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Hilary wakes up, er, a tad late

Hilary Clinton appeared before the Foreign Policies Priority committee and admitted that the US is behind the eight-ball in communicating its policies - although why it is thought that America's views are paramount is anyone's guess.

"“Let’s talk straight realpolitik,” Clinton said. “We are in a huge competition” for global influence and global markets. She described countries circling around huge new oil discoveries in the south Pacific. “China is there every day, figuring out how they’re going to come in behind us, come in under us,” she said.

She also said the U.S. had to do more to communicate its values and spread its influence to the rest of the world through government-backed media, such as Al-Hurrah Television, which broadcasts in the Arab world.

“We are engaged in an information war and we are losing that war,” she said. China and Russia have started multi- language television networks, she said, even as the U.S. cuts back in this area. “We are paying a big price” for dismantling international communications networks after the end of the Cold War, Clinton said."

Later on Clinton said that the US was in an “information war and we are losing that war,” and later adding that “Al Jazeera is winning.” The Secretary of state also appeared to make a case for public broadcasting by averring that “our private media cannot fill that gap.”

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