Free Republic

McLean home owned by Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, real estate records say A case of "possible human trafficking" at a Saudi diplomatic compound in Virginia is under investigation, the Department of Homeland Security confirmed to News4. Homeland Security Special-Agent-in-Charge John Torres, who is leading the probe, said Fairfax County Police responded to a tip Tuesday night citing a possible case of modern slavery. U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement/Homeland Security Investigations were called to a home in the 6000 block of Orris Street in McLean and -- in the words of a source familiar with the investigation -- "rescued" two women....

North Korean Diplomats 'Sell Millions of Dollars Worth of Drugs' North Korea sent a large amount of illegal drugs to its embassy in an East European country last December and ordered diplomats there to sell it for cash by early April, a diplomatic source here claims. "South Korean intelligence obtained the information from a North Korean agent who defected recently," the source said. "Similar orders were delivered to other North Korean embassies." North Korea has ordered each diplomat to raise US $300,000 to prove their loyalty and mark the birthday of nation founder Kim Il-sung on April 15. Each North...

Holding to Benedict“But there is another form of poverty! It is the spiritual poverty of our time, which afflicts the so-called richer countries particularly seriously. It is what my much-loved predecessor, the dear and venerated Benedict XVI, called the ‘tyranny of relativism’…�(Original Italian: “Ma c’è anche un’altra povertà! È la povertà spirituale dei nostri giorni, che riguarda gravemente anche i Paesi considerati più ricchi. È quanto il mio Predecessore, il caro e venerato Benedetto XVI, chiama la ‘dittatura del relativismo’…�)–Pope Francis, March 22, 2013 (today), in the Vatican, speaking to the diplomatic corps accredited to the Holy See, citing words...

The Obama administration has moved to kick two Venezuelan diplomats out of the United States in response to Venezuela’s expulsion last week of two U.S. officials from the U.S. embassy in Caracas, The Washington Times has learned. In a sign that U.S.-Venezuelan relations are unlikely to warm quickly in the post-Chavez era, the Venezuelan government confirmed that two of its diplomats have left the U.S., a State Department spokesman told The Times. One of the diplomats had apparently been based at the Venezuelan Embassy in Washington, while the other worked at a Venezuelan office in New York.

President Obama sent approximately 50 U.S. military personnel to Chad earlier this week to aid in the evacuation of U.S. embassy personnel and U.S. citizens from the neighboring Central African Republic. In a letter to congressional leaders on Saturday, Obama cited the “deteriorating security situation” in the Central African Republic and the threat to U.S. citizens. U.S. embassy personnel and several private U.S. citizens were evacuated from the Central African Republic capital of Bangui on Thursday. Obama said the “stand-by security force” was deployed for the sole purpose of protecting U.S. citizens and property. Rebels in the Central African Republic...

Merry Crony-mas! It's time to pass out the goodies. While President Obama's lips champion the middle class, his administration's old hands are preparing to lavish rewards on the creme de la campaign creme: his wealthiest political donors. Several media outlets reported this week that the White House is considering fashion doyenne Anna Wintour for a possible appointment as U.S. ambassador to Great Britain or France. The rumored short list also includes Obama campaign finance chairman Matthew Barzun and investment banker Marc Lasry. The three share one common, er, "qualification": Each raked in more than $500,000 for Team Obama 2012. As...

We know the Obama administration has been actively engaged in a cover-up as to why the U.S. consulate in Benghazi came under attack on September 11th, killing Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other diplomats. How else to explain the weeks-long campaign to convince people that the attacks were not terrorism. Now we're finding out more details as to why they may have engaged in such a wide-ranging cover-up. But the real smoking gun is whether the Obama administration was warned in advance that al-Qaeda was planning an attack. A number of Israeli newspapers have suggested that Washington was warned as...

Operatives linked to Iran tried to kill foreign diplomats, including Israelis and Americans, in at least seven countries over 13 months, the Washington Post reported. New evidence uncovered by investigators in four countries linked the assassination attempts to either Iran-backed Hezbollah militants or operatives based inside Iran, the Post reported Monday, citing U.S. and Middle Eastern security officials. The officials reportedly said that the assassination attempts stopped in early spring, when Iran began to take a softer tone with the West. Shortly after, Iranian officials formally accepted a proposal to resume negotiations with six world powers on proposals to limit...

