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ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The US Ambassador to Iraq, Douglas Silliman, along with the Kurdistan Region’s Prime Minister, Nechirvan Barzani, on Monday announced the start of constructing a new US Consulate in the capital of the semi-autonomous region. In a statement delivered at a ceremony in Erbil, Barzani said that the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) welcomes the construction of the compound, one of the largest in the world, and that “it is a sign of US confidence and trust in the Kurdistan Region, now and in its future.” He mentioned that the project is an indicator that Washington wants to...

Turkey has reneged on its pledge to not hound locally employed staff at US missions on its soil, with police interrogating a Turkish citizen working for the US Consulate in Istanbul yesterday, Al-Monitor has learned. The move could likely accelerate the US administration's plans to apply targeted visa sanctions against Turkish officials deemed to be involved in the unlawful detentions of US Consulate staff, provided that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson gives final approval, sources close to the Donald Trump administration told Al-Monitor.The sources, who spoke on strict condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the topic, said the...

Turkey has also suspended visa services in the US. Prosecutors are seeking another consulate worker for questioning as a suspect, the state news agency reports. snip It said the suspect's wife and child had been detained in the city of Amasya, in northern central Turkey.

<p>SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Acrid, black smoke was seen pouring from a chimney at the Russian consulate in San Francisco Friday, a day after the Trump administration ordered its closure amid escalating tensions between the United States and Russia.</p> <p>Firefighters who arrived at the scene were turned away by consulate officials who came from inside the building.</p>

/begin my translation A N. Korean Diplomat Found Dead in Shenyang (Disappeared since Oct.) Choi Yushik in Beijing 2009/11/13 Authorities looking into various possibilities A consul at N. Korean Consulate in Shenyang, China, was recently found dead in the city, raising tension among the diplomatic circles in China. A source on N. Korea in Beijing said on Nov. 12, "A consul in charge of economic affairs at N. Korean Consulate in Shenyang was found dead on Oct. 30. Chinese authorities are investigating." The consul went missing in early October, which prompted rumors. One version said he may have escaped to...

A deadly shootout at the construction site of the new American Consulate occurred this week in a Mexican border town where Islamic terrorists and drug cartels plan to launch attacks against the U.S. during the period surrounding the presidential inauguration, high-level government sources tell Judicial Watch. An unknown number of gunmen fired multiple rounds adjacent to the new U.S. Consulate compound in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, a crime-infested city in the state of Tamaulipas that lies directly across from Laredo, Texas.

A suspected suicide attacker has been killed after detonating a device near the US consulate in the Saudi Arabian city of Jeddah, local media reports say. Two policeman were reportedly injured in the incident and the attacker is said to be dead.

Operatives of a secretive Iran-backed terrorist network in Turkey scouted the area hosting a radar site in Malatya's Kürecik district that is part of a NATO early warning radar system, an ongoing investigation has revealed. According to an 854-page police investigation on the Tawhid-Salam terror network obtained by Today's Zaman, witness testimony provided to the Istanbul Chief Prosecutor's Office on March 22, 2013 indicated that suspects tied to Iranian intelligence had collected information about Kürecik. The witness said many front companies with the cover of legitimate businesses such as real estate agencies or bookstores had been established in Malatya by...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The State Department and Pentagon ordered the families of U.S. diplomats and military personnel Tuesday to leave posts in southern Turkey due to security fears. The two agencies said dependents of American staffers at the U.S. consulate in Adana, the Incirlik air base and two other locations must leave. The so-called "ordered departure" notice means the relocation costs will be covered by the government. In a statement, the military's European Command said the step "allows for the deliberate, safe return of family members from these areas due to continued security concerns in the region."

A car bomb attack at a police station has killed four people and injured up to 10 people, while the city's U.S. consulate has also come under fire, news agencies have reported. Reuters, quoting Turkey's Dogan news agency, reported that at a police station in the Istanbul neighborhood had been rocked by a blast early on Monday morning. The agency, quoting the Istanbul's governor's office, added that three attackers and a police officer had been killed in an exchange of gunfire following the explosion. Istanbul police headquarters confirmed to Dogan that three police officers and seven civilians were wounded in...

