Hillary Clinton promised to be a champion for everyday Americans as she kicked off a long-awaited second run for the White House as the commanding Democratic frontrunner.

Ms Clinton, 67, made the announcement in a video released online, ending prolonged speculation she once again wants to become the first woman elected to the White House.

"I'm running for president," Ms Clinton said in a video posted on YouTube.

"Everyday Americans need a champion and I want to be that champion.

"Americans have fought their way back from tough economic times, but the deck is still stacked in favour of those at the top."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-04-13/hillary-clinton-announces-candidacy-for-us-president/6387166

Mr Hockey, who is currently in New York for a G20 meeting of global finance ministers, said: "Obviously Hillary Clinton is very familiar to the Australian people and, importantly, Australia is very familiar to her.

"I have no doubt she will be a formidable candidate for the Democrats but from what I hear she's not going to have a particularly easy run in either the primary or necessarily in the election and I think Americans on the ground, particularly here in New York, have a view that it's not a lay-down misere for Hillary Clinton," Mr Hockey said. 

Assistant Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said: "She is certainly the favourite to win the Democratic nomination and we welcome Hillary Clinton for putting up her hand for the presidential race. She is a good friend of Australia and was certainly one of the architects of the pivot to our part of the world."

But Mr Frydenberg said Mrs Clinton will face a "formidable" set of Republican candidates including former Florida governor Jeb Bush, Florida Senator Marco Rubio, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul and Texas Senator Ted Cruz.

"It will be quite remarkable if another Clinton ends up in the White House; it will mean 24 of the last 32 years in the United States has seen either a Clinton or a Bush in the White House," he told Sky News. 

Mr Frydenberg noted that, while the American economy has improved recently, many Americans have been unhappy with Barack Obama's performance as President.

Some senior ministers in the Abbott government were frustrated when President Obama used a major speech during the G20 meeting in Brisbane last year to warn of the dangers Australia faces if the global community doesn't tackle climate change. 

Former prime minister John Howard and Mr Obama had a war of words in 2007 over the then US presidential hopeful's plan to bring US troops home from Iraq.

read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/no-easy-victory-ahead-for-hillary-clinton-in-us-presidential-race-says-joe-hockey-20150413-1mjr4n.html

Note that NONE of the Republican candidates have got a clue about "climate change" aka global warming... Should they win, the future of this planet is bleak...

dancing with the stars .....

glimpses of dreamland .....

soul mates .....

Clinton herself, a second-wave feminist to the bone, would have once abhorred this simplification of her character – but, with this candidacy, she appears to be embracing it more. “Don’t you someday want to see a woman president?” she teased an audience back in March. Well, sure, that would be nice, is my answer, but you know what matters more to me? A president who is good for women’s rights and good for the country. And as anyone who remembers the Thatcher years in Britain knows (and let’s not even mention Sarah Palin’s brief moment in the political sun), a female leader does not always guarantee that.

But here’s the great thing about Clinton: she’s excellent on women’s rights. If you want to see her being a completely righteous badass, look up her confrontation with the anti-abortion Republican lawmaker Christopher Smith in Congress in April 2009, in which Clinton pretty much served him up cold on a platter. “I’ve been in African countries where 12- and 13-year-old girls are bearing children. I have been in Asian countries where the denial of family planning consigns women to lives of oppression and hardship,” she said to the flummoxed looking Smith. “We happen to think that family planning is an important part of women’s health – and reproductive health includes access to abortion – that I believe should be safe, legal and rare.”

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/15/female-president-hillary-clinton-science-equality

Ironically, he is particularly involved in the region that created more headaches than any other for his wife when she was Secretary of State: the Middle East and North Africa.

Recently, he travelled to Morocco, a country that seems to have weathered the storm of the so-called Arab Spring.

High on the agenda of the first "Clinton Global Initiative, Middle East and Africa" meeting in Marrakech were development issues, the conflicts in Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Libya and ISIL, and the potential game-changer: a nuclear deal with Iran.

Aside from the Middle East, Bill Clinton is using his influence and name recognition to raise funds for programmes in Africa to fight HIV/AIDS and Ebola.

But apart from all that, Clinton sees a dramatic geopolitical change on the horizon. He is convinced that the 21st century will be shaped by what is about to happen on the African continent. 

http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/talktojazeera/2015/05/bill-clinton-middle-east-bad-news-story-150515122818321.html