Kenyan people as they insist on full implementation of the reform agenda," said the statement released through the U.S. Embassy here. "We will take the necessary steps to hold accountable those who do not support the reform agenda or who support violence."

Clinton is on an 11-day Africa tour and will meet with Kenya's President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga during her visit there.

Kenya, the homeland of U.S. President Barack Obama's late father, is struggling to overcome political and tribal divisions laid bare after disputed December 2007 presidential elections.

The Kenyan government last week decided to try the suspects in local courts who are accused of perpetrating the violence.

Its courts, though, have a backlog of hundreds of thousands of cases and have a reputation for corruption. The government said it will accelerate reforms in the judiciary to ensure credible trials.

The decision to use local courts already has drawn heavy criticism locally.

The government-appointed human rights body called the Cabinet's decision "preposterous." The National Council of Churches of Kenya, an influential umbrella body of Protestant churches, expressed shock at the decision and called on Kibaki and Odinga to resign.

The violence came after rival campaigns disputed the results of the December 2007 presidential election. Several human rights bodies blamed businessmen and politicians in the current administration for orchestrating the violence, which was the worst since Kenya gained independence from Britain in 1963.

An independent commission that investigated the violence recommended last year that the government form an independent tribunal with Kenyan and foreign judges to try the suspects, arguing that Kenyan courts are not credible.

The commission also drew up a secret list of the suspected key perpetrators, which has been given to the Hague-based International Criminal Court.

By TOM MALITI, The Associated Press, August 4, 2009

WASHINGTON - Bill Clinton's North Korean negotiations cast fresh light on a Byzantine, mysterious power that Americans may never fully understand.

The Clintons.

Sure, North Korea is a complicated place, too.

But the history of Bill and Hillary Clinton - their partnership, their marriage, their way of one stepping forward while the other steps back - is lined with mazes worthy of the family franchise that rules in Pyongyang.

Bill Clinton brought some unusual strengths to a round of diplomacy that won the release of two U.S. journalists Tuesday: the cachet of a two-term presidency, a keen understanding of Asia, a history of North Korean outreach and smackdowns, and a gift for gab. Not to mention a wife who is secretary of state.

His drawbacks - that short fuse and oversized ego - were unlikely to be risks in this episode. In high-stakes diplomacy, some things are decided before anything is negotiated, and it was all but certain going in that Clinton would not be empty-handed coming out.

Old entanglements were in play. Clinton negotiated on behalf of journalists employed by Al Gore, his former vice president, in a media enterprise Gore started after losing a presidential election he might have won absent Clinton's impeachment scandal.

He negotiated for the benefit of President Barack Obama, the man who dashed his wife's White House hopes.

Clinton succeeded in the mission at hand: pardons for journalists sentenced to 12 years of hard labor for illegally entering North Korea.

There is a larger picture: North Korea's defiant expansion of its nuclear program and test-firing of ballistic missiles in violation of U.N. resolutions. The U.S. is simultaneously seeking punishment of North Korea and its cooperation, a dicey balance.

Enter Clinton, greeted warmly and with fanfare Tuesday in that hostile land. North Korea described the talks as "exhaustive," without saying what subjects besides the two journalists might have been discussed.

Whether by happenstance or design, he traveled there while his wife was in Kenya on a seven-nation African tour.

For the moment, he was the one stepping forward, overshadowing her, in familiar tag-team fashion.

The last time Hillary Rodham Clinton gave her husband a mission, the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination she was initially favored to win, it did not turn out well. His loose-cannon exasperation rubbed nerves raw as Obama powered past the power couple to defeat her in the primaries and win the presidency.

In the White House, Bill Clinton's main mission with his wife, health care reform, failed so profoundly in his first year that he wouldn't touch it again for the next seven years and Democrats dropped universal coverage from presidential politics until its comeback in 2008.

Otherwise, it's been a partnership of achievement and resilience, shaken but not broken by the searing scandal arising from his sexual misbehavior with Monica Lewinsky.

