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The U.S. Department of State once again has resumed its search for providers of high-end crystal stemware and other tabletop glassware, only this time the estimated cost has leaped back up a couple of million. The estimated price tag previously was $5.4 million, but had dipped to $3.5 million at the time of the initial report. That estimate has jumped to $5 million--though State now assures taxpayers that it will not spend more than $2 million on the glasses in any given year over the five year life of the contract.

A banner showing al Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri and former emir Osama bin Laden is placed outside the French Embassy in Cairo, Egypt during a protest organized by Mohammed al Zawahiri. Image from Euronews. Within the past few days, Mohammed al Zawahiri, the younger brother of al Qaeda emir Ayman al Zawahiri, has threatened France and the West while condemning the intervention in Mali. The younger Zawahiri promised that if France and its allies continue to fight in Mali, then Westerners will be the "first to burn." During an interview broadcast by Euronews on Jan. 22, Mohammed al...

WASHINGTON - A turf war between the two senior intelligence chiefs over the role of CIA station chiefs in U.S. embassies has forced National Security Adviser James L. Jones to step in to mediate, according to current and former U.S. government officials. The jockeying between CIA director Leon Panetta and National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair centers on Blair's effort to choose his own representatives abroad instead of relying only on CIA station chiefs, the current and former officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the dispute.

SNIPPET: "Indonesian anti-terror police, Densus 88 secure a terror suspect's house during a raid in Mojosongo, Solo in Central Java. Indonesian police have arrested 11 members of an Islamic group allegedly planning attacks on American diplomatic missions, a spokesman says." SNIPPET: "The group had planned to hit the US embassy and a US consulate, as well as a building near the Australian embassy in the capital Jakarta that houses the office of American mining giant Freeport-McMoran, police said. Police said they were from a new outfit called HASMI, the Sunni Movement for Indonesian Society, and explosives and a bomb-making manual...

The Washington Times is reporting that at the same time State Department officials were cutting security for our diplomatic stations in Libya, they were increasing the budget for our embassy in Austria in order to purchase Chevrolet's electric powered Volt: In a May 3, 2012, email, the State Department denied a request by a group of Special Forces assigned to protect the U.S. embassy in Libya to continue their use of a DC- 3 airplane for security operations throughout the country. . . Four days later, on May 7, the State Department authorized the U.S. embassy in Vienna [Austria] to...

Is Obama tone-deaf in the extreme — or is he blatantly rubbing our noses in it? What else could explain his bizarre decision, after weeks of violence and anti-American rioting in cities across North Africa and the Muslim world, to check into a Las Vegas resort with a North African theme? As reported by the Business Insider, Obama chose the new Westin Lake Las Vegas Resort to do his debate preparation: President Barack Obama arrived in Nevada last night to begin three days of debate preparation at the Westin Lake Las Vegas Resort, a luxurious golf community just a few...

Mitt Romney is always getting slammed for being a rich guy, but it doesn't seem to be harming him with middle-class voters. A new poll from Politico (hardly a Mitt spokespiece), is giving the former Massachusetts governor a stark 14-percentage point advantage over President Obama with average Americans. Of course, Obama's class war strategy is not resonating with ordinary people. These folks work hard, follow the rules, and don't expect handouts from the government. They also don't hate rich people, simply because they are more successful. Over the last four years, middle-income earners have experienced the awful confluence of wage...

A Facebook friend of mine, someone I suspect is not of the same political persuasion as I am, recently posted a link to an article, “A Time for Introspection” an op/ed in the Express Tribune (of Pakistan) by Raza Rumi, director, Policy & Programmes, Jinnah Institute, Islamabad. Though Rumi is no American cheerleader in the piece, he urges Muslims to look at their own actions before pointing the finger of blame at others for their troubles. One section dealing with so-called anti-Islam works: Salman Rushdie’s book — Satanic Verses — sparked global outrage in the late 1980s and since then,...

WASHINGTON -- Allow me to offer a suggestions as to how our government might avoid the slaughter of our personnel in diplomatic installations around the Islamic world by mobs. It seems to me most probable that insults to the Prophet Muhammad appear regularly in the modern world. After all, insults against revered figures in the world's other major religions pop up all the time. As for Islam, a book such as Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses can be published anywhere. A thirteen-minute anti-Islamic video can arrive on YouTube, and my guess is there are others that have and will appear there....

For a week various Obama administration figures, including the White House press secretary, have insisted that the attacks on U..S. embassies in the Middle East were a spontaneous reaction to an anti-Muslim video. But that excuse has not held up to even superficial scrutiny. The public certainly senses something is not right. Unlike the media, which is entirely obsessed with Mitt Romney’s remarks about the attacks, the public is troubled by President Obama’s handling or lack of handling of the crisis. The pictures of dead Americans and burned embassies strike a cord with Americans. So it is not surprising that...

