Free Republic

John Kerry has assembled a three-person team to lead the State Department’s efforts against ISIS. Two of the members — Gen. John Allen and Brett McGurk — seem unobjectionable. The third, Anne Patterson, is another matter. In announcing her central role, Kerry praised Patterson as “one of our nation’s top diplomats deeply respected in the region.” But Patterson is not respected in Egypt, where she served as ambassador during the period when the Muslim Brotherhood was in power. Bridget Johnson at PJ Media reminds us that Patterson stood firmly behind the Brotherhood as it persecuted opponents and attempted to consolidate...

A former U.S. ambassador is being investigated for laundering, according to papers found in a garbage container in Vienna. Zalmay Khalilzad, a former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan and Iraq, is being investigated for money laundering, and several of his wife's bank accounts have been frozen in connection with the probe. The Justice Department investigation only became public on Sunday, when a blogger found relevant documents in a garbage container used by a state prosecutor's office in Vienna and posted them online. A day later, Austrian magazine Profil reported on the case.

Israel's ambassador to the United Kingdom, Daniel Taub visits Bradford (which George Galloway wanted to make an 'Israel free zone') and blows them away with a great speech.

President Barack Obama has nominated a big-dollar political fundraiser for the president and the CEO of an economic and political advisory firm, Jane Hartley, to be the U.S. ambassador to France. Hartley is the CEO of Observatory Group and raised more than $500,000 for Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign. …

Minnesota Sen. Al Franken says he opposes President Barack Obama's nominee for U.S. ambassador to Norway. Franken says he agrees with the Norwegian-American community's doubts over whether George Tsunis would be an effective ambassador. Franken made his comments in a letter Monday to Secretary of State John Kerry. The Minnesota Democrat, who is running for re-election, says he will vote against confirming Tsunis if it comes up for a vote in the Senate.

US Ambassador Robert Ford resigned from his State Department post a month ago, after a long and difficult time as the envoy to Syria. Ford showed great personal courage in his service while Bashar al-Assad instigated attacks on Western embassies and eventually provoked a massive civil war which has turned into a regional threat, thanks to the collapse of his power in large regions of Syria. The collapse of American policy in Syria over the past year was presumed to have prompted Ford’s departure, which he confirms with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour in an interview today.This is interesting for more...

Boko Haram, the African Islamist terror group whose April kidnapping of nearly 300 young girls has united the civilized world in anger, promised to assassinate U.S. ambassador to Nigeria Terence McCulley in February 2012, vowing to murder him if America signed a terrorism-fighting Memorandum Of Understanding (MOU) with the government in Abuja. McCulley, now the U.S. ambassador to Ivory Coast, was not harmed. But the threat, coming amid a years-long bombing campaign that killed more than 1,400 Nigerian civilians, didn't move then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to fast-track the addition of Boko Haram to the U.S. government's official list of...

When Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made a brief self-congratulatory trip to Tripoli, Libya, in October 2011 -- with U.S. military assets lurking offshore in case they needed to rescue her -- she joked, in the presence of then-Ambassador Gene Cretz and Assistant Secretary of State Jeffrey Feltman, that they had not-so-long-ago been worried that the ambassador might end up the target of a murderous Libyan assault. "As Gene and Assistant Secretary Feltman and I were walking through here, they were talking about how the last time Jeff was here was when we were very worried that Gadhafi and [Libyan...

In the Eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk, where pro-Russian militants have seized government facilities, pamphlets have recently been circulated warning Jews to register with city officials or see their property confiscated. There was some confusion as to who put the leaflets out, or whether they were merely meant as a provocation. On Thursday, however, the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine confirmed to CNN that the pamphlets are authentic. Speaking with CNN host Jake Tapper, Amb. Geoffrey Pyatt said that the “chilling” leaflets which force Jews to register their property and religion with the government or face consequences have been released by...

TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) - Masked gunmen abducted the Jordanian ambassador in the Libyan capital early Tuesday, officials said, the latest in a wave of abductions in the North African nation still plagued by lawlessness more than two years after the ouster of dictator Moammar Gadhafi.

(CNSNews.com) – Defunding United Nations agencies that admit “Palestine” is not in the interests of the U.S., Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power argued Wednesday, because doing so constitutes a “double win” for the Palestinians. Not only do they score by gaining admission to a U.N. body, she told the House Appropriations’ subcommittee responsible for foreign operations, they also benefit by having U.S. influence in that body reduced, making way for the likes of Russia, China and Cuba to take the lead. Power was arguing for lawmakers to support a waiver to provisions in U.S. law that prohibit funding for...