He was once so deeply in the doghouse that Buddy the dog was the only family member who wanted to be around him, Hillary Clinton said.

In short order, he was back in the thick of their shared ambitions, helping her to become senator from New York.

Now she and he are in the service of her former rival, through her job and his freelance diplomacy.

When Bill "Gimme a break" Clinton called candidate Obama's Iraq war position a "fairy tale" and complained that Obama "put out a hit job on me," senior Democrats worried about party unity, and the former president's future as an elder statesman seemed in doubt.

This week's surprise trip was his first with implications for Obama since Clinton's wife became the administration's chief diplomat.

He was uniquely positioned for it as the only recent president who had considered visiting North Korea while in office, and one who had sent his secretary of state, Madeleine Albright. That made him a desirable guest in Pyongyang.

He traveled as an unofficial envoy, with approval and coordination from the administration.

The backchannel genesis of the mission was not immediately clear, whether Obama called on him, North Korea asked for him or his wife suggested him.

In any event, score one for the tag team.

By CALVIN WOODWARD, The Associated Press, August 4, 2009

NAIROBI, Kenya - Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton says the two journalists released from North Korea are "extremely excited" to be on their way back to the United States.

Clinton told reporters in Nairobi that she had spoken with her husband, former President Bill Clinton, who traveled to Pyongyang to secure the release of the journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee. The ex-president and the journalists were flying back to Los Angeles on Wednesday morning.

Hillary Clinton said she was "very happy and relieved" that the women are on their way home. She told reporters she would have more to say about her husband's mission to North Korea after Ling and Lee are reunited with their families.

The Associated Press, August 4, 2009

NAIROBI, Kenya - Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's first full day in Africa, like much of the rest of her seven-nation tour, was supposed to be about bolstering trade and friendship with important allies.

But wherever Mrs. Clinton turned during her visit to Kenya, she kept bumping into the country's combustible politics.

In the morning, she delivered a lengthy policy sppech about America's new approach to aid in Africa, saying the United States wanted to channel more development dollars to agriculture and infrastructure and bolster support for African entrepreneurs.

"We want to be your partner, not your patron," she said.

But as soon as she finished, Kenya's prime minister, Raila Odinga, took the lectern and made not-so-vague references to the bloody political crisis that convulsed Kenya last year and cost him the job that many people here believe was rightly his.

"In Africa, in many countries, elections are never won, they are rigged," Mr. Odinga said, drawing a long, uncomfortable laugh.

He then cracked a grin, paused for a moment, and went on to introduce the man widely accused of stealing the election from him, Kenya's president, Mwai Kibaki.

Some of the headlines greeting Mrs. Clinton that morning raised the issue even more squarely, focusing on the pressure America has put on Kenya to set up a special tribunal to try the perpetrators of the election-driven bloodshed last year, in which more than 1,000 people were killed.

"Clinton Lands as U.S. Breathes Fire," one said. "Quit Lecturing Africa on Politics, Says Raila," another said.

Despite the insistence of its own citizens and Western donors, the Kenyan government has rejected a separate tribunal, saying it will try perpetrators through its existing institutions, which are notoriously corrupt and ineffective.

"We are waiting; we are disappointed," Mrs. Clinton said at a news conference.

This may be a theme of her Africa mission: how to use the United States' enormous leverage on the continent to hold African leaders accountable for the reforms their own people are urging, while still trying to come across as a friend.

Mrs. Clinton's next stops - South Africa, Angola, Congo and Nigeria - are countries that are both friendly and at times prickly. They admire the United States as a bastion of prosperity and opportunity, but resent neocolonialism and being told what to do.

In Africa, Mrs. Clinton and the United States find themselves trying to squeeze between recalcitrant leaders and a populace eager for change and often in harmony with American values. Analysts say that with billions of dollars in foreign aid, a legacy of involvement in Africa and a new president of Kenyan heritage, the United States is positioned, possibly more than ever, to play a guiding role in Africa. But it is often a delicate balancing act, and as Kenya showed, it can get awkward.

