Erstellt am: 14. 12. 2012 - 14:38 Uhr

Why Susan Rice will not be Secretary of State

Reality Check: Susan Rice, Mensdorff-Pouilly trial, EU summit, US students, bar code inventor dies.

The US Ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, has withdrawn her candidacy to take over from Hillary Clinton as US Secretary of State.

To some it's come as a bit of a surprise, as she'd been seen as the front runner for some time, but in a letter to President Obama she said she believed her confirmation process would be "lengthy, disruptive and costly" at a time when, effectively, the President has other things he should be worrying about.

EPA/Justin Lane

Susan Rice has been coming under fire from Republicans since her comments about the attacks on the US embassy in Benghazi

Ostensibly, the fuss is all about the interviews she gave in the wake of the attacks on the US embassy in Benghazi in which four Americans died, including the Ambassador. In these interviews, she said that the attacks appeared to be part of widespread anti-US protests in the Muslim world against the "Innocence of Muslims" video. In fact, it later turned out that the attacks were an Al Qaeda related operation, and not directly connected to the protests at all.

As most people did initially think the attacks were connected with the protests, it may be a bit puzzling as to why Ms Rice seems to be carrying the can for the mix up. However, as with so many things in politics, it's all about who knew what when, who said what to whom, and who might have been hiding something from someone.

What is also curious, is why Ms Rice has waited to long to "fall on her sword" so to speak. This furore over Benghazi has been going on since September, and she's been the leading candidate to succeed Hillary Clinton all along.

James Boys, a US analyst at the Richmond American University in London, says there are other factors that have only just come into play, but that her decision may be the right one for everyone, as she may not have been such a suitable candidate, after all.

EU Summit

Sandra Gathmann reports from Brussels on the EU Summit in the wake of the agreement on new banking regulations.

Mensdorff-Pouilly trial

Andrew Feinstein discusses the Mensdorff-Poilly trial and why it is important not just in Austria and Europe, but around the world.

The difficulties facing students in the US

Stephen Hill looks at the employment crisis and financial problems facing today's graduates.

Bar code inventor dies

Norman Joseph Woodland, the man who invented the bar code, has died aged 91. First patented in 1952, the bar code didn't take off until the 1970s, but now it's estimated that bar codes are scanned over five billion times a day. Riem Higazi traces the history of the bar code.

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