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Wedding bells for Hillary's daughter 6 Dec 2009, 0431 hrs IST, ET Bureau Days after her daughter Chelsea got engaged to investment banker Marc Mezvinsky, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says she is very excited about their marriage next summer which would be a private affair. “I am officially an MOTB, a mother of the bride. I’m very excited about it,” Clinton said. “It’s, for me particularly, an extraordinary moment to see how happy my daughter is and to have such a wonderful young man who will become my son-in-law,” she said. At the same time, Clinton acknowledged that...

As America’s first female secretary of state, she was known as a tough bargainer who brooked no nonsense as she travelled the world, facing down despots such as Saddam Hussein and Kim Jong-il. But Madeleine Albright has revealed that she had an unexpected diplomatic tool — costume jewellery. She began using brooches in 1994 after the Gulf war when the Iraqi press referred to her as “an unparalleled serpent”. Then US ambassador to the United Nations, she responded by wearing a golden brooch depicting a coiled snake to her next meeting with the Iraqis. “I didn’t consider the gesture a...

Madeleine ALBRIGHT -October 12, 2009, 4pm Read My Pins Discussion & Booksigning (at local progressive bookstore) Tempe, Arizona

Here is video of a bizarre moment where former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright makes CNN's John Roberts blush as she talks about a South Korean diplomat whom she says looked forward to her visits because he said Albright "made her feel younger." Albright explained why he said that, and then demonstrated the "art of diplomatic kissing" with Roberts. . . . (VIDEO)

Former Secretary of State Madeline Albright spoke at a forum in Omsk, Siberia. Pravda reported that her speech "surprised the audience." No wonder. The Russians in attendance must have wondered how they managed to lose the cold war: Madeleine Albright said during the meeting that America no longer had the intention of being the first nation of the world. Ms. Albright started her speech in Russian. "Hello and thank you! It's a pleasure for me to be here," she said in Russian. Albright wrote in her autobiography that she was trying to learn some Russian during the 1960s. The former...

Despite denials from her soon-to-be former employers, the Albright Group, former Clinton EPA head and soon-to-be climate change czar Carol Browner served as a de facto lobbyist for Dubai Ports World, owned by the United Arab Emirate of Dubai, which arranged to buy a company operating six major U.S. ports, including New York and New Jersey. Browner told the Obama transition team that she never served as a lobbyist in her time in Washington, and her employer, the Albright Group, owned by former secretary of state Madeleine Albright, also said that the firm does not lobby. But in 2006, when...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7h3GPc_yMCE I know this video was all the rage back during the election of '06. However, in light of this weekends major stories, I thought I should repost this. If only America would have listened to Republican's in 2006...

HOME-SCHOOLING: U.N. treaty might weaken families Michael Smith, president of the Home School Legal Defense Association (Courtesy of hslda.org) One of the issues American families could face this year is the ramifications from a treaty called the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). You may ask, "How could a treaty directly affect internal decision-making by American families?" We generally think of treaties as agreements affecting international relations between countries. The U.N., however, has initiated treaties that not only affect international relations, but also the domestic relations of member nations as well. These treaties, sometimes called "conventions,"...

Rice says only an idiot would trust North Korea Fri Dec 19, 2008 6:18pm EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in an interview released on Friday only an "idiot" would trust North Korea, which is why the United States is insisting on a way to check its nuclear claims. A 2005 multilateral deal under which Pyongyang would abandon its nuclear programs has become snagged on Pyongyang's refusal to spell out a protocol on how to verify its disclosures about its nuclear programs. The sticking point appears to be North Korea's reluctance to allow inspectors to take...

CHICAGO (Reuters) - President-elect Barack Obama on Wednesday named a bipartisan duo of Washington veterans to meet foreign delegations at this weekend's global financial summit, opening communication between the next U.S. administration and its global counterparts. Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, a Democrat, and former Republican Rep. Jim Leach will be available for unofficial meetings on Obama's behalf at the Washington summit, which Obama himself will not attend, a statement from his office said. "This weekend's summit is an important opportunity to hear from the leaders of many of the world's largest economies," said Obama's senior foreign policy adviser,...