Kiev, Ukraine (CNN) -- Russia recalled its ambassador to NATO for consultations Thursday, two days after NATO member countries suspended cooperation with Russia over the Ukraine crisis, Russian state media reported. Col. Gen. Valery Yevnevich will return to Moscow in light of NATO's actions, official news agency ITAR-Tass said, citing Russian Deputy Defence Minister Anatoly Antonov's remarks to journalists. "The policy of (deliberately) whipping up tensions is not our choice. Nonetheless, we see no possibility to continue military cooperation with NATO in a routine regime," Antonov is quoted as saying. He accused NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen of making...

Hostages captured after the 1979 siege on the US Embassy in Tehran are seen in this undated file photo.Former American hostage Barry Rosen, held by student extremists at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran for more than a year, said Monday it would be an “outrage” and “disgrace” if Washington gave a visa to one of the militants recently named by Iran as its new U.N. ambassador. “It may be a precedent but if the president and the Congress don't condemn this act by the Islamic Republic, then our captivity and suffering for 444 days at the hands of Iran was...

I've never liked the word diss—not as a verb, much less as a noun. But watching the Obama administration get the diss treatment the world over, week-in, week-out, I'm beginning to see its uses. Diss: On Sunday, Bloomberg reported that Hasan Rouhani named Hamid Aboutalebi to serve as the ambassador to the United Nations. Mr. Rouhani is the Iranian president the West keeps insisting is a "moderate," mounting evidence to the contrary notwithstanding. Mr. Aboutalebi was one of the students who seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979. Here's the kicker: The State Department—the very institution whose diplomats were...

U.S. President Barack Obama on Thursday proposed Andrew Schapiro as the new ambassador to the Czech Republic.... Like the present ambassador to Prague, Norman Eisen, Schapiro stands close to Obama. They studied together at the Harvard University ....

U.S. President Barack Obama has nominated businessman and Greek-American George James Tsunsis from New York to become the new U.S. ambassador to Norway. During the formal U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations hearing, it became clear that the candidate does not know anything about Norway – which is probably why he has accepted the position. During the hearing he said, among other things, that the Norwegian government is opposed to the Progressive Party, and he referred to “Norway’s president”. Facts are that the Progress Party is part of the current coalition government and that Norway always has been a monarchy....

Argentinia's Ketchup Crisis must not go to waste. It requires immediate Senate confirmation of President Obama's appointment of Noah Bryson Mamet as U.S. Ambassador to Argentina. It has not been a good start of the year for Argentineans [sic.]: a collapsing currency value, rampant inflation, Lionel Messi losing out on his fourth straight FIFA Ballon d'Or and, maybe worst of all, the great McDonald’s ketchup shortage of 2014. The fast food giant sent a message out via Twitter earlier this week apologizing for the inconvenience that Argentineans [sic.] will have to suffer through their Big Mac and French fries without the pre-requisite...

This is why a future president might finally do away with the practice of nominating a top political donor to be an ambassador. Here’s how the White House described wealthy executive George Tsunis when President Barack Obama nominated him to be the top U.S. diplomat in Norway in September 2013: “George J. Tsunis is the Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Chartwell Hotels, LLC. From 1999 to 2009, Mr. Tsunis was of counsel at Rivkin Radler, LLP and served as partner since 2005. Mr. Tsunis was Special Counsel to the Town of Huntington Committee on Open Space Preservation as...

Philadelphia USA — Athens, Greece---- The mystery surrounding US Marine, Brian LaLoup’s missing heart has already drawn two nations into a Philadelphia federal court. Aug. 12, 2012, in a Greek government-run hospital in Athens, cut out their son’s heart. U.S. military officials never informed Brian's parents that their son’s remains were incomplete until well after his burial —Defense Department later located a heart and sent it back to the United States, but it was not Brian LaLoup’s. Dan Smith, US ambassador to Greece, “From the outset, this matter was a high priority for me. Three times before the procedure occurred,...

The Palestinian Authority's ambassador to the Czech Republic has died of wounds sustained in an explosion which rocked his house in the capital Prague. Jamal al-Jamal was rushed to hospital in a serious condition following the explosion, which apparently occurred as he was opening a safe or container of some kind. Contrary to initial reports that his family were unharmed despite being in the building at the time, it has been confirmed that al-Jamal's wife was also hurt in the blast. A spokeswoman for Prague Emergency Services told CNN that the 57 year-old ambassador has been taken to Prague military...