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Foreign Service officers are firing back at Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry's charges that some State Department employees are not working in the best interest of the country. In a written statement, the American Foreign Service Association said Thursday the Texas governor's comments "reflect a serious misunderstanding" of the role of Foreign Service officers "in promoting American interests overseas." In a radio program this week with Fox News host Bill O'Reilly, Perry said, "I'm not sure our State Department serves us well." ....Perry added that Congress might have to take action to ensure the nation's diplomatic corps is doing work...

The United States has apologised for controversial remarks made by a US diplomat who spoke of "dark and dirty" Indians, calling the comments "inappropriate". US Vice-Consul Maureen Chao told Indian students on Friday that her "skin became dirty and dark like the Tamilians" after a long train journey, according to Indian media -- referring to people from the southern state of Tamil Nadu. During her speech in the Tamil Nadu capital, Chennai, Chao was quoted as saying: "I was on a 24-hour train trip from Delhi to (the eastern Indian state of) Orissa. "But, after 72 hours,

Once again, Wikileaks had done a HUGH bombshell of a number a large trove of diplomatic information online. The names of individuals and nations was not only very shocking, but very embarrassing as well, and in the end, very damaging in respects to international relations.

Israel's foreign diplomats have refused to work with Mossad spies "anywhere in the world" after agents effectively broke a strike picket line. The rift was caused after the agency’s spies stepped in to help organise a trip for Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, to Greece next week, after foreign diplomatic staff refused because of industrial action over pay. The strike, which was triggered by claims that diplomats get half the pay of defence ministry officials, has seen workers engineering a series of diplomatic faux pas. These include leaving the wife of Estonia’s president stranded at a restaurant outside Jerusalem...

JERUSALEM (AP) -- Israeli media say the Foreign Ministry has ordered the families of its diplomats in Turkey to leave that country because of the uproar over Israel's deadly naval raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla. State-run Israel radio and other stations and newspapers say the diplomatic mission itself will remain in Turkey.

Second "cascade" of centrifuges for enriching Uranium to critical 20% level ready to go online VIENNA — Iran has set up new equipment that will allow it to boost its efficiency at enriching uranium at higher levels, diplomats said Friday. The move is likely to give the US more leverage with Russia and China in its push for new UN sanctions on Teheran. Iran's clandestine enrichment activities were discovered eight years ago and have expanded since to encompass thousands of centrifuges churning out material enriched to 3.5 percent. But despite three rounds of Security Council sanctions meant to enforce demands...

If Barack Obama had any guts, he’d have expelled this guy–this Muslim diplomat who thinks threatening shoe bombs and lighting fires is funny (and a way to test our response and out the Federal Air Marshals on the plane). But he doesn’t have the guts. And don’t think that President Bush–whose Islamo-pandering was not as overt but just as deep, nauseating, and harmful–would have the guts either. Bush’s inept, Muslim butt-kissing National Security Advisor Fran Townsend joined the chorus of the stupid and described last night’s incident as a “misunderstanding.” She sounded like Janet Napolitano when she said, “The system...

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Parts of the Pakistani military and intelligence services are mounting what American officials here describe as a campaign to harass American diplomats, fraying relations at a critical moment when the Obama administration is demanding more help to fight the Taliban and Al Qaeda. The campaign includes the refusal to extend or approve visas for more than 100 American officials and the frequent searches of American diplomatic vehicles in major cities, said an American official briefed on the cases.

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – Swedish police have arrested two North Korean diplomats on suspicion of smuggling 230,000 cigarettes into the Nordic country, the Swedish Customs Office said Friday. The pair, a man and a woman who have diplomatic status in Russia, were stopped by Swedish customs officers Wednesday morning as they drove off a ferry from Helsinki, the Finnish capital. Customs officials discovered Russian cigarettes in the car driven by the couple, Swedish Customs spokeswoman Monica Magnusson told Reuters. The two North Koreans claimed diplomatic immunity. "They were accredited as diplomats in Russia, but had no accreditation in Sweden," she said....