Pope Francis on Saturday condemned a fatal car-bomb attack outside the Italian Consulate in Cairo, where one person was killed and eight others were injured. According to the Associated Press, the pope sent a telegram to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi calling for “political and religious players at all levels to unite their efforts to combat with ever more determination the plague of terrorism and to promote harmony and solidarity.” The explosion took place in the early-morning hours, causing heavy damage to the building and sparking fears that Islamic militants have begun a fresh round of attacks against foreigners, Reuters...

Israeli consulate plot mastermind going to jail Ringleader Kevin James was 'architect, mastermind of very troubling offense, judge says AFP Published: 03.06.09, 23:58 / Israel News The ringleader of a radical Islamic group that planned to bomb Israeli assets and US military facilities in California was on Friday jailed for 16 years, justice officials said. Kevin James, 32, pleaded guilty to conspiring to wage war against the United States through terror for his part in the plot, which involved three co-conspirators currently in custody. Prosecutors said the plotters were part of Jam'iyyat Ul-Islam Is-Saheeh (JIS,) which was founded by James...

The Islamic State group claimed credit on Saturday a bombing near the US consulate in Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region a day earlier that killed two Turks. 'Security detachments were able to... detonate a car bomb left at the American consulate building in the city that led to the killing and wounding of many of them,' ISIS said in a daily audio message posted online. But the US State Department said the bombing in Ainkawa, near Kurdish regional capital Arbil, did not kill or wound any consular employees. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3044749/IS-claims-deadly-US-consulate-blast-Iraq.html#ixzz3XgvqF6RE Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

The full details of Friday's clash between residents of the Jewish village of Adei Ad in Samaria and a delegation from the US Consulate in Jerusalem - which very nearly escalated into a fully-fledged shootout between the sides - are still emerging. But those details which have emerged so far paint a worrying picture regarding the conduct of Consulate staff - who either willingly took part in a planned provocation, or else, in a staggering show of irresponsibility and unprofessionalism, recklessly blundered into a volatile and potentially deadly situation without the slightest idea of what they were doing. Roughly two...

A confrontation broke out between security personnel from the American consulate and settlers from the Adei Ad outpost in the West Bank on Friday, after settlers hurled stones at two vehicles from the consulate. According to both Palestinian and settler sources, the American security guards drew their weapons at the settlers. A preliminary police investigation of the clashes between American security personnel and Israeli settlers discovered the consulate employees had arrived at the Adei Ad outpost in Samaria without coordination with the appropriate defense officials. An official from the village of Turmus Ayya, near the scene of the incident, said...

Craig McKee - WISN @McKeeWISN BREAKING: Consulate Source: U.S. Marine Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi to be released from Mexico tonight or Thursday morning. #breaking #wisn12

<p>APPLETON, Wis. (AP) – Wisconsin officials are working to better serve the rapidly growing Hispanic community in the state, with a little help from the Mexican Consulate in Chicago.</p> <p>A mobile version of the Chicago-based office issued passports and consular identification cards to hundreds of Mexican nationals at an Appleton church last week, Post-Crescent Media reported. About 800 people took advantage of the services at First English Lutheran Church from last Wednesday to Saturday, according to Alfredo Gomez Sepulveda, a coordinator of the consulate’s mobile program.</p>

Prelude 09/10/2012 USA / Breitbart report by Wynton Hall: Obama Misses Over Half His Intelligence Briefings During a White House press briefing ... White House Press Secretary Jay Carney blasted the Government Accountability Institute's ["GAI"] findings as being "hilarious" and said: The President of the United States gets the presidential daily briefing every day. He always reads it, every day, because he's a voracious consumer of all of his briefing material... This president is very much steeped in the details of national security issues. 09/10/2012 USA / Washington Post Opinion [article] by Marc A. Thiessen: Why is Obama skipping more...

Germany is to offer Israeli citizens consular assistance in states such as Indonesia or Malaysia where Israel has no official diplomatic representation, under a new deal to be signed by Angela Merkel when she visits Jerusalem next week.

According to a statement released by a Chinese Consulate spokesperson on the consulate’s website Thursday morning, a person emerged from a minivan parked in front of the consulate’s main entrance at about 9:25 p.m. and poured two buckets of gasoline onto the front door before setting it on fire.