US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced more than $500 million in new aid projects for Pakistan on Monday, which Washington hopes will help win over a sceptical public in an ally vital to winning the war in neighbouring Afghanistan.

Clinton is in Islamabad for two days as part of the US-Pakistan strategic dialogue, a series of talks aimed at strengthening the relationship between the wary allies in the struggle against al Qaeda and the Taliban.

“For too long our two countries have been hampered by a trust deficit which has held us back. We understand the reasons for that and we accept responsibility for the role that our actions have played. But we need to rebuild that trust,” she said at a town hall meeting.

Earlier, at a joint news conference with Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, she said: “We have moved beyond a standoff of our misunderstandings that were allowed to fester and not addressed … to a position where we’re engaged in the most open dialogue that I think our two countries have ever had.”

Clinton will later fly on to Kabul for an international conference as the US-led war in Afghanistan runs into mounting doubt in the US Congress.

For Pakistan, she announced a string of new projects – including dams, power generation, agricultural development and hospital construction – funded under US legislation passed last year tripling civilian aid to $7.5 billion over the next five years.

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U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed her full support Wednesday for South Korea’s punitive measures against North Korea, the culprit behind the deadly sinking of a South Korean Navy ship on March 26.

Clinton, who arrived in Seoul earlier in the day after wrapping up a two-day trip to China, said Washington will support the moves to slap tougher international economic and diplomatic sanctions on the North.

She made the remarks at a joint news conference with Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Yu Myung-hwan, after meeting with President Lee Myung-bak at Cheong Wa Dae.

Lee and Clinton shared the view that “strategic patience” is needed in dealing with North Korea, according to Lee Dong-kwan, senior presidential secretary for public affairs.

“It is not important for North Korea to return to the six-way talks (on its nuclear program). What is important is to show a sincere attitude toward denuclearization,” the President told Clinton. “We need to take time in coping with the situation.”

Clinton’s visit came amid growing tension on the Korean Peninsula after President Lee announced early this week that Seoul would cut trade ties with Pyongyang. He outlined firm military action, including the staging of a large-scale joint naval exercise with the U.S. Navy in waters near the sea border

The top American diplomat said the results of a five-nation investigation into the sinking were “overwhelming,” “professional” and “inescapable.”

“We will stand with you in this difficult hour and we will stand with you always,” she said at a news conference with Yu.

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Image by Thomas Hawk via Flickr

Dozens of nations and organizations today pledged almost $10 billion in immediate and long-term aid to help Haiti recover from the recent devastating earthquake, just hours after Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon opened a day-long donors’ conference by calling for the wholesale rebuilding of the country.

Of that amount more than $5 billion has been pledged for the next 18 months, well above the $3.9 billion sought for that period.

“Today, the international community has come together, dramatically, in solidarity with Haiti and its people,” Mr. Ban said in a closing news conference at UN Headquarters in New York.

“Today, the United Nations are united for Haiti,” he said. “Today, we have mobilized to give Haiti and its people what they need most: hope for a new future. We have made a good start, we need now to deliver.”

Haiti’s President René Préval expressed his thanks on behalf of his 9 million countrymen. “The international community has done their part,” he said. “Now it is up to the Haitian people to do theirs.”

Opening the conference earlier today, Mr. Ban appealed to donors to provide $11.5 million over the next 10 years to help the Caribbean nation recover and rebuild after the 12 January quake.

“What we envision, today, is wholesale national renewal… a sweeping exercise in national-building on a scale and scope not seen in generations,” he told delegates from more than 130 nations attending the high-level meeting.

Mr. Ban said reconstruction work must move in tandem with emergency relief and urged donors to provide further support to the revised humanitarian appeal for Haiti. That appeal is calling for $1.4 billion, but is currently only 50 per cent funded.

“The rainy season is fast approaching. Some camps for displaced persons are at risk of flooding. Heath and sanitation issues are growing more serious,” Mr. Ban said.

Mr. Préval, United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and UN Special Envoy for Haiti Bill Clinton co-hosted the conference, entitled Towards a New Future in Haiti.

