Crash Diplomacy Course for Mccain Running Mate

John McCain is to take his running mate Sarah Palin to the UN general assembly in New York next week for the annual gathering of foreign leaders, to address her chronic shortage of foreign policy experience.

McCain is scheduled to open an international conference in the city at the same time - Bill Clinton's Global Initiative foundation, which provides funds to help fight Aids in developing countries.

Palin's fast-learning trip to New York comes as a veteran Republican senator, Chuck Hagel, who is on the Senate foreign affairs committee, yesterday questioned her fitness for office. "She doesn't have any foreign policy credentials," Hagel told the Omaha World-Herald. "You get a passport for the first time in your life last year? I mean, I don't know what you can say. You can't say anything."

Hagel, who advocates a bipartisan approach to politics and was among those considered by Obama as a running mate, said: "I think it's a stretch to in any way say that she's got the experience to be president of the United States."

McCain's team has not yet said who Palin will meet in New York. Leaders penciled in for her UN visit range from President George Bush to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, and the Afghanistan president, Hamid Karzai. The cast list for the Clinton foundation conference includes Gordon Brown.

Exposure to foreign leaders can only help Palin, who has had to be briefed extensively by McCain's foreign policy advisers since becoming the vice-presidential candidate. Her foreign travel is confined to Canada, Mexico and Kuwait, and a brief stop at an airport in Ireland.