@mrubin1971Two news stories from recent weeks, if true, should raise a red flag in the United States that Iran is preparing to use Hezbollah to strike at U.S. interests in Latin America, if not in the United States itself.First, this story from the Lebanese news portal Naharnet and sourced in part to Israeli radio. The Naharnet story was taken down shortly after it appeared: Hezbollah is using a training base established by Iran in northern Nicaragua near the border with Honduras, the Israeli radio reported on Thursday [September 6]. “The area is cordoned off and there are around 30 members...

Via Global Post: One of Indonesia’s most notorious hardline Muslim clerics has issued a jailhouse proclamation to his faithful: feel free to mimic the coordinated attacks on America’s Libyan embassy in Indonesia.There is still speculation as to whether those attacks, which killed U.S. envoy J. Christopher Stevens, were provoked by the poorly made, anti-Islam “Innocence of Muslims� video posted on YouTube.But Abu Bakar Bashir, a cheerleader for violent jihad still in prison for organizing the 2002 bombings in Bali, is clear in stating that the film must be answered with violent reprisals.In an interview with Indonesian outlet “Voice of al-Islam,�...

Foreign Service officers are firing back at Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry's charges that some State Department employees are not working in the best interest of the country. In a written statement, the American Foreign Service Association said Thursday the Texas governor's comments "reflect a serious misunderstanding" of the role of Foreign Service officers "in promoting American interests overseas." In a radio program this week with Fox News host Bill O'Reilly, Perry said, "I'm not sure our State Department serves us well." ....Perry added that Congress might have to take action to ensure the nation's diplomatic corps is doing work...

The United States has apologised for controversial remarks made by a US diplomat who spoke of "dark and dirty" Indians, calling the comments "inappropriate". US Vice-Consul Maureen Chao told Indian students on Friday that her "skin became dirty and dark like the Tamilians" after a long train journey, according to Indian media -- referring to people from the southern state of Tamil Nadu. During her speech in the Tamil Nadu capital, Chennai, Chao was quoted as saying: "I was on a 24-hour train trip from Delhi to (the eastern Indian state of) Orissa. "But, after 72 hours,

Once again, Wikileaks had done a HUGH bombshell of a number a large trove of diplomatic information online. The names of individuals and nations was not only very shocking, but very embarrassing as well, and in the end, very damaging in respects to international relations.

Israel's foreign diplomats have refused to work with Mossad spies "anywhere in the world" after agents effectively broke a strike picket line. The rift was caused after the agency’s spies stepped in to help organise a trip for Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, to Greece next week, after foreign diplomatic staff refused because of industrial action over pay. The strike, which was triggered by claims that diplomats get half the pay of defence ministry officials, has seen workers engineering a series of diplomatic faux pas. These include leaving the wife of Estonia’s president stranded at a restaurant outside Jerusalem...

JERUSALEM (AP) -- Israeli media say the Foreign Ministry has ordered the families of its diplomats in Turkey to leave that country because of the uproar over Israel's deadly naval raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla. State-run Israel radio and other stations and newspapers say the diplomatic mission itself will remain in Turkey.

Second "cascade" of centrifuges for enriching Uranium to critical 20% level ready to go online VIENNA — Iran has set up new equipment that will allow it to boost its efficiency at enriching uranium at higher levels, diplomats said Friday. The move is likely to give the US more leverage with Russia and China in its push for new UN sanctions on Teheran. Iran's clandestine enrichment activities were discovered eight years ago and have expanded since to encompass thousands of centrifuges churning out material enriched to 3.5 percent. But despite three rounds of Security Council sanctions meant to enforce demands...

If Barack Obama had any guts, he’d have expelled this guy–this Muslim diplomat who thinks threatening shoe bombs and lighting fires is funny (and a way to test our response and out the Federal Air Marshals on the plane). But he doesn’t have the guts. And don’t think that President Bush–whose Islamo-pandering was not as overt but just as deep, nauseating, and harmful–would have the guts either. Bush’s inept, Muslim butt-kissing National Security Advisor Fran Townsend joined the chorus of the stupid and described last night’s incident as a “misunderstanding.” She sounded like Janet Napolitano when she said, “The system...

