US Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton proposed a series of measures on Tuesday to cut US consumption of foreign oil in half by 2025, including encouraging the development of alternative forms of energy.
The senator, who is up for re-election in New York this year and is viewed as a likely presidential candidate in 2008, said that US dependence on foreign oil was posing a threat to the nation.
"Our present system of energy is weakening our national security, hurting our pocketbooks, violating our common values and threatening our children's future," she said in a speech at the National Press Club. "Right now, instead of national security dictating our energy policy, our failed energy policy dictates our national security."
With the energy sector under fire as soaring prices for crude oil and natural gas push industry profits to record highs, Clinton proposed imposing a two-year fee on oil companies to create a US$50 billion fund to help spur research into new conservation approaches and alternative energy sources.
Republicans quickly criticized Clinton, seizing on one aspect of her proposal: a call for expanding the use of ethanol.
Republicans noted that she has frequently opposed measures that would have done just that. They accused her of political opportunism, noting that ethanol is a corn-based fuel additive that is popular in Iowa, the state whose caucus plays a crucial role in the presidential race.
"Senator Clinton's energy policy consists of a unique balancing act involving partisanship, political pandering and yesterday's mistakes," said Tracey Schmitt, a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee.
Philippe Reines, a spokesman for Clinton, said in response, "If unfounded partisan attacks could somehow be harnessed as an energy source, then this White House could claim to actually have a plan to address our country's energy needs."
During her appearance, Clinton also addressed the war in Iraq. Asked whether she regretted voting to authorize US President George W. Bush to use military force in Iraq, she said, "I regret the way the president used the authority he was given."
Clinton, whose support for the war has caused her problems with the liberal wing of her party, also suggested that the time was nearing for Iraq to take a larger role in its own security.
But the senator, whose speech was interrupted by two antiwar protesters, stopped short of calling for a troop withdrawal.
"I think that once there is a fully established Iraqi government," the senator said, "we have to make it very clear that the Iraqis are responsible for their own security, the Iraqis are responsible for ending the sectarian violence."
"I don't think we are there quite yet," she added. "But we should be there soon."
A deluge of disinformation about a virus called hMPV is stoking anti-China sentiment across Asia and spurring unfounded concerns of renewed lockdowns, despite experts dismissing comparisons with the COVID-19 pandemic five years ago. Agence France-Presse’s fact-checkers have debunked a slew of social media posts about the usually non-fatal respiratory disease human metapneumovirus after cases rose in China. Many of these posts claimed that people were dying and that a national emergency had been declared. Garnering tens of thousands of views, some posts recycled old footage from China’s draconian lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic, which originated in the country in late
French police on Monday arrested a man in his 20s on suspicion of murder after an 11-year-old girl was found dead in a wood south of Paris over the weekend in a killing that sparked shock and a massive search for clues. The girl, named as Louise, was found stabbed to death in the Essonne region south of Paris in the night of Friday to Saturday, police said. She had been missing since leaving school on Friday afternoon and was found just a few hundred meters from her school. A police source, who asked not to be named, said that she had been
VIOLENCE: The teacher had depression and took a leave of absence, but returned to the school last year, South Korean media reported A teacher stabbed an eight-year-old student to death at an elementary school in South Korea on Monday, local media reported, citing authorities. The teacher, a woman in her 40s, confessed to the crime after police officers found her and the young girl with stab wounds at the elementary school in the central city of Daejeon on Monday evening, the Yonhap news agency reported. The girl was brought to hospital “in an unconscious state, but she later died,” the report read. The teacher had stab wounds on her neck and arm, which officials determined might have been self-inflicted, the news agency
ISSUE: Some foreigners seek women to give birth to their children in Cambodia, and the 13 women were charged with contravening a law banning commercial surrogacy Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday thanked Cambodian King Norodom Sihamoni for granting a royal pardon last year to 13 Filipino women who were convicted of illegally serving as surrogate mothers in the Southeast Asian kingdom. Marcos expressed his gratitude in a meeting with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet, who was visiting Manila for talks on expanding trade, agricultural, tourism, cultural and security relations. The Philippines and Cambodia belong to the 10-nation ASEAN, a regional bloc that promotes economic integration but is divided on other issues, including countries whose security alignments is with the US or China. Marcos has strengthened