*snip* The Obama transition team released the names of 13 people on Wednesday who will direct a top-to-bottom review of federal agencies and another six who will lead teams that will review Treasury, State and Defense department policy, budget and personnel issues. *snip* It includes four former lobbyists, three top campaign fund-raisers and two former employees of troubled mortgage giant Fannie Mae, with some overlap among them. Four people in the group have ties to the consultant McKinsey & Co. and two have experience leading high-tech start-ups. Mr. Obama's transition advisers include Tom Donilon, a top lobbyist for Fannie Mae,...

The Obama transition office announced on Wednesday that the president-elect will send two representatives to meet with delegates attending the G-20 economic summit being held this weekend: former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, a Democrat, and former Congressman Jim Leach, a Republican. The pair, according to a press release, will hold "unofficial meetings to seek input from visiting delegations on behalf of the President-elect and Vice President-elect." Afterward, Albright and Leach will brief Barack Obama and Joe Biden. Leach is both a curious and obvious choice. First, the obvious: he's a Republican who led the Republicans for Obama effort during...

CHICAGO (Reuters) - President-elect Barack Obama on Wednesday named a bipartisan duo of Washington veterans to meet foreign delegations at this weekend's global financial summit, opening communication between the next U.S. administration and its global counterparts. Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, a Democrat, and former Republican Rep. Jim Leach will be available for unofficial meetings on Obama's behalf at the Washington summit, which Obama himself will not attend, a statement from his office said.

WASHINGTON, DC, November 12, 2008 (ENS) - When the leaders of the G20 countries gather in Washington this weekend for a special summit on the global financial crisis, pressure will be on to seek solutions in the growth of a new green economy. Today in Washington, Gary Gardner and Michael Renner, senior researchers with the environmental research organization Worldwatch Institute, issued a detailed proposal that they hope will focus the attention of the G20 leaders on what they are calling a "Global Green Deal." "The challenge for global political leadership, including U.S. President-elect [Barack] Obama, is not merely to kickstart...

Here is video of former Secretary of State Madeline Albright admitting it is a "statement of fact" that the election of Barack Obama would result in him being tested with an "international crisis" generated by America's enemies. She was responding to the comments of Joe Biden, who predicted that Barack Obama would be tested by an "international crisis" generated by America's enemies to test him within the first six months of his Presidency. Albright was talking with CNN's John Roberts. . . . . . (Watch Video)

Sen. Barack Obama’s response to the recent economic crisis should assure voters that he will prove a measured, thoughtful and effective commander-in-chief during a time when the country is facing deep challenges in its global relations, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said Friday in an interview with the Sun. Albright has been crisscrossing the swing states to put her own foreign policy credentials and service in two Democratic administrations behind a candidate whose resume is light on foreign affairs. The diminutive “madam secretary” spoke to the Sun after a forum before about 100 people at UNLV in which she...

Five former secretaries of state took the stage on CNN last night to discuss the challenges facing the next president. So nuanced were their pronouncements and noncomittal their advice that I'm now anxiously awaiting the day they form the wacky cast of a cornpone sketch-comedy show about world conflicts, tentatively titled "Hem Haw." ~snip~ Oddly enough, I can find no blaring headlines this morning claiming Albright and Powell want to "go to war with Russia." Nothing along the lines of what we saw after Charlie Gibson's interview with Sarah Palin produced essentially the same answer from the vice presidential candidate.

BERLIN (AFP) — Former secretary of state Madeleine Albright has blasted the current US administration's handling of the Georgia crisis, saying her first move would have been to travel to Russia for talks. In an interview with the online service of German news weekly Der Spiegel Sunday, Albright said she would have criticised the Russian military surge into Georgia and recognition of two Georgian rebel enclaves but reassured Moscow over its security fears. "I would have gone straight to Moscow, unlike the current Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice," she said, in remarks printed in German. "I would have told the...

