Myanmar’s Suu Kyi says could pursue lifting of sanctions

YANGON: Myanmar pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi said on Sunday she was willing to enter into dialogue with Western nations to lift sanctions on the country if the Burmese people wanted it.

“If the people really want sanctions to be lifted, I will consider it,” Suu Kyi told her first news conference following her release from seven years of house arrest on Saturday.

“This is the time that Burma needs help,” she said, referring to the country by it’s former name. “Western nations, Eastern nations, the whole world… everything starts with dialogue.”

Analysts expect Suu Kyi will work with the West to lift sanctions she once supported but now believes are hurting the Burmese people rather than the ruling military junta. AGENCIES

Obama says Suu Kyi release long overdue

YOKOHAMA: U.S. President Barack Obama said on Saturday that he welcomed the release of Myanmar pro- democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

“She is a hero of mine and a source of inspiration for all who work to advance basic human rights in Burma and around the world. The United States welcomes her long overdue release,” the president said in a statement. AGENCIES

Clinton shares concern over N.Korea-Myanmar military ties

HANOI: The United States shared concerns with Vietnam on Thursday over exports of military equipment from North Korea to junta-ruled Myanmar, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said.

After meeting Vietnam”s Foreign Minister Pham Gia Khiem in Hanoi, Clinton told reporters she shared with him “our concerns about the exporting by North Korea of military material and equipment to Burma”.

“We know that a ship from North Korea recently delivered military equipment to Burma and we continue to be concerned by the reports that Burma may be seeking assistance from North Korea with regard to a nuclear programme. “That is a matter that is of concern to ASEAN, and of concern to the United States,” she added in the Vietnamese capital, ahead of Friday”s ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Regional Forum.

Obama calls for release of Suu Kyi on 65th birthday

WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama on Friday called on the Myanmar regime to free Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi in a message sending best wishes for her 65th birthday.

Obama hailed the Myanmar opposition leader”s “determination, courage, and personal sacrifice in working for human rights and democratic change” as she marks her birthday Saturday under house arrest in Yangon.

The military regime has kept Suu Kyi in detention for almost 15 years and she has been barred from running in upcoming elections that critics have denounced as a sham aimed at entrenching the generals” power.

“I wish to convey my best wishes to Aung San Suu Kyi, the world”s only imprisoned Nobel Peace laureate, on the occasion of her 65th birthday on June 19,” Obama said in his message.

“I once again call on the Burmese government to release Aung San Suu Kyi and all political prisoners immediately and unconditionally and to allow them to build a more stable, prosperous Burma that respects the rights of all its citizens.”

US panel: 13 nations violate religious freedom

WASHINGTON – Saudi Arabia and China are among 13 countries a U.S. government panel named on Thursday as serious violators of religious freedom.

The panel”s report also criticized the current and former administrations in Washington for doing far too little to make basic religious rights universal.

That is the goal of the congressional act that founded the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom in 1998. The commission investigates conditions in what it calls “hot spots,” where religious freedom is endangered. Its job is to recommend U.S. government policies to improve conditions.

It is a “small but critically important point of intersection of foreign policy, national security and international religious freedom standards,” the report said. “Regrettably that small point seems to shrink year-after-year for the White House and he State Department.”

List includes repeats
This year”s list of 13 “countries of particular concern” included all eight named last year — Myanmar, also known as Burma; China; Eritrea; Iran; North Korea; Saudi Arabia; Sudan; and Uzbekistan — plus Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Turkmenistan and Vietnam.

U.S. actions currently in force against the original eight include embargoes, often on top of existing sanctions, and denial of military or financial aid. Sanctions have been waived indefinitely for Saudi Arabia, and Uzbekistan has a waiver of 180 days which remains in force.

President Barack Obama”s administration has not officially accepted the 2009 findings or named the specified countries as violators of religious rights. Neither did the administration of President George W. Bush between November 2006 and January 2009.

In addition to the 13 designated the worst violators, the report identified 12 countries on a watch list: Afghanistan, Belarus, Cuba, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Laos, Russia, Somalia, Tajikistan, Turkey and Venezuela.

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TrendPK.com santa norad tracker 2009:Santa’s in Burma (Myanmar)! Or wait – now the Taj Mahal. Pakistan is next. Eager youngsters (and the young at heart) can track the jolly guy online in many formats this year – with the help of Google Maps, Google Earth, Facebook, Twitter, and, of course, the North [...]

