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Clinton to make first visit to South Sudan during Africa trip

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, pictured here on July 23, 2012, sets off Tuesday on an 11-day trip.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• South Sudan, the world's youngest country, is in conflict with Sudan
• Clinton's visit aims to encourage negotiations between the two sides
• She will also travel to Uganda, which is dealing with an Ebola virus outbreak
• While in Kenya, Clinton will meet the leader of Somalia's transitional government

(CNN)-- U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will this week make her first visit to South Sudan, a nation barely one year old that is locked in a bitter dispute with its northern neighbor, as part of a six-country tour of Africa.

Clinton sets off Tuesday on the 11-day trip, which is intended to emphasize U.S. efforts to strengthen democracy, encourage economic growth and further peace and security in Africa, Victoria Nuland, a State Department spokeswoman, said in a statement Monday.

The visit begins in Senegal, a small country on Africa's west coast that has been an outpost of democratic stability in a region with a history of electoral chaos, civil wars and coups.

Despite outbreaks of violence in Senegal earlier this year surrounding former President Abdoulaye Wade's decision to seek a controversial third term in office, power passed peacefully to the eventual victor in the presidential election, Macky Sall.

South Sudan's growing pains

Challenges on living in South Sudan

The hunt for Joseph Kony

Mia Farrow: Focus on Kony is good

Clinton will meet with Sall and "deliver a speech applauding the resilience of Senegal's democratic institutions and highlighting America's approach to partnership," Nuland said.

The secretary of state will then travel to one of the tensest areas of Africa: South Sudan, which has edged close to full-scale war with Sudan, the nation from which it separated in July 2011 after decades of bloody conflict.

The two African countries still disagree over the demarcation of the border between them and the transportation and processing of oil from South Sudan, which obtained around 70% of the formerly united country's reserves when it became independent.

The U.N. Security Council is pressuring the countries to find a peaceful resolution of the disputes. Border clashes have displaced at least 150,000 people and created a huge humanitarian crisis.

While in South Sudan, Clinton will meet President Salva Kiir in order to "reaffirm U.S. support and to encourage progress in negotiations with Sudan to reach agreement on issues related to security, oil and citizenship," Nuland said.

Clinton's next stop is Uganda, where the authorities are dealing with an outbreak of the highly infectious Ebola virus that has killed at least 14 people this month.

Uganda is "a key U.S. partner in promoting regional security, particularly in regard to Somalia and in regional efforts to counter the Lord's Resistance Army," Nuland said.

A highly effective celebrity-backed social media campaign earlier this year by the nonprofit group Invisible Children focused worldwide attention on the Lord's Resistance Army and its leader, the fugitive warlord Joseph Kony.

The African Union has stepped up efforts this year to capture Kony, deploying 5,000 troops in March after a resurgence in attacks by his forces displaced thousands of people in Uganda, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic, according to U.N. estimates.

Kony is wanted by the International Criminal Court at the Hague for war crimes and crimes against humanity, stemming in part from allegations of his vicious tactics to conscript children as soldiers and sex slaves in his army.

President Barack Obama ordered 100 troops to central Africa last year to help in the hunt for Kony. The troops are advising regional forces.

After Uganda, Clinton will visit Kenya, where she will meet local officials, as well as Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, president of the transitional government of Somalia, which is trying to emerge from years of civil war.

Security appears to be improving in Somalia, long considered a failed state, since African Union troops pushed Al-Shabaab, an Islamic militant group affiliated with al Qaeda, out of central Mogadishu last year after prolonged urban fighting.

Clinton will then head south to Malawi where she will "discuss economic and political governance," Nuland said.

Lastly, she will visit South Africa to participate in a strategic dialogue between the two countries and pay her respects to Nelson Mandela, the former president.

The frail icon has not appeared in public for years, but he was celebrated worldwide on his 94th birthday earlier this month for his role in reconciling a country torn apart by apartheid.

How the Richest 400 People in America Got So Rich

In 1992, the 400th richest person in America made $24 million.
In 2007, the 400th richest person in America made $138 million (or $87 million, inflation-adjusted).
Now, that almost certainly wasn't the same guy. There's a lot of churn at the top of the money pyramid. In all of the 1990s, only 25% of the Fortunate 400 made more than one appearance. But the overall message is the same. The rich keep getting richer.
According to the IRS, which recently released 2009 data from the 400 richest individual income tax returns, the real runaway growth in wealth has come from capital gains. In the last years of the bubble, the "Fortunate 400" made nearly half their income from capital gains (a.k.a.: profit from the rising value of an investment, such as stocks or property) and less than 10% of their income from old-fashioned wages.
The average income of a top-400 earner grew by 650% between 1992 and 2007 to a whopping $344 million. Over that time, the average salary didn't even double. But the average capital gains haul increased by 1,200%. So how do the richest get richer? Not from their wages. From their investments.
Here's a look at the average salary and average capital gains income of a top-400 earner since 1992. Y-axis is labeled in thousands of dollars and all-time highs are noted in the graph.

