For the third time since as­sum­ing of­fice last May, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is head­ing to the Unit­ed States on an of­fi­cial vis­it. This time she is on three-day trip, pri­mar­i­ly to en­gage in bi­lat­er­al dis­cus­sions with US Sec­re­tary of State Hillary Clin­ton. This meet­ing is sched­uled for Wednes­day at the of­fice of the Sec­re­tary of State in Wash­ing­ton. Per­sad-Bisses­sar flies out to the US to­day and is due to re­turn on Thurs­day. Dur­ing her ab­sence, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an will act as Prime Min­is­ter.

Talks be­tween the T&T Prime Min­is­ter and Sec­re­tary of State Clin­ton are ex­pect­ed to cen­tre on ma­jor eco­nom­ic, so­cial and po­lit­i­cal is­sues af­fect­ing the West­ern Hemi­sphere. The two are al­so ex­pect­ed have in-depth bi­lat­er­al dis­cus­sions about the is­sues di­rect­ly deal­ing with US/Trinidad and To­ba­go/Cari­com re­la­tions, with a pri­ma­ry fo­cus on the state of the glob­al and re­gion­al econ­o­my and the im­pact of the glob­al fi­nan­cial cri­sis on de­vel­op­ing coun­tries, trade re­la­tions, the en­er­gy in­dus­try, na­tion­al and re­gion­al di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion ef­forts, the nar­co trade, bor­der pro­tec­tion and oth­er se­cu­ri­ty is­sues, Haiti and the pos­si­bil­i­ty of in­creased hu­man­i­tar­i­an aid to Cari­com in light of the re­cent nat­ur­al dis­as­ters to hit the re­gion.

Ac­cord­ing to a re­lease from the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, Per­sad-Bisses­sar is al­so ex­pect­ed to in­form the US Sec­re­tary of State of the var­i­ous ini­tia­tives tak­en by her Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment in its five months in of­fice to pro­mote eco­nom­ic and so­cial growth and de­vel­op­ment for Trinidad and To­ba­go and Cari­com. These in­clude the Chil­dren's Life Fund and the Help­ing Hand projects. Per­sad-Bisses­sar will present the US Sec­re­tary of State with an of­fi­cial gift from the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go, as well as in­vite her to vis­it Trinidad and To­ba­go to pro­mote and fur­ther their re­gion­al bi­lat­er­al con­ver­sa­tions. While in the US, the Prime Min­is­ter will ho­n­our an of­fi­cial in­vi­ta­tion from the pres­ti­gious Ivy League Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty's Fac­ul­ty Law School to de­liv­er a lec­ture to a sym­po­sium on Lead­er­ship and Co­op­er­a­tion.

This is sched­uled to take place to­mor­row at Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty, Fac­ul­ty Har­vard Law School Pound Hall in Cam­bridge, Mass­a­chu­setts, and it is be­ing held un­der the spon­sor­ship of the In­sti­tute of Pol­i­tics at the Har­vard Kennedy School and the Har­vard In­ter­na­tion­al Ne­go­ti­a­tion Pro­gram. Per­sad-Bisses­sar will re­ceive a pres­ti­gious 2010 Women of the Year award from the US-Based Glam­our Mag­a­zine, which is this year ho­n­our­ing five fe­male lead­ers from de­vel­op­ing coun­tries around the world. She will be re­ceiv­ing this award along­side coun­ter­parts like Liberia's Pres­i­dent Ellen John­son Sir­leaf, Croa­t­ia's Prime Min­is­ter Jad­ran­ka Cosor, Slo­va­kia's Prime Min­is­ter Ive­ta Radi­co­va and Lithua­nia's Pres­i­dent, Dalia Gry­bauskaite.

Glam­our Mag­a­zine has an­nounced that these fe­male lead­ers are be­ing giv­en these awards in recog­ni­tion of their pi­o­neer­ing suc­cess­es in their coun­tries which have sig­nif­i­cant­ly con­tributed to the glob­al em­pow­er­ment of women and girls. Per­sad-Bisses­sar will al­so hold an of­fi­cial meet­ing with the US Per­ma­nent Rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Unit­ed Na­tions, Su­san Rice, to­mor­row at the UN's of­fices in New York. She is sched­uled to de­liv­er an ad­dress at the Coun­cil of Am­bas­sadors meet­ing of the Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Amer­i­can States on Wednes­day at the OAS head­quar­ters in Wash­ing­ton. The Prime Min­is­ter is be­ing ac­com­pa­nied on this trip by the Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs Dr Su­ru­jrat­tan Ram­bachan.