Later Wednesday, Mrs. Clinton toured an agricultural research center with William Samoei Ruto, Kenya's agriculture minister, by her side. Mr. Ruto delivered a velvety smooth, 10-minute speech, packed with facts and figures, all without glancing at any notes.

But Mr. Ruto is also one of the prime suspects in the post-election violence, a divisive figure considered by many Kenyans to be an ethnic warlord. Kenyan human rights groups recently named him as a suspect who could be hauled off to the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Many of the veteran American diplomats aware of Mr. Ruto's reputation in Kenya were uneasy about the apparent chumminess on display, especially in front of a bank of television cameras.

"There was a lot of back and forth about his participation today, for all the obvious reasons," one American diplomat confided on the condition of anonymity.

But at the end of the afternoon, Mrs. Clinton stood with Mr. Ruto on a small stage bathed in the warm equatorial sun. Mr. Ruto cast her a smile and said: "Almost 50 percent of my senior staff have been trained courtesy of the United States government. It's only myself who hasn't been trained in the U.S."

Mrs. Clinton beamed back. "There's still time, minister," she said, and rubbed him jovially on the back.

No issue in Kenya is trickier - and potentially more violent - than the question of what to do about Mr. Ruto and others suspected of perpetrating the post-election violence. Kenyan human rights groups and Western diplomats say that unless Kenya ends its long culture of impunity, the ethnic and political tensions that tore this country apart last year will explode during the next major election, in 2012.

But trouble could come sooner. Ethnic militias are already rearming themselves in the hinterland, and as some Kenyans say, there is not so much peace right now as a cease-fire.

Mrs. Clinton hinted at the complexities on Wednesday. "I know this is not easy," she said at a news conference. "How do you go about prosecuting the perpetrators without engendering more violence?"

But when asked what specific actions the American government would take if the Kenyan government failed to prosecute the killers in last year's mayhem - sanctions? travel bans? a reduction in aid? - Mrs. Clinton said only that "we believe this is an issue best handled by the Kenyans themselves."

WASHINGTON - Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's seven-nation tour of Africa seeks to affirm a commitment by the Obama administration to tackle trouble spots from Somalia and Zimbabwe to the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Liberia.

Clinton kicked off the 11-day trip - her longest overseas journey to date as the top U.S. diplomat - by flying Monday night to Kenya where she will address an African trade and development forum, meet top Kenyan officials and see the beleaguered president of lawless Somalia's interim government.

Kenya, the homeland of President Barack Obama's late father, is struggling to overcome political and tribal divisions laid bare in early 2008 after disputed elections between the incumbent President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga.

Obama, on a visit to Kenya in 2006, had urged Kenyans not to let those differences mar their democratic development, and U.S. officials say Clinton will repeat that message with Kibaki and Odinga, who became prime minister in a power-sharing deal that ended the crisis.

Officials say she will also offer U.S. support to Somali President Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, whose embattled government is trying to face down Islamist extremists accused of links with al-Qaida who threaten to destabilize the Horn of Africa region.

"We think that the problems in southern Somalia have started to bleed regionally and internationally," the top U.S. diplomat for Africa, Johnnie Carson, said last week. He noted that violence in Somalia, which has not had a functioning central authority since 1991, has led to an exodus of refugees that has strained the capacity of its neighbors, notably Kenya.

Clinton then travels to South Africa, where she will urge President Jacob Zuma's government to do more to press neighboring Zimbabwe, in the throes of economic crisis, to fully implement a political pact between President Robert Mugabe and former opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai.

In Pretoria, Johannesburg and Capetown, Clinton will also underscore the importance of efforts to combat HIV/AIDS and pledge continuing U.S. backing for health care initiatives in Africa, some of which have been led by her husband's private foundation.

