Free Republic

EU countries have informally told the European Parliament they want the Union’s foreign service to open an embassy in Iran. Tarja Cronberg, a Finnish Green MEP who chairs the parliament’s Iran delegation, said member states’ ambassadors in Tehran backed the idea when she met them in the Iranian capital on an official trip earlier this month. […] The EU already has embassies in other pariah states, such as Belarus. But Iran and the EU remain wary of each other despite the Geneva breakthrough. …

Federal law enforcement authorities have charged nearly 50 past or present Russian diplomats and their spouses in a $1.5 million Medicaid fraud scheme, an unusual twist in what has become a familiar criminal story line in New York. An F.B.I. investigation revealed “the systemic fraudulent submission of falsified applications for Medicaid benefits” by the diplomats and their spouses, according to a criminal complaint unsealed on Thursday in United States District Court in Manhattan. The diplomats and their spouses obtained the benefits for pregnancies, births and first-year-of-life medical needs, generally applying at the same New York hospital, which was not identified,...

The U.S. State Department is blaming its decision to close the U.S. embassy at the Vatican on the Benghazi terrorist attack, saying that the Vatican—which is the seat of the Roman Catholic Church and the home of the pope—is not safe enough for U.S. diplomats. “Security is our top priority in making this move,” the State Department said in a statement sent to CNSNews.com by department spokesperson Nicole Thompson. … “This move will also save the U.S. government money,” said the department’s statement. “The Embassy to the Holy See will move into unused space on the U.S. government compound in...

Unlike DC, right Beelzebub? If there's anything we weary clingers have learned from the living Hell that is the Obama era, it's 'Ignore what he says- watch what he does'- how else to try and get a handle on such an oily reptile... one that lies habitually without a trace of compunction? So while the Bolshevik Boy Wonder's claiming to be friends with Israel, he's putting the screws to Israel... and when he talks bipartisanship and fiscal responsibility, Obama's actions consistently betray severe hostility towards both of these disingenuously-claimed ideals.  And this is a guy who still says he's 'a Christian'...

Hasan Faraji, 31, was arrested by Azerbaijani police after displaying “suspicious behavior” while wandering around the Israeli embassy in Baku on October 31. Faraji, who resisted arrest, was sentenced to 30 days of administrative detention, according to the APA news agency. According to Channel 10, Faraji is a part of the Iranian Quds Forces, a special unit of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard that, among other oles, is tasked with planning and executing terrorist attacks against Israeli targets overseas. On Thursday an Iranian diplomat said Faraji denies he was planning any attack... Iranian embassy officials met Faraji in custody... Azerbaijani police raided...

Steps are reportedly being taken to relocate the U.S. embassy to the Holy See onto the grounds of the American embassy to Italy. <-- Advertising --> Although no official decision has been announced, the move appears likely and is being justified on grounds of enhanced security.Previous American ambassadors to the Holy See contacted by the National Catholic Reporter have said they are opposed to the plans.Ambassador James Nicholson, who served as ambassador during the presidency of George W. Bush, said the proposed relocation would be a “massive downgrade” that would turn the embassy into “a stepchild of the embassy to...

Blasts target Iranian embassy in Beirut, killing 23 By Laila Bassam and Erika Solomon BEIRUT Tue Nov 19, 2013 6:29am EST (Reuters) - Two explosions, at least one caused by a suicide bomber, rocked Iran's embassy in Lebanon on Tuesday, killing at least 23 people, including an Iranian cultural attaché, and hurling bodies, cars and debris across the street. A Lebanese-based al Qaeda-linked group known as the Abdullah Azzam Brigades claimed responsibility for what it described as a double suicide attack on the Iranian mission in southern Beirut. Lebanon has suffered a series of bomb attacks and clashes linked to...

At least 23 people were killed and 146 were injured Tuesday morning in two strong explosions near the Iranian Embassy in Lebanon. A senior Lebanese official said the cultural attaché at the embassy was among the dead. According to one report, several rockets were fired at the area and at least one of them hit the building. The area of the blasts in southern Beirut is considered a Hezbollah stronghold. The Shiite organization is a close ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad and is helping him in his war against Syrian rebels. …

Terrorist planned attack on nuclear warhead stockpile By Philip Delves Broughton November 17 2002 The Sun-Herald An Al Qaeda terrorist has confessed that he planned to drive a giant explosive device into a United States air force bunker in Belgium believed to contain nuclear warheads. News of the plot came as the US warned that a broadcast thought to contain the words of Osama bin Laden foreshadowed a likely attack. The FBI said national landmarks and the aviation, oil and nuclear industries were all possible targets. In an interview with a Belgian radio station, Tunisian Nizar Trabelsi, 31, a former...

Al Arabiya Dozens of angry protesters tried to storm Russia's embassy in Tripoli on Wednesday after reports that a Russian woman had killed a Libyan army officer, witnesses said. One of the attackers was killed by the gunfire, and four more were wounded, Libyan officials told the Associated Press. The sound of gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades could be heard around the embassy, Al Arabiya’s correspondent added. Russia's Foreign Ministry confirmed the attack saying none of its staff was injured. Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Ekho Moskvy radio the attackers fired at the embassy in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, and...

First it was the Americans. Now it is the Russians' turn. Al Arabiya reports (and Itar-Tass confirms) that "Gunmen attacked the Russian embassy in the Libyan capital Tripoli on Wednesday, Al Arabiya correspondent reported. The sound of gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades could be heard around the embassy, the correspondent added. No further details were immediately available." According to unverified reports on Twitter, the embassy had been evacuated before the attack (the Russian NSA appears to be more efficient than its US equivalent). The Russian embassy in Tripoli: RT adds: The Russian embassy in Tripoli, Libya, has come under fire and...

Diplomats at the US mission to the EU can no longer buy office supplies or travel to conferences, as the US “shutdown” begins to bite the state department. The shutdown started on Tuesday (1 October) after opposition Republican party congressmen refused to endorse a new budget. … In the US, it has put the best part of a million civil servants on unpaid leave and led to museums and parks being closed. But it is also beginning to affect US diplomacy. …

In hindsight, I'm thinking that Obama's evacuation of our embassies was due to a U.S. strike on Syria that never happened.

A Venezuelan man has been sentenced to 5 1/2 years in prison for shooting and wounding two US military attaches at a strip club in the capital. Carlos Mejias, 32, admitted he shot the US Embassy employees in the early hours of May 28, the attorney general's office said. It said Mejias got into an argument with them at the Antonella 2012 club, better known as "Angelus," in the city's upscale Chacao district. "Later he pulled out a gun and repeatedly fired at the Americans