MARRAKECH, Morocco: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced a package of measures on Tuesday designed to help businesses and non-governmental groups around the Muslim world. The initiatives came after President Barack Obama’s much-heralded speech in Cairo in June, in which he called for a new beginning in relations between the United States and the Muslim world.
“Our goal is to listen more and discover new ways that we can work as partners,” Clinton said at the sixth Forum for the Future conference in the Moroccan city of Marrakech, which she attended for two days.
Clinton announced measures to encourage entrepreneurs and job creation, support investment in technology and improve the education of women.
An “Entrepreneurship Summit” will be held in Washington next year to bring together America’s business leaders with others from around the world, Clinton said.
Clinton also announced a “Civil Society 2.0” project, intended to “empower grassroots civil society organizations around the world by helping them use digital technology.”
A number of pilot schemes are planned for this project to support new media and distance learning in Africa and the Middle East.
The secretary of state said inter-faith working groups would be set up to hold meetings twice a year to encourage dialogue between the private sector as well as governments.
The Forum for the Future is an initiative among the G8 countries and about 20 nations of the Middle East and north Africa, together with the European Commission and the Arab League.
During her stay, Clinton was received on Monday in Ouarzazate by Morocco’s King Mohammad VI, after which she had a number of meetings with diplomats from countries attending the forum.
Toward the end of her visit, Clinton spoke up in favor of people who make a living “standing up for democracy, fighting against corruption, advocating that government actions be transparent and accountable,” she said.
“I want to stand with them because the US stands with them,” Clinton said. “We want to be sure that we send a very clear message to the region and to the leaders that it is in their interests to work with these men and women. It will actually strengthen the legitimacy of their governments and society.”
Clinton singled out no particular country, but before her visit Reporters Sans Frontieres (Without Borders) issued a statement accusing Moroccan courts of “deploying a whole arsenal” to crack down on press freedom in the kingdom, from “exorbitant fines” to a recent spate of jail sentences.
Clinton was scheduled to travel to Egypt on Tuesday evening and go straight into a meeting with Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abu al-Gheit and intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, Egyptian and US officials said.
She is to meet Mubarak on Wednesday morning to discuss Washington’s faltering efforts to revive the Middle East peace process. – AFP
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