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Mexican authorities are trying to sort out why a U.S. Embassy vehicle was shot up by federal police on a rural back road in mountains south of the capital, leaving two U.S. government workers wounded. Officials from both nations said the federal officers were chasing criminals Friday morning when a hail of bullets was fired at the embassy sport utility vehicle, but the accounts left many questions unanswered. The two American workers were taken to a hospital in the nearby resort city of Cuernavaca. One had a gunshot wound in his leg and the other was wounded in the stomach...

SPOKANE VALLEY, Wash. - Former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, Ryan Crocker, was twice the legal limit when he side-swiped a semi-truck at an intersection in Spokane Valley on August 14, according to Trooper Troy Briggs with the Washington State Patrol. Crocker, 63, who's from Spokane, was arrested for DUI and hit and run after a collision with the semi at the intersection of Sprague Ave. and Pines Road at 2:05p.m. Crocker's blood alcohol content (BAC) was .160 and .152 following two breathalyzer tests. The legal limit in Washington is .08.

August 9, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Dozens of pro-family leaders have signed a petition to condemn the participation of the U.S. embassy in the Czech Republic in this year’s “gay pride” parade to be held in Prague later this month. The signatories “vigorously protest the participation of the United States Embassy in the Czech Republic in a so-called gay-pride parade which will take place on August 18,” lamenting that “at the directive of the president of the United States, Washington is aggressively promoting the ‘gay’’ agenda internationally, including same-sex ‘marriage’ and the stigmatization and marginalization of any who object to the...

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -- President Hugo Chavez announced Thursday that Venezuelan security forces have arrested a U.S. citizen and suspect he is a mercenary who could be involved in an alleged plot to destabilize the country if the opposition's candidate loses the upcoming presidential election. Chavez said the Hispanic man was detained Aug. 4 while crossing into Venezuela from Colombia. The president said the man was carrying a U.S. passport with entrance and exit stamps from countries including Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya as well as a notebook containing geographical coordinates. The man's identity was not released. Chavez did not say...

Sorry About the Fake Bomb U.S. officials apologized today for mistakenly leaving a fake bomb attached to an embassy vehicle in Oslo and causing a bomb scare that led to the evacuation of the U.S. embassy, Norway's royal palace and part of downtown Oslo. The device had been placed beneath an embassy vehicle as part of a security drill and then mistakenly left there. It was spotted by security guards at the embassy's front entrance when someone tried to drive the vehicle onto embassy grounds just after 11 a.m. local time, triggering the evacuation of the embassy and the palace,...

Former U.S. Ambassador to the VaticanDr. Mary Ann Glendon Six former Vatican ambassadors have banded together to lead a new outreach for Mitt Romney presidential campaign to encourage Catholic voters to support him over pro-abortion President Barack Obama in November. The issue of abortion is one of the reasons for their decision to endorse Romney, as they explain in a new letter announcing the effort. Catholics for Romney National Co-Chairs and Former U.S. Ambassadors to the Holy See include Frank Shakespeare, Tom Melady, Ray Flynn, Jim Nicholson, Francis Rooney, and Mary Ann Glendon. Together, they wrote the following letter...

A $348 million contract to maintain the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad was awarded this week by the U.S. Department of State to PAE Government Services, which will be tasked with delivering operations and maintenance services for the 104-acre compound. An unspecified portion of that amount will be devoted to providing a residence manager, two cooks, two waiters, and four housekeepers to serve the U.S. ambassador and deputy chief of mission. It also remains unclear how much will be spent on lawn maintenance, though The Peacock Report -- U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor's predecessor site -- reported back in 2005 that...

Mitt Romney today announced the support of five former U.S. Ambassadors to the Holy See. The Ambassadors wrote the following letter in support of Mitt Romney: “We the undersigned former U.S. Ambassadors to the Holy See...are united in our wholehearted support for the candidacy of Mitt Romney for the Presidency of the United States because of his commitment to and support of the values that we feel are critical in a national leader...We also know that Mitt Romney is a staunch defender of the principle that every human being should be welcomed in life and protected by law from conception...

China tells U.S. to stop tweeting Beijing's bad air BEIJING — China told foreign embassies Tuesday to stop publishing their own reports on air quality in the country, escalating its objections to a popular U.S. Embassy Twitter feed that tracks pollution in smoggy Beijing. Only the Chinese government is authorized to monitor and publish air quality information and data from other sources may not be standardized or rigorous, Wu Xiaoqing, a vice environmental minister, told reporters. China has long taken issue with the U.S. Embassy's postings of hourly readings of Beijing's air quality on a Twitter feed with more than...

