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A former high-level State Department official was sentenced to a year in prison yesterday for keeping more than 3,500 classified documents at his Fairfax County home and concealing his relationship with a Taiwanese intelligence agent. Prosecutors said Donald W. Keyser possessed far more unauthorized classified documents than any government employee ever prosecuted by the Justice Department. Keyser, 63, is one of the nation's leading experts on China and was a top adviser to Colin L. Powell, former secretary of state. "What I was doing was to further U.S. interests," Donald Keyser said. "It was not to further Taiwan's."

BAGHDAD, Oct 22 (Reuters) - A senior U.S. diplomat who said the United States has shown "arrogance" and "stupidity" in Iraq said he "seriously misspoke" in an interview aired on Sunday after U.S. President George W. Bush said he was flexible on tactics, if not strategy. In an attack that highlights the problems Washington faces in recruiting and training Iraqi security forces, 13 police recruits were killed and 25 wounded in an ambush on a convoy of buses near the town of Baquba on Sunday. U.S. military deaths in Iraq in October have reached 83, making it the most deadly...

NEW YORK - (KRT) - A prominent Yemeni cleric is suspected of raising money for terrorists at a Muslim charity and several mosques in Brooklyn, it was disclosed yesterday. An FBI agent pulled back the veil on a secret investigation of Sheikh Abdullah Satar at the trial of an associate who is charged with lying about the cleric's activities. The agent, Brian Murphy, said in Brooklyn Federal Court that Satar was under surveillance during a fund-raising swing through Brooklyn in early 2000. At the time, the feds were conducting an investigation into the financing of terrorist groups. After Satar -...

CARACAS, Venezuela -- Authorities seized several U.S. diplomatic bags at Venezuela's main airport on Thursday, prompting protest from embassy officials and a probe into the Americans' actions by prosecutors. Attorney General Isaias Rodriguez said prosecutors would investigate U.S. officials for allegedly sidestepping official regulations and checkpoints when bringing the diplomatic bags into the South American country. Rodriguez made the announcement after Venezuelan National Guard troops seized the bags earlier Thursday from four U.S. embassy vehicles stopped outside Caracas' Simon Bolivar International Airport. The vehicles had just picked up the bags from a U.S. military aircraft on the tarmac, he said.

Shut up, Chinese diplomat tells US By Harry Mount in New York (Filed: 18/08/2006) One of China's most senior diplomats has made an extraordinary attack on America, saying that it should "shut up" about China's growing military capacity when America dominates global military spending. Sha Zukang, China's ambassador to the UN in Geneva, launched his diatribe in an interview with the BBC yesterday during a progamme about China's booming economy and military strength. "It is much better for you to shut up, keep quiet," the ambassador said, referring to America, raising his voice to a high-pitched yell. "Are you the...

India and Pakistan in expulsions India and Pakistan have expelled diplomats from each other's countries after Pakistan accused an Indian visa official of "undesirable activities". Pakistani officials said Deepak Kaul, who worked at the Indian High Commission in Islamabad, was caught "red-handed" with sensitive documents. India denied the allegation and expelled a Pakistani diplomat in return, India's foreign ministry said. Relations have soured since train bombings in Mumbai (Bombay) last month. More than 180 people died in the bombings, which India said were carried out by militants with support in Pakistan. Pakistan denied the allegation. An unnamed Pakistani government official...

Genghis Khan, law giver, free trader and diplomat, is back with a new image By Richard Spencer in Ulan Bator (Filed: 11/07/2006) The Mongolian capital has been swamped with images of its former potentate, Genghis Khan, in honour of the anniversary of his unification of the nation in 1206. At the climax of celebrations in Ulan Bator yesterday, soldiers in traditional uniform and bearing yaks' tail standards heralded the unveiling of an enormous statue of the Great Khan in the main Sukhbaatar Square. The monument in which it is set contains earth and stones from the holy and historic places...

KARACHI, Pakistan - A suicide attacker rammed a car packed with explosives into a vehicle carrying an American diplomat in Pakistan’s largest city, killing four people — including the diplomat — just days before President Bush’s visit to Pakistan, officials said.

U.S. President George W. Bush said Thursday an American diplomat was among several people killed in a bombing earlier in the day near the U.S. Consulate in Pakistan's southern port city of Karachi. "We have lost at least one U.S. citizen in the bombing, a foreign service officer," Bush said at a joint news conference with Indian Prime Minster Manmohan Singh in New Delhi. "Terrorists and killers are not going to prevent me from going to Pakistan," he said, two days before his scheduled arrival in Islamabad for talks with Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf. At least four people...

Israel: Ariel Sharon Near DeathBy Joel Leyden Israel News AgencyJerusalem-----February 11.......Israel has been praying for a miracle. For Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to wake up from a stroke induced coma, smile and tell us that we should not be worrying about his health. But on this sunny and cold day in Jerusalem, the news is not good. And most of Israel will not know that Sharon may be living his last hours until they switch on their TV or check their e-mail tonight. A hospital spokeswoman in Jerusalem has just stated that the Israel Prime Minister's "life is in danger."...