Former Secretary Madeline Albright criticizes White House reaction to Georgia/Russia conflict and calls Putin and Bush meeting in Beijing "very peculiar" on CNN's "Situation Room." “I’m speaking from myself personally. I found it very peculiar, that as the Russians were on the borders of Georgia and also practically going in, that President Bush and President Putin had kind of a passing conversation at the Olympics and I also think Secretary Rice should have gone to Moscow.” video

Karadzic demands Holbrooke, Albright appear in court AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic demanded on Wednesday that former U.S. peace mediator Richard Holbrooke and ex-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright appear at the U.N. war crimes tribunal to back his claims of an immunity offer from the United States. Karadzic, who was transferred to the Hague's International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia last week to face war crimes and genocide charges after 11 years on the run, challenged the legality of the case against him, a filing released by the tribunal showed. In the document, Karadzic repeated...

Sunday, 22 June 2008Albright weighs in on 2008 presidential race Caleb Warnock - DAILY HERALD Speaking to a packed room at the Sundance reception center after lunch on Saturday, former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright hit on a wide range of topics. Albright was at Sundance to promote her new book, "Memo to the President Elect: How We Can Restore America's Reputation and Leadership." She was introduced by Robert Redford, who called her a friend and joked, "I am probably the only one who knows her true age, but I'll keep that to myself because she knows mine as...

Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy arrives for a roundtable discussion titled 'Making Law Work for Everyone', Friday, June 13, 2008, at the Organization of American (OAS) in Washington. In writing for the court majority on the Supreme Court's decision on Guantanamo Bay on Thursday, Kennedy acknowledged the terrorism threat the country faces and the administration's justification for the detentions, but he declared, 'The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times.' (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak) Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright arrive for a roundtable discussion titled 'Making...

With hindsight, the Democrats' filibustering of Bolton's nomination to the U.N. post--he served only via a recess appointment--was one of their most shameful acts. The fact that nonentities like Madeline Albright can slide through the Senate without opposition, while the appointment of John Bolton, who combines a towering intellect with unflagging devotion to his country's interests, is blocked on political grounds, illustrates as well as anything which party is "politicizing foreign policy," as Barack Obama likes to say.

Christiane Amanpour interviewed former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, famous for her October 2000 meeting with North Korean dictator Kim "He’s Not a Nut" Jong Il, as part of her "Notes from North Korea" program, which aired on Saturday and Sunday evenings. During the segment, the CNN senior international correspondent failed to note how her husband, James Rubin, worked as spokesman and Assistant Secretary for State for Albright from 1997 until May 2000. Albright emphasized how "it's possible to have verifiable agreements" with the North Korean regime and how "negotiations need to be pursued actively." The Clinton administration that she...

Condoleezza Albright? The Twilight of the Bush Presidency Is Looking More and More like Clinton Guest Column | By Joel Himelfarb | March 31, 2008 As someone who voted to elect George W. Bush in both of his runs for president, I take no pleasure in saying that when it comes to foreign policy, his final year in the White House looks increasingly like Bill Clinton’s. Clinton spent his second term desperately trying to create a peacemaking “legacy” for himself: courting world leaders who had no real interest in making peace like Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat and North Korean...

ATHENS, Ga. (AP) - Five former U.S. secretaries of state are urging the next presidential administration to close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp and open a dialogue with Iran. Each says closing the facility in Cuba would bolster America's image abroad. Regarding Iran, they say it's important to maintain contact with adversaries and allies alike.

5 Ex-Chief Diplomats: Close Guantanamo Mar 27 08:46 PM US/Eastern By GREG BLUESTEIN Associated Press Writer ATHENS, Ga. (AP) - Five former U.S. secretaries of state on Thursday urged the next presidential administration to close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp and open a dialogue with Iran. The former chiefs of American diplomacy, who served in Democratic and Republican administrations, reached a consensus on the two issues at a conference in Athens aimed at giving the next president some bipartisan foreign policy advice. Each of them said shuttering the prison camp in Cuba would bolster America's image abroad. "It says to...