Six months after declaring that all churches in the Arabian peninsula should be destroyed, Saudi Arabia’s top cleric called at the weekend for a global ban on insults targeting all religious “prophets and messengers,” a category that, from a Muslim perspective, includes Jesus Christ. Saturday’s demand by Saudi grand mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Asheikh came on the same day that another of Sunni Islam’s most prominent figures, Egypt’s Al-Azhar University grand imam Ahmed el-Tayyeb, made a similar appeal. Both men were reacting to an amateur video satirizing Mohammed, whose emergence on the Internet has been blamed for protests targeting American...

DUBAI - Iran's government will "track down" those responsible for making an amateurish film clip mocking the Prophet Mohammad, a senior official said, Iranian media reported on Monday. The video made in California and posted on YouTube portrayed the Prophet Mohammad as a womanizer and a fool. It has ignited a week of violent protests across the Muslim world. "The government of the Islamic Republic of Iran condemns ... this inappropriate and offensive action," First Vice-President Mohammad Reza Rahimi said, according to the Mehr news agency. "Certainly it will search for, track, and pursue this guilty person who ... has...

It didn't begin with the attempt to censor Google and it will get worse if the President is re-elected. Last week, we learned that the White House has been pressuring Google to censor a video about Muhammad because it has allegedly incited violence in Libya. Google refused, but the very request is a useful reminder of the President's disdain for the democratic process and the principles of free expression upon which it stands. It suggests that, even if his policies were not a catalogue of failure, giving him another term would constitute a clear and present danger to the republic....

In a move that could escalate tensions around the Arab world, the leader of the Hezbollah militant group called for protests against the movie and said the U.S. must be held accountable for the film. In a televised speech, Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah pushed for the creation of an international law that would ban insults of Islam and other religions, citing similar laws that exist to prevent anti-Semitism. His outrage stems from the anti-Islam film produced by a mysterious convict based in California, that has since sparked protests outside American embassies in the Middle East and across the globe....

Almost a year ago, The Washington Times reported that the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, Egypt, spent approximately $38,000 in 2009 on copies of President Barack Obama’s memoir, “Dreams From My Father.” Last week, on the 11th anniversary of the Sept. 11th attack on our shores by al-Qaeda, that same embassy came under fire and remains so to this day.

A full day after the U.S. ambassador to Libya was brutally killed by a Muslim mob, another mob attacked Mitt Romney. While armed only with pens and notebooks, the cabal meant to inflict the same outcome on the Republican’s presidential campaign. Protecting and defending President Obama through his failures and blunders and gaffes is a full-time job for America’s mainstream press corps — and they’re getting worried. So, they attacked the GOP nominee for his reaction to the U.S. Embassy in Egypt’s statement condemning “the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims.” Was that “appropriate”?...

(VIDEO AT LINK) One person has died in the city of Hyderabad and at least eight people have been injured in protests across Pakistan against a controversial video mocking the Prophet Muhammad. In the southern port city of Karachi, around 1,000 protesters began throwing stones and police responded with teargas and by firing into the air, Fayyaz Laghari, a senior policeman, said on Sunday. The demonstrations on Sunday came as violent protests against the anti-Islam video clip appear to have leveled off - after at least 10 people died across the Middle East and North Africa on Friday, despite a...

I was inspired by Freeper RushIsMyTeddyBear to create the YouTube video here dramatizing President Obama's incredible callousness with regards to the metastasizing conflict in the Middle East, or "9-11-Plus-Eleven", as I term it.

I made a request last night that someone should do a vid of the song that was running through my head. It was by the Ink Spots...."I Don't Want To Set The World On Fire" with what is going on in the Middle East and Obama. shorelinemike DELIVERED!!!! It's AWESOME!!!!! Spread this around, guys! To EVERY forum(s) you may belong to! It's powerful!

Russell Simmons✔ @UncleRUSH It would be illegal to yell fire in movie theater and it could be illegal to make hate film which was obviously designed to cause alarm? 15 Sep 12 Reply Retweet Favorite Add Russell Simmons to the list of entertainment industry figures rethinking the meaning of freedom of speech in the wake of anti-American protests coinciding with the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. Did we say anti-American? Never mind the burning flags; White House press secretary Jay Carney assured the nation that a single YouTube video is the sole target of Islamic rage. Plenty, including Bette...

