U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton delivered a speech Tuesday morning at the National Institutes of Health and announcing new U.S. initiatives to address the global pandemic.

Reuters reports:

“Creating an AIDS-free generation has never been a policy priority for the United States government — until today,” Clinton said in a speech at the U.S. National Institutes of Health outside Washington.

“This goal would have been unimaginable just a few years ago,” she said. “While the finish line is not yet in sight, we know we can get there because now we know the route we need to take.”

In her speech, Clinton called for the use of scientific evidence in stopping the spread of the virus. To do that, she laid out three policy objectives based on recent research, according to a press release from the White House:

1) Prevention of mother-to-child transmission: Today, 1 in 7 new infections worldwide occur through mother-to-child transmission. In 2010, PEPFAR helped prevent 114,000 babies from being born with HIV. In June, PEPFAR and UNAIDS launched a global plan for eliminating new infections among children by 2015.

2) Voluntary medical male circumcision: This low-cost procedure reduces the risk of female-to-male transmission by more than 60 percent. It is a one-time intervention with a lifelong benefit. PEPFAR has financed three-fourths of the one million male circumcisions for HIV prevention around the world since 2007.

3) Treatment as prevention: Once people do become HIV-positive, recent science has shown that treatment with anti-retroviral drugs helps prevent the transmission of the virus to others. Effective treatment of a person living with HIV reduces the risk of transmission to a partner by 96%.

In addition to the policy announcements, which also included a call for other countries, particularly those impacted by the pandemic, to contribute funding to the battle against the virus as well as calling for an increase in international funding to the international fund for AIDS, Malaria and TB, Clinton also announced she was appointing talk show host Ellen DeGeneres as Special Envoy for Global AIDS awareness.

“I’m honored to have been chosen by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton as Special Envoy for Global AIDS awareness. The fight against AIDS is something that has always been close to my heart. And I’m happy that I can use my platform to educate people and spread hope. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go look up what ‘envoy’ means,” said DeGeneres.

If you have any questions on where, when or how to vote, the League of Women Voters has information on how to register to vote, where to vote in your local area, what to bring to the polling place and all the relevant laws governing the process at Vote411.org.

In St. Paul, Tuesday’s election signals the city’s first use of ranked choice voting, which allows voters to pick a second choice that will be counted if the voter’s first choice is eliminated (more information on ranked voting is available at the Ramsey County election center).

Wherever you are in the state, if you run into any problems at the polling places tomorrow—long lines, not enough ballots, partisan attempts to intimidate voters—we encourage you to report that news to the world by using the Twitter hashtag #votingproblems and by emailing the Minnesota Independent at tips@minnesotaindependent.com.

This is an identity theft alert. Petitions are being circulated door-to-door and at public locations throughout the county that require your name, your address and your signature. The State of Michigan does not require a license or bond for signature gatherers and anyone can collect signatures regardless of their police record.

Be very careful who you give your personal information to, particularly your signature. In many cases, copies of these petitions, with your signature, are sent overseas for processing. Be on the alert for fraudulent attempts to get your personal information.

While the call does not identify who paid for it, the number has been linked to Republican robo-call operations in Michigan and beyond. The identity of the owner of the line is unknown.

According to The Hill, Clinton said:

On the rare-earth minerals matter, the foreign minister, Minister Yang, clarified that China has no intention of withholding these minerals from the market. He said that he wanted to make that very clear.

But despite China’s assurances, Clinton also said it’s imperative that the United States look for other sources of REEs, the materials used in hundreds of everyday consumer goods like cell phones, as well as energy and military technology.

So, while we’re pleased by the clarification we received from the Chinese Government, we still think that the world, as a whole, needs to find alternatives and to find new sources, which we will be pursuing.

Clinton’s comments underscore what I wrote last week about REEs. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter much whether China is actually barring REE shipments to the U.S.; the seed has already been planted and the U.S. is now focused on the issue. With China owning 97 percent of the world’s REE production, the U.S. has to look for other sources.

Last week, I wrote about the United States’ best opportunity to develop a home-grown REE industry.

Clinton, speaking in San Fransisco last week, suggested that the State Department, which is currently reviewing the Keystone XL pipeline project, would eventually approve it, though her comments were a bit unclear.

In the letter, the 11 Senate Democrats said, “Approval of this pipeline will significantly increase our dependence on this oil for decades.” Environmentalists have been railing against the project because it would import oil from tar sands, the production of which emits huge amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

The letter continues:

We believe the Department of State (DOS) should not pre-judge the outcome of what should be a thorough, transparent analysis of the needs for this oil and its impacts on our climate and clean energy goals.

It’s been more than a week since The New York Times’ initial report of China’s policy. Clinton’s trip to Asia this week is meant to get clarification on China’s rare earth elements policy with the United States.

On Monday, I wrote a story about the importance of rare earths — they are used in hundreds of key products, including cell phones and clean energy technology like wind turbines and electric vehicles. With China controlling an estimated 97 percent of the world’s rare earth element production, experts say it’s essential that the United States develop its own source of the materials. The troubled Mountain Pass Mine, which has faced significant environmental problems in the past, is the country’s best hope to develop a U.S. rare earths industry.