Three last things:
(1) Who are these people? As Tim Noah explained on our business page, a 2010 study studied the top 0.1 percent, who currently make at least $1.7 million. That's 14-times less than our Fortunate 400 group, but it's the closest we've got. Four in ten in this group were executives, managers, and supervisors at nonfinancial firms. Eighteen percent were financiers. Next came law (7 percent), medicine (6 percent), and real estate (4 percent). My guess is that the top 400 skews toward finance and chief exec even stronger. A lawyer/doctor making $2 million I can imagine. But $24 million?
(2) Capital gains absolutely dictate the wealth of the richest Americans. As Matt O'Brien graphed for us, that's why the income of the top 0.1 percent hugs the S&P so closely.
(3) Remember that as this is happening, the long-term capital gains tax rate has fallen from 28 percent in 1990 to 20 percent for the latter half of the 1990s to 15 percent under George W. Bush.
Financially Fit Reveals 5 Secret Habits of Wealthy Americans:

More From The Atlantic

• The 11 Ways That Consumers Are Hopeless at Math
  
• Welcome to the McCovery! (Would You Like Jobs With That?)
  
• Welcome to the Recover ... Eh

How the Richest 400 People in America Got So Rich

In 1992, the 400th richest person in America made $24 million.
In 2007, the 400th richest person in America made $138 million (or $87 million, inflation-adjusted).
Now, that almost certainly wasn't the same guy. There's a lot of churn at the top of the money pyramid. In all of the 1990s, only 25% of the Fortunate 400 made more than one appearance. But the overall message is the same. The rich keep getting richer.
According to the IRS, which recently released 2009 data from the 400 richest individual income tax returns, the real runaway growth in wealth has come from capital gains. In the last years of the bubble, the "Fortunate 400" made nearly half their income from capital gains (a.k.a.: profit from the rising value of an investment, such as stocks or property) and less than 10% of their income from old-fashioned wages.
The average income of a top-400 earner grew by 650% between 1992 and 2007 to a whopping $344 million. Over that time, the average salary didn't even double. But the average capital gains haul increased by 1,200%. So how do the richest get richer? Not from their wages. From their investments.
Here's a look at the average salary and average capital gains income of a top-400 earner since 1992. Y-axis is labeled in thousands of dollars and all-time highs are noted in the graph.

Three last things:
(1) Who are these people? As Tim Noah explained on our business page, a 2010 study studied the top 0.1 percent, who currently make at least $1.7 million. That's 14-times less than our Fortunate 400 group, but it's the closest we've got. Four in ten in this group were executives, managers, and supervisors at nonfinancial firms. Eighteen percent were financiers. Next came law (7 percent), medicine (6 percent), and real estate (4 percent). My guess is that the top 400 skews toward finance and chief exec even stronger. A lawyer/doctor making $2 million I can imagine. But $24 million?
(2) Capital gains absolutely dictate the wealth of the richest Americans. As Matt O'Brien graphed for us, that's why the income of the top 0.1 percent hugs the S&P so closely.
(3) Remember that as this is happening, the long-term capital gains tax rate has fallen from 28 percent in 1990 to 20 percent for the latter half of the 1990s to 15 percent under George W. Bush.
Financially Fit Reveals 5 Secret Habits of Wealthy Americans:

More From The Atlantic

• The 11 Ways That Consumers Are Hopeless at Math
  
• Welcome to the McCovery! (Would You Like Jobs With That?)
  
