LONDON - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is using meetings in London this week to press ahead with imposing tough new international sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program.

A senior U.S. official said Wednesday that Clinton would raise the prospect of new U.N. Security Council sanctions against Iran in discussions with the foreign ministers of Russia, China, Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the meetings will be private. Clinton and her colleagues are in London for British-hosted meetings this week on Yemen and Afghanistan.

By MATTHEW LEE, Associated Press, January 27, 2010

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is defending the heavy U.S. military role in Haiti, saying the earthquake relief effort could not succeed without the early use of Pentagon assets. Clinton discussed Haiti with Italian Foreign Minister Franco Fratini before leaving for the Canadian-organized emergency conference on Haiti in Montreal.

Clinton and her Italian counterpart reaffirmed the two countries' commitment to Haiti relief efforts, including the use of military assets, in the face criticism in Italy that U.S. operations in Haiti lean too heavily on the armed forces.

The United States has, among other things, committed a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier and hospital ship, massive Air Force airlift capacity, and Army airborne soldiers in the Haiti relief mission.

Asked about criticism of the military emphasis by an Italian politician at a press event with Fratini, Clinton said there will always be second-guessing in such circumstances.

"There is always an opportunity in the face of any disaster for what we in the United States call 'Monday morning quarterbacking.' But what we see is an enormously committed and effective international effort that could not succeed without additional military assets," she said.

Clinton noted an Italian navy ship is heading to Haiti carrying helicopters and a contingent of para-military police to help keep order, and said it is just easier for U.S. military assets to reach the country sooner, since Haiti is a neighbor.

Under questioning, the secretary of state also said proposals for United States and other countries to allow more legal Haitian immigration would be considered among options for the long-term recovery of that country.

"We are looking at every option that can provide a better future for the Haitian people. This is largely, however, within the authority of individual countries. But we are certainly looking at that, and we will have more to say later," she added.

In the immediate aftermath of the earthquake, the Obama administration granted authority for Haitians in the United States without documentation to remain for another 18 months.

But it has warned Haitians who might attempt to leave the country by boat for the United States that they will be stopped and returned home.

Some foreign policy experts say increasing legal Haitian immigration would boost remittances going back to that country and lift the economy.

Foreign ministers and other officials from several Latin American countries, Spain and Japan, along with officials of the European Union and international financial institutions are among those attending the Montreal meeting, aimed at charting a long-term plan for Haitian recovery.

Leftist Latin American governments that have criticized the presence U.S. troops in Haiti, Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua, are not taking part in the Montreal conference. But their foreign ministers met Sunday in Caracas to discuss their own assistance program.





By David Gollust, Voice of America, January 25, 2010

Here's what technologists say about Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's speech on Internet freedom: she's right.

Not only because they agree that cyber hackers should be punished and that censorship is bad. Clinton is correct, they say, that censorship won't succeed in completely clamping down systems and preventing the exchange of information over the Web. They are only temporary measures and, with just a few exceptions -- North Korea comes to mind -- won't ultimately win.

The revelation from post-election demonstrations in Iran last summer was that people on the ground found ways around network censors to circulate pictures, videos and Tweets to the rest of the world, says Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter. During the Iranian New Year, a video greeting from President Obama was circulated underground in Tehran and went viral.

"There are always workarounds to everything. Every security in a sense can be taken down given enough time and cleverness and smarts," Dorsey said in an interview last week. "It's just constant iterations and just paying attention to new holes that are exposed."

Dorsey has worked with the State Department's senior adviser on innovation, Alec Ross, to consult on projects like a campaign in Mexico where citizens can anonymously warn law enforcement officials of drug violence through text messages.

Twitter has been focused on wireless phones - the most popular Internet and communications devices in the developing world - to see how its microblogging site can be used to connect anyone with a phone and a Web browser. Clinton said she sees the 4.6 billion mobile phones in the world as part of her strategy for economic development, preventing violence against women and children, and ending conflict.

After Clinton's her Internet speech, Microsoft, Yahoo and tech trade groups hailed her push for Internet freedom.

Clay Shirky, a professor of new media studies at New York University and a popular blogger, said countries like China are conflicted. On the one hand, they want to control the information residents receive and send. But on the other hand, they want to encourage the adoption of cellphones, computers and Internet services because those systems fuel economic growth.

China locked down Internet, broadcast and other communications services after earthquakes two years ago, hoping to slow the spread of news that poor school construction contributed to the high death toll, Shirky said. But outraged parents in China still learned of the construction flaws--mere hours or days later than they would have if communications systems were open.

Countries that have a censorship strategy "are suffering from a technological auto-immune disease," Shirky said. "They are only delaying the spread of media and attacking their own infrastructure."

By Cecilia Kang, The Washington Post, January 25, 2010

MONTREAL -- Haiti's government made an emotional appeal for more aid Monday, asking for food to feed 1.5 million people for 15 days, as international donors gathered for a conference here to attempt to organize an orderly path to recovery for the quake-devastated nation.

"We need your help now," Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive told representatives of about 20 nations and multilateral organizations.

Haitian President René Préval issued a communique saying his country needed 36 million emergency rations of food just to get through the next few weeks and 200,000 tents immediately.

In Port-au-Prince, the Haitian government confirmed the death toll at 112,250 and rising, with an additional 194,000 people injured. Lewis Lucke, the U.S. special coordinator for relief and reconstruction in Haiti, said the estimated number of homeless had climbed to 800,000.

The day-to-day functioning of government remains disrupted. The Haitian government lost so many of its buildings that it is now camped at a federal police facility formerly occupied by its SWAT team. Meetings with top Haitian officials take place under a tree. United Nations officials have been given permission to politely decline to attend meetings in Haitian government buildings they deem too unstable to stand the continuing aftershocks.

But new aid efforts are underway or being planned. Lucke said the U.S. government will lease its abandoned embassy near the Port-au-Prince port to the Haitian government for $1 a year.

In Montreal, foreign donors agreed that any nation seeking to help rebuild Haiti should make a commitment of at least 10 years to the cause. The prime minister acknowledged that his country still had no estimates of how much foreign aid ultimately would be needed.

U.N. officials in Haiti have talked about the need to rebuild large sections of the capital -- to move roads, infrastructure and multistory buildings away from the active and dangerous fault line that crisscrosses the city.

Mindful of the possible scope of the rebuilding, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced that the United States will host a donors' conference in March, to be held at the United Nations' headquarters. She said the key donors -- led by the United States, Canada, Brazil, the European Union and France -- were trying the "novel idea" of conducting a needs-assessment study before planning and then raising the necessary funds.

Clinton, joined by other foreign ministers gathered here, insisted that "this is truly a Haiti-led effort," even though the government currently is barely functioning. "It is important that we see ourselves as partners of Haiti, not patrons," Clinton said

Bellerive dismissed reports that Haiti was seeking an immediate infusion of $3 billion, saying the government had only the glimmerings of its reconstruction needs.

Speaking earlier to representatives of donor nations, he said that it was "very difficult for me to speak of reconstruction" when the country's government is still struggling to regain its footing.

Haiti was already the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, but "in 30 seconds, Haiti lost 60 percent" of its gross domestic product, he said.

"The distribution of people and their needs have changed," Bellerive said. "We have to reassess the whole country."

Seated next to Clinton and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Bellerive noted that hundreds, if not thousands, of Haitians had their limbs amputated as a result of the quake, but there are virtually no prosthetic devices in the country.

The meeting Monday was not intended to be a formal donors' conference, though Japan announced that it would provide $70 million in humanitarian aid and Norway said it would boost its assistance to $34 million. Instead, the gathering was intended to lay the groundwork for the pledging conference.

Harper told the gathering that "it was not an exaggeration to say that at least 10 years of hard work awaits the world in Haiti." He added, "We must work to ensure that every resource committed, every relief worker, every vehicle, every dollar is used as effectively as possible."