Why is Team Romney slamming Obama's foreign policy as Americans die overseas? Michael Tomasky says they can't win the swing vote, so they're going with Plan B: Rile up the base. They keep piling on. You’d think Mitt Romney and team would have stopped with the foreign-policy attacks— if not because of the political costs, then at least because real, living Americans are now under very serious threat in a number of Middle Eastern cities. But no. Instead they keep at it, with Paul Ryan and old “Blackjack” Bennett pressing ever onward at the Values Voter Summit on Friday. Do...

PARIS - A French police official said a few dozen people protested in front of the U.S. Embassy in Paris before police broke up the demonstration. Television images showed Muslim protesters praying on the wide sidewalks in front of the embassy....

When Princess Diana was killed in a car crash after a high-speed race through the streets of Paris with paparazzi, her family understandably claimed that the media had killed the mother of the future King of the UK. At the time, I considered that a little hyperbolic, although hardly unwarranted hyperbole, as the actual proximate causes of death were a driver under the influence making a rash decision to outrun photographers and a decision not to use seatbelts. But over the last couple of days, I wonder whether the American media may get someone killed — and perhaps more than...

It was bad enough, two years ago, that Defense Secretary Robert Gates called fringe Florida pastor Terry Jones to ask him not to burn copies of the Koran, or last week, that chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Martin Dempsey took his turn to call Jones to ask him to stop publicizing a YouTube video, The Innocence of Muslims. But then on Friday, White House spokesman Jay Carney told the world that the violent protests in Cairo and Ben­ghazi and elsewhere were a “response not to United States policy, and not obviously the administration or the American people,” but were...

Every U.S. embassy in the hellhole known as the Middle East needs a couple of these. They would make an appropriate statement. 3000-4000 rounds per minute. 1000-yd range

The U.S. has increased embassy security worldwide after the assault that killed the U.S. ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens and three other consular officials, and violent protests at U.S. embassies in Egypt and Yemen. Protesters have been angered by a film that mocks Islam's Prophet Mohammed. The online film "Innocence of Muslims" has attracted widespread condemnation including remarks from Egyptian President Mohamed Morsy and Pakistan's foreign ministry. Violent protests erupt at embassies as U.S. seeks killers The tension has also provoked comment throughout the press in the Arab world. CNN samples some of the commentaries: Lebanon Daily StarIn an editorial...

Muslim groups who staged an angry protest outside the U.S. Consulate at Gemini Circle on Friday afternoon, taking police and passers-by by complete surprise, claimed they had informed the police about their plans to hold a demonstration outside the building. M. Thamimun Ansari, a functionary of the Tamil Muslim Munnetra Kazhagham, which organised the protest, said there were less than 10 policemen with barricades and they were unable to handle the protesters. “We had already informed the police that there will be at least 7,000 people gathering at the Thousand Lights mosque at 4 p.m. But when we came here,...

Jay Carney in the White House briefing room today: (VIDEO AT LINK) This is, to put it bluntly, horrifying. At the very least it is incoherent. On one hand, the White House press secretary says we know the attacks are completely about a film, and not about the U.S. . . . but then we don’t have any information it wasn’t about a film. Have we done some investigation? What about reports that people storming our embassies hadn’t seen or hear about the film? And does the administration not understand that radical jihadists use such incidents to spur Muslims to...

SNIPPET: "Azerbaijan has arrested 22 people on suspicion of plotting attacks on the US and Israeli embassies in Baku on behalf of neighbouring Iran, the national security ministry said Wednesday." SNIPPET: ""On orders of the Sepah they were to commit terrorist acts against the US, Israeli and other Western states' embassies and the embassies' employees," it said. The ministry said that the suspects were recruited from 1999 onwards and trained in the use of weapons and spy techniques at military camps in Iran to enable them to gather information on foreign embassies, organisations and companies in Azerbaijan and stage attacks,...

22 arrested in Azerbaijan in plot on US, Israeli embassies Published March 14, 2012 | FoxNews.com Officials in Azerbaijan have arrested 22 people suspected of plotting attacks on the American and Israeli embassies in the capital Baku, the Agence France Presse is reporting. The plot was reportedly on behalf of Azerbaijan’s neighbor, Iran, according to the national security ministry. "Twenty-two citizens of Azerbaijan have been arrested by the national security ministry for cooperating with the Iranian Sepah," the ministry said, referring to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, according to AFP. "On orders of the Sepah, they were to commit terrorist acts...