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Parts of the Pakistani military and intelligence services are mounting what American officials here describe as a campaign to harass American diplomats, fraying relations at a critical moment when the Obama administration is demanding more help to fight the Taliban and Al Qaeda. The campaign includes the refusal to extend or approve visas for more than 100 American officials and the frequent searches of American diplomatic vehicles in major cities, said an American official briefed on the cases.

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – Swedish police have arrested two North Korean diplomats on suspicion of smuggling 230,000 cigarettes into the Nordic country, the Swedish Customs Office said Friday. The pair, a man and a woman who have diplomatic status in Russia, were stopped by Swedish customs officers Wednesday morning as they drove off a ferry from Helsinki, the Finnish capital. Customs officials discovered Russian cigarettes in the car driven by the couple, Swedish Customs spokeswoman Monica Magnusson told Reuters. The two North Koreans claimed diplomatic immunity. "They were accredited as diplomats in Russia, but had no accreditation in Sweden," she said....

When Lauro L. Baja Jr. returned to his native Philippines in 2007, he had just finished a four-year stint as ambassador to the United Nations that included two terms as president of the Security Council... Then a three-month episode from his U.N. days returned to haunt him. He was sued by Marichu Suarez Baoanan, who had worked as a maid in New York City for Baja and his wife, Norma Castro Baja. Baoanan, 40, said the Bajas brought her to the United States in 2006 promising to find her work as a nurse. Instead, Baoanan said, she was forced to...

BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS ABROAD The View from Amman, Jordan 09/10/09 SNIPPET: "We opened our international office in Amman, Jordan on January 11, 2001—exactly eight months before the attack on the World Trade Centers. Today, in the post-9/11 era, our presence in Jordan and elsewhere overseas is more important than ever to our security at home. The FBI has more than 60 international offices—called Legal Attachés, or Legats—located around the world. Our agents who lead them act primarily as diplomats, building relationships with host countries and fostering the exchange of information with our international law enforcement partners. “Our mission is to develop...

Diplomacy: The U.S. revoked visas of four Honduran officials, claiming that a coup occurred there. But if they could travel, the Hondurans could educate Americans otherwise. So why are we trying to silence them?Nobody pushes "dialogue" or "citizen diplomacy" more than the U.S. Department of State. So how can it justify revoking the visas on these Hondurans in what a department spokesman confirmed Tuesday as "a turning of the screw." The Hondurans targeted are the very ones whose presence would be valuable to the U.S. if it means to understand the constitutional action that necessitated the removal of President Mel...

Syria has indicated that it has built a missile facility on the site of an alleged nuclear reactor that IAF warplanes reportedly bombed, diplomats said Tuesday. A satellite photo from Sept. 16, 2003, shows a large structure being built near a site in Syria. Photo: GeoEye/SIME/ NY Times Slideshow: Pictures of the week The diplomats cited Syrian nuclear chief Ibrahim Othman as telling a closed meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency about the facility. The diplomats said that the facility appeared to be either a missile control center or an actual launching pad. They demanded anonymity for reporting on...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 16, 2009 – Coalition and Iraqi partnerships are stronger than ever, and they are taking advantage of the improved security situation to further reconstruction efforts in Baghdad, the U.S. military’s top engineer officer in Baghdad province said yesterday. Throughout the past year, nearly 400 projects and reconstruction actions valued at more than $70 million have led to “tremendous improvements” in infrastructure as well as the availability of essential services to Baghdad residents, Army Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Talley told reporters during a news conference in Baghdad. Rebuilding and refurbishing Iraq’s infrastructure “represents a commitment from the people of the...