They noted the courage and solidarity shown by the Haitians in the midst of the unprecedented suffering resulting from the quake and the outpouring of generosity and support from the country’s international partners. At the same time, they underscored that Haiti’s road to recovery will be a long one and one which will require continued global support.

The conference was co-chaired by Brazil, Canada, the European Union, France, and Spain as leading donors to Haiti, which was already the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere before the disaster.

Read more here.

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U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Monday that indirect talks between Israel and the Palestinians should be serious and substantive, warning that new Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank were jeopardizing progress and undermining U.S. mediation.

“New construction in East Jerusalem or the West Bank undermines mutual trust and endangers the proximity talks that are the first step toward the full negotiations that both sides want and need,” Clinton said in a speech to AIPAC, an influential pro-Israel lobby group, at its annual conference in Washington.

Clinton’s also highlighted the threat posed by Iran’s nuclear program, which the United States and other Western members of the Security Council are seeking to target with a fresh round of UN sanctions.

Settlement constuction “exposes daylight between Israel and the United States that others in the region could hope to exploit. And it undermines America’s unique ability to play a role – an essential role, I might add – in the peace process,” she said.

Clinton’s speech underscored the Obama administration’s “rock solid” commitment to Israel’s security and its future, but she added that the U.S. was prepared to “tell the truth when it is needed” regarding the situation in the Middle East.

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After 8.8-magnitude quake hits the country Saturday, government estimates more than 2 million have been affected, writes The Santiago Times.

The death toll from Saturday’s devastating earthquake more than doubled Sunday to 700, sparking fears the true effects of the quake have yet to be measured.

Communication to the areas worst hit, especially Concepcion, Constitucion, Talca and Chillan, is nearly impossible; some desperately trying to reach family and friends have resorted to using radio channels.

An 8.8-magnitude earthquake rocked the country early Saturday morning, during what should have been the last hurrah of Chile’s summer vacation.

Yesterday, Sunday, the government estimated at least 700 dead and more than 2 million affected — many were left homeless, without water, electricity or communication to the outside world.  Reports have been limited to government statements and limited video images coming out of the area.

The epicentre of the quake, which struck just after 3:30 a.m. Saturday, was in the Bio-Bio area (Region VIII), more than 200 miles south of Chile’s capital city, Santiago.

Communities on the Pacific coast were hardest hit with whole neighbourhoods destroyed, hundreds of casualties and many reported to be trapped. The death toll is expected to climb.

The immediate effects were widely felt — most of the country was awoken early Saturday to the tremor, with several buildings collapsing in the capital city, including a parking lot which flattened, crushing around 50 cars between levels. Highways cracked, overpasses and bridges fell and Santiago’s airport suffered damaged and was forced to close, forcing incoming flights to divert to Argentina or Peru.  Churches and museums were also damaged, the streets covered in loose concrete and glass.

Chile’s current president Michelle Bachelet called for calm and declared a “state of catastrophe.”

“We’re doing everything we can with all the forces we have. Any information we will share immediately,” she said.

Bachelet and the President-elect Sebastian Piñera – who takes office March 11 – both flew south by helicopter to assess the damage.

Strong aftershocks, some up to 6 points on the Richter scale, continued into Sunday; dozens were recorded. Many people, even in Santiago, were reportedly too afraid to return to their homes and slept outside. Many city services got back on line as of Sunday evening, however, including Santiago’s metro service. And a limited number of flights were allowed to land at the international airport.

Meanwhile, at least 100 people continue to be trapped in a 14-storey building in Concepcion; more than 40 were already rescued as of Sunday morning. Elsewhere in the city, the large superstore Lider was looted for food, water, and electronics. And more than 200 prisoners escaped a prison in nearby Chillan.

Back in Santiago, many shelves were emptied of water late Saturday. Long queues outside call centers in the capital poured out into the streets, people trying to reach relatives in the south. But most cellphone networks were down and communication with those in the affected areas was nearly impossible.

Many countries immediately pledged aid — U.S. secretary of state Hillary Clinton has left the U.S. and was expected to arrive in Chile within a day on a previously scheduled visit — however Chile has not yet formally asked for foreign aid.