Albright: Bush is the worst President in American history Sunday, January 13, 2008 - 01:30 PM LONDON, ( SANA) _ Former American Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has described the American President George Bush as " one of the worst presidents in the American history." That came in her book published at the beginning of this week. Albright, in her book, which the London-based al-Hayat newspaper issued excerpts from it yesterday, put some advices in front of the next American President who enters the White House in Jan, 21 2009. She said: " The most important priorities for the next...

In trying to figure out how the various potential US presidents might steer foreign policy, much effort has been expended on reading tea leaves based on figures at the fringes of the campaign. But more attention should be paid to what a mainstream Democratic figure, close to Hillary Clinton, is saying. A recent op-ed by Clinton administration secretary of state Madeleine K. Albright in the International Herald Tribune, based on a speech to the US-Islamic World Forum in Doha, Qatar, bears examination. Part of Albright's op-ed was refreshing and bears repeating by all candidates. "America is criticized for not doing...

I believe the most precious gift the next president could bestow upon America is an end to the politics of fear. Fear, of course, has its place. Seven decades ago, the world did not fear Hitler enough. Today, Iraq remains a powder keg, Afghanistan a struggle, Iran a potential danger and North Korea a puzzle not yet solved. Pakistan combines all the elements that give us an international migraine. Al-Qaeda and its offshoots deserve our most urgent attention, because when people say they want to kill us, we would be fools not to take them at their word. Still, we...

Nearly seven years out office, former Secretary of State Madeline Albright pulls no punches bashing the Bush administration’s handling of certain issues – calling it one of America’s “worst presidencies.” Albright gave President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney very poor marks and listed goals for the next president to do better that include embracing a global view of climate change. “This is a purely practical point here, and I think there’s a lot of work to be done” Albright said. “And I think the judgment is that this is one of the worst presidencies we’ve had and...

Nearly seven years out office, former Secretary of State Madeline Albright pulls no punches bashing the Bush administration’s handling of certain issues – calling it one of America’s “worst presidencies.” Albright gave President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney very poor marks and listed goals for the next president to do better that include embracing a global view of climate change. “This is a purely practical point here, and I think there’s a lot of work to be done” Albright said. “And I think the judgment is that this is one of the worst presidencies we’ve had and...

In Discordance with the Scriptures: American Protestant Battles over Translating the Bible. By Peter J. Thuesen. Oxford University Press, 238 pp., $2 7. 50. THE VERSIONS of the Bible we choose to carry, display and read are good indices of who we are. Peter Thuesen presents a history of the creation of a translation that became a kind of badge for many, the Revised Standard Version. He explores the controversy that attended its publication and the aftermath of that controversy. He analyzes the attempts of the men who produced the RSV to respond to the criticisms it engendered, and the...

Blackwill stays India's key lobbyist17 Dec 2007, 0247 hrs IST, Indrani Bagchi, TNN NEW DELHI: With a firm eye on the nuclear deal and its future passage through the international and US system, the government has renewed the multi-million dollar contract of its favourite lobbyist in Washington. Robert Blackwill's firm Barbour Griffith & Rogers will be India's sole lobbyist in the US for 2008 for the second consecutive year. In 2006, India had added Venable, another law firm engaged in Washington advocacy, to work the US Senate when the Hyde Act was doing the rounds of Capitol Hill. India is...

U.S. Diplomat Is Residing in North Korean Capital, Chosun Says By Heejin Koo Nov. 26 (Bloomberg) -- A U.S. diplomat has been residing in North Korea since mid-November, acting as a liaison between the governments of Washington and Pyongyang, South Korea's Chosun Ilbo newspaper said, citing an unidentified official in Washington.The presence of the unidentified U.S. envoy, who is staying at the Koryo Hotel in Pyongyang, is an indication of improved relations between the two nations since North Korea pledged to disable its Yongbyon nuclear plant by the end of this year, the Seoul-based daily said. The U.S. plans...