<p>GENEVA (AP) - Islamic proposals to ban criticism of religion, which have gathered strength since the publication of cartoons of the prophet Muhammad two years ago, threaten to derail an already troubled U.N. anti-racism conference planned for next year. The European Union rejects suggestions by Algeria—backed by other Muslim and African countries—that limits on free speech are needed to stop the publication of offensive articles and images.</p>

More than 100 former American ambassadors are endorsing John McCain and Sarah Palin for president and vice president. To be announced by the McCain campaign later this week, the endorsements counter Barack Obama’s claims that McCain is inflexible when it comes to diplomacy and negotiations with other countries, Newsmax has learned. Obama has specifically said that in contrast to McCain, he would sit down with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and other world dictators to negotiate, without preconditions. “Senator Obama does not have sufficient leadership experience, nor has he been tested in difficult times,” said Mark W. Erwin, a Democrat and...

BELGRADE, Serbia: Serbian authorities have started a disciplinary procedure against two of its diplomats accused of helping a Serbian college basketball player flee the U.S. after being charged with severely beating a classmate, a radio station reported Monday. The Serbian Foreign Ministry said it will "be extremely efficient" in solving the case of Miladin Kovacevic, Belgrade's independent B92 radio reported, without providing any details about what it would do. The 6-foot-9-inch (2.05-meter), 260-pound (118-kilogram) Kovacevic, who was recruited to play basketball for Binghamton University in upstate New York, was arrested after a May 4 fight at a downtown Binghamton bar...

HARARE, Zimbabwe - U.S. diplomats and British colleagues were attacked as they tried to investigate political violence in Zimbabwe, American officials said Thursday. The U.S. ambassador reportedly blamed the incident on President Robert Mugabe's government. "Police put up a roadblock, stopped the vehicles, slashed the tires, reached in and grabbed telephones from my personnel, and the war veterans (Mugabe's supporters) threatened to burn the vehicles with my people inside unless they got out and accompanied police to a station nearby," Reuters quoted U.S. Ambassador James McGee as saying. McGee said he believes the orders of intimidation are "coming directly from...

Rift between UK diplomats and Army in Basra By Damien McElroy, Foreign Affairs Correspondent Last Updated: 1:13am GMT 29/03/2008 British forces are facing increasing pressure to intervene in fighting in southern Iraq after government efforts to defeat Shi'ite militias in Basra ground to a halt. Signs of a rift were growing among British officials as diplomats said that UK forces "stand ready to support" Iraqi soldiers as and when requested, contradicting military statements that UK forces would be confined to "niche" roles. Fighting in Basra, Baghdad and the central town of Kut has claimed at least 100 lives this week...

WASHINGTON - More and more, top government diplomats are straying from official Bush foreign policy as the administration wanes, leaving Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice struggling to keep them in check. Twice just this week, Rice and her aides had to rebuke, disavow or otherwise try to explain away public words or actions by three top officials on delicate affairs ranging from North Korea and Iran to the violence in Kenya. The trouble began on Jan. 17, when Jay Lefkowitz, the special U.S. envoy for human rights in North Korea, delivered a speech at the conservative American Enterprise Institute think-tank...

A senior United Nations official and the acting head of the European Union's mission in Afghanistan were expelled from the country Thursday after the government accused them of holding talks with the Taliban and giving the group cash. UN officials have denied the allegations. Analysts say the incident reflects divisions over growing efforts to neutralize the Taliban by negotiating with their tribal alliances. The two men, whose expulsion was announced Tuesday, left Kabul Thursday morning, reports Reuters. UN spokesman Aleem Siddique said the UN staffer had left on Thursday morning on a regular chartered flight to neighbouring Pakistan. Diplomats in...

The State Department expects to announce, perhaps as early as today, that volunteers have filled all 48 open jobs at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad for next year and that it will not order any foreign service officers to work there against their will, officials said yesterday. Volunteers for the last three or four positions are currently being vetted. Once that process is completed, a senior department official said, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will ask personnel officers to assure her that everyone selected "does in fact have the right skill sets" and meets all requirements before an announcement is...

The State Department is backing down for now from forcing diplomats to serve in Iraq this summer because enough have volunteered to work in the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and in outlying provinces, officials said Thursday. Three foreign service officers who signed up for the last of the 48 vacancies have won tentative approval. Once personnel panels give a formal OK, the department will announce it will not need to enforce a plan for the forced assignments, the officials said Thursday. That word could come as early as Friday, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because...