Read more here.

Premier Silvio Berlusconi on Tuesday praised the United States’ leadership of the relief effort in quake-hit Haiti in an attempt to soothe anger over riticism levelled by the Italian special envoy this weekend.

”In critical situations like the one in Haiti, organizational difficulties are inevitable,” Berlusconi warranted.

”But without the US’s intervention, managing the situation would have been much more difficult”.

”Everyone is doing their best in Haiti and right now, we need to stop being critical and focus our energies on the enormous task at hand,” he said.

Regarding remarks by Civil Protection Chief Guido Bertolaso who, during a Sunday telecast direct from Haiti, bemoaned a lack of central coordination, Berlusconi said that ”at times like these, it’s best to avoid making statements that could lead to misunderstandings”.

He added that Foreign Minister Franco Frattini had clarified the government’s position on Monday during talks in Washington with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Despite playing down criticism as ”armchair quarterbacking” during a joint press conference with Frattini, Clinton said Tuesday that she ”deeply resented” insinuations that the US had done less than it could.

”We have scrambled as quick as we could to do everything needed in the past two weeks,” she said.

While Clinton did not single out any detractors in particular, she did point out that the troops sent to Haiti were there to distribute food and medicine, a possible response to a remark by Bertolaso who accused the US of sending ”too many soldiers and not enough aid personnel”.

The Secretary of State added that she had nothing against ”constructive criticism”, but that the US had been judged unfairly by many voices abroad.

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Italian Civil Protection chief Guido Bertolaso

The Italian government on Monday distanced itself from remarks by its special envoy to Haiti, Civil Protection chief Guido Bertolaso, who described the international earthquake relief effort there as ”pathetic”.

On a state visit to Washington to meet with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini underlined that ”the Italian government does not stand by that assessment”.

Frattini granted that ”Bertolaso has made some important recommendations to the Haitian government regarding sheltering orphans and conducting evacuations”. But he stressed that Bertolaso was not speaking for the Italian government when he slammed the international aid machine at work in Haiti, which is largely being directed by the United States.

During an Italian TV broadcast from Port-au-Prince on Sunday, Bertolaso was asked to describe the situation there two weeks after the Caribbean nation was devastated by an earthquake estimated to have claimed as many as 350,000 lives.

The civil protection chief, who headed up the relief effort after the April 2009 earthquake in L’Aquila, responded with a broadside against the lack of central coordination among the various relief agencies present.

”A lot of them are more interested in parading in front of the cameras than rolling up their sleeves and going to work to find survivors,” he said.

”It’s like the bonfire of the vanities”. Bertolaso also said the US had done a poor job of spearheading the relief effort, sending too many troops and not enough people trained in disaster management.

”What’s really needed here is a person like (President Barack) Obama to come and take charge of the emergency”. ”Instead, they sent in a bunch of starlets,” he said in an apparent reference to a handful of celebrities, such as actor Sean Penn, who have made their way to the island over the past week.

Read more here.

The 28-year-old Somali who attacked the Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard was recently in prison for seven weeks in Kenya, reports Denmark’s Politiken.

The formal reason for his incarceration was that a Kenyan police checkpoint found him without travel documents.

At the time of his arrest, Kenyan police was investigating reports of plans to carry out a terrorist attack against, among others, the American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who was due in the country.

The Kenyan media has linked the man’s arrest with the terrorist plans, a link that intelligence sources have confirmed. The Danish Security and Intelligence Service has previously said in a release that the man ‘is suspected of having been involved in terror-related activities during his time in East Africa’.

In Kenya, Denmark’s Ambassador Bo Jensen has declined to confirm or deny Politiken’s information that the Danish-Somali who has now been remanded in custody in the Westergaard case, is identical with the man who was detained in Kenya.

But he says that it is highly unusual to be detained in prison for seven weeks as a result of problems with a passport.

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Wealthy nations at the UN climate talks in Copenhagen appear to be coalescing around the number 100 billion as their final offer to the developing world including China – although whether a dollar, pound or euro sign comes in front of the figure despite the variance in currency valuations is another story.