Blind Chinese Human Rights activist causes diplomatic crisis after asking Hillary Clinton to take him back to the US on her plane. The blind Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng was prepared to spend years in the US embassy in Beijing if necessary as he weighed his next move after escaping house arrest, the US ambassador has said. But the future of the "barefoot lawyer" and his family is now uncertain, after he agreed to a deal allowing him to stay in China and study, with assurances from the government, only to then change his mind and ask to go to the...

A blind Chinese legal activist who was at the center of a diplomatic tussle between Washington and Beijing left the U.S. Embassy Wednesday to receive medical care in Beijing and be reunited with this family. Guangcheng said via his lawyer that he is free and has received "clear assurances" from the Chinese government. A U.S. official said Chen did not ask for asylum and is staying in China after receiving assurances that he will be treated as a normal citizen. The U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told reporters that Chinese authorities promised that Chen would be relocated to...

SNIPPET: "WASHINGTON, April 2 (UPI) -- A blackout of al-Qaida's main Web sites is in its 11th day, and officials think the forums may have been brought down in a cyberattack. While no one has claimed credit for disabling the sites..." SNIPPET: "The loss of information typically confuses and frustrates the readers of the Web sites. "It leaves the rank-and-file to guess which messages and which messengers are genuine al-Qaida, and provides undercover operators with new opportunities to disrupt the movement," said A. Aaron Weisburd, senior fellow at the Homeland Security Policy Institute."

Saudi Arabia recalled its ambassador to Egypt and closed its embassy in Cairo and its consulates in Alexandria and Suez Saturday, following protests in the Egyptian capital over a human rights lawyer imprisoned in the Arab kingdom. The decision to pull out Saudi diplomats came after protester "attempts to storm and threaten the security and safety of its (embassy) employees," according to the Saudi Press Agency. Throngs of Egyptians had gathered in front of the Saudi Embassy this week, calling for the release of Egyptian lawyer Ahmed el-Gezaw -- detained earlier this month for allegedly insulting King Abdullah. Saudi officials...

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...

The United States said Monday it is relocating embassy staff and their families to new neighborhoods in Bahrain's capital Manama as part of safety precautions amid anti-government unrest. Tensions have remained high in Bahrain since a brutal government crackdown on pro-democracy protests in mid-March led to the death of 35 people. Sporadic violence has been on the upturn in recent weeks.

LONDON (Reuters) - Police said they had made more than 20 arrests at a demonstration outside the U.S. embassy in London on Friday. Twenty people had been held on suspicion of being members of a banned group while another two were detained for obstruction and violent disorder.

Sarajevo. A gunman with an automatic weapon opened fire at the United States embassy in the Bosnian capital Sarajevo on Friday and police rushed to the scene, a Reuters witness said. A Reuters photographer said police were trying to surround the gunman, who was armed with a Kalashnikov rifle. A source close to the embassy said two security guards had been wounded. The U.S. embassy is located in the central business, university and shopping district of the capital.

Ever been to Norway? We visited it this summer. Clean cities and towns, lots of hills and fjords, very green foliage, a really pretty place. Summertime temperatures were just perfect (winters hit 35 below). As "nanny states" go, Norway is just about the top of the heap. Supposedly, Norwegians are some of the happiest people on earth. They seem to just send most if not all their money to the government and they are taken care of pretty much cradle to grave. We did notice some things about Norway, though, that don't immediately meet the eye; that's because they aren't...

Insurgents are firing rockets toward the U.S. Embassy, NATO headquarters and other official buildings in Kabul, Afghanistan, where a group of attackers is holed up on the 10th floor, Fox News confirms. ISAF and NATO attack helicopters are pummeling the building with gunfire and have attacked suspected suicide bombers making a bee-line for the embassy, a source tells Fox News. NATO headquarters and other buildings in the heart of the Afghan capital are also under fire, while suicide bombers struck police buildings in an attack blitz that displayed the ability of militants to bring their fight to the doorsteps of...

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - Insurgents fired rockets and assault rifles in the direction of the U.S. Embassy, NATO headquarters and other official buildings Tuesday as gunfire and explosions rocked the heart of the Afghan capital. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack. The surge of violence was a stark reminder of the instability that continues to plague Afghanistan nearly a decade after the U.S. invasion that ousted the Taliban in the wake of the Sept. 11 terror attacks on the United States. Police said the gunmen were firing from a tall office building that is under construction at Kabul's Abdul...