The ranking Republican on the House Armed Services Committee has called on the President to fire State Department personnel who refused to be deployed to Iraq and replace them with wounded veterans at Walter Reed and Bethesda Hospitals. “We have a lot of wounded warriors at the [military] hospitals -- a pool of great talent,” Rep. Duncan Hunter (R.-Cal.), the last Republican chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and now a candidate for his party’s presidential nomination in ’08, told me outside the White House last week. Hunter was going to a meeting with President Bush as well as...

WASHINGTON — In the largest call-up of U.S. diplomats since the Vietnam War, the State Department is planning to order some of its personnel to serve at the American Embassy in Iraq because of a lack of volunteers.Those designated "prime candidates" — from 200 to 300 diplomats — will be notified Monday that they have been selected for one-year postings to fill the 40 to 50 vacancies expected next year. They will have 10 days to accept or reject the position. If not enough say yes, some will be ordered to go to Iraq and face dismissal if they refuse,...

Fearing Iraq Pullout, State Boosting Private Chopper Force August 01, 2007 4:59 PM Kirit Radia Reports: Fearing an imminent drawdown of U.S. troops and equipment from Iraq amid escalating violence, the State Department is hiring its own private helicopter squad to ferry its personnel around the country. Government military contractors Blackwater, DynCorp and Triple Canopy are the only three companies competing for the contract, possibly valued at more than $100 million a year for up to the next five years, sources tell ABC News. The requirements call for approximately 20 helicopters with maintenance, storage and crew to ensure 24-hour availability....

Four UK diplomats expelled as Russia retaliates By Matthew Moore and agencies Last Updated: 4:47pm BST 19/07/2007 Russia has expelled four British diplomats from Moscow, in tit-for-tat retaliation for the expulsion of four of its own officials earlier this week. Moscow will also halt co-operation in the war on terror David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, branded the move "completely unjustified" and said the Government would be doing all it could to ensure their families are properly looked after. Moscow also announced that it would withhold future co-operation with Britain in the war on terror, and stop issuing visas to British...

Putin vows revenge as Britain expels diplomats By David Blair, Diplomatic Correspondent, and Adrian Blomfield in Moscow Last Updated: 3:07am BST 17/07/2007 Russia threatened Britain with "serious consequences" last night after David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, revived memories of the Cold War by announcing that four Russian diplomats were to be expelled from London. President Vladimir Putin: emboldened by Russia’s growing economic strength The decision showed how Anglo-Russian relations have sunk to their lowest ebb since the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991. Mr Miliband said that Britain had no choice but to send a "clear and proportionate signal" to Moscow...

Britain is poised to expel Russian diplomats for the first time in a decade in protest at Moscow's refusal to extradite the chief suspect in the murder in London of a KGB defector.The option is one of several being considered by Downing Street after Moscow formally refused to hand over Andrei Lugovoi, a suspect in the poisoning of the former agent Alexander Litvinenko last November. The expulsions would be reminiscent of former Cold War rows between Moscow and London and almost certainly prompt similar retaliation by the Kremlin. Incensed by Russia's refusal to co-operate in the inquiry into Mr Litvinenko's...

Text of report in English by Iranian news agency IRNA website Baghdad, 20 January: Five Iranian diplomats arrested in the northern Iraqi city of Arbil nine days ago could be released this week, an Iranian envoy said here Saturday [20 January]. Speaking to IRNA, Iranian Ambassador to Baghdad Hasan Kazemi-Qomi said that the Iraqi government has promised to free the diplomats. "The host country is responsible for safeguarding diplomatic bureaus and missions. The Iraqi government has made efforts to release the Iranian consular officials since the early hours of this incident," he said. US forces broke into Iran's consulate in...

THE ZOA MIDDLE EAST REPORT Wednesday, Jan.03.07 Join us as we speak with Amb. Moshe Arens, about his latest (and brilliant, as always) article in which he discusses the issues Israel must consider in responding to Syria; and Scott W. Johnson,of POWERLINEBLOG.com. Scott has been pursuing a story for more than a decade: that the US had factual, timely proof that Yassir Arafat was behind both the murder of two US diplomats in Khartoum in 1972, and the Munich Massacre, 6 months earlier. Scott has finally been vindicated - we'll discuss how, and why the US lied about it for...

