Foreign Policy

There will be consequences for North Korea's decision to test a nuclear weapon, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said today.

The international community must "reign in the North Koreans" and force them to honor their obligations under international law, Clinton said at a press conference today.

"North Korea has made a choice," she said. "It has chosen to violate the specific language of the U.N. Security Council resolution, [resolution] 1718. It has ignored the international community. It has abrogated the obligations it entered into through the six party talks, and it continues to act in a provocative and belligerent manner towards its neighbors.

"There are consequences to such actions. In the United Nations as we speak, discussion are going on to add to the consequences that North Korea will face coming out of the latest behavior, with the intent to try to reign in the North Koreans, and get them back into a framework where they are once again fulfilling their obligation and moving toward denuclearization of the Korean peninsula."

Dick Cheney's speech tomorrow on national security will be carried live on the cable networks immediately following President Obama's address on similar topics, giving the former Vice President a huge platform to pick a fight with Obama.

Greg Sargent reports that CNN and MSNBC will cut to Cheney at 10:45 AM, right after Obama's major address at 10AM. (Sargent simply assumes that Fox News will do the same, which is probably a correct assumption.)

Democrats and liberal bloggers are already pushing back against the notion that Cheney's opinion is somehow equivalent to the President's. It's certainly true that what the President of the United States has to say about national security will have more implications for U.S. policy than the former Vice President's thoughts, but the scheduling of these two addresses, as well as the network's willingness to cover Cheney, may at least partially undermine the White House's goal for tomorrow's address.

The administration is hoping to use tomorrow's speech to cool down the heated debate surrounding interrogation policy, Pelosi's spat with the CIA, the decision not to release photos of detainee abuse, the closing of Guantanamo Bay, etc. It's the same tactic Obama applied to the economy in an April 14th address at Georgetown University.

Now that Cheney--Obama's most visible opponent on the issues he'll address--will effectively rebut the President on live TV, one has to wonder if tomorrow's events will simply add fuel to the fire.

Roxana Saberi, the Iranian-American journalist convicted in Tehran on charges of espionage will be released today, her lawyers said.

According to the Washington Post, authorities have suspended the rest of her eight year prison sentence:

"We are at the prison now, and hopefully she will be released in one or two hours," Khorramshai [Saberi's lawyer] said during a phone interview. He said he had received a message from Iranian judicial authorities at 2 p.m. local time that Saberi's sentence had been reduced from eight years to a two-year suspended sentence.

"As I understood it, she is free to leave Iran," Khorramshai said. "They explained me that the two years were conditional and would not be carried out if she would not commit any crimes in the coming five years."Saberi has been banned from working as a reporter in Iran for five years, Khorramshai added.

Saberi was convicted in April of epsionage after a short, closed-door trial. Iranian leaders, including President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, asked for a re-trial. A verdict was expected sometime this week.

UPDATE: Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) released the following statement on the news of Saberi's release--which is now final. (Saberi's family is from North Dakota).

"This is the news we've all been waiting for. Roxana has been released from prison and she is safe with her father. The entire North Dakota family shares the Saberi family's sense of joy and relief that Roxana has been freed. We anxiously await her safe return to the United States.

"I commend all those who fought tirelessly for Roxana's release and her countless supporters in North Dakota, across the nation, and around the world who never gave up hope."

There's a meeting Thursday to discuss how to approach the pirate crisis, but that's all you're supposed to know. From Friday's State Department press briefing:

