Clinton berates Pakistan, Gingrich

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told the US network PBS news that  the US's relationship with Pakistan has been a difficult one, highlighting that the country was gripped by a "weak economic leadership". "You can go back and trace the difficulties that our country has encountered. We have gone through periods of closeness and periods of distance. Part of the reason why we keep going back to work at it is because that between Pakistan and the US is a very important relationship. It is particularly important for our work in Afghanistan as well," she said. Clinton also said that it is a "constant, vicious cycle if you cannot have a decent tax base so that you can actually have schools for universal education," as in Pakistan`s case. According to the US Secretary of State, Pakistan will have to reform its agricultural and energy sector and begin to wean its citizenry off subsidies in order to generate some kind of competitive economic environment. Clinton also took a stand against Republican US presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich`s latest controversial comment on Palestinians.  “They are invented people,” he told the Jewish Channel last Friday, “Remember, there was no Palestine as a state. It was part of the Ottoman Empire.” Clinton told the PBS interviewer that Gingrich`s comment was “unhelpful” and that the presidential candidate had realised this. Gingrich, along with other Republican candidates, are seeking to attract Jewish support for the November 2012 elections by vowing to bolster US ties with Israel. Gingrich also said the Hamas militant group, which controls the Gaza Strip, and the Palestinians' governing body, the Palestinian Authority, which controls the West Bank, represented "an enormous desire to destroy Israel." The US government has sought to encourage the Palestinian Authority to negotiate with Israel but has labeled Hamas as a terrorist group.