On Thursday, in attempt to push forward stalled talks in the Danish capital, US secretary of state Hillary Clinton said Washington was ready to embrace the idea of $100 billion (€70 billion) in funds to developing countries to help them tackle climate change.

“The US is prepared to work with other countries to jointly mobilise $100 billion a year by 2020,” Ms Clinton told reporters.

The number, if not the actual sum, echoes the EU’s offer of €100 billion for the third world on the table since the autumn and Britain’s suggestion dating back to July of £100 billion (€112 billion).

But where the EU figure has been offered without conditions, the American number requires a quid pro quo from other powers, notably China and other emerging countries such as India and Brazil.

“In the absence of an operational agreement that meets the requirement that I outlined there will not be the final commitment that I outlined – at least from the United States,” warned Ms Clinton.

The US wants at least the more advanced developing countries to commit to promises of steeper reductions in greenhouse gas emissions growth and in particular to a process that verifies the cuts have actually been made.

The developing world says they are happy to move to a low-carbon development path, but they say that those responsible for the crisis must pay for this transition and that only those actions taken that are funded by the west should have to be reviewed in this way and that any supplementary measures taken should not.

China has promised reductions of between 40 and 45 percent in their “carbon intensity” in relation to their GDP growth, but what this actually means remains unclear.

The EU wants more transparency from China in this regard in terms of which greenhouse gases they mean, which industrial sectors this will apply to and what sort of GDP metrics.

The issue of climate finance has been one of the biggest – although by far not the only – stumbling block in negotiations.

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Three days ago, one of Amanda Knox’s aunts said that the US state department would look into the US student’s conviction for murder, reports Corriere della Sera.

Amanda Knox was convicted last Friday for the murder of her room mate, British exchange student Meredith Kercher in their house in Perugia, Italy.

It sounded more like wishful thinking than a news item. But the Knox family’s relentless campaign to mobilise support has reached into the heart of political Washington at the highest level. In an interview with ABC, the secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, said that she would “meet with anyone who has a concern” over how the Amanda case was handled. She did, however, add that for the time being, she had not expressed “concerns” to the Italian government.

The statement came in answer to a question from journalist George Stephanopoulos, who referred to the harsh comments on the Italian judicial system from Democratic senator Maria Cantwell.

Adding her voice to the chorus of protests over the verdict, Senator Cantwell had claimed that the guilty verdict was reached despite not enough evidence having been presented and the obvious anti-Americanism of Italian public opinion. Senator Cantwell repeated her views yesterday and also said she was disappointed because she had been confident of a not guilty verdict.

An almost apologetic (but what for?) Hillary Clinton said that she hadn’t had time to go into the Amanda case because she was “immersed in what we’re doing in Afghanistan”. But the secretary of state wants to make up for lost time: “Of course, I’ll meet with Senator Cantwell, or anyone who has a concern, but I can’t offer any opinion about that at this time”. News of the pledge is understood to have been communicated to Amanda at Capanne prison by her family.

Amanda’s parents hope that the secretary of state will support her innocence and bring the superpower’s political weight to bear on its ally. “Now I do want the government involved and I would be very, very disappointed if they did not get involved”, said Amanda’s father, Curt Knox. The appeal is in line with some of the television coverage of the past few months along the lines of “What’s America waiting for to send in the Marines and free the poor woman?” As if Amanda was in the clutches of some despotic regime.

But such language is light years away from Hillary Clinton’s diplomatic caution. Meanwhile over the past few months, the friends of Amanda have been hard at work to dispel her negative image and rebut the charges. Amanda’s family, the glory-hunting self-styled private investigators and her lawyers have found willing listeners in the media. Television coverage has been almost entirely one-sided and studio guests have presented the Seattle woman as the victim of an arcane legal system.

In effect, this has turned the case into a face-off between Italy and the United States, leaving to one side Amanda’s curious behaviour after the crime and forgetting that the very Italian Raffaele Sollecito was also convicted with her. Perugia has been depicted as a small, provincial town with a blinkered mindset. Experts predict that the media offensive will go on until the appeal hearing, where the friends of Amanda are confident of an acquittal.

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