Clinton acknowledged the importance of looking for new rare earth supplies this week, according to the Journal:

“Because of the importance of these rare-earth minerals, I think both the minister and I are aware that our countries and others will have to look for additional sources of supply,” Mrs. Clinton said at a joint press conference with Japanese Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara.

Is it true? It doesn’t matter, Kansas State University political science professor Joe Aistrup told the Kansas City Star last week. “Kobach has caught the wave of the immigration debate,” he said. “It matters little whether his claims about voter fraud are true. Connect anything to illegal immigration in this climate, it’s going to have traction.”

For Kobach, especially, it’s a strategy that makes sense. Kobach is known around the country as the man who helped write Arizona’s SB 1070 immigration law, and he has assisted other states to draft anti-illegal immigration legislation. He is now working with Arizona state Sen. Russell Pearce to write legislation denying birthright citizenship to children born to illegal immigrant parents. Kobach’s critics argue his anti-illegal immigration work could distract from official secretary of state duties — he said it is only a hobby and likened himself to another candidate who plays the banjo — but his decision to fight illegal immigrant voter fraud is a perfect way to blend his pet project with a secretary of state priority.

If elected, Kobach wants to require proof of citizenship at the polls, and received backing for his plan from Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kans.), who is almost certain to be elected governor next month.

In Colorado, Republican state Rep. Ted Harvey told me last week he plans to introduce similar legislation for voter registration after 12,000 registered voters in the state failed to check a box affirming they were U.S. citizens. This may not have been because they were not citizens, but Harvey said illegal immigrants could easily register to vote because they do not have to show a birth certificate or passport.

It’s tough to say with certainty that this does not happen. But even for legal immigrants, there can be harsh penalties for registering to vote as a non-citizen. A 1996 law made it illegal for non-citizens to claim citizenship, meaning even those with green cards can face deportation for registering to vote. There is anecdotal evidence that this happens each election to a number of legal immigrants who don’t realize they aren’t allowed to vote.

Clinton’s comparison signaled to some that the U.S. wants to step up its involvement in Mexico, fighting the country’s drug cartels like it did in Colombia. But Mexican politicians aren’t so sure the comparison between the two fights is accurate, The Christian Science Monitor reported today:

Mexico’s security spokesman Alejandro Poire acknowledged that there are “some similarities” to Colombia. But Mr. Poire also said “there’s a big difference between what Colombia faced back then and what we are facing right now,” Euronews reported. He added that America’s demand for illegal drugs is the root cause of Mexico’s problems. He also pointed to US guns trafficked to Mexican drug cartels as a serious concern. [...]

Among Mexican officials, there are serious concerns that Clinton’s remarks may be trying to lay the foundation for a US intervention in Mexico not unlike Plan Colombia. Under that anti-drug program, the US sent military forces to work with the Colombian army to break up drug cartels. The program has cost the US $7 billion and is widely controversial in Latin America.

“Whoever thinks Colombia is a cure-all, and if the United States thinks it is necessary to apply the same model to us they applied to  Colombia, they are mistaken,” Mexican Senator Ricardo Monreal was quoted saying in the Guardian. He added that US assistance to Colombia had not brought an end to the drug trade there.

The Mexican politicians are right: Colombia still has a problem with the drug trade. But experts argue Colombia can be used as a guide for how to combat the drug trade by stemming the flow of money to drug lords.

In an interview last month, Bob Killebrew, a fellow at the Center for a New American Security, called Colombia’s fight against the drug trade “the only success story in the Western Hemisphere right now.” He says the Colombian model, though imperfect, should be exported to other countries to show how to stop drug cartels by cutting off their resources and taking out leaders.

That night, Sen. Kerry went to the presidential palace, where the two men, sometimes accompanied by Mr. Eikenberry and sometimes alone, hashed out Mr. Karzai’s concerns. “We had lot of hours together and talked about a lot of things, including the American experience in elections, and going back to 1864, Al Gore in 2000,” Sen. Kerry said. “I think it helped to put it into a certain framework.”

Within days, Karzai agreed to the runoff, and Kerry was next to him in front of a bank of cameras, calling Karzai a statesman. This is a very big deal: with Kerry’s intervention, Karzai avoided a situation that might have meant a drastic revision of Obama’s Afghanistan plans, and not in any positive direction.

After reading all of this stuff last night, I tweeted a prediction that Kerry may have just clinched a gig as Secretary of State when Hillary Rodham Clinton decides to move on. Kerry lobbied hard for the job last year after vigorously supporting Obama on the campaign trail, and was just barely passed over for Obama’s former presidential rival. On the eve of the election — in fact, on the day-of – it was my understanding he’d get the position.

But he remains a close confidante of the president, particularly on foreign affairs. Kerry will meet with Obama privately today at the White House to discuss Afghanistan. Chances are they won’t talk about any future emissary role, but it might be hovering in the background.