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Houston police and fire officials are responding to reports that documents are being burned in the courtyard of the Consulate General of China in Houston, according to the Houston Police Department.

Iraqis scaled the wall around the Iranian consulate in Karbala and raised an Iraqi flag over it. They said only the Iraqi flag should fly high in the sky and that Iranians should be ejected. Other protesters tried to burn the wall around the compound. This is the second time the consulate has been attacked in a week; it was previously targeted on October 26. Protests in Iraq have reached their crescendo after a month in which 250 demonstrators have been killed. The Iraqi Prime Minister has been pressured to resign. Protesters have targeted the political party offices of Iranian-linked...

JERUSALEM (AP) — The United States has officially shuttered its consulate in Jerusalem, downgrading the status of its main diplomatic mission to the Palestinians by folding it into the U.S. Embassy to Israel. For decades, the consulate functioned as a de facto embassy to the Palestinians. Now, that outreach will be handled by a Palestinian affairs unit, under the command of the embassy. The symbolic shift hands authority over U.S. diplomatic channels with the West Bank and Gaza to ambassador David Friedman, a longtime supporter and fundraiser for the West Bank settler movement and fierce critic of the Palestinian leadership....

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Turkish prosecutors demand aggravated life imprisonment for a local US Consulate employee, Metin Topuz, who they charge with espionage for a foreign nation, membership in a terrorist organization, and participation in conspiracies to overthrow the government of Turkey.Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Parliament Speaker Binali Yildirim, former ministers Ali Babacan, Muammer Guler, and Zafer Caglayan – the last two themselves targets of a high-level corruption investigation in 2013 – and former Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag are among 30 officials who claimed victimhood and are plaintiffs in an indictment released this weekend against Topuz.The Turkish national who...

The State Department is temporarily closing the U.S. Consulate in the southern Iraqi city of Basra and evacuating all diplomats stationed there, following a rocket attack early Friday morning. Although there were no casualties, concerns back in Washington grew. The decision comes out of concern for the safety of U.S. personnel stationed in that Iraqi city near the border with Iran. In a statement released Friday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo cited "repeated incidents of fire" from Iranian-backed militias. "I have made clear that Iran should understand that the United States will respond promptly and appropriately to any such attacks,"...

Protesters have torched the Iranian consulate in the southern Iraqi city of Basra amid large protests against corruption and lack of basic services. Crowds in the streets of the Shia Muslim-majority city chanted against Iranian influence on Iraqi politics. A protester was killed and 11 more wounded during clashes with security forces. It is the fifth day of violent protests in the country's second city, with at least 10 people killed. Officials announced a curfew at about 21:00 local time (18:00 GMT). Iran, the region's main Shia power, has fostered ties with Iraq's Shia majority since Saddam Hussein's downfall. …...

The liberal media outrage over the last 24 hours is impressive. Predictable and stupid, but impressive. Donald Trump has been far tougher on Russia than obama ever was. Obama was a push over for Russia: Barack Obama sold out our Eastern European allies on missile defense. He slow-walked aid to Ukraine and did little more than shrug when Crimea was annexed. He said “never mind” on his own “red line” in Syria and turned a blind eye to Putin’s intervention there, in large part because of his obsessions with getting the Iran deal. The Russian meddling in our elections started...

The mystery illness that struck several employees at the US embassy in Cuba appears to have hit some US diplomats in China. The State Department says they have evacuated some employees and their families from our consulate in Guangzhou, China after one diplomat was sent home with symptoms eerily similar to the sickness that caused the US government to recall more than half or our embassy staff in Havana.  NBCNews: Heather Nauert, the State Department's spokeswoman, said "several" consulate employees had returned to the United States from China for further evaluation after they were screened as part of a task...

GUANGZHOU, China — A crisis over a mysterious ailment sickening American diplomats and their families — which began in Cuba and recently appeared in China — widened on Wednesday. The State Department evacuated at least two more Americans who fell ill in China after hearing strange noises, officials said. Many other employees at the American Consulate in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou and their family members are also being tested by a State Department medical team that has been flown in, officials said. It is unclear how many of them are exhibiting symptoms, but officials expect more American personnel...

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...