It seems former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright is more skilled at international relations than we thought. She was spotted at one of Buenos Aires’ most exclusive tango spots canoodling with a handsome, and age-appropriate, Argentine, reports Politico’s Aoife McCarthy. Sources confirm this is not the first time the 70-year-old former secretary — who has been divorced since 1982 — has been spotted with this handsome man of mystery. And, apparently, the rendezvousing — with the man who has been described as her very own “Mr. Big” — has been going on for quite some time. Flashback: Bill Clinton did...

When Alexander Sibert told President Vladimir Putin that former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright had said Siberia held too many resources for Russia alone, Putin dismissed the statement as "political erotica." Albright might have found "political fantasy" more appropriate. Putin said he was not aware of the comment, Albright denies ever making it, and no one else seems able to provide any evidence that she did. But this hasn't stopped Putin and others from attributing these thoughts to foreign figures who they say wish Russia harm. Sibert, 70, a mechanic who works at the Institute of Nuclear Physics in...

Dear "Past Your Eyes", We are at a moment of truth for America's foreign policy -- our decisions today will dramatically shape the role of America in the world for generations to come. We must repair our nation's tarnished reputation and once again become a source of inspiration and hope across the globe. Right now, Congress is debating the best way to address our foreign policy challenges -- most importantly, ending the war in Iraq. Our troops are being asked to risk their lives to solve problems that our civilian leaders created. President Bush has yet to explain how our...

DES MOINES, Iowa -- Once the highest-ranking woman in the history of the United States government, Madeleine Albright spent Friday in central Iowa. The former Secretary of State is campaigning for Democratic presidential candidate and U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. Albright dealt with serious issues all over the world in her position as secretary of state. She said the world is in serious trouble. "I don't think I have ever seen the world in such a mess," Albright said to a packed house at the West Des Moines Community Center. "I believe that Iraq is going to go down in...

VIENNA, Va. — A former commander of the main Signal Corps unit on Fort Huachuca and of the post in the 1970s died Saturday at Walter Reed Medical Center, in Washington, D.C. For nearly five years Maj. Gen. Jack A. Albright commanded the Army Strategic Communications Command beginning on Oct. 29, 1971. STRATCOM was renamed the Army Communications Command in October 1973, which he headed until his retirement on April 29, 1976. Maj. Gen. Albright Albright, who was 86 when he died last week, was assigned to the fort as brigadier general and the deputy commander of STRATCOM in December...

April 23, 2007 Iraq’s WMD myth: why Clinton is culpable A new UN testimony, revealed to andrew cockburn, shows the WMD fiasco goes back to 1997 A former senior UN diplomat has revealed to me details of how, just over 10 years ago, the Clinton administration deliberately sabotaged UN weapons inspections in Iraq. American officials were fearful that Iraq would be officially certified as weapons-free, a development that was seen as a political liability for Bill Clinton. Thus the stage was set for the manufacture of the Iraqi WMD myth as the excuse for George Bush's catastrophic invasion of Iraq....

Eight words. A declaration of the obvious, by the speaker's own admission. But the frustrated soldier who uttered those words hits on the deadly dilemma facing American troops in Iraq: Who do you shoot when the enemy looks so much like the people you're trying to protect? Perhaps that's why the quote -- said by Army Spc. Terry Wilson, of Chicago's Beverly community, after a "horrific" patrol in Baghdad -- has been repeated by anti-war politicians around the country. By chance, the hometown hero's words were included in a speech given by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright earlier this...

The country is "hungry for answers" so former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright dished some out Tuesday at Saint Xavier University in Chicago’s Mount Greenwood community. "I refuse to become silent," Albright said. "We need every available voice speaking up for democracy, tolerance and peace." Albright, who attended Wellesley, a women’s college, and now teaches at Georgetown, a Catholic university, was embraced by the largely female crowd of about 1,000 at Saint Xavier, a 150-year-old Catholic institution that started accepting men since 1969. She relishes being able to speak candidly about politics and foreign affairs now that she’s no...