Four Israeli embassies and consulates have been temporarily shut down due to a mounting terror threat, according to foreign press. Turkish newspaper Hurriet reported that the Israeli embassy in Ankara and the consulate in Istanbul are among the diplomatic missions that have shut their doors. The Counter-Terror Bureau has cited, in recent days, a growing threat of the imminent execution of terror attacks against Jewish and Israeli targets abroad, with emphases on Egypt, Turkey, Georgia, Armenia, Ivory Coast, Mali, Mauritania and Venezuela. The Bureau urges Israelis traveling to these countries to avoid places where there are concentrations of Israelis, and...

Egyptian intelligence warned American officials about a week before Sept. 11 that Osama bin Laden's network was in the advance stages of executing a significant operation against an American target, it will be reported on Tuesday (in the NY TIMES)... MORE... A senior U.S. intelligence official denied the warning was received...

Here is a video report on the news that the United States and Great Britain have closed their embassies in Yemen in response to terror threats from Al-Qaeda: The US and Britain have shut their Yemen embassies after threats from an al-Qaeda offshoot linked to an alleged failed US plane bomb plot. The UK Foreign Office told the BBC its embassy in the capital Sanaa was closed "for security reasons", hours after the US announced its mission had been shut. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown earlier said the UK and US would step up counter-terror efforts in Yemen. There are...

SNIPPET: "The leader of the al Qaeda-linked Chinese terror group has threatened to attack Chinese interests around the world to avenge the death of Uighurs in the eastern province of Xianjiang. Abdul Haq al Turkistani, the leader of the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Party, threatened to attack Chinese embassies worldwide as well as targets within the country. Haq made his threats on a video that was released on an Islamist Internet site." SNIPPET: "Haq, who is also known as Maimaitiming Maimaiti, became the leader of the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Party in late 2003 after Hassan Mahsum, the group’s previous leader, was...

I saw this article and found it rather alarming (particularly, starting around paragraph 7). I was wondering what people think about this. Is the author being overly paranoid, or does it look like it's realistic? Here's the paragraphs in question: In its current issue, HSL reports rumors that "Some U.S. embassies worldwide are being advised to purchase massive amounts of local currencies; enough to last them a year. Some embassies are being sent enormous amounts of U.S. cash to purchase currencies from those governments, quietly. But not pound sterling. Inside the State Dept., there is a sense of sadness and...

A China-based cyber spy network has hacked into government and private systems in 103 countries, including those of many Indian embassies and the Dalai Lama, an Internet research group said here Saturday. The Information Warfare Monitor (IWM), which carried out an extensive 10-month research on cyber spy activities emanating from China, said the hacked systems include the computers of Indian embassies and offices of the Dalai Lama.

Yet another embassy web site is falling victim into a malware attack serving Adobe exploits to its visitors. As of last Friday, the official web site of the Embassy of Portugal in India has been compromised (embportindia.co.in). Who's behind the attack? Interestingly, that's the very same group that compromised the Azerbaijanian Embassies in Pakistan and Hungary earlier this month. Assessing this campaign once again establishes a direct connection with the Rusian Business Network's pre-shutdown netblocks and static locations.

The very latest addition to the "Compromised International Embassies Series" are the Hungarian and Pakistani embassies of the Republic of Azerbaijan, which are currently iFramed with exploits-serving domains.

Note: The following text is a quote: YOU ARE HERE: Home > Reports > Consular Affairs Bulletins > Report Warden Message: Continued Threats, Yemen CONSULAR AFFAIRS BULLETINS Middle East / N. Africa - Yemen 8 Dec 2008 Printer Friendly Email Article RELATED REPORTS 18 Sep 2008 WARDEN MESSAGE: YEMEN AUTHORIZED DEPARTURE 17 Sep 2008 U.S. EMBASSY SANA'A ATTACKED 17 Sep 2008 WARDEN MESSAGE: U.S. EMBASSY SANA'A ATTACK 17 Sep 2008 TRAVEL WARNING: YEMEN 17 Sep 2008 U.S. EMBASSY SANA'A ATTACKED U.S. Embassy Sana'a released the following Warden Message on December 8: The U.S. Embassy continues to receive threats against embassies,...

At the moment, foreign teachers in China have relatively little options if they are cheated or need help. Sure. There are plenty of American consulates sprinkled around here but unless there is a war or a tidal wave in the area, American consulates and embassies in China are as about as useful as an expired visa. The Chinese government for their part mainly adheres to an attitude of "teach here at your own risk" and its attempts to weed out bad schools and programs in China have been weak at best. In short, there is little recourse available for foreign...