Clinton will then visit oil-rich Angola, one of southern Africa's largest energy producers and a major supplier of crude and national gas to the U.S. market. Angola has in recent years been courted by China, and Clinton's trip there is intended to strengthen its ties with the U.S.

From Angola, Clinton heads to the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has been wracked by violence since genocidal forces from Rwanda fled into its eastern mountains 15 years ago. At its height, the conflict involved half a dozen of the country's neighbors.

While a 2003 peace deal reduced the fighting, the army and rebel groups continue to attack villages and mutilate and kill civilians, often using rape as a weapon of war. Clinton will visit Goma in eastern Congo and press Congolese authorities and a U.N. peacekeeping force there to step up efforts to end the epidemic of gender-based violence.

After Congo, the secretary will move on to Nigeria, another major U.S. energy supplier that has been struggling with rampant corruption. Last week's violence between police and an Islamist sect killed more than 700 people.

Clinton plans to address both issues in Abuja, where she will also discuss the importance of good governance and praise Nigeria's role as a leader and major troop contributor to regional and U.N. peacekeeping missions.

In Liberia, which is recovering from 20 years of civil strife, Clinton will show U.S. support for President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the only female African president, and offer backing for development and security reform.

Clinton's last stop will be Cape Verde, a group of nine small islands off Senegal with a population of less than half a million that is often hailed as a success story for African democracy despite its lack of natural resources.

By MATTHEW LEE, The Associated Press, August 3, 2009

BAGHDAD, Aug. 3 -- Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday that she was "concerned" about three Americans detained in Iran and that the United States had not received any information from Iran about their fate since they crossed into the country from northern Iraq last week.

Clinton's statement came after the head of the Iranian parliament's foreign policy committee, Alaeddin Boroujerdi, confirmed the arrest of the Americans on Sunday, according to Iranian television. Iran's Arabic-language network said in a news bulletin on Monday, quoting Iraqi police sources, that the Americans were "CIA agents." The Iranian government, however, did not immediately endorse that claim.

Officials in northern Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region identified the three as hikers and said that they were lost and entered Iran while on an excursion in a mountainous area along the border. They also said that border guards had warned them not to proceed because the border in that area is not clearly marked.

"Obviously, we are concerned," Clinton told reporters at the State Department. "We want this matter brought to a resolution as soon as possible. And we call on the Iranian government to help us determine the whereabouts of the three missing Americans and return them as quickly as possible."

Clinton said that the Swiss ambassador in Iran, who represents American interests there, is seeking information about the three. Tehran and Washington broke off diplomatic ties in 1979.

Kurdish authorities identified the Americans as Shane Bauer, Sarah Shourd and Joshua Fattal. The three had called a friend, Shon Meckfessel, who had stayed in a hotel in Sulaymaniyah, the region's second-largest city, because he was feeling sick. They told him that Iranian border guards were surrounding them. They have not been heard from since.

Kurdish officials said the Americans told them they were journalists. Shourd has written for Brave New Traveler, an online travel magazine. On the magazine's Web site, she identifies herself as a "teacher-activist-writer from California currently based in the Middle East." Bauer, of Minnesota, is a Middle East correspondent for New American Media and has written for other publications, including the Nation magazine.

Bauer's mother, Cindy Hickey of Pine City, Minn., and Fattal's mother, Laura Fattal of Elkins Park, Pa., both said in brief statements that they were concerned about the group's welfare and safety.

The Kurdish government said that it would soon meet for a second time with Iranian representatives to discuss the fate of the Americans and to seek their release.

By Nada Bakri, The Washington Post, August 4, 2009

NAIROBI, Kenya - Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton arrived in Kenya on Tuesday night at the beginning of an 11-day Africa tour and at a time when the American government is getting increasingly fed up with Kenya's leaders.

Mrs. Clinton was whisked from the airport to her hotel in downtown Nairobi, which was under intense security by soldiers wearing bulletproof vests and enormous men wearing earpieces.

