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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...