When Lauro L. Baja Jr. returned to his native Philippines in 2007, he had just finished a four-year stint as ambassador to the United Nations that included two terms as president of the Security Council... Then a three-month episode from his U.N. days returned to haunt him. He was sued by Marichu Suarez Baoanan, who had worked as a maid in New York City for Baja and his wife, Norma Castro Baja. Baoanan, 40, said the Bajas brought her to the United States in 2006 promising to find her work as a nurse. Instead, Baoanan said, she was forced to...

BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS ABROAD The View from Amman, Jordan 09/10/09 SNIPPET: "We opened our international office in Amman, Jordan on January 11, 2001—exactly eight months before the attack on the World Trade Centers. Today, in the post-9/11 era, our presence in Jordan and elsewhere overseas is more important than ever to our security at home. The FBI has more than 60 international offices—called Legal Attachés, or Legats—located around the world. Our agents who lead them act primarily as diplomats, building relationships with host countries and fostering the exchange of information with our international law enforcement partners. “Our mission is to develop...

Diplomacy: The U.S. revoked visas of four Honduran officials, claiming that a coup occurred there. But if they could travel, the Hondurans could educate Americans otherwise. So why are we trying to silence them?Nobody pushes "dialogue" or "citizen diplomacy" more than the U.S. Department of State. So how can it justify revoking the visas on these Hondurans in what a department spokesman confirmed Tuesday as "a turning of the screw." The Hondurans targeted are the very ones whose presence would be valuable to the U.S. if it means to understand the constitutional action that necessitated the removal of President Mel...

Syria has indicated that it has built a missile facility on the site of an alleged nuclear reactor that IAF warplanes reportedly bombed, diplomats said Tuesday. A satellite photo from Sept. 16, 2003, shows a large structure being built near a site in Syria. Photo: GeoEye/SIME/ NY Times Slideshow: Pictures of the week The diplomats cited Syrian nuclear chief Ibrahim Othman as telling a closed meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency about the facility. The diplomats said that the facility appeared to be either a missile control center or an actual launching pad. They demanded anonymity for reporting on...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 16, 2009 – Coalition and Iraqi partnerships are stronger than ever, and they are taking advantage of the improved security situation to further reconstruction efforts in Baghdad, the U.S. military’s top engineer officer in Baghdad province said yesterday. Throughout the past year, nearly 400 projects and reconstruction actions valued at more than $70 million have led to “tremendous improvements” in infrastructure as well as the availability of essential services to Baghdad residents, Army Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Talley told reporters during a news conference in Baghdad. Rebuilding and refurbishing Iraq’s infrastructure “represents a commitment from the people of the...

<p>GENEVA (AP) - Islamic proposals to ban criticism of religion, which have gathered strength since the publication of cartoons of the prophet Muhammad two years ago, threaten to derail an already troubled U.N. anti-racism conference planned for next year. The European Union rejects suggestions by Algeria—backed by other Muslim and African countries—that limits on free speech are needed to stop the publication of offensive articles and images.</p>

More than 100 former American ambassadors are endorsing John McCain and Sarah Palin for president and vice president. To be announced by the McCain campaign later this week, the endorsements counter Barack Obama’s claims that McCain is inflexible when it comes to diplomacy and negotiations with other countries, Newsmax has learned. Obama has specifically said that in contrast to McCain, he would sit down with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and other world dictators to negotiate, without preconditions. “Senator Obama does not have sufficient leadership experience, nor has he been tested in difficult times,” said Mark W. Erwin, a Democrat and...

BELGRADE, Serbia: Serbian authorities have started a disciplinary procedure against two of its diplomats accused of helping a Serbian college basketball player flee the U.S. after being charged with severely beating a classmate, a radio station reported Monday. The Serbian Foreign Ministry said it will "be extremely efficient" in solving the case of Miladin Kovacevic, Belgrade's independent B92 radio reported, without providing any details about what it would do. The 6-foot-9-inch (2.05-meter), 260-pound (118-kilogram) Kovacevic, who was recruited to play basketball for Binghamton University in upstate New York, was arrested after a May 4 fight at a downtown Binghamton bar...