Her trip takes her through seven African nations, from Kenya to Cape Verde, and focuses on good government, trade and the bolstering of food security, all priorities that President Obama forcefully laid out during his quick visit to Ghana last month. She will meet with important commercial allies, including Angola and Nigeria, which export billions of dollars worth of oil to the United States. She will also wade into conflict zones like Congo, which continues to suffer and smolder from a decade-long civil war.

But the first stop will not be easy. Mrs. Clinton is ostensibly in Kenya to address the eighth annual forum on the African Growth and Opportunity Act, a piece of trade legislation that her husband, Bill Clinton, passed when he was president.

But she will inevitably be drawn into Kenya's latest political crisis: what to do about the perpetrators of last year's election-driven bloodshed. And more trouble may be brewing. Kenya faces a punishing drought, a food crisis, power cuts and ethnic militias mobilizing in the countryside, getting ready for a possible Round 2.

Last week, Kenya's leaders decided to scuttle efforts to set up a special tribunal for the organizers and financiers of the election violence, which killed more than 1,000 people, putting forward a vague pledge to try perpetrators within existing institutions instead.

Some of the top suspects are high-ranking ministers, who are reluctant to set in motion any process that might put them behind bars. Many Kenyans are now calling their government of national unity the "government of national impunity." Western nations, especially the United States, are losing patience, but at the same time, Kenya's leaders seem to be getting annoyed by all the outside advice.

"The United States is deeply concerned by the coalition government's decision that appears to indicate it will not pursue establishment of an independent special tribunal to hold accountable perpetrators of postelection violence," the American Embassy said Tuesday. "Failure by Kenya to take ownership of the process of accountability at all levels will call into serious question whether the political will exists to carry out fundamental reforms."

Last year, it was Mrs. Clinton's predecessor, Condoleezza Rice, who applied the 11th-hour pressure on Kenya's warring politicians and got them to sign a power-sharing agreement.

But on Tuesday, Kenya's prime minister, Raila Odinga, blasted back and said at the trade conference, "We don't need another lecture."

He also blamed Western countries for creating Africa's problems in the first place, saying many of the modern-day ills stemmed directly from colonialism.

NAIROBI, Kenya - Somalia's beleaguered transitional government received desperately needed support on Thursday as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton praised its president as "the best hope we've had for some time," then strongly warned Eritrea to stop supporting insurgents in the country.

Mrs. Clinton met with Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, elected Somalia's president in January, for more than an hour. She promised more aid, training and equipment, in addition to the millions of dollars' worth of weapons the United States has recently shipped to his government.

"We need to be there to help them deliver the results of stability to the people of Somalia, who have suffered for so long," Mrs. Clinton said.

Sheik Sharif can use the help. His moderate Islamist government controls no more than a few city blocks in a country the size of Texas, with extremist Islamist groups, like the Shabab, in charge of much of the rest.

Mrs. Clinton said the battle for Somalia, which has been the lawless home to Islamist extremists, terrorists, gun runners, drug smugglers, teenage gunmen and even modern-day pirates for the past 18 years, is deeply connected to American interests.

"No doubt that Al Shabab wants to obtain control over Somalia and use it as a base to influence and infiltrate surrounding countries," she said. "If Al Shabab were to obtain a haven in Somalia which could then attract Al Qaeda and other terrorist actors, it would be a threat to the United States."

Thursday was the second full day of Mrs. Clinton's seven-nation African tour, intended to shore up support for America's allies on the continent and to give Mrs. Clinton, who has played a relatively subdued role early in the Obama administration, an opportunity to put her stamp on American foreign policy.

She warned of unspecified consequences for Eritrea if it continued what she said was its support for Al Shabab and its efforts to destabilize Somalia. "It's long past time for Eritrea to cease and desist its support for Al Shabab," she said. "We intend to take action if they do not cease."

American leaders have made this threat before, though usually not in such direct language. Eritrea continues to deny any links to Somali militants, though that is hard to verify, as Eritrea is a highly secretive, tightly controlled nation with few allies.