COPENHAGEN, Denmark - The Danish Foreign Ministry said Wednesday that it has evacuated its staff from embassies in Algeria and Afghanistan because of threats after newspapers reprinted a cartoon depicting the Muslim prophet Muhammad. Embassy employees have been moved to secret locations in both countries' capitals but continue to work, Foreign Ministry spokesman Erik Laursen said. The announcement comes after Danish intelligence officials warned of an "aggravated" terror threat against Denmark since newspapers in the country in February of a cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad. The warning specifically singled out North Africa, the Middle East, Pakistan and Afghanistan. The threat...

Petraeus: Al Qaida Trying to 'Come Back In' U.S. military officials said there will be no significant reduction in coalition troops in the Baghdad area as part of an effort to stop the Al Qaida offensive in northern Iraq. They said Al Qaida was trying to reenter Baghdad and reverse its losses in 2007. "Al Qaida is trying to come back in," U.S. military commander Gen. David Petraeus said. "We can feel it and see it, and what we're trying to do is rip out any roots before they can get deeply into the ground." Read More Militants Assert...

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- The U.S. ambassador to Serbia has asked the State Department to evacuate some diplomats from the embassy in Belgrade following an attack on the compound. The envoy, Cameron Munter, has asked the department to implement an "ordered departure" for all nonessential personnel and the dependents of all American staff at the embassy, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said. He said the request was being reviewed but that it would "likely be approved" on Friday. There are between 80 and 100 Americans who work at the embassy but it was not clear how many of them or how...

CAIRO, Egypt - An American member of al-Qaida threatened foreign diplomats and embassies across the Islamic world in a new video Sunday, saying they would targeted as "spy dens." The 1 hour, 17 minute video also featured a computer-animated recreation of a March 2006 suicide attack that killed U.S. diplomat David Foy in Karachi, Pakistan, and testimony from a man who claimed to be the bomber. "We shall continue to target you, at home and abroad, just as you target us, at home and abroad, and these spy dens and military command and control centers from which you plotted your...

Amir Mizroch, THE JERUSALEM POST Several foreign embassies in Teheran are updating their emergency evacuation plans should a Western or Israeli attack on Iran occur. According to foreign sources, foreign diplomats believe a possible attack would take place before the end of 2007. By that time, Iran might have enough enriched uranium to cause a humanitarian and environmental catastrophe from radioactive fallout should its nuclear facilities be damaged or destroyed in an attack. Embassies in all countries generally have evacuation plans for their staff, but foreign sources describe the general atmosphere in Iran as one of heightened preparedness. Recently, several...

Several foreign embassies in Teheran are updating their emergency evacuation plans should a Western or Israeli attack on Iran occur. According to foreign sources, foreign diplomats believe a possible attack would take place before the end of 2007. By that time, Iran might have enough enriched uranium to cause a humanitarian and environmental catastrophe from radioactive fallout should its nuclear facilities be damaged or destroyed in an attack. Embassies in all countries generally have evacuation plans for their staff, but foreign sources describe the general atmosphere in Iran as one of heightened preparedness. Recently, several diplomatic missions based in Teheran...

Intelligence agents will be commissioned to Brazilian embassies in Venezuela and Bolivia, as the two countries have become a matter of concern in the hemisphere, official sources said Thursday. The Institutional Security Cabinet under the President's Office confirmed AFP the news disseminated in newspaper "Estado de Minas." Officials explained that they are not covert agents, but attaches who will cooperate with the domestic staff of the countries where they will be deployed. The Brazilian Intelligence Agency (Abin) started a process of internal selection of the officials who will be appointed to Caracas and La Paz. To date, Brazil had intelligence...

Report of the Accountability Review Boards Bombings of the US Embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania on August 7, 1998 NAIROBI: DISCUSSION AND FINDINGS [* Note: Passages here and elsewhere in this document marked with an asterisk (*) indicate more details can be found in the classified version of the report.] Discussion On August 7, 1998, at approximately 10:30 a.m. local time, terrorists driving in a truck detonated a large bomb in the rear parking area, near the ramp to the basement garage, of the American Embassy in Nairobi. A total of 213 people were killed, of...

Bush's Anti-Terrorism Record (CBS/AP) SCHENECTADY, N.Y. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, a possible contender for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination in 2008, on Monday criticized the Bush administration for failing to do enough to protect the country from terrorists. Clinton's comments came after authorities in the United Kingdom last week said they thwarted a terror plot involving airplanes bound from Britain to the United States. Conspirators allegedly planned to blow up as many as 10 planes flying from Britain to the United States using liquid explosives, which the U.S. Transportation Security Administration's security equipment cannot detect in carry-on luggage. "We've done...

"When a thinking person sees or reads something that offends them in a newspaper, they write a letter to the editor; they don't torch KFC. Clearly, there is more than a touch of irony in the violent reactions of Muslims around the world as a result of these cartoons."