HARARE, Zimbabwe - U.S. diplomats and British colleagues were attacked as they tried to investigate political violence in Zimbabwe, American officials said Thursday. The U.S. ambassador reportedly blamed the incident on President Robert Mugabe's government. "Police put up a roadblock, stopped the vehicles, slashed the tires, reached in and grabbed telephones from my personnel, and the war veterans (Mugabe's supporters) threatened to burn the vehicles with my people inside unless they got out and accompanied police to a station nearby," Reuters quoted U.S. Ambassador James McGee as saying. McGee said he believes the orders of intimidation are "coming directly from...

Rift between UK diplomats and Army in Basra By Damien McElroy, Foreign Affairs Correspondent Last Updated: 1:13am GMT 29/03/2008 British forces are facing increasing pressure to intervene in fighting in southern Iraq after government efforts to defeat Shi'ite militias in Basra ground to a halt. Signs of a rift were growing among British officials as diplomats said that UK forces "stand ready to support" Iraqi soldiers as and when requested, contradicting military statements that UK forces would be confined to "niche" roles. Fighting in Basra, Baghdad and the central town of Kut has claimed at least 100 lives this week...

WASHINGTON - More and more, top government diplomats are straying from official Bush foreign policy as the administration wanes, leaving Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice struggling to keep them in check. Twice just this week, Rice and her aides had to rebuke, disavow or otherwise try to explain away public words or actions by three top officials on delicate affairs ranging from North Korea and Iran to the violence in Kenya. The trouble began on Jan. 17, when Jay Lefkowitz, the special U.S. envoy for human rights in North Korea, delivered a speech at the conservative American Enterprise Institute think-tank...

A senior United Nations official and the acting head of the European Union's mission in Afghanistan were expelled from the country Thursday after the government accused them of holding talks with the Taliban and giving the group cash. UN officials have denied the allegations. Analysts say the incident reflects divisions over growing efforts to neutralize the Taliban by negotiating with their tribal alliances. The two men, whose expulsion was announced Tuesday, left Kabul Thursday morning, reports Reuters. UN spokesman Aleem Siddique said the UN staffer had left on Thursday morning on a regular chartered flight to neighbouring Pakistan. Diplomats in...

The State Department expects to announce, perhaps as early as today, that volunteers have filled all 48 open jobs at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad for next year and that it will not order any foreign service officers to work there against their will, officials said yesterday. Volunteers for the last three or four positions are currently being vetted. Once that process is completed, a senior department official said, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will ask personnel officers to assure her that everyone selected "does in fact have the right skill sets" and meets all requirements before an announcement is...

The State Department is backing down for now from forcing diplomats to serve in Iraq this summer because enough have volunteered to work in the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and in outlying provinces, officials said Thursday. Three foreign service officers who signed up for the last of the 48 vacancies have won tentative approval. Once personnel panels give a formal OK, the department will announce it will not need to enforce a plan for the forced assignments, the officials said Thursday. That word could come as early as Friday, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because...

The ranking Republican on the House Armed Services Committee has called on the President to fire State Department personnel who refused to be deployed to Iraq and replace them with wounded veterans at Walter Reed and Bethesda Hospitals. “We have a lot of wounded warriors at the [military] hospitals -- a pool of great talent,” Rep. Duncan Hunter (R.-Cal.), the last Republican chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and now a candidate for his party’s presidential nomination in ’08, told me outside the White House last week. Hunter was going to a meeting with President Bush as well as...

WASHINGTON — In the largest call-up of U.S. diplomats since the Vietnam War, the State Department is planning to order some of its personnel to serve at the American Embassy in Iraq because of a lack of volunteers.Those designated "prime candidates" — from 200 to 300 diplomats — will be notified Monday that they have been selected for one-year postings to fill the 40 to 50 vacancies expected next year. They will have 10 days to accept or reject the position. If not enough say yes, some will be ordered to go to Iraq and face dismissal if they refuse,...