KINSHASA, Congo (AP) -- The U.N. said Monday it had launched a military operation to rescue foreign diplomats inside the besieged home of a Congo presidential candidate.

MOSCOW -- Russian lawmakers yesterday unanimously blamed the United States for the deaths of four Russian diplomats in Iraq, highlighting growing tensions between the two countries ahead of a meeting of Group of Eight foreign ministers in Moscow today. Moscow also demanded in a proposed U.S. Security Council resolution that coalition forces in Baghdad provide better security for diplomats. The United States and Britain resisted the resolution. President Vladimir Putin instructed Russian security services to find the killers and "destroy" them. "The tragedy that occurred recently in Iraq was only possible because of the growing crisis in the country as...

Baghdad. In a statement published in Internet by the organization Mudjahidin Shura announced that the Russian diplomats had been executed, CNN reports. The info has Echo of Moscow Radio announced.

American diplomats have been instructed not to keep classified material on 16,000 newly purchased computers because the manufacturer is partly-owned by the Chinese government.Richard Griffin, the assistant secretary of state, told Congress he would ensure that the machines did not "compromise our information and communication channels". The row erupted when a congressman raised questions about the purchase of machines from Lenovo, the world's third biggest personal computer maker. The company is 28 per cent owned by a state-controlled Chinese entity. At least 900 of the computers were to be used by diplomats at embassies around the world and would have...

BERLIN, April 20 (Reuters) - European diplomats on Thursday dismissed as unacceptable a suggestion that Iran take a brief "technical pause" from its nuclear enrichment activities in an attempt to revive collapsed negotiations with the EU. Several diplomats told Reuters that Mohamed ElBaradei, the director-general of the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), discussed this idea with Iranian officials during a visit to Tehran last week and hoped it could revive collapsed negotiations with the "EU3" -- France, Britain and Germany. But European Union diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it was unacceptable and reiterated that Iran had to...

LONDON, April 17 (IranMania) - Tehran is replacing 60 of its ambassadors, or around half the total, Iran's deputy foreign minister was quoted as saying, while rejecting any talk of a purge by ruling hardliners, AFP reported. "Some media said the changes were due to political reasons while it is not true. Rotating the diplomats every year is natural in the foreign ministry," Mehdi Mostafavi said. Following the shock election win of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in June 2005, authorities had announced that around 40 of Iran's most senior diplomats posted abroad were being changed. Many of these diplomats were seen...

Peoria man pleads guilty in diploma mill case Latest News more>> Truck pulling horse trailer full of illegals crashes SPOKANE, Wash. An Arizonan has reached a plea agreement with prosecutors for his role in a gigantic diploma mill operation. Richard John Novak pleaded guilty yesterday in federal court in Spokane, Washington, to conspiracy and violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Novak, who formerly lived in Spokane and now lives in Peoria, could face up to ten years in prison and (m) millions of dollars in fines. Novak is the second person to reach a plea agreement with the Justice Department...

Diplomats Visit Panjshir Reconstruction Team The Panjshir team is the first of its kind -- a joint effort between Combined Joint Task Force-76 and the U.S. Embassy. By U.S. Army Maj. T.G. Taylor 20th Public Affairs Detachment BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan, Feb. 2, 2006 — Diplomats from around the world visited the new Panjshir Provincial Reconstruction Team in Panjshir Province on Jan. 21 to view the progress of the reconstruction efforts. "This was an excellent opportunity to see how [the team] worked on the ground. The visit was a good opportunity to see this new type of integration of military...

Washington is planning to move hundreds of its diplomats from Europe to the Middle East and the Asian powers, such as China or India. "America must begin to reposition our diplomatic forces around the world," the US secretary of state Condoleeza Rice said in a speech to students at Georgetown University on Wednesday (18 January), the BBC reported. She pointed out that it is not normal to have as many diplomats in Germany, with 82 million people, as in India with 1 billion people. Adding that there are still almost 200 world cities of over a million inhabitants without any...