Donors list prompts Clinton debate
Questions are being asked over the impartiality of the next US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, as the Saudi Arabian government and a raft of Indian businessmen are revealed to be major donors to her husband Bill Clinton's charitable foundation.
The list of donors has been released as one of the conditions of President-elect Barack Obama nominating Hillary for Condoleezza Rice's job. Because Bill has steadfastly refused to name any donors before - he said he had promised them confidentiality - there was so much interest in the list's release that the William J Clinton Foundation’s computer servers were overwhelmed when it was posted online on Thursday.
By far the biggest donor to the foundation turns out to be Saudi Arabia, which gave $41m, while donations from other foreign governments totalled more than $5m. Of the individual donors, a key figure is the Indian politician Amar Singh, who donated between $1m and $5m. Singh played host to Bill Clinton on a visit to India in 2005, and met Hillary Clinton in New York in September to discuss an India-US civil nuclear agreement.
While the Clintons' good relations with prominent Israeli politicians may diffuse the matter of the Saudi cash, the money from Singh will stoke the Pakistani perception that the US government has a pro-India bias - not an ideal way for Hilary to launch herself as a neutral broker between India and Pakistan, a region in which Barack Obama will face an early test of his diplomacy.
In the States, private security firm Blackwater - five of whose employees were last week charged with manslaughter for their part in the deaths of 17 Iraqi civilians in 2007 - gave $25,000. One of Hillary Clinton's first acts after the new administration takes over on January 20 will be to decide whether or not to continue their state department contract, which is up for renewal early next year.
Richard Lugar, a leading Republican on the Senate foreign relations committee, has said there are "legitimate questions" for her to answer over her husband’s "cosmic ties" to many of the world's richest people.
Other donors include the Los Angeles entertainment mogul Haim Saban, a strong backer of Israel, the Chicago billionaire Fred Eychaner and Steve Bing, the film producer and father of Liz Hurley's child. Several actors also feature on the list, including Barbara Streisand, Chevy Chase and the late Paul Newman.
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