Fearing Iraq Pullout, State Boosting Private Chopper Force August 01, 2007 4:59 PM Kirit Radia Reports: Fearing an imminent drawdown of U.S. troops and equipment from Iraq amid escalating violence, the State Department is hiring its own private helicopter squad to ferry its personnel around the country. Government military contractors Blackwater, DynCorp and Triple Canopy are the only three companies competing for the contract, possibly valued at more than $100 million a year for up to the next five years, sources tell ABC News. The requirements call for approximately 20 helicopters with maintenance, storage and crew to ensure 24-hour availability....

Four UK diplomats expelled as Russia retaliates By Matthew Moore and agencies Last Updated: 4:47pm BST 19/07/2007 Russia has expelled four British diplomats from Moscow, in tit-for-tat retaliation for the expulsion of four of its own officials earlier this week. Moscow will also halt co-operation in the war on terror David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, branded the move "completely unjustified" and said the Government would be doing all it could to ensure their families are properly looked after. Moscow also announced that it would withhold future co-operation with Britain in the war on terror, and stop issuing visas to British...

Putin vows revenge as Britain expels diplomats By David Blair, Diplomatic Correspondent, and Adrian Blomfield in Moscow Last Updated: 3:07am BST 17/07/2007 Russia threatened Britain with "serious consequences" last night after David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, revived memories of the Cold War by announcing that four Russian diplomats were to be expelled from London. President Vladimir Putin: emboldened by Russia’s growing economic strength The decision showed how Anglo-Russian relations have sunk to their lowest ebb since the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991. Mr Miliband said that Britain had no choice but to send a "clear and proportionate signal" to Moscow...

Britain is poised to expel Russian diplomats for the first time in a decade in protest at Moscow's refusal to extradite the chief suspect in the murder in London of a KGB defector.The option is one of several being considered by Downing Street after Moscow formally refused to hand over Andrei Lugovoi, a suspect in the poisoning of the former agent Alexander Litvinenko last November. The expulsions would be reminiscent of former Cold War rows between Moscow and London and almost certainly prompt similar retaliation by the Kremlin. Incensed by Russia's refusal to co-operate in the inquiry into Mr Litvinenko's...

Text of report in English by Iranian news agency IRNA website Baghdad, 20 January: Five Iranian diplomats arrested in the northern Iraqi city of Arbil nine days ago could be released this week, an Iranian envoy said here Saturday [20 January]. Speaking to IRNA, Iranian Ambassador to Baghdad Hasan Kazemi-Qomi said that the Iraqi government has promised to free the diplomats. "The host country is responsible for safeguarding diplomatic bureaus and missions. The Iraqi government has made efforts to release the Iranian consular officials since the early hours of this incident," he said. US forces broke into Iran's consulate in...

THE ZOA MIDDLE EAST REPORT Wednesday, Jan.03.07 Join us as we speak with Amb. Moshe Arens, about his latest (and brilliant, as always) article in which he discusses the issues Israel must consider in responding to Syria; and Scott W. Johnson,of POWERLINEBLOG.com. Scott has been pursuing a story for more than a decade: that the US had factual, timely proof that Yassir Arafat was behind both the murder of two US diplomats in Khartoum in 1972, and the Munich Massacre, 6 months earlier. Scott has finally been vindicated - we'll discuss how, and why the US lied about it for...

KINSHASA, Congo (AP) -- The U.N. said Monday it had launched a military operation to rescue foreign diplomats inside the besieged home of a Congo presidential candidate.

MOSCOW -- Russian lawmakers yesterday unanimously blamed the United States for the deaths of four Russian diplomats in Iraq, highlighting growing tensions between the two countries ahead of a meeting of Group of Eight foreign ministers in Moscow today. Moscow also demanded in a proposed U.S. Security Council resolution that coalition forces in Baghdad provide better security for diplomats. The United States and Britain resisted the resolution. President Vladimir Putin instructed Russian security services to find the killers and "destroy" them. "The tragedy that occurred recently in Iraq was only possible because of the growing crisis in the country as...