AN AUSTRALIAN former UN war crimes investigator has revealed documents exposing a UN cover-up of its inquiry into the events that triggered the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Adelaide lawyer Michael Hourigan says the UN shut down his investigation in 1997 into the shooting down of a plane carrying the extremist Rwandan president Juvenal Habyarimana and the president of Burundi. The investigation implicated ethnic Tutsi rebel leader Paul Kagame, who is now the President of Rwanda. The 100-day genocide, in which Hutu extremists murdered Tutsis and moderate Hutus, began hours after the plane was shot down. Late last year, President Kagame was...

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Jan.. 17, 2007 before the House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on the situation in Iraq. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh) Secretary of State Madeleine Albright (L) shakes hands with North Korea's Foreign Minister Paek Nam-Sun during their bilateral meeting in Bangkok in this July 28, 2000 file photo. North Korean Foreign Minister Paek Nam-sun has died, the North's official media reported on January 3, 2007. Paek, 77, who had served as foreign minister since September 1989, had been ill. REUTERS/Jason Reed

Jan. 18 (UPI) -- Madeleine Albright, the former U.S. Secretary of State, raised $329 million from a Dutch pension fund to invest in emerging markets. Albright Capital Management LLC, an alternative-investment firm chaired by Albright, said it will make a ``long-term, multi- class investment'' on behalf of PGGM, which manages more than 80 billion euros ($104 billion) of pension money for health-care employees and social workers. ``Albright Capital offers a unique way to integrate expertise in international affairs with investment professionalism,'' Else Bos, chief executive officer of PGGM Investments, said in an e-mailed statement. ``This will be particularly powerful in...

Zucker's Point by Edward Wronka Modern day politics had appeared to reach its boiling point during the last U.S Presidential election in the release of Fahrenheit 911. It combined polished Hollywood production values with blatantly inflammatory political rhetoric and grand allusions of wicked deception at the highest levels of our GOP-infested government. There were many on the Republican side who thought the film was simply over-the-top. Despite all the hoopla, when all was said and done, people chose George W. Bush for their President, evidently dismissing this sinister portrayal by Michael Moore. After all, fact is still fact, and fiction...

The video sharing site YouTube, just recently purchased by Google, has once again allowed a band of determined users to censor something they don't like.The latest casualty is a a controversial spoof political ad by a Republican filmmaker David Zucker (producer of such films as "Scary Movie 4," "Airplane," among others) which depicts former secretary of state Madeline Albright, a Democrat who served in the Clinton administration, acting as a maid, servant and cheerleader for Islamic terrorists and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. After the Republican party declined to run with it, the ad was sent to Matt Drudge...

by Mark Finkelstein October 11, 2006 - 08:45. To judge by its political cartoon of this morning, the Boston Globe apparently believes that if only the Bush administration had engaged in direct talks with North Korea, it could have prevented Kim from building his bomb. Let's leave aside the fact that the Bush administration has been talking to North Korea. Indeed, the president was proceeding in precisely the way the MSM usually implores him to do - multilaterally, via the Six Party talks. Isn't the Globe forgetting a teeny little thing? That the Clinton administration famously engaged in direct talks...

Let down the curtain: the farce is done. (Rabelais) BEYOND NORTH KOREACLINTON DELUSIONS, DECEPTIONS + THE BOMBTHE DEMOCRATS ARE GONNA GET US KILLED by Mia T, 10.10.06 "We actually drew up plans to attack North Korea and to destroy their reactors." --bill clinton "I remember exactly what happened. Bruce Lindsey said to me on the phone, 'My God, a second plane has hit the tower.' And I said, 'Bin Laden did this.' that's the first thing I said. He said, 'How can you be sure?' I said 'Because only bin Laden and the Iranians could set up the network to...