The United States initially promised $100 million to deal with the humanitarian crisis in Haiti, and Clinton said Monday that "there will be more to come."

In Haiti, many victims are increasingly anxious about the slow pace of aid and are growing restless. Worries about security are hampering efforts to deliver food and water to Haitians camped across the city.

The U.N. World Food Program reduced its deliveries Monday for lack of U.N. soldiers, said program spokesman David Orr.

Soldiers are used to control the crowds of people and as a show of force. Large, jostling crowds push toward the trucks unless soldiers are present, according to two U.N. officials who abandoned a delivery of thousands of bottles of water when peacekeepers left.

Though the U.N. food program hoped to reach as many as 100,000 people at 20 sites, Orr said, "today we're doing a much smaller number than that. . . . We're trying to do a few well."

By Glenn Kessler and William Booth , The Washington Post, January 26, 2010

"I'm not sure what you'd call it, but it's much more than terrible," said Jean Anthony of his family's home, a plastic tarpaulin and sheet for a roof and walls.

Thousands of people were camped around him Monday across from the collapsed National Palace, amid piles of trash and the stench of human waste.

Uruguayan U.N. peacekeepers fired pepper spray to try to disperse thousands of people jostling for food aid. Several men in the crowd surged forward to grab bags emblazoned with U.S. flags that contained beans and rice.

At a conference on Haiti in Montreal, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in response to a call for the West to spend billions of dollars to improve Haiti in the long term that it would be unwise to organize a donors conference now.

"We are still in an emergency" with Haitians needing immediate relief, she said. "We're trying to do this in the correct order."

Haiti's government has said it wants many of the homeless to leave the capital city of 2 million people to look for better shelter with relatives or others elsewhere.

The United Nations says 235,000 people have left the city in recent days aboard government-provided buses.

The International Organization for Migration, an intergovernmental agency, says it could take weeks to locate suitable sites for enough tent cities for those made homeless by the Jan. 12 quake.

Tens of thousands of people have returned to the region around the coastal city of Gonaives in northern Haiti, a city abandoned by many after two devastating floods in six years.

"Living in Port-au-Prince is a problem. Going to Gonaives is another problem," said Maire Delphin Alceus. "Everywhere you go is a problem. If I could, I would have left this country and been somewhere else by now. But I have no way to do that."

USA Today, January 26, 2010

Thursday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton made a commendable speech about Internet freedom at the Newseum journalism museum in Washington, shifting the focus of American foreign policy from the analog certainties of the 20th century to the digital confusion of the 21st century. Clinton laid out a new focus of American foreign policy, prioritizing the open digital network, what she called "the freedom to connect," as a central value in determining the credibility of overseas regimes.

While Clinton spoke optimistically about the power of the Internet to create an open society, she also recognized the profound economic and political problems created by the digital revolution, acknowledging that "those who use the Internet to recruit terrorists or distribute stolen intellectual property cannot divorce their online actions from their real world identities" and that "governments and citizens must have confidence that the networks at the core of their national security and economic prosperity are safe and resilient. ... Our ability to bank online, use electronic commerce, and safeguard billions of dollars in intellectual property are all at stake if we cannot rely on the security of our information networks."

The targets of Clinton's speech were not unclear. Indeed, she specifically identified the repressive, sometimes bloodthirsty, regimes in China, Tunisia, Uzbekistan, Egypt, Vietnam and Iran as "threats to the free flow of information."

And yet, somehow, Secretary Clinton's warnings about bloodthirsty, oppressive regimes who hijack the Internet "to crush dissent and deny human rights" were themselves hijacked by a radical "media reform" group, Free Press, that ironically seeks to dramatically increase state intervention in both the Internet and media.

Rather than simply commending Hillary Clinton's uncontroversial defense of Internet freedom, Free Press used - or should I say, abused - the speech to launch a ridiculous attack on American companies. Explicitly comparing American phone and cable corporations with repressive overseas regimes in Iran and China, Free Press Executive Director Josh Silver conflated the network neutrality debate in the U.S. to the struggle for human rights in the rest of the world.

"Our moral authority as a world leader stems from our vibrant democracy, which is predicated on the openness of civic communication. Network Neutrality means no corporate censorship and no government censorship," Silver said yesterday, echoing the neo-Marxist critique of mainstream media by Free Press co-founder Robert McChesney. "How can we encourage freedom abroad when it has not been defended in our own communications infrastructure? Without badly needed U.S. government action to maintain freedom on the Internet, our great democracy is at risk."

No, this isn't an early April Fool's joke. Silver really did argue that "our great democracy" is at risk because some American cable and telecom companies - as well as many writers, filmmakers, musicians and other creative artists - want the option of additional services. Yes, Silver really did conflate the bloody repression of anti-government individuals in Iran and China with the possibility that American access providers could give consumers more choices.

Has the radical pro-network-neutrality lobby group Free Press no shame, no sense of moral perspective, no grasp of reality outside their echo-chamber obsession with vilifying America's telecoms and cable providers?

Yes, the network neutrality issue is hideously complex and, yes, there are important considerations in terms of actual anti-competitive or harmful behavior. But Free Press, a radical organization that even its putative allies will admit is fringe, stepped over the mark of rational political discussion and entered the theater of political absurdity. Free Press lost its mind by conflating the reactionary butchers of Tehran with American telecoms like Verizon and AT&T. Free Press totally flipped by equating the one-party apparatchiks in Beijing with American cable providers like Comcast or Time Warner cable.

The problem is that the radical media reform activists have so lost touch with reality that they believe their own hysterical nonsense about American democracy being "at risk" because Internet service providers want an economic return on their infrastructure investment. And unfortunately Silver wasn't alone in his tasteless response to the Clinton speech. Free Press sister group Public Knowledge, for example, responded to the secretary of state's remarks by arguing that American democracy was being threatened - yes, I'm serious - because of the current regulatory classification of SMS "short codes."

It's hard to imagine that is what Secretary Clinton really had in mind. The divergence between these "media reform" groups and Secretary Clinton doesn't stop there. While Secretary Clinton says the security of our intellectual property online is crucial, Public Knowledge believes intellectual property theft is "trivial."

What's the next glib political analogy from Public Knowledge or Free Press? Perhaps they'll compare the threat to short codes with the class warfare of the Khmer Rouge? Or maybe they will argue that opponents of net neutrality are comparable to Nazi Germany's Joseph Goebbels? Wait, no, the chairman of Free Press has already done that.

What, of course, should be next for these increasingly hysterical groups is widespread denunciation. Yes, the network neutrality issue raises important issues about the 21st century business models of Internet infrastructure companies. But no, there's no connection - absolutely none at all - between the behavior of repressive regimes in China and Iran and the anti-network-neutrality lobby.

The mainstream pro-network-neutrality lobby, and the policymakers who must consider how to balance competing public interests, deserves better than the current radical representation they are getting from Public Knowledge and Free Press.





By Andrew Keen, The Hill, January 22, 2010

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton picked the right battle this week, calling for an end to Internet censorship and naming governments that suppress the free flow of information - including China, Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Tunisia and Uzbekistan.

Her speech, at the Newseum in Washington, had pointed echoes of the cold war, including a warning that"a new information curtain is descending across much of the world." Anyone who finds that overheated should remember how hard Iran's government worked to shut down the Web during last summer's bloody, pro-democracy protests - and the power of the images and words that managed to get through.

Mrs. Clinton also placed the Obama administration squarely on the side of Google in its fight with China over Internet censorship and cyberattacks. She called on the Chinese government to conduct a thorough and transparent review of Google's accusations that Gmail accounts used by Chinese human rights activists had been hacked into from the mainland. And she called on other American companies to challenge "foreign governments' demands for censorship and surveillance."

It will take more than just a tough speech to change China's policies, and more than a tough speech to change the policies of far too many companies that enable Beijing and other repressive governments when they accept censorship as a normal price of doing business.

But there is no doubt that Chinese authorities - which had hoped to play down the fight with Google - are listening and getting nervous.

On Friday, the day after the speech, a spokesman for China's Foreign Ministry called on the United States "to stop using the so-called Internet freedom question to level baseless accusations." The spokesman also insisted that "the Chinese Internet is open." The Chinese people know better. So should China's government.

The New York Times, January 22, 2010

Web censorship and alleged hacking by China, as underscored by Google's recent complaint, have further soured relations between the nations.

Reporting from Washington and Beijing - The U.S.-Chinese relationship, already being tested by rising trade tension during President Obama's first year, has been rocked by new turbulence as the administration has sought to prove its commitment to human rights around the world.

The two governments are at odds over planned U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, American overtures to Tibetan exiles and, now, the issue of Internet freedom that has been vividly raised by allegations against China from Google.

After Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton complained Thursday in Cold War terms about China's Internet intrusions, Chinese officials shot back Friday that her remarks were "harmful to Sino-American relations" and demanded that U.S. officials "respect the truth."

The exchange set off a diplomatic shuffle. Top U.S. and Chinese officials have huddled in a series of hastily convened meetings in Washington since Clinton's speech to discuss the Google issue and "the broader aspects of our relationship," Philip J. Crowley, chief State Department spokesman, said Friday.

Some experts believe that Clinton may have been too provocative when, in Churchillian tones, she lamented that "a new information curtain is descending over much of the world." But her remarks, in a major prepared address, highlighted the Obama administration's hardening approach.

The U.S. tack comes as Beijing is being increasingly resistant to foreign pressure. In addition to its stern posture on Tibet and Taiwan, China has rebuffed calls to revalue its currency and support a global climate change treaty.

"We're in for tough sledding for the rest of the year," predicted David M. Lampton, director of China studies at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies.

Diplomats and analysts worry that the expanding array of disputes could damage chances of Chinese cooperation on key U.S. strategic issues, such as North Korea's nuclear program, sanctions against Iran and the international effort in Afghanistan.

Analysts said the new frictions could affect cooperation between the two nations' militaries, an initiative announced in November by President Obama during a visit to China. They also could prompt the Chinese to rethink plans to take part in high-level meetings, such as Obama's planned nuclear security conference this spring.

Last year, Obama administration officials, eager to begin their relationship with China on a positive note, focused on areas of mutual interest while putting off tougher issues. But the relationship took a turn for the worse, in the Chinese view, after the U.S. imposed duties on Chinese tires and steel pipes. Sensitive issues, such as the U.S. relationship with Taiwan and Tibet, continued to stack up.




By Paul Richter and David Pierson, Los Angeles Times, January 23, 2010

BEIJING - The Chinese Foreign Ministry lashed out Friday against criticism of China in a speech on Internet censorship made by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, calling on the United States government "to respect the truth and to stop using the so-called Internet freedom question to level baseless accusations."

Ma Zhaoxu, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, said in a written statement posted Friday afternoon on the ministry's Web site that the criticism leveled by Mrs. Clinton on Thursday was "harmful to Sino-American relations."

"The Chinese Internet is open," he said.

The statement by the Foreign Ministry, along with a scathing editorial in the English-language edition of The Global Times, a populist, patriotic newspaper, signaled that China was ready to wrestle politically with the United States in the debate over Internet censorship.

President Obama promised last year to start a more conciliatory era in United States-China relations, pushing human rights issues to the background, but the new criticism of China's Internet censorship and rising tensions over currency valuation and Taiwan arms sales indicate that animus could flare in the months ahead.

Mrs. Clinton's sweeping speech with its cold war undertones - likening the information curtain to the Iron Curtain - criticized several countries by name, including China, for Internet censorship. It was the first speech in which a top administration official offered a vision for making Internet freedom an integral part of foreign policy.

The debate over Internet censorship was brought to the fore in China last week when Google announced it might shut down its Chinese-language search engine, Google.cn, and curtail its other operations in mainland China if Chinese officials did not back down from requiring Google to censor search results.

Until now, the Chinese government had been trying to frame the dispute with Google as a commercial matter, perhaps because officials want to avoid having the dispute become a referendum on Internet censorship policies among Chinese liberals and foreign companies operating in China. On Thursday, He Yafei, a vice foreign minister, had said the Google dispute should not be "over-interpreted" or linked to the bilateral relationship with the United States, according to Xinhua, the official state news agency.

But in the aftermath of Mrs. Clinton's speech, that attitude could be changing. Mrs. Clinton pointedly said that "a new information curtain is descending across much of the world" and identified China as one of a handful of countries that had stepped up Internet censorship in the past year. (Starting in late 2008, the Chinese government shut down thousands of Web sites under the pretext of an antipornography campaign.) She also praised American companies such as Google that are "making the issue of Internet and information freedom a greater consideration in their business decisions."

The State Department had invited at least two prominent Chinese bloggers to travel to Washington for Mrs. Clinton's speech, and on Friday the United States Embassy here invited bloggers, mostly liberals, to attend a briefing on Internet issues.

A White House spokesman, Bill Burton, said Friday that "all we are looking for from China are some answers."

In its editorial, the English-language edition of The Global Times said Mrs. Clinton "had raised the stakes in Washington's clash with Beijing over Internet freedom."

The American demand for an unfettered Internet was a form of "information imperialism," the newspaper said, because less developed nations cannot possibly compete with Western countries in the arena of information flow.

"The U.S. campaign for uncensored and free flow of information on an unrestricted Internet is a disguised attempt to impose its values on other cultures in the name of democracy," the newspaper said, adding that the "U.S. government's ideological imposition is unacceptable and, for that reason, will not be allowed to succeed."

Articles on the Chinese-language Web site of The Global Times asserted that the United States employs the Internet as a weapon to achieve worldwide hegemony.

One big question is whether ordinary Chinese will, to any large degree, accept China's arguments justifying Internet censorship. Although urban, middle-class Chinese often support government policies on sovereignty issues such as Tibet or Taiwan, they generally deride media censorship. That feeling is especially pronounced among those who call themselves netizens. China has the most Internet users of any country, some 384 million by official count, but also the most complex system of Internet censorship, nicknamed the Great Firewall.

Except in the western region of Xinjiang, which is only starting to restore Internet access after cutting service off entirely after ethnic riots in July, canny netizens across China use software to get over the Great Firewall while chafing at the controls.

By Edward Wong, The New York Times, January 22, 2010

WASHINGTON - The Obama administration will provide more counterterrorism and development aid to embattled Yemen, but the country must show results for assistance to continue to flow, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Thursday.

After meeting with Yemeni Foreign Minister Abu Bakr al-Qirbi at the State Department, Clinton told reporters the U.S. was pleased with steps the Yemeni government was taking to combat violent extremists, including al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula. That group has claimed responsibility for the attempted Christmas Day bombing of a Detroit-bound American airliner.

Yemen is emerging as a central focus in the fight against violent extremists, and the United States has ramped up both military and civilian aid to the country over the past year. Clinton's remarks reflect the administration's rising concern about the crisis facing the impoverished country and a decision to raise Yemen as a priority on its foreign policy agenda.

"To combat this growing threat, the United States will intensify its cooperation with Yemen on both security and development," Clinton said. "Yemen has demonstrated a willingness and a capacity to take action against al-Qaida and other extremist groups, and the United States commends these actions."

She did not detail the enhanced assistance but noted the U.S. currently has a three-year, $121 million development and economic assistance program with Yemen. Separately, the U.S. is providing nearly $70 million in military aid this year.

Clinton's comments come ahead of an international conference on Yemen next week in London at which new aid could be announced. But she made clear that without the Yemeni government reforms, donors, including the U.S., would balk at sending aid to the impoverished country that is facing internal unrest apart from the extremists.

"The success of this investment depends on Yemen's ability to make the tough choices necessary to improve the capacity to govern, to reform its economy, to protect human rights, to combat corruption and to create a better environment for business and investment," she said.

Yemen's government is weak, and its authority does not extend far outside the capital, but it has stepped up military strikes against al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, a strengthening terror offshoot formed a year ago by Yemen and Saudi militant factions.

Clinton stressed that the fight against extremists could not be waged solely by military means. She said it must be accompanied by improvements in people's lives that will make them less prone to turn to violence.

"Our relationship cannot be just about the terrorists," she said. "As critical as that is to our security and our future and to the stability and unity of Yemen, the best way to really get at some of these underlying problems that exist is through an effective development strategy."

Al-Qirbi reaffirmed his government's commitment to fighting terrorism and said reforms were coming. He blamed the lack of reform thus far to a lack of resources and expressed hope that donors at the London conference would "realize the importance of the stability of Yemen."

He also praised President Barack Obama and his national security team for having a "greater understanding of the challenges faced by Yemen" than previous administrations.

By MATTHEW LEE, Associated Press, January 21, 2010

WASHINGTON - In a new warning to China, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called Thursday for free access to the internet and said countries that attack information networks should face "consequences and international condemnation."

Citing growing censorship in China and other countries, Clinton said that "a new information curtain is descending over much of the world." She said the Obama administration would rally other world powers to try to reverse the trend, and urged private companies to resist censorship by foreign governments.

Clinton stopped short of detailing what approach the administration would use to pressure other governments or to expand internet freedoms. She said governments and business first needed a "very vigorous discussion" of how to handle a complicated issue.

Her comments in Washington, which aides billed as major policy speech on internet freedom, came as world attention has focused on Google's threat to pull out of China after cyber attacks on its networks, and intrusions into the email accounts of political activists there. The controversy has built pressure on the Obama administration to explain how far it intends to go to defend U.S. interests and human rights.

U.S. officials have already said they will soon demand a formal explanation of what happened to Google.

Chinese officials signaled again Thursday that they hope keep the dispute a commercial issue, rather than one with broader diplomatic implications.

Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei, speaking in Beijing, said "the Google case should not be linked with relations between the two governments and countries. Otherwise, it's over-interpretation," he said, according to the official Xinhua news agency.

Clinton's speech comes at a delicate moment in U.S. Chinese relations. Frictions have grown over Obama's plans to sell arms to Taiwan and to meet with the Dalai Lama, and it is possible that the tensions could affect U.S. efforts to convince China to join in a new round of United Nations sanctions against Iran over its nuclear ambitions.

Although Clinton did not spell out what sanctions the United States might use, internet rights advocates and some other analysts described the speech as a commitment to a greater American role.

"It's a signpost that there's going to be a shift in policy," said Brett Solomon of Accessnow.org, an advocate for internet freedom. "We didn't get a detailed plan of action. But it's a commitment to a policy evolution."

James A. Lewis, a former U.S. government technology specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Clinton's speech would be a "challenge" to the most important countries that have sought to join the world economy yet to limit internet freedoms – China, Russia and Iran.

He said it would also raise internal pressure on the Chinese leadership, who are divided on whether to enforce internet rules that tend to isolate China from the world economy.

Clinton spoke at the Newseum, a museum on media history, before an audience of educators, foundation officials, government employees and others.

She cited China, Egypt, Uzbekistan, Vietnam and Tunisia as countries where there has been a "spike in threats to the free flow of information" over the past year. She called for a joint effort among world powers to develop new standards for the internet.

"In an interconnected world, an attack on one nation's networks can be an attack on all," she said. "By reinforcing that message, we can create norms of behavior among states and encourage respect for the global networked commons."

While Clinton promised the U.S. government would treat the internet freedoms as basic human rights, sometimes from the government's point of view the issue is not so black and white.

Frank Cilluffo, a former White House counter terrorism official now at George Washington University, said sometimes U.S. officials believe they need to monitor, or block, email traffic of suspected terrorists.

"We've created a global village without a policeman," he said.

By Paul Richter, The Baltimore Sun, January 21, 2010

WASHINGTON - Declaring that an attack on one nation's computer networks "can be an attack on all," Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton issued a warning on Thursday that the United States would defend itself from cyberattacks, though she left unclear the means of response.

In a sweeping, pointed address that dealt with the Internet as a force for both liberation and repression, Mrs. Clinton said: "Those who disrupt the free flow of information in our society or any other pose a threat to our economy, our government and our civil society. Countries or individuals that engage in cyber-attacks should face consequences and international condemnation."

Her speech was the first in which a senior American official had articulated a vision for making Internet freedom a plank of American foreign policy. While the details remained sketchy, her remarks could have far-reaching consequences, given the confrontation between Google and the Chinese government over the company's assertion that its networks had been subject to a sophisticated attack that originated in mainland China.

Mrs. Clinton called for China to investigate Google's accusation and be open about its findings. She said that the United States supported Google in publicly defying the Chinese government's requirement that it censor the contents of its Chinese-language search engine.

"Censorship should not be in any way accepted by any company from anywhere," Mrs. Clinton said. "American companies need to take a principled stand. This needs to be part of our national brand."

This month Google announced that it was "no longer willing to continue censoring" search results for its Chinese users, pointing to breaches of Gmail accounts held by human rights activists in China. Several other companies had also been targets of hacking, the company found. Google has avoided placing direct blame on the government in Beijing, which has sought to describe the situation as strictly a business dispute.

The Obama administration has been similarly cautious. Last week, a senior administration official said the United States would issue a "demarche" - a diplomatic move often used to lodge a protest - against China in the coming days. An official said Thursday that the administration would hold off to see whether the Chinese responded to Mrs. Clinton's call for an explanation of the Google allegations.

The administration's dealings with China are further complicated by the American debt held by the Chinese government and issues like climate change, on which the United States is seeking its cooperation. Though Mrs. Clinton said the administration would air its differences with Beijing, she said it would be in the context of a "positive, cooperative, and comprehensive relationship" - a clause added to her speech at the last minute.

Mrs. Clinton also identified Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Tunisia, Vietnam and Uzbekistan as countries that constrain Internet freedom or persecute those who use the Web to circulate unpopular ideas. She pointed to an Egyptian blogger, Bassem Samir, who was in the audience at the Newseum in Washington for Mrs. Clinton's speech and had been imprisoned by Egyptian authorities.

Human rights groups applauded the speech, though some questioned how the United States would enforce the warnings.

Tom Malinowski, the Washington advocacy director for Human Rights Watch, said the United States should treat China's forced censorship as an unfair trade practice, which could be confronted through the World Trade Organization or raised in future trade negotiations.

Still, Mr. Malinowski said: "I really thought this was groundbreaking. She showed no hesitation in naming countries, including U.S. allies, for suppressing speech on the Internet. She made a very strong case for connecting Internet freedom to core American national security interests."

As secretary of state, Mrs. Clinton has elevated the role of the Internet and digital technology in American diplomacy. She named Alec Ross, a technology entrepreneur who advised the campaign of President Obama, as her senior adviser for innovation.

Mr. Ross has assembled a team that is pursuing programs like a social network for young people in Pakistan and a service that lets people in Mexico file electronic reports on drug-related activity.

Mrs. Clinton announced a new $15 million effort to help more young people, women and citizens groups in other countries communicate on the Web. None of the proposals she mentioned focused on China or Iran, and the financing is relatively modest.

For Cameran Ashraf, 29, an Iranian-American information technology worker who has helped Iranian protesters circumvent government filtering of their messages, Mrs. Clinton's tone was enough. "I didn't expect such strong, forceful language," he said. "I was beyond pleased."

By Mark Landler, The New York Times, January 21, 2010

Five United States senators are publicly urging Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to move faster to support organizations that are helping people in countries like Iran and China circumvent restrictions on Internet use.

In a letter written by Senator Sam Brownback, Republican of Kansas, and made public on Wednesday, the senators ask Mrs. Clinton to quickly spend $45 million that has been earmarked over the last two years to support Internet freedom but has not been spent.

The senators also complain that restrictions on who may apply for the money, recently outlined by the State Department, appear to exclude the organizations that are creating the most popular tools for getting around censorship.

The letter was drafted before Google accused China last week of attacking its computers and said it was no longer willing to censor its search results there. But it has picked up more supporters since then.

Efforts to give financial support to groups creating such software recall anticommunist programs during the cold war, when the United States government backed broadcasters like Radio Free Europe.

But in the online age the nature of censorship has changed, and regimes like those in China and Iran often deny their populations access to Web news outlets and sites like Google, Facebook and Twitter. Political advocates and others are also subject to having their online activities scrutinized.

Programs like Psiphon, Freegate and Tor, available free online, allow people in those countries to bounce their Internet traffic off servers in other parts of the world, bypassing local restrictions. But the organizations that have developed those programs say they are constrained by resources and consumed by a never-ending technological arms race with government censors.

Some critics are also asking whether the United States government is wary of backing Internet freedom organizations with ties to Falun Gong, a spiritual movement that is suppressed in China, for fear of antagonizing the Chinese government.

"Officials at the State Department have sacrificed the interests of the demonstrators on the streets of Tehran, the interests of Google, and the principle of Internet freedom in closed societies on the altar of not making China go ballistic," said Mike Horowitz, a fellow at the Hudson Institute, a conservative research organization. The institute is advising the Global Internet Freedom Consortium, a group affiliated with Falun Gong that makes popular tools like Freegate.

In December, the State Department asked for financing proposals from organizations with technologies that "maximize free expression and the free flow of information and increase access to the Internet."

The senators, in their letter, say that the State Department's guidelines require organizations to demonstrate a presence in countries with repressive regimes, which would appear to rule out groups like the consortium that operate mainly in the United States.

In an interview, Michael Posner, the State Department's assistant secretary for democracy, human rights and labor, said every organization would be considered "on the strength of whether they have a tool that will help advance the effort." He said the State Department aimed to operate like Silicon Valley venture capitalists, financing as many disparate efforts as possible.

"The ways in which the technology is evolving means that it is increasingly difficult and inevitably impossible for governments to clamp down on that, unless they want to become North Korea," Mr. Posner said. "Our job is to hasten the day when these controls break down and people can communicate freely."

But the people creating such tools are expressing frustration with their inability to meet increasing global demand for their services, and with their lack of success in getting United States government support.

"I think we just don't get it, it's politics," said David Tian, a NASA engineer and Falun Gong practitioner who works on the Global Internet Freedom Consortium in his free time.

By Brad Stone, The New York Times, January 20, 2010

Anyone expecting Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to focus on the feud between U.S. Internet giant Google and China in an anticipated Internet speech this morning will likely be disappointed.

"We are not the foreign policy arm of Google," Alec Ross, senior adviser for innovation at the State Department, said in a speech at the New America Foundation yesterday.

"While we will look to the Chinese for an explanation, we need to engage in this appropriately recognizing the primacy of the role of the private sector in this," he said.

In Clinton's "Internet Freedom" policy speech at the Newseum in Washington, she is instead expected to reinforce constitutional rights of freedom of speech, press and assembly and how the administration can update foreign policies to ensure those guarantees are maintained in a digital age. She will then announce a series of much-anticipated policies, or "deliverables," to execute those goals, Ross said.

The Internet has made borders fuzzier with people around the globe (including 4.6 billion cell phone users) accessing and spreading information like never before. At the same time, illustrated in post Iranian elections and China's alleged cyberattacks on Google to access email accounts of human rights acitivists, the flow of information in and out of nations is under seige. Clinton also sees mobile phones, social media platforms and broadband Internet as keys to foreign policy goals to fight poverty and gender-based violence.

"This really is a space where economics, human rights and security come together," Ross said in his New American Foundation speech before a discussion on China and Internet censorship. "And in thinking about how we want to update our framework, Secretary Clinton has said we have longstanding values that are not years and not decades old but centuries old ... and what we saw in 2009 were real challenges to each of these longstanding values, each of these freedoms in digital spaces."

By Cecilia Kang, The Washington Post, January 21, 2010

Rather than the relatively simple viruses that once bedeviled computer networks, malicious software has evolved into a sophisticated and potent weapon for corporate espionage, security experts say, so deceptive that even an organization as technologically savvy as Google was vulnerable.

In the past 18 months, data security experts say they have seen a rapid growth in attacks by malware capable of worming its way through a computer network, lurking undetected as it searches out specific, valuable information that it can then broadcast back to its creator.

"It used to be that malicious code was the darling of the hack activist, used most commonly to effectively deny a corporate network of its resources. Today, it's all about the money," said James M. Aquilina, a former federal prosecutor who is now the executive managing director of Stroz Friedberg, a technical services and consulting firm. "It's about making a profit from gaining access to information that's valuable."

Last week, Google revealed a highly sophisticated series of cyberattacks originating from China that stole some of its intellectual property and affected about 30 other Silicon Valley companies. The bombshell announcement that it may shutter its business in China in the wake of those attacks has drawn more attention to Internet security.

Google will not comment on what intellectual property was stolen, but speculation has centered on its source code, the script that

provides direct instructions to a computer. Some security experts say privately that in addition to targeting the Gmail accounts of human rights activists, the Chinese attack could have tried to steal the source code for Google's crown jewels - its search technology.

On Thursday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will give what is expected to be a major foreign policy address in Washington that will touch on Internet security and commerce as well as issues of digital freedom of expression.

A few days before Google went public Jan. 12 with news of the attack, CEO Eric Schmidt, along with executives from Cisco Systems, Twitter and Microsoft, had a private two-hour dinner with Clinton in Washington to discuss the Internet and foreign policy.

"This was the secretary of state engaging Silicon Valley on how to harness technology in service of America's diplomatic goals," said Alec Ross, Clinton's senior adviser for innovation.

Technology leaders say they will be listening to Clinton's speech with an ear to what she says about Internet security. Increasingly, data security experts say, so-called "malware" is the spear point of an intensifying global contest that involves spying and the theft of valuable corporate secrets.

"The cyber surveillance has increased; the cyber intrusions have been increasing, so it was coming to a head," said Edward Black, CEO of the Computer & Communications Industry Association. With the attacks on Google, "it has bubbled over to a very public discussion."

The increase in malicious software has been so rapid that 60 percent of the 5.9 million pieces of malware code the software security company Symantec has in its database were created in the past 15 months - more than in the previous 20 years combined.

Once malware is on a computer, "it may do a lot of things, like detecting 'I'm on the CEO's machine,' " and stealing valuable data, said Vincent Weafer, leader of Symantec's global security response team.

Organizations that use malware to steal data are also growing more sophisticated. Imperva, a Redwood City-based data security company, says "the industrialization of hacking" - creating an international chain of actors that "starkly resembles that of drug cartels" - is among the top five data security trends for 2010.

Compromised USB memory drives are an increasingly common source of malware infection, security experts say. Among the ploys hackers have used is scattering infected USB drives with the company's logo in the company parking lot, or leaving them at conferences where such drives are distributed as gifts.

"When you discover it, you're already a victim and it's too late to do anything," said Larry Ponemon, chairman of the Ponemon Institute, a Michigan data security research company. "It's like having cancer, without feeling any symptoms."

A recent survey by Ponemon of 130 companies for Trend Micro found that every one had had a malware infection - 56 percent with malware that could transmit stolen data.

Aquilina, a former assistant U.S. attorney, led the first federal prosecution against a hacker who distributed malware using a network of infected machines, including those belonging to the Weapons Division of the Naval Air Warfare Center, to turn an illegal profit.

The Google attack is "a real shot across the bow" to companies, Aquilina said. The use of malware "is no longer about denial of service; it's about theft of valuable trade secrets and proprietary information."

San Jose Mercury News, January 21, 2010

It was never going to be easy to be secretary of state in the shadow of a president who won the Nobel Peace Prize within months of taking office.

And that is what Hillary Clinton has perhaps found. President Obama has made such an impact on the world, partly from not being George W Bush, that she is sometimes left as an also-ran. Just as she was in the presidential elections.

It is the president who has re-fashioned American foreign policy from one widely seen as confrontational, into one in which he says he seeks engagement.

He, not Hillary Clinton, has set the agenda for America.

It was he who insisted on taking time with his advisers to debate sending reinforcements to Afghanistan.

It was he who reached out to the Muslim world.

It was he who insisted to the Israelis that they had to freeze settlements if there were to be further Middle East peace talks.

It was he who held out his hand to Iran, hoping for an unclenched fist. It will be he who will determine whether at some stage to move from sanctions to military action.

It was he who led the US negotiations over global warming, an issue which has not enthused her much.

Hillary Rodham Clinton (as she prefers to be called, emphasising her own family name as well as that of her husband) is finding it a hard task to fashion a distinctive diplomatic role for herself.

More hawkish

That is not uncommon among secretaries of state. Many have been swallowed up by history. Only those with strong personalities and willing and able to grasp the reins of foreign policy (under a president willing to leave that to them) have thrived at the time and in the memory.

Henry Kissinger under President Nixon and John Foster Dulles under President Eisenhower were modern titans. George Schultz for Ronald Reagan and James Baker for George Bush senior did some hard deal-making in their day. But who studies the works of Christian Archibald Herter, also a secretary of state under Eisenhower, and William P Rogers, who preceded Kissinger under Nixon?

It was a risk for Barack Obama to bring his rival into the administration's tent. She is at heart more hawkish than he is and has had to tone this down. A crisis could yet arise when her instincts clash with his.

She has also had to accept that the infamous "0300 call" election advertisement was an empty, and unedifying, threat, which diminished her.

The ad was hardball stuff and attacked her election rival's lack of foreign policy experience. Over pictures of sleeping children, the commentary said: "It's 3am and your children are safe and asleep. But there's a phone ringing in the White House... who do you want to answer the phone?"

Hillary Rodham Clinton is now happy for Barack Obama to answer that phone.

'Celebrity'

She also has strengths. She is well-known and well-liked by her international colleagues and audiences. As Joe Klein of Time magazine put it: "She is an international celebrity with a much higher profile than any of her recent predecessors and the ability - second only to the President's - to change negative attitudes about the US abroad."

The administration is only a year old. Secretary Clinton will not be dissatisfied with her image. It is her achievements that remain in doubt.

How much of an adviser can she really be to someone who knows his own mind? Is she skilled enough at the hard graft of negotiating to be able to deliver what the president wants? And what happens if they have a major disagreement?

By Paul Reynolds, BBC News, January 17, 2010

WASHINGTON - President Obama's aggressive response to the deadly earthquake in Haiti has led to criticism from the far right that the United States is taking on too much, at a time when its foreign-policy plate is already full.

But the more relevant question, experts on the region say, is whether the United States will maintain a muscular role in the reconstruction of Haiti once the news cameras go home. The United States has a history of either political domination or neglect in its backyard, and administration officials acknowledge that for Mr. Obama, striking the right balance in Haiti will be crucial.

"The classic U.S. role in the whole hemisphere is either complete neglect, or we come in and run the show," said Sarah Stephens, executive director for the Center for Democracy in the Americas. But with Haiti, a mere 700 miles from Miami, "there is a great opportunity for the United States to do this in a new way," she said.

Mr. Obama has pledged that the United States is in Haiti for the long haul. On Sunday, he mobilized military reserves - particularly medical staff for hospital ships - signing an executive order that said it was necessary to back up active-duty troops "for the effective conduct of operational missions, including those involving humanitarian assistance, related to relief efforts in Haiti."

American troops have taken control of the airport at Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capital, and are helping to provide security for the enormous international relief effort. A steady stream of administration officials have headed south, from Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton - who cut short a trip to the South Pacific, rushed home, and then flew to Haiti on Saturday - to one of Mr. Obama's closest aides, Denis R. McDonough, the National Security Council's chief of staff.

"We will be here today, tomorrow, and for the time ahead," Mrs. Clinton said to Haitian journalists in Port-au-Prince, standing alongside President Rene Preval.

With so many others in the Haitian government missing or dead, the Obama administration is already facing questions of whether the United States is the only entity capable of bringing order to Port-au-Prince. Beyond that is the question of whether Mr. Obama can handle Haiti at a time when he is already grappling with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"The short answer is yes," said Rep. Jan Schakowsky, Democrat of Illinois and a frequent visitor to Haiti. "As challenging as it is, there is no question about it straining our capacities at home. This is a tiny country. It's close, and it's not going to be our job alone to rebuild."

Mr. Obama has indicated that the amount the United States has pledged so far to Haiti, $100 million, is bound to go up significantly. Still, it is well below the $350 million that President Bush pledged in the early weeks of the Asian tsunami, which killed 226,000 people after it struck in December 2004.

And while Mr. Obama has increased the number of American troops in Afghanistan by 30,000 to just below 100,000, and promised ambitious efforts to stabilize Yemen and Pakistan, the number of American troops being sent to Haiti is of course smaller - some 10,000 Marines and soldiers by Monday, military officials said.

The bigger issue may be sustaining the effort. In 2009, much of the administration's energy was focused on Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran, with little time on this hemisphere. The administration's new point man for Latin America and the Caribbean - Arturo Valenzuela, the assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere - was confirmed only in November.

In the past, American interest in Haiti has waxed and waned. President Clinton sent 20,000 troops there in 1994 to restore President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power, an intervention still viewed today as producing, at best, mixed results.

If Haiti's only problem were poverty, American officials discovered at the time, the job of building its economy would have been one thing. But endemic government corruption and a history of post-colonial abandonment left Haiti in shambles 10 years later, when Mr. Aristide was finally driven from power in 2004.

In the years since 1994, Haiti has resurfaced in the American conscience only during times of crisis: the Aristide meltdown; and after four devastating storms in 2008 that wiped out most of the country's food crops and damaged irrigation systems, causing acute hunger for millions.

Some Haiti experts say that despite the criticism from conservative commentators - Glenn Beck complained that Mr. Obama spent more time reacting to the Haiti earthquake than he did to the attempted Christmas Day terrorist attack - the heart-rending tragedy in Haiti may make it impossible for the United States to ignore it once the news media attention goes away.

Mr. McDonough, the national security aide, spoke to that in a call with reporters on Sunday, saying that the administration was determined to do everything it could to alleviate the suffering in Haiti. "The more we hear criticism, the more we are intent on trying to improve the lot of the Haitian people," he said.

What is more, the administration and the international community appear to be uniform in their belief that Mr. Preval, unlike Mr. Artistide, is someone with whom they can deal. They credit him with taking steps in recent years to develop the economy.

Mrs. Clinton said a major reason for her four-hour visit to Port-au-Prince was to buck up Mr. Preval. At one point on Saturday, the Haitian president walked through the makeshift American command center at the airport, appearing dazed by the clamor.

But he seemed comforted by the presence of Cheryl D. Mills, Mrs. Clinton's chief of staff, who is in charge of the Haiti portfolio at the State Department and who has made multiple visits to Port-au-Prince over the last few months.

Administration officials say the White House can handle Haiti without neglecting its other concerns. They noted that Mr. Obama convened a National Security Council on meeting on Friday to discuss the implementation of his new Afghanistan policy.

"It's only a problem if the whole government isn't functioning properly," a senior administration official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he did not want to publicly discuss internal matters. "What you see here is a good example of the government functioning well."

By Helene Cooper and Mark Landler, The New York Times, January 17, 2010

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton landed in Haiti shortly before 3 p.m. Saturday, where she met with Haitian president Rene Preval and is assessing disaster recovery efforts.

Clinton and Preval embraced warmly as they greeted each other outside an air-conditioned tent where earlier she had been meeting with U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Ken Keen and U.S. Ambassador to Haiti Kenneth Merten. Cheryl Mills, the State Department chief of staff who made numerous trips to Haiti last year and been a central actor on Haiti policy, also embraced Preval.

The tent was inside a cinderblock warehouse with a corrugated aluminum roof, according to a pool report. Soldiers sat at their desks, in four rows. Outside, helicopters landed and took off, and the mountains were visible in the distance.

Clinton arrived aboard a Coast Guard C-130 plane carrying supplies for American embassy workers in Haiti and with plans to transport 50 Americans injured in Tuesday's quake back to the United States when she departs. She is not expected to remain in Haiti overnight.

Lachlan Carmichael of Agence France Presse filed this pool report from Clinton's plane during a stop for supplies in Puerto Rico en route to Port-au-Prince:

State officials on background:

Clinton flew to Coast Guard Air Station Borinquen in Puerto Rico, where she will take a US air force transport plane (C-130, we're told by state department officials) to Port-au-Prince. She is flying with 100 cases of water and 100 cases of MREs, as well as several thousands dollars worth of food and toiletries that her staff bought last night from CVS, Safeway and Costco in the DC area.... [A later pool report clarified that the water and MREs were for the Haitian people while materials bought at the drugs stores were for the 140 embassy staffers in Haiti.]

When Clinton leaves Haiti later, she will take with her a total of 50 American citizens back from Haiti.

ITEMS: toothbrushes, toilet paper, bagels, donuts, socks, underwear, deodorant, breakfast cereal like fruit loops,facial scrub, soap, cigarettes (there was a debate at first, but decision was finally in favor of cigarettes, presumably because of stress)

When we land at airport Clinton will meet with U.S. Ambassador [Kenneth] Merten, Tim Callaghan, Ambassador Lew Luke, Carlene Dei, who heads up the USAID mission and who met the Haitian health minister the other day.

She will meet President Preval immediately afterward. There will be a joint presser... She will meet with UN officials, including the new representative Edmond Multe, who replaced the one who died. She will tour MASH units where casualties will be.

Clinton, wearing a turquoise-colored sweater, and holding a drink and her sunglasses in her left hand, talked to reporters in back of plane.

She was asked why the military did not parachute supplies in.

She replied that was one of the first question State asked the military.

She said they replied: "They won't do that. They don't think that's a good idea. It's too dangerous.... You can do that in rural areas. In urban areas it causes riots....and causes injuries to people." By the latter, she meant, they can fall on people in crowded areas.

She said the military had other logistics problems related to the crowds. For example, the military identified landing areas for helicopters, but then when they return, it's "covered with people" and impossible to land.

[USAID administrator] Rajiv Shah was standing next to Clinton and he said the World Food Program, which USAID is working with, has identified 14 distribution sites throughout the capital, has had roads cleared in the network, and apparently has some functioning already. "We're looking to expand that," the distribution system, he told us.

He said the US military is prepared to provide security and logistics for these distribution sites.

Clinton talked of the different layers of authority. There is the Haitian government, the Brazilian-led Minustah, which Clinton says has "primary responsibility for security." She added: "We are working to back them up, but not to supplant them."

"They (Minustah) have been there for years," she said,

Clinton says the Haitian government, the sovereign entity, has given the US government and others some leeway to meet emergency needs. "The government says the highest priority is to save lives."

However, it will help the US if the Haitian parliament issues an emergency decree, something they were expected to debate this morning, because it gives the Haiti government "enormous authority" to meet people's needs or, as is more likely, to delegate tasks to the US and others.

She said, when asked about what that would mean, that it gives the government authority to impose curfews and other measures.

We asked if there is a problem with NGOs refusing to have the US military to distribute relief, even though it may be the most efficient means currently available. She replied some NGOs are "begging" for such help, but many others don't want the military involved because it goes against the NGO "culture"

Asked what she expected to do in meeting President Preval, she replied: she wanted to "listen to him, to be sure we are as responsive as we need to be."

One of the great problems is the lack of fuel, which is "running out" around the country -- and that which is stored at the port is "inaccessible."

Raj and Clinton were asked if the US is anticipating a major health crisis, such as diseases that might stem from this disaster. Raj Shah said: "You plan for everything as if it's a big risk, in this environment." He said there were water hygiene and sanitation (WASH) teams studying the situation.

"In any disaster like this, you have to plan for the worst eventuality," Clinton said.

You have to help them set up morgues and burial areas, and in such a way as to respect voodoo customs.

She was asked about a timetable for a functioning government? "It's yesterday. But we have to be realistic."

[State Department spokesman] P.J. Crowley also said that there were hopes to make Cap Haitien operational as a container port.... which would give the country a second port.

Clinton said only the US would be able to get the main port in Port-au-Prince working but gave no details about how that would happen.

Raj said three sets of water purification systems, around half the size of a trailer have been flown to Haiti from Miami. They can produce 100,000 liters of clean water per day. There are also plans to send very soon another six such systems from Dubai and a site in Latin America (he did not know which country).

The Washington Post, January 16, 2010

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - As the focus on Saturday turned away from Haitians lost to those trying to survive, a sprawling assembly of international officials and aid workers struggled to fix a troubled relief effort after Tuesday's devastating earthquake.

While countries and relief agencies showered aid on Haiti, only a small part of it was reaching increasingly desperate Haitians without food, water or shelter. "We see all the commotion, but we still have nothing to drink," said Joel Querette, 23, a college student camped out in a park. "The trucks are going by."

Hunger drove many to swarm places where food was being given out. Reports of isolated looting and violence intensified as night approached, and there were reports of Haitians streaming out of the capital.

Still, recovery and aid efforts were widening. And even the distribution problems in the country stemmed in part from good intentions, aid officials said: Countries around the world were responding to Haiti's call for help as never before. And they are flooding the country with supplies and relief workers that its collapsed infrastructure and nonfunctioning government are in no position to handle.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton arrived in Port-au-Prince, met with President Rene Preval for an hour and assured Haitians that the United States "will be here today, tomorrow and for the time ahead." And in Washington, President Obama stood with former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, who will lead a national drive to raise money to help the survivors.

But with Haitian officials relying so heavily on the United States, the United Nations and many different aid groups, coordination was posing a critical challenge. An airport hobbled by only one suitable runway, a ruined port whose main pier splintered into the ocean, roads blocked by rubble, widespread fuel shortages and a lack of drivers to move the aid into the city are compounding the problems.

About 1,700 people camped on the grass in front of the prime minister's office compound in the Pétionville neighborhood, pleading for biscuits and water-purification tablets distributed by aid groups. A sign on one fallen building in Nazon, one of many hillside communities destroyed by the quake, read: "Welcome U.S. Marines. We need help. Dead Bodies Inside!"

Haitian officials said the bodies of tens of thousands of victims had already been recovered and that hundreds of thousands of people were living on the streets. A preliminary Red Cross estimate put the total number of affected people at 3.5 million.

The United Nations also confirmed the death of three of its most senior officials in the quake: the secretary general's special representative for Haiti, Hedi Annabi; his deputy, Luiz Carlos da Costa; and the acting police commissioner for the peacekeeping force, Doug Coates of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. They were meeting with eight members of a Chinese police delegation in the agency's headquarters, the Christopher Hotel, when it collapsed on Tuesday.