Baghdad. In a statement published in Internet by the organization Mudjahidin Shura announced that the Russian diplomats had been executed, CNN reports. The info has Echo of Moscow Radio announced.

American diplomats have been instructed not to keep classified material on 16,000 newly purchased computers because the manufacturer is partly-owned by the Chinese government.Richard Griffin, the assistant secretary of state, told Congress he would ensure that the machines did not "compromise our information and communication channels". The row erupted when a congressman raised questions about the purchase of machines from Lenovo, the world's third biggest personal computer maker. The company is 28 per cent owned by a state-controlled Chinese entity. At least 900 of the computers were to be used by diplomats at embassies around the world and would have...

BERLIN, April 20 (Reuters) - European diplomats on Thursday dismissed as unacceptable a suggestion that Iran take a brief "technical pause" from its nuclear enrichment activities in an attempt to revive collapsed negotiations with the EU. Several diplomats told Reuters that Mohamed ElBaradei, the director-general of the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), discussed this idea with Iranian officials during a visit to Tehran last week and hoped it could revive collapsed negotiations with the "EU3" -- France, Britain and Germany. But European Union diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it was unacceptable and reiterated that Iran had to...

LONDON, April 17 (IranMania) - Tehran is replacing 60 of its ambassadors, or around half the total, Iran's deputy foreign minister was quoted as saying, while rejecting any talk of a purge by ruling hardliners, AFP reported. "Some media said the changes were due to political reasons while it is not true. Rotating the diplomats every year is natural in the foreign ministry," Mehdi Mostafavi said. Following the shock election win of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in June 2005, authorities had announced that around 40 of Iran's most senior diplomats posted abroad were being changed. Many of these diplomats were seen...

Peoria man pleads guilty in diploma mill case Latest News more>> Truck pulling horse trailer full of illegals crashes SPOKANE, Wash. An Arizonan has reached a plea agreement with prosecutors for his role in a gigantic diploma mill operation. Richard John Novak pleaded guilty yesterday in federal court in Spokane, Washington, to conspiracy and violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Novak, who formerly lived in Spokane and now lives in Peoria, could face up to ten years in prison and (m) millions of dollars in fines. Novak is the second person to reach a plea agreement with the Justice Department...

Diplomats Visit Panjshir Reconstruction Team The Panjshir team is the first of its kind -- a joint effort between Combined Joint Task Force-76 and the U.S. Embassy. By U.S. Army Maj. T.G. Taylor 20th Public Affairs Detachment BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan, Feb. 2, 2006 — Diplomats from around the world visited the new Panjshir Provincial Reconstruction Team in Panjshir Province on Jan. 21 to view the progress of the reconstruction efforts. "This was an excellent opportunity to see how [the team] worked on the ground. The visit was a good opportunity to see this new type of integration of military...

Washington is planning to move hundreds of its diplomats from Europe to the Middle East and the Asian powers, such as China or India. "America must begin to reposition our diplomatic forces around the world," the US secretary of state Condoleeza Rice said in a speech to students at Georgetown University on Wednesday (18 January), the BBC reported. She pointed out that it is not normal to have as many diplomats in Germany, with 82 million people, as in India with 1 billion people. Adding that there are still almost 200 world cities of over a million inhabitants without any...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 18, 2006 – Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice today highlighted the importance of promoting a more cooperative working relationship between American diplomats and the U.S. military in order to achieve global objectives. "Over the past 15 years, as violent state failure has become a greater global threat, our military has borne a disproportionate share of post-conflict responsibilities because we have not had the standing civilian capability to play our part fully," she said in a speech at Georgetown University here. "This was true in Somalia, in Haiti, in Bosnia, in Kosovo and it is still partially true in...

US moves diplomats out of Europe Rice said the US must be "where the action is" The US is to reduce the number of its diplomats posted to Europe, and will send more to other countries, including China, India, Nigeria and Lebanon. "America must begin to reposition our diplomatic forces around the world," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Wednesday. She said it was an anomaly that the US had the same staff levels in Germany as in India, more than 10 times the size. She said the redeployment would help foster democratic and economic change. Ms Rice told...