President Clinton and foreign policy

President Clinton and foreign policy, When it comes to Hillary Rodham Clinton, we’re missing the forest for the pantsuits.

Clinton is not the first celebrity to become the nation’s top diplomat – that honour goes to her most distant predecessor, Thomas Jefferson, who by the time he took office was one of the most famous and gossiped-about men in America – but she may be the biggest. And during her first seven months in office, the former first lady, erstwhile presidential candidate and eternal lightning rod has drawn more attention for her moods, looks, outtakes and (of course) relationship with her husband than for, well, her work revamping the nation’s foreign policy.

Even venerable publications – such as one to which I regularly contribute, Foreign Policy – have woven into their all-Hillary-all-the-time coverage odd discussions of Clinton’s handbag and scarf choices.

Indeed, sexism has followed Clinton from the campaign trail to Foggy Bottom, as seen most recently in the posturing outrage surrounding the exchange in Congo when Clinton reacted with understandable frustration to the now-infamous question regarding her husband’s views. Major media outlets have joined the gossipfest, whether the New York Times, which covered Clinton’s first big policy speech by discussing whether she was in or out with the White House, or The Washington Post, where a couple of reporters mused about whether a particular brew would be the drink of choice for the secretary of state.

Amid all the distractions, what is Clinton actually doing? Only overseeing what may be the most profound changes in US foreign policy in two decades – a transformation that may render the presidencies of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush mere side notes in a long transition to a meaningful post-Cold War worldview.

The secretary has quietly begun rethinking the very nature of diplomacy and translating that vision into a revitalised State Department, one that approaches US allies and rivals in ways that challenge long-held traditions. And despite the pessimists who invoked the ‘team of rivals’ cliche to predict that US President Barack Obama and Clinton would not get along, she has defined a role for herself in the Obamaverse: often bad cop to his good cop, spine stiffener when it comes to tough adversaries and nurturer of new strategies. Recognising that the 3am phone calls are going to the White House, she is instead tackling the tough questions that, since the end of the Cold War, have kept America’s leaders awake all night.

In these early days of the new administration, it has been easy to focus on what Clinton has not achieved or on ways in which her power has been supposedly constrained. Indeed, some of her efforts have been frustrated by difficult personnel approvals or disputes with the White House about who should get what jobs. But this is the way of all administrations. More unusual has been the avidity with which the new president has seized the reins of foreign policy – more assertively than either George W. Bush or Bill Clinton before him. Obama’s centrality amplifies the importance of his closest White House staffers, while his penchant for appointing special envoys such as Richard Holbrooke (on Afghanistan and Pakistan) and George Mitchell (on the Middle East) has been interpreted by some as limiting Clinton’s role.

Given the challenges involved, it was perhaps natural that the White House would have a bigger day-to-day hand in some of the nation’s most urgent foreign policy issues. But with Obama, national security adviser Jim Jones, Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of Defence Robert Gates absorbed by Iraq, Afghanistan and other inherited problems of the recent past, Clinton’s State Department can take on a bigger role in tackling the problems of the future.

At the heart of things is the relationship between Clinton and Obama. For all the administration’s talk of international partnerships, that may be the most critical partnership of all.

So far, according to multiple high-level officials at State and the White House, the two seem aligned in their views. In addition, they are gradually defining complementary roles. Obama has assumed the role of principal spokesperson on foreign policy, as international audiences welcome his new and improved American brand. Clinton thus far has echoed his points but has also delivered tougher ones. Whether on a missile shield against Iran or North Korean sabre-rattling, the continued imprisonment of Aung San Suu Kyi in Burma or rape and corruption in Congo, the secretary of state has spoken bluntly on the world stage – even if it triggered snide comments from North Korea.

It is still early, and a president’s foreign policy legacy is often defined less by big principles than by how one reacts to the unexpected, whether missiles in Cuba or terrorism in New York. Promising ideas fail because of limited attention or reluctant bureaucracies, and some rhetoric eventually rings hollow, as the self-congratulatory ’smart power’ already does to me.

Nevertheless, there is evidence that, seven months into the job, Obama’s unlikely secretary of state is supporting and augmenting his agenda effectively. Not as Obama’s ‘other wife’, not as Bill Clinton’s wife, not even as a celebrity or as a former presidential candidate – but in a new role of her own making.

- Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service ( Thanks to http://www.gulfnews.com )

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President Clinton and foreign policy was first posted on August 27, 2009 at 9:11 pm.
©2009 “Pakistan News“.