Sheik Sharif seemed to bask in the attention. He stood riveted at a lectern next to Mrs. Clinton at an end-of-the-day news conference, wearing a crisp blue suit, an Islamic prayer hat and a lapel pin of joined Somali and American flags.

Before saying goodbye, he vigorously shook Mrs. Clinton's hand - which caught the eye of one Somali journalist, who asked the president if that was religiously forbidden.

"No, no," Sheik Sharif said and flashed a nervous grin. "Next question?"

American officials are clearly hoping that Sheik Sharif, a former religious teacher who rose to popularity in Somalia by helping rescue kidnapped children, will emerge as the man who can finally put this bullet-pocked country back together.

An aide to Mrs. Clinton described him as "intelligent, thoughtful and honest."

The aide, who was not authorized to speak publicly, said that Sheik Sharif's greatest strength was, in a way, also his greatest weakness.

"He's not a warlord," the aide said. "So he's had to work harder to bring together a security force. But he's shown the ability to lead. And he's shown the ability to survive."

Mrs. Clinton's trip has been the usual mix of meetings, speeches and quick, tightly scripted visits with everyday people. On Thursday morning, she toured the site where the American Embassy to Kenya was destroyed in 1998 by a huge truck bomb, in an attack later claimed by Al Qaeda. The attack leveled several buildings in downtown Nairobi, killing more than 200 people and wounding thousands, mostly impoverished Kenyans. Many people were blinded by flying glass.

Mrs. Clinton quietly laid a wreath at the foot of a plaque commemorating the people killed that day, and she told a group of Kenyan survivors, including an old blind man leaning on a cane, "We will continue to work with you." Many victims have complained that the United States abandoned them after the attack.

One boy, Michael Macharia, 14, trailed closely behind Mrs. Clinton for most of her visit to the bomb site. Both his parents were working in the same building that day and were killed together when the bomb exploded. Mrs. Clinton said that Michael, who is being raised by his grandparents, was doing well in school and that she would tell President Obama about "his incredible character."

Michael bowed his head bashfully, and later, when asked how it felt to be recognized by the American secretary of state, said, "It's good."

Mrs. Clinton, seeming to grow increasingly frustrated with Kenya's leaders, said that if the Kenyan government refused to set up a tribunal to prosecute the perpetrators of last year's election-driven bloodshed, the International Criminal Court at The Hague would get involved.

"I have urged that the Kenyan government find the way forward themselves," she said. "But if not, then the names turned over to the I.C.C. will be opened, and an investigation will begin."

In July, Kofi Annan, the former United Nations secretary general, handed a sealed envelope with a list of prime suspects to the International Criminal Court. The court has also recently threatened to intervene if Kenyan leaders decide to continue the country's stubborn history of impunity.

More than 1,000 people were killed around the country when the disputed December 2007 presidential election set off ethnic and political fighting. Initially, much of the violence seemed like spontaneous outrage vented along ethnic lines, though later it became evident that it had been at least partly organized by local leaders and village elders, and possibly by higher authorities.

By Jeffrey Gettleman, The New York Times, August 6, 2009

MOGADISHU, Somalia - Somalia's president on Tuesday described his upcoming meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton as a "golden chance" for his war-torn country.

Clinton kicked off an 11-day Africa trip - her longest overseas journey to date as the top U.S. diplomat - by flying to Kenya where she was expected to arrive Tuesday and address an African trade and development forum.

Later in the week Clinton will meet with Somali President Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed and officials have said she will pledge more U.S. assistance, including military aid.

"My government considers the meeting with the U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as a golden chance for the Somali people and government," Ahmed told journalists before departing for neighboring Kenya where the meeting will take place.

"It signals how the American government, the Obama administration and the international community are willing to support Somalia this time," said the president, referring to past pledges of support that have not materialized.

Many nations that have pledged money or other support to Somalia have been wary to give it because the country has been mired in anarchy and chaos since warlords overthrew longtime dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991 and then turned on each other.