Pope Benedict XVI condemned terrorism as a "moral perversion" and demanded religious freedom around the globe in an annual speech Monday to Vatican-based diplomats outlining the Vatican's foreign policy priorities.Benedict stressed the need for forgiveness and reconciliation to bring about peace in conflicts from the Middle East to Africa. And he told the ambassadors that wealthy countries must do more for the world's poor, saying that even half of what they spend on weapons "would be more than sufficient to liberate the immense masses of the poor from destitution."The pope mentioned a few conflicts in particular, reaffirming that Israel has...

Diplomacy may be the art of lying for one's country, but Mexican diplomacy requires taking that art to virtuosic heights. Mexican officials here and abroad are involved in a massive and almost daily interference in American sovereignty. The millions of illegal Mexican immigrants in this country are here thanks in part to Mexico's efforts to get them into the U.S. in violation of American law and to normalize their status once here in violation of the popular will. Mexican consulates are engineering a backdoor amnesty for their illegal migrants and trying to discredit American immigration enforcement – activities clearly beyond...

VIENNA (AFP) - Iran started a new round of converting uranium ore into the feedstock gas for making enriched uranium, a move likely to complicate diplomacy over Iran's disputed nuclear program, diplomats said. UN inspectors "are reporting that the first drums of new uranium ore were fed into the process at the uranium conversion facility in Isfahan this morning," a diplomat who asked not to be identified told AFP. Enriched uranium can be used as fuel for a civilian nuclear reactor or as atom bomb material. The conversion into the precursor gas is a second round after Iran already processed...

LONDON -- The United States is engaged in a diplomatic spat with the city of London over its refusal to pay for its embassy staff to drive on the British capital's streets -- and other nations are threatening to follow suit. At the heart of the row is London's so-called "congestion charge," a daily $14-per-car toll the city levies for using the roads in central London. The fee was introduced nearly three years ago to try to reduce the city's chronic traffic jams. But the United States says it is a tax that it no longer intends to pay. A...

US President George Bush may have launched a failed drive to isolate Iran diplomatically and force it to face United Nations sanctions if it refuses to give up its efforts to develop its own nuclear technology, according to senior officials of the State Department. Amid the widespread belief that Washington’s efforts at this juncture might be too little, too late, Mr Bush has lobbied in this regard with Chinese President Hu Jintao as well as Iraqi President Jalal Talabani. He also intends undertaking a similar exercise with the Russian President Vladmir Putin on Friday. At the very core are Iran’s...

Challenging the White House, 59 former American diplomats are urging the Senate to reject John R. Bolton's nomination to be the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. "He is the wrong man for this position," they said in a letter to Sen. Richard Lugar, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The Indiana Republican has scheduled hearings on Bolton's nomination for April 7. "We urge you to reject that nomination," the former diplomats said in a letter obtained by The Associated Press and dated Tuesday. The ex-diplomats have served in both Democratic and Republican administrations, some for long terms...

In April 2004, followers of Iraqi Shi‘ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr launched a well-coordinated uprising across southern Iraq. While Western media focused on events in Sadr City, Najaf, and Karbala, violence occurred elsewhere as well. A Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) source forwarded the following after-action report regarding violence in the town of Al-Kut, the capital of the Wassit governorate and home to the Ukrainian contingent.The unclassified report, written by a coalition security contractor, highlights dysfunction between regional coalition offices and the Coalition Provisional Authority headquarters in Baghdad, as well as tension between diplomats and security officers. The summary faulted a British...

I rec's this email from an "asscoiate"...can anyone help to verify/dispute it? She says she thinks she saw it on Fox. Thanks for the help. I saw an interview with the mother of a woman who was caught in the tsunami. The woman & her husband happily survived with minimul injuries. They worked through the night assisting others to hospitals, aid stations, shelters, etc. They managed to get to the airport a Bangkok, Thialand. Countries who had large numbers of citizens in Thialand had set up at the airport to assist their citizens on their journey home. This included replacing...