Berlin (dpa) - Four kidnappers who abducted a retired German government deputy minister this week have been arrested in Yemen, a spokesman for the Yemeni embassy in Berlin said on Saturday. The spokesman said the four alleged kidnappers would be brought before a court. The announcement came as Juergen Chrobog, 65, his wife Majda and three adult sons were being flown to safety in the port city of Aden after their release by tribesmen. The spokesman added that leaders of the tribe had signed an accord with the Yemeni government that led to the release of the family. The accord...

HAVANA - Fidel Castro on Thursday called the top American diplomat to Havana a "gangster," stepping up his communist nation's attack on the new U.S. mission chief and dissidents. Castro referred to new U.S. Interests Section chief Michael Parmly as "that little gangster," and his predecessor James Cason as the "former gangster," in one of several addresses at a regular session of Cuba's National Assembly. "I don't know which one is worse," Castro told lawmakers during a session that dealt primarily with year-end economic reports. Castro's comments were broadcast on state television Thursday evening, after the American mission had closed...

UNITED NATIONS - A Russian U.N. official accused of money laundering was released on $500,000 bail posted by his government on Friday, Russia's U.N. Mission said. Vladimir Kuznetsov, 48, who chaired the powerful U.N. budget oversight committee, had been jailed since Sept. 1 on charges that he conspired with a U.N. procurement officer to launder hundreds of thousands of dollars from foreign companies seeking contracts with the world body. He has pleaded innocent to the charges. Maria Zakharova, press secretary at Russia's U.N. Mission, confirmed that Kuznetsov was freed after the Russian government paid his $500,000 bail. Moscow is keeping...

Diplomat held in oil-for-food inquiry By Colin Randall (Filed: 12/10/2005) France's former ambassador to the UN, Jean-Bernard Mérimée, has been detained in connection with an investigation into the Iraqi oil-for-food scandal, French officials said yesterday. Mérimée, 68, who is suspected of having been allocated oil vouchers by Saddam Hussein's regime, will be questioned by an investigating judge in Paris today. He is the latest in a series of top French public figures, companies and institutions to be drawn into the controversy. Mérimée's name appeared in last year's report by the senior US arms inspector Charles Duelfer. He was alleged to...

Photo sourceCorporal Cason wears a pink robe and with a swing of his magic wand -- poof! -- the cartoon character converts one of Cuba's free medical clinics into a private hospital adorned with Mastercard logos. The character in the comic strip Transition Man is the Cuban government's answer to James C. Cason, the outgoing top U.S. diplomat in Havana and thorn in Fidel Castro's side since his arrival there in 2002. ''Dictatorships are not good at humor,'' Cason said during a recent speech at the University of Miami. ``The cartoons inadvertently reminded all Cubans that a transition is...

A top diplomat at the Libyan Embassy in Stockholm was found dead in his apartment and investigators believe he committed suicide, police said Wednesday. The victim was a temporary charge d'affaires at the embassy, police and the Foreign Ministry said, but authorities did not identify him. Investigators found some injuries on the body and started a murder investigation, which is standard procedure in Sweden when the cause of death is not clear, police spokeswoman Diana Sundin said. But she added there were no immediate indications of foul play. "Right now we are considering this as a suicide," Sundin said....

Third Chinese defector turns up in Australia Thu Jun 9, 7:33 PM ET SYDNEY (AFP) - A third Chinese official has defected in Australia and already been granted refugee status after revealing he witnessed a dissident being tortured to death in China, his lawyer said. The unnamed official was a senior officer in a branch of the Chinese security service known as "610" and defected after witnessing repeated human rights abuses by other agents, lawyer Bernard Collaery said on ABC television late Thursday. Collaery, a prominent lawyer and former attorney-general of the Australian Capital Territory, said the official's assertions backed...

Diplomats in Washington believe that UN sanctions against Iran will prove to be illusive if the EU decides to end its negotiations to reach long-term arrangements with Tehran on its nuclear program, according to the Financial Times. Like Iran, the daily also said Thursday that sanctions against North Korea may also be unachievable as breaking negotiations with either country could 'exacerbate the divisions between the US and its allies that hindered diplomacy in the first place'. "Despite US rhetoric, neither the EU nor the Asian allies were convinced that the Bush administration was willing to make the concessions they saw...

WASHINGTON - A former colleague of John R. Bolton says President Bush's nominee for U.S. ambassador to the United Nations "has none of the qualities needed for that job." Bolton "has all the qualities needed to harm the image and objectives in the U.N. and its affiliated international organizations. If it is now U.S. policy not to reform the U.N but to destroy it, Bolton is our man," Frederick Vreeland, a former U.S. ambassador to Morocco, said in an e-mail to the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The administration stood firm Monday in its support of Bolton....

BAGHDAD, April 10 (Reuters) - A Pakistani diplomat has gone missing in Baghdad, Iraqi police said on Sunday. They said the man had failed to return from prayers at a mosque near his home on Saturday. Scores of foreigners have been kidnapped in Iraq over the past year, some by insurgent groups with political demands and others by criminals seeking a ransom. An Egyptian diplomat was seized by insurgents on his way home from prayers last year but was freed a few days later.