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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...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 18, 2006 – Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice today highlighted the importance of promoting a more cooperative working relationship between American diplomats and the U.S. military in order to achieve global objectives. "Over the past 15 years, as violent state failure has become a greater global threat, our military has borne a disproportionate share of post-conflict responsibilities because we have not had the standing civilian capability to play our part fully," she said in a speech at Georgetown University here. "This was true in Somalia, in Haiti, in Bosnia, in Kosovo and it is still partially true in...

US moves diplomats out of Europe Rice said the US must be "where the action is" The US is to reduce the number of its diplomats posted to Europe, and will send more to other countries, including China, India, Nigeria and Lebanon. "America must begin to reposition our diplomatic forces around the world," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Wednesday. She said it was an anomaly that the US had the same staff levels in Germany as in India, more than 10 times the size. She said the redeployment would help foster democratic and economic change. Ms Rice told...

Pope Benedict XVI condemned terrorism as a "moral perversion" and demanded religious freedom around the globe in an annual speech Monday to Vatican-based diplomats outlining the Vatican's foreign policy priorities.Benedict stressed the need for forgiveness and reconciliation to bring about peace in conflicts from the Middle East to Africa. And he told the ambassadors that wealthy countries must do more for the world's poor, saying that even half of what they spend on weapons "would be more than sufficient to liberate the immense masses of the poor from destitution."The pope mentioned a few conflicts in particular, reaffirming that Israel has...

Diplomacy may be the art of lying for one's country, but Mexican diplomacy requires taking that art to virtuosic heights. Mexican officials here and abroad are involved in a massive and almost daily interference in American sovereignty. The millions of illegal Mexican immigrants in this country are here thanks in part to Mexico's efforts to get them into the U.S. in violation of American law and to normalize their status once here in violation of the popular will. Mexican consulates are engineering a backdoor amnesty for their illegal migrants and trying to discredit American immigration enforcement – activities clearly beyond...

VIENNA (AFP) - Iran started a new round of converting uranium ore into the feedstock gas for making enriched uranium, a move likely to complicate diplomacy over Iran's disputed nuclear program, diplomats said. UN inspectors "are reporting that the first drums of new uranium ore were fed into the process at the uranium conversion facility in Isfahan this morning," a diplomat who asked not to be identified told AFP. Enriched uranium can be used as fuel for a civilian nuclear reactor or as atom bomb material. The conversion into the precursor gas is a second round after Iran already processed...

LONDON -- The United States is engaged in a diplomatic spat with the city of London over its refusal to pay for its embassy staff to drive on the British capital's streets -- and other nations are threatening to follow suit. At the heart of the row is London's so-called "congestion charge," a daily $14-per-car toll the city levies for using the roads in central London. The fee was introduced nearly three years ago to try to reduce the city's chronic traffic jams. But the United States says it is a tax that it no longer intends to pay. A...

US President George Bush may have launched a failed drive to isolate Iran diplomatically and force it to face United Nations sanctions if it refuses to give up its efforts to develop its own nuclear technology, according to senior officials of the State Department. Amid the widespread belief that Washington’s efforts at this juncture might be too little, too late, Mr Bush has lobbied in this regard with Chinese President Hu Jintao as well as Iraqi President Jalal Talabani. He also intends undertaking a similar exercise with the Russian President Vladmir Putin on Friday. At the very core are Iran’s...

Challenging the White House, 59 former American diplomats are urging the Senate to reject John R. Bolton's nomination to be the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. "He is the wrong man for this position," they said in a letter to Sen. Richard Lugar, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The Indiana Republican has scheduled hearings on Bolton's nomination for April 7. "We urge you to reject that nomination," the former diplomats said in a letter obtained by The Associated Press and dated Tuesday. The ex-diplomats have served in both Democratic and Republican administrations, some for long terms...

In April 2004, followers of Iraqi Shi‘ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr launched a well-coordinated uprising across southern Iraq. While Western media focused on events in Sadr City, Najaf, and Karbala, violence occurred elsewhere as well. A Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) source forwarded the following after-action report regarding violence in the town of Al-Kut, the capital of the Wassit governorate and home to the Ukrainian contingent.The unclassified report, written by a coalition security contractor, highlights dysfunction between regional coalition offices and the Coalition Provisional Authority headquarters in Baghdad, as well as tension between diplomats and security officers. The summary faulted a British...

I rec's this email from an "asscoiate"...can anyone help to verify/dispute it? She says she thinks she saw it on Fox. Thanks for the help. I saw an interview with the mother of a woman who was caught in the tsunami. The woman & her husband happily survived with minimul injuries. They worked through the night assisting others to hospitals, aid stations, shelters, etc. They managed to get to the airport a Bangkok, Thialand. Countries who had large numbers of citizens in Thialand had set up at the airport to assist their citizens on their journey home. This included replacing...

A couple things stand out about the U.S.'s assessment of Cuba these days. Number one, the U.S. diplomats in Havana have started openly stating that Castro is on his last legs. We don't usually see this kind of bluntness from these guys. What does it mean? Is there a new Cuba diplomatic offensive coming up? Forget that, we've had those, to little effect. It can only mean that he really is. Diplomats are predictable creatures, but they don't like to get surprised by events. These statements are for us, not Castro, and I think they're just telling us they're on...