(Luchie Mendoza Allen - Balita Publisher)

By Lachlan Carmichael

WASHINGTON, November 6, 2009 (AFP) – U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Friday she will travel to the Philippines next week to "show solidarity" with the storm-battered nation, just after her visits to Singapore and Berlin.

Clinton also announced she will join President Barack Obama during his visit to China from November 15-18, her second trip as chief diplomat to the country the Obama administration recognizes as a key global player.

In a flurry of travel announcements this week, Clinton and her aides announced her tour of Europe and Asia, one that comes on top of a tour of Pakistan and the Middle East that only ended on Wednesday.

"I’ll be going to the Philippines, to show solidarity with our friends in the Philippines who have been battered by typhoons and have just suffered so much over the last weeks," Clinton said in a speech in Washington.

Typhoon Mirinae swept over the main island Luzon on Saturday, dumping heavy rain and bringing strong winds just weeks after Tropical Storm Ketsana and Typhoon Parma left about 1,100 dead and tens of thousands homeless.

During her visit to Manila from November 12-13, "the secretary will hold consultations with senior Filipino officials, highlighting the US-Philippines treaty alliance," Clinton’s spokesman Ian Kelly told reporters.

Her trip starts with a stop in Berlin for official ceremonies on Monday to commemorate the 20^{th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. She was due to give a speech in the German capital on Sunday at the Atlantic Council.}

In a speech in Washington to many of those who supported her during her presidential campaign last year, Clinton said the wall’s fall marked the end of a Cold War era in which the world was divided into clear blocs.

"So we find ourselves now in a much more complex world, and we just have to be up for it and we have to be smarter about it," Clinton said. "And we have to demand more from ourselves and our partners."

Clinton will then visit Singapore for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation ministerial meeting ahead of the APEC summit, at which President Barack Obama will make his inaugural appearance.

She will be in Singapore from November 10-12, before returning a day later from the Philippines to join Obama at the summit, aides said.

Kurt Tong, the State Department’s pointman on APEC, said this week that the various APEC meetings, including those attended by Clinton, will focus on economic recovery following the massive global recession.

Clinton said in her speech that she will join Obama on a visit to China, which is scheduled from November 15-18, which she called a "very important trip to further the dialogue between our two countries."

China was a key stop on Clinton’s first overseas tour as secretary of state, in what analysts said was a US bow to an increasingly powerful region in a bid to tackle the global economic crisis, climate change and nuclear weapons. ■

(Luchie Allen - Balita Publisher)