Clinton Leaves Africa 'More Committed' Than Ever

Secretary of State says no end to sanctions against Mugabe

(NEWSER) - Hillary Clinton is in South Africa, where the secretary of State called on the continent's richest nation to pressure Zimbabwe into reform. "South Africa has 3 million refugees from Zimbabwe, and every one of those refugees represents a failure of the Zimbabwean government to care for its own people," Clinton said. She added that the Obama administration will not offer any aid to Zimbabwe or lift sanctions against Robert Mugabe and his supporters until it sees evidence of reform. More»

Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf spoke while Tony Blair squirmed

(NEWSER) - Nobel Peace Prize winner and Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf says gay sex should remain illegal: "We like ourselves just the way we are," she told the Guardian . "We've got certain traditional values in our society that we would like to preserve." Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, visiting on a humanitarian mission, squirmed in his seat during the joint interview but refused to address the issue. "I'm not giving you an answer on it," said the longtime advocate of gay rights. More»

She's still trivialized as she fights to empower women

(NEWSER) - Hillary Clinton’s trip to Congo was meant to help fulfill a promise to focus on women’s issues, but it seems to have turned on one woman's issues. Though “there could have been no more dramatic setting,” writes Judith Warner in the New York Times, “back home, all anyone could talk about was Bill.” The secretary of State faces a “tide of trivialization” as she fights for women and we chatter about her “marriage, her temperament, even her hair.” More»

(AP) - Hillary Clinton traveled to war-ravaged eastern Congo today, where the nation's top diplomat demanded an end to the sexual violence that has claimed at least 200,000 victims. Clinton came to Goma aboard a UN plane over the objections of some top aides who were concerned about security and logistics for the visit. She is the first secretary of state to visit the city. More»

(NEWSER) - A visibly annoyed Hillary Clinton bristled today when—as she heard it—a Congolese university student asked what her husband thought about an international financial matter, the AP reports. "My husband is not secretary of state, I am," she snapped. "If you want my opinion, I will tell you my opinion. I am not going to be channeling my husband." More»