US Election: Mccain to Give Palin Crash Course in Diplomacy

John McCain is to take his running mate Sarah Palin to the United Nations 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 also 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 relations committee, today questioned her fitness for office.

"She doesn't have any foreign policy credentials," Hagel said in an interview with 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, to say that she's got the experience to be president of the United States."

McCain's team has not yet said who she will meet in New York.

Leaders penciled in for the general assembly conference range from US president George Bush to the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and the Afghanistan president, Hamid Karzai. The cast list for Clinton's conference includes Gordon Brown.

Exposure to such a concentration of 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.

Palin, whose foreign travel is confined to Canada, Mexico and Kuwait and a brief stop at an airport in Ireland, is due to debate with Obama's running mate, Joe Biden, the veteran chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee, in St Louis on October 2.

While in New York, Palin is planning to take part in a rally against Ahmadinejad. Hillary Clinton, who was also due to take part in the rally, pulled out after hearing Palin would be present.