The lawlessness also has allowed Somali pirates to flourish, making the nation the world's worst piracy hotspot.

Some of the aid to the Somali government is channeled through the U.N. Development Program that administers programs to train government officials, among other things.

Ahmed's shaky government is fighting Islamist extremists, who have been trying to overthrow the Somali government for 2 1/2 years. In May, there was an upsurge of violence that saw up to 200 civilians killed.

Ahmed, a moderate Islamic leader, was part of the Islamic group trying to overthrow the government but became president in January 2009 under an intricate peace deal that the United Nations mediated.

Over the weekend, U.S. officials said the Obama administration plans to go ahead with additional weapons supplies to double an initial provision of 40 tons of arms. The U.S. also has begun a low-profile mission to help train Somali security forces in Djibouti, which neighbors Somalia, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivities surrounding U.S. involvement in the program.

In April, the U.S. and other western nations pledged more than $250 million to strengthen Somalia's security forces. The package pledged included funding for military equipment and material as well as development aid.

By Matthew Lee and Lolita C. Baldor, The Associated Press, August 4, 2009

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton yesterday appealed to Iran for information on three Americans believed to have been arrested after entering Iran by mistake while on a hiking trip in neighboring Iraq.

"As of a few hours ago, we did not yet have official confirmation that the Iranian government or an instrument of the Iranian government were holding the three missing Americans," Clinton told reporters in Washington. "We asked our Swiss partners . . . to please pursue our inquiries."

The three have been identified by friends and relatives as Joshua Fattal, who grew up in Elkins Park; Shane Bauer, a freelance journalist and photographer; and Sarah Shourd, a writer for online publications, including Brave New Traveler.

A Kurdish official in Iraq has said the three contacted a colleague to say they had entered Iran by mistake on Friday and were surrounded by troops. Iran's state television said the three were arrested after they did not heed warnings from Iranian border guards.

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters that the Swiss ambassador in Tehran met with Iranian officials Sunday. The Iranians told the Swiss that they could not confirm the detention of the Americans, Crowley said. Switzerland represents U.S. interests in Iran.

Fattal's father, Jacob, told the Associated Press yesterday that he did not have any updates from the State Department about his son. "All we care about is the well-being of Josh and his two hiker friends," he said.

Joshua Fattal, 27, a 2000 graduate of Cheltenham High School, spent three years recently living with Aprovecho, a group dedicated to sustainable farming, near Cottage Grove, Ore. He lived with about nine others and worked as the group's intern coordinator before leaving about eight months ago, according to Jason Brown, who now holds Fattal's job.

From January to June, Fattal traveled overseas as a teaching assistant with the Boston-based International Honors Program, visiting Switzerland, India, South Africa, and China on a global ecology program. Fattal was in the program during college, said Joan Tiffany, president of the honors program.

"He's a very thoughtful, caring person, soft-spoken, smart, bright. Has lots of travel experience, and is someone that I would expect to be an experienced camper," Tiffany said.

Bauer and Shourd had been living in the San Francisco Bay area.

Bauer, a freelance writer, planned to spend a week covering the Kurdish elections in Iraq.

In an e-mail, Bauer told Pacific News Service executive director Sandy Close that he wanted to "feel out the situation there and get some ideas for deeper stories."

Close said Bauer had gone backpacking with his girlfriend Shourd in a popular tourist area. Close said she doubted that Bauer would have deliberately tried to enter Iran.

"He did not express any interest in going to Iran. He did not speak Farsi, his passion was Arabic," she said.

Bauer's mother, Cindy Hickey of Pine City, Minn., said she was concerned for the group's safety.

Ross Borden, founder of Matador, an online travel magazine that includes Brave New Traveler, described Shourd as "very professional."

"She's obviously a professional traveler, as you can see by her latest adventure, going hiking in Iraq," he said. "Not many people go hiking in Iraq."

A fourth member of the group, Shon Meckfessel, did not go on the hike because he was sick.

The Associated Press, August 4, 2009