• Welcome to the Recover ... Eh

How the Richest 400 People in America Got So Rich

In 1992, the 400th richest person in America made $24 million.
In 2007, the 400th richest person in America made $138 million (or $87 million, inflation-adjusted).
Now, that almost certainly wasn't the same guy. There's a lot of churn at the top of the money pyramid. In all of the 1990s, only 25% of the Fortunate 400 made more than one appearance. But the overall message is the same. The rich keep getting richer.
According to the IRS, which recently released 2009 data from the 400 richest individual income tax returns, the real runaway growth in wealth has come from capital gains. In the last years of the bubble, the "Fortunate 400" made nearly half their income from capital gains (a.k.a.: profit from the rising value of an investment, such as stocks or property) and less than 10% of their income from old-fashioned wages.
The average income of a top-400 earner grew by 650% between 1992 and 2007 to a whopping $344 million. Over that time, the average salary didn't even double. But the average capital gains haul increased by 1,200%. So how do the richest get richer? Not from their wages. From their investments.
Here's a look at the average salary and average capital gains income of a top-400 earner since 1992. Y-axis is labeled in thousands of dollars and all-time highs are noted in the graph.

Three last things:
(1) Who are these people? As Tim Noah explained on our business page, a 2010 study studied the top 0.1 percent, who currently make at least $1.7 million. That's 14-times less than our Fortunate 400 group, but it's the closest we've got. Four in ten in this group were executives, managers, and supervisors at nonfinancial firms. Eighteen percent were financiers. Next came law (7 percent), medicine (6 percent), and real estate (4 percent). My guess is that the top 400 skews toward finance and chief exec even stronger. A lawyer/doctor making $2 million I can imagine. But $24 million?
(2) Capital gains absolutely dictate the wealth of the richest Americans. As Matt O'Brien graphed for us, that's why the income of the top 0.1 percent hugs the S&P so closely.
(3) Remember that as this is happening, the long-term capital gains tax rate has fallen from 28 percent in 1990 to 20 percent for the latter half of the 1990s to 15 percent under George W. Bush.
Financially Fit Reveals 5 Secret Habits of Wealthy Americans:

More From The Atlantic

• The 11 Ways That Consumers Are Hopeless at Math
  
• Welcome to the McCovery! (Would You Like Jobs With That?)
  
• Welcome to the Recover ... Eh

Obama: My Biggest Mistake

President Barack Obama 

Call it "too much substance, not enough style?" President Barack Obama says his biggest mistake since getting to the White House three and a half years ago has been his tendency to tackle the job as national policy wonk rather than the inspiring figure he cut in the 2008 campaign, reports The Ticket.

"When I think about what we've done well and what we haven't done well," the president told CBS television in an interview, "the mistake of my first term - couple of years - was thinking that this job was just about getting the policy right."

"And that's important. But the nature of this office is also to tell a story to the American people that gives them a sense of unity and purpose and optimism, especially during tough times," Obama said in an excerpt of the exchange with Charlie Rose.

Presidents — politicians in general — tend to sidestep questions about their biggest mistake in office, though they sometimes stumble spectacularly over them (as George W. Bush did in April 2004), or offer up a self-serving answer that might be lampooned as "I just love America too much." Obama seems to be saying that, dagnabbit, he just took the job too gosh-darn seriously. Republicans wasted little time in mocking the answer. Republican National Committee spokesman Tim Miller tweeted "I'd go w/ utter economic failure."

And Mitt Romney hit out hard at Obama: "Being president is not about telling stories."

"Being president is about leading, and President Obama has failed to lead. No wonder Americans are losing faith in his presidency," Romney said in a statement.

Obama also seemed to make the argument that he just can't catch a break.

"It's funny - when I ran, everybody said, 'well he can give a good speech but can he actually manage the job?'" he said. "And in my first two years, I think the notion was, 'Well, he's been juggling and managing a lot of stuff, but where's the story that tells us where he's going?' And I think that was a legitimate criticism."

"So getting out of this town, spending more time with the American people, listening to them, and also, then, being in a conversation with them about where do we go together as a country, I need to do a better job of that in my second term," the president said.

Yobo sad over Fenerbahce treatment

Nigeria skipper Joseph Yobo is sad over his treatment by Fenerbahce . Yobo has spent the last two seasons on loan in Turkey. With the Turkish vice-champions due to start pre-season training next week, the defender wants to know his fate.

Negotiations are ongoing between the management of Everton and the Yellow Canaries on a permanent deal. The British club have reduced their valuation of Yobo to 3.5 million euros but Fenerbahce have offered 2.5 million euros for him.

There’s now a difference of one million euros to be met by the Turkish club before the transfer of the player can materialize.Coach of Fenerbahce, Aykut Kocaman has told the leadership of the club to continue haggling, as Yobo is in his plans for the coming season.

“Preparations began for the new season, but my condition is still not clear. Please tell me your opinion clearly.

The club’s (Fenerbahce’s) silence makes me sad. This situation can not continue like this, ‘’Yobo was quoted as saying by the online edition of Milliyet.