QUESTION: This meeting, this interagency meeting that's taking place today on piracy, could you please enlarge on that, you know? Are you looking at specific proposals? Are you hoping to come up with one thing specific?
MR. WOOD: Sue, for one thing, I don't want to make a habit of talking about internal U.S. Government meetings. But there's a working-level meeting going on today that is going to deal with next steps with regard to the announcement the Secretary made with regard to our anti-piracy efforts. So let me just leave it at that. There's a meeting going on, working level, to start to begin implementation of the initiative the Secretary announced.
QUESTION: Well, if you don't want to make a habit of talking about it, then --
MR. WOOD: Not going to start here.
QUESTION: Well, but the Secretary announced that this meeting was happening two days ago, and last evening --
QUESTION: There was a number of --
QUESTION: -- there was an email, an on-the-record email comment, about the meeting coming out from your office.
MR. WOOD: Mm-hmm. And I think I gave you some of the details --
QUESTION: Actually it was one sentence that gave no details.
MR. WOOD: Well, I think I did better than one sentence, so --
QUESTION: And so, you've already made a habit of talking about this meeting, so why can't you --
MR. WOOD: No, but in getting into the particulars from the podium about --
QUESTION: Can you tell us who's going to be there?
MR. WOOD: I --
QUESTION: Not names, but what agencies are represented?
MR. WOOD: Well, for one thing, I don't have that with me right here. But I don't really want to make -- get into the habit -- I don't even want to begin to talk about internal U.S. Government meetings. We just --
QUESTION: Okay, well, if you don't want us to ask about them, then you shouldn't announce them.
MR. WOOD: Look --
QUESTION: The Secretary said that it --
QUESTION: Is that fair enough?
QUESTION: -- was an interagency meet! ing.
MR. WOOD: Okay.
QUESTION: So can you say what agencies are there?
MR. WOOD: I'm just saying an interagency meeting. I don't want to get into the specifics. I've just said that.
QUESTION: Well, what are the options for next steps then? You said you're looking at next steps. I mean, what do you see as being, you know, possible?
MR. WOOD: Well, I think I outlined those the other day for -- for all of you. I mean, we are looking to see what we can do in terms of coordinating our communication efforts, for trying to see how we can deal with tracking and seizing assets of pirates, looking to see how we can best prosecute these criminals. But I don't have anything beyond what I said the other day.
Again, we're starting -- the process underway right now, we're beginning the implementation of the Secretary's initiative. As you know, there's a meeting on the 23rd in Brussels that Acting Assistant Secretary Phillip Carter will be attending, so there is a lot of movement and activity going on. So when we have more to say, we certainly will. But these are our initial efforts to start to implement that initiative.
QUESTION: Is there some timetable associated with the work of the committee? In other words --
MR. WOOD: I don't think there's any timetable on this yet, James. But we clearly want to move forward as quickly as possible. We're trying, as you know, to set up a contact group meeting very soon. So there's a lot going on, and we'll certainly provide you with updates as we have them.
QUESTION: A new subject?
MR. WOOD: Mm-hmm.

President Obama today rescinded the policy, begun by President Reagan and resurrected by the last President Bush, that bans U.S. foreign aid from going to organizations that counsel foreign citizens on abortion or lobby foreign governments to make abortion legal.

Reagan had instituted the rule in 1984 as an extension of the 1961 Foreign Assistance Act, which prohibits organizations from using U.S. foreign aid to finance the performance of abortions, or the motivation or coercion of any woman to have one. President Clinton rescinded the "Mexico City Rule" in 1993; President George W. Bush reinstated it in 2001.

"It is clear that the provisions of the Mexico City Policy are unnecessarily broad and unwarranted under current law, and for the past eight years, they have undermined efforts to promote safe and effective voluntary family planning in developing countries," Obama said in a statement released by the White House. "For these reasons, it is right for us to rescind this policy and restore critical efforts to protect and empower women and promote global economic development."<!--more-->

Ben Affleck has accepted an invitation by a Republican senator to testify at a congressional hearing about a documentary film he made in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Affleck, in town Monday for a national hunger rally, declined to identify the senator who invited him but did say he plans to discuss what he saw at Congolese refugee camps he visited when shooting his film.

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President Bush will call for international pressure on Hamas and a ceasefire between the group and Israel in his weekly radio address to the nation tomorrow, according to an advance copy of the speech released Friday evening.

"The United States is leading diplomatic efforts to achieve a meaningful ceasefire that is fully respected.

After President Bush called Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Thursday, President-elect Barack Obama called the prime minister Friday night to offer condolences of his own for the terrorist attacks that have shaken Mumbai since Wednesday.

Obama called Singh around 10:30 p.m. Eastern time yesterday "to express condolences for those killed in the terrorists attacks in Mumbai and to let him know that his thoughts and prayers are with the people of India and all who were affected by the attack," according to Obama's transition office.

Obama has received updates from Bush's State Department on the Mumbia attacks as they unfolded over the past days.

President-elect Barack Obama offered his condolences today to victims of the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, after news that American citizens were killed.

"Michelle and I send our deepest condolences to the loved ones of the American citizens who lost their lives in the outrageous terrorist attacks in Mumbai. Our thoughts and prayers are with them, and with all who have been touched by this terrible tragedy," Obama said in a statement issued by his transition office.

Iraq's parliament Read more...