Even as the United States took a leading role in aid efforts, some aid officials were describing misplaced priorities, accusing United States officials of focusing their efforts on getting their people and troops installed and lifting their citizens out. Under agreement with Haiti, the United States is now managing air traffic control at the airport, helicopters are flying relief missions from warships off the coast and 9,000 to 10,000 troops are expected to arrive by Monday to help with the relief effort.

The World Food Program finally was able to land flights of food, medicine and water on Saturday, after failing on Thursday and Friday, an official with the agency said. Those flights had been diverted so that the United States could land troops and equipment, and lift Americans and other foreigners to safety.

"There are 200 flights going in and out every day, which is an incredible amount for a country like Haiti," said Jarry Emmanuel, the air logistics officer for the agency's Haiti effort. "But most of those flights are for the United States military.

He added: "Their priorities are to secure the country. Ours are to feed. We have got to get those priorities in sync."

In a notice over the weekend, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration said priority would be given to search and rescue, military and humanitarian aircraft, in that order. Flights were being routed through a command center at Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida and pilots must tell controllers what they have on board and when they would like to arrive.

American officials said they were making substantial progress. Mrs. Clinton said the military was beginning to use a container port in Cap Haitien, in northern Haiti, which should increase the flow of aid.

The United States Agency for International Development was helping choose sites and clear roads for 14 centers for the distribution of food and water. Rajiv Shah, the agency's administrator, said the United States had moved $48 million of food supplies from Texas since the quake and distributed 600,000 packaged meals. It has also installed three water-purification systems capable of purifying 100,000 liters a day.

Yet problems remain. American officials said that 180 tons of relief supplies had been delivered to the airport, but much was still waiting for delivery. While the military has cleared other landing sites for helicopters around the capital, they are thronged by people looking for help, making landings hazardous.

Fuel shortages were mounting. At several gas stations around Port-au-Prince, attendants or customers said that even though the stations had fuel left in their tanks, there was no electricity to work the pumps.

Some aid workers were critical of the United Nations, as well, arguing that the agency had the most on-the-ground experience in Haiti and should be directing efforts better.

But many United Nations employees were killed in the earthquake. And Stephanie Bunker, the spokeswoman for the United Nations humanitarian relief effort, said Saturday that a United Nations logistics team was trying to coordinate with other agencies, and that the peacekeeping forces were trying to clear roads.

Criticism of the United Nations "may reflect people's frustrations with the entire effort because it is such a grueling effort," she said. "It takes a long time for all this stuff to be cleared up and fixed." She noted that all modes of transportation - air, road and sea - were still limited. A shortage of trucks remained a problem.

Michel Chancy, appointed by Mr. Preval to coordinate relief, said that much of the aid to Haiti was coming to a government that was itself under siege.

"The palace fell," he said. "Ministries fell. And not only that, the homes of many ministers fell. The police were not coming to work. Relief agencies collapsed. The U.N. collapsed. It was hard to get ourselves in a place where we could help others."

At the American Embassy in Port-au-Prince, American rescue teams continued to roll out of the gate. Most of their equipment had arrived, and at any given time, the teams were working on several different piles of rubble throughout the city.

"People need to get the message, we're out, we're doing stuff," said Craig Luecke, a coordinator with the search and rescue team from Fairfax County, Va., who has been tracking American efforts in advance of Mrs. Clinton's arrival here. "My Google Earth map is filled with American activity."

Though the numbers are fluid, he said four American teams had helped pulled nearly two dozen survivors from the rubble. The State Department said 15 Americans were confirmed dead in the earthquake.

Some airplanes, after circling the capital's airport, have been turning back or landing in Santo Domingo, in the neighboring Dominican Republic. Its airfield was growing ever more crowded with diverted flights.

"We're all going crazy," said Nan Buzard, senior director of international response and programs for the American Red Cross. "You don't have any kind of orderly distributions of food, water, shelter, clothing. The planes are in the air, the materials are purchased. It remains a profoundly frustrating situation for everyone."

Among the aid groups avoiding the logjam in Port-au-Prince by entering Haiti from the Dominican Republic was International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

A caravan of eight trucks from the federation was creeping toward the Haitian border on Saturday morning, carrying medical equipment and aid workers.

The group had originally planned to touch down in Haiti, but the delays at the airport forced them to divert to Santo Domingo, delaying their arrival in Haiti by about 12 hours, said Paul Conneally, a Red Cross spokesman who was traveling with the convoy.

"Every minute counts, I know that, but we cannot be on standby to land at Port-au-Prince because it may not be for two or three days," he said. "It's problematic to go across roads, but it’s a small price to pay."

Mr. Preval, speaking at the airport, now the effective seat of the Haitian government, urged patience. He showed a map covered with red dots, indicating the worst-hit areas. When the earthquake struck, he said, "We in Haiti thought it was the end of the world."

Mr. Preval said he was making food, water, medical supplies and the re-establishment of communication the priorities for his government. "We have a lot of work to do," he said.

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama said Saturday that America "stands united" with the Haitian people as he thanked two former presidents for agreeing to help raise billions to help rebuild the country after this week's devastating earthquake.

The State Department raised the U.S. death toll to 15, including one department employee, and said that 23 Americans were seriously injured and three U.S. government employees were missing.

Obama met in the Oval Office with former presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton to discuss the fundraising effort.

"By coming together in this way, these two leaders send an unmistakable message to the people of Haiti and to the people of the world," Obama said in the Rose Garden, standing between Bush and Clinton. "In these difficult hours, America stands united. We stand united with the people of Haiti, who have shown such incredible resilience, and we will help them to recover and to rebuild."

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was en route to Haiti on Saturday for a firsthand look at the devastation, becoming the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit since Tuesday's earthquake. Red Cross estimates are that 45,000 to 50,000 people were killed.

Hillary Clinton planned to confer with Haitian and other officials about how to speed the distribution of humanitarian aid and shape the recovery effort. The White House has said Obama had no immediate plans to visit Haiti.

Bush said the best way for people to help in Haiti is by sending money.

"I know a lot of people want to send blankets or water. Just send your cash," said Bush, who made his first visit to the Oval Office since leaving the White House in January 2009.

Clinton, who also is the United Nations' special envoy to Haiti, reminisced about being in Haitian hotels that collapsed during Tuesday's earthquake and eating meals with people who were killed in the disaster.

"It is still one of the most remarkable, unique places I have ever been," he said.

In Miami, Vice President Joe Biden and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano met with Haitian-American leaders before their scheduled stop at an air base where relief supplies are being flown to Haiti. South Florida has the largest Haitian-American population in the U.S.

"This is personal," Biden said, touching the arm of White House political director Patrick Gaspard, who accompanied the vice president. Gaspard is Haitian-American and still has family in the Caribbean country.

U.S. officials said more food and water was on the way. There should be 600,000 humanitarian daily rations - basic nutrition packages that provide 2,300 calories - at Haiti's airport by Saturday evening, according to Tim Callaghan, the administration aide who's helping oversee relief efforts in Haiti.

Callaghan said water purification units arrived Friday night and that officials hope they will produce up to 300,000 liters of water. More water is coming from the neighboring Dominican Republic.

Dr. Rajiv Shah, the White House's designated coordinator of the U.S. relief effort who was accompanying Clinton, has said the main focus of U.S. efforts was on recovering trapped survivors.

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said the major obstacle was the inability to use the main port in Port-au-Prince, the capital, because of extensive damage. There also is only one airport.

About 4,200 U.S. military personnel were operating within Haiti or from Navy and Coast Guard vessels offshore, the U.S. Southern Command said. An additional 6,300 personnel are scheduled to arrive by Monday to help distribute aid and prevent potential rioting among desperate survivors.

After the Asian tsunami in 2004, Bush asked his father, George H.W. Bush, and Bill Clinton, to lead the effort to raise private donations. The elder Bush and Clinton also raised private money after Hurricane Katrina.

By DARLENE SUPERVILLE, The Associated Press, January 16, 2010