U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton started the first leg of her African tour Wednesday with a message of support for Africa's developing economies. "We believe in Africa's promise. We are committed to Africa's future and we will be partners with Africa's people," Clinton said at the African Growth and Opportunity Act conference in Kenya. The conference was born out of U.S. efforts to create access for African business people into American markets. During her speech, in front ...

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is embarking on her biggest international trip yet: Africa. Seven countries in 11 days. Issues as diverse as economic entrepreneurship and gender-based violence. The trip, which was to begin with Clinton's scheduled departure Monday evening, comes just three weeks after President Obama's trip to Accra, Ghana. She will highlight many of the themes he struck. The State Department notes it is the earliest trip by a secretary of state and a president to ...

Once the cameras stopped rolling at the opening session of the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue, top officials got down to brass tacks in what one called "very constructive, very candid" discussions. Trying to pull themselves out of the worldwide financial crisis, the United States and China both enacted massive stimulus programs. Now they must decide how -- and when -- to phase out those programs without damaging their economies. "The U.S. and China, in some ways, have acted more ...

North Korea launched a scathing personal attack on U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday after she likened the leadership in Pyongyang to "small children and unruly teenagers and people who are demanding attention." At a meeting of southeast Asian nations in Phuket, Thailand, a North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman blasted Clinton for what he called a "spate of vulgar remarks unbecoming for her position everywhere she went since she was sworn in," according to the state-run KCNA news ...

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton delivers a major foreign policy speech and some Washington political observers ask: "Is she trying to get back in the spotlight?" Since she slipped and broke her elbow last month, the secretary has had to cancel an international trip, and some inside-the-Beltway types are reading the tea leaves. Is it another step in the process of keeping Secretary Clinton from the real foreign policy decision-making in the Obama administration "The Daily Beast's" Tina Brown ...

Halfway through my interview with Khaled Mashaal, about an hour after Barack Obama's Cairo speech, I realized that the leader of Hamas was calling the Israeli people, and their leaders, Israelis. That seemed new. The usual term of art used by Islamic militants is "Zionists" or worse. A few days later in Iran, for example, I watched Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad say in a debate, "I don't like to call them Israelis. Their leaders are so unclean that they ...

Max Baucus, the Senate's point man on health care, sounds supremely confident when he talks about the odds that Congress will pass its most sweeping piece of social legislation since the New Deal. "Meaningful, comprehensive health-care legislation passes this year. That's a given," he declares, sipping a bottle of water in his functionally furnished hideaway office just steps from the Senate chamber. "It's gonna pass. It's gonna happen. There's no doubt about it." The rest of us might be ...

When North Korea conducted a nuclear test in 2006, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice promised tough consequences for North Korea's actions but said the door was still open for negotiations. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said pretty much the same thing last month when North Korea lobbed a long-range rocket, prompting fears that it could hit Japan or even Hawaii. The broken record was replayed this week when President Obama called for "stronger international pressure" after North Korea turned pyrotechnics ...

Every four years, hundreds of Iranians register to stand as candidates in the country's presidential election. Women have signed up to run since 1997 — yet no female has ever been certified by the government to run for President. This month, 42 women were among the 475 people who signed up, harboring hope that this time, there was a real chance for a female candidate to stand. Indeed, expectations had been raised when the spokesman of the Guardian Council ...

Far from a secure, undisclosed location, former Vice President Dick Cheney is out in the open and increasing his criticism on the Obama administration and even fellow Republicans. "If I don't speak out, then where do we find ourselves ... Then the critics have free run, and there isn't anybody there on the other side to tell the truth," Cheney said on CBS' "Face the Nation" on Sunday. The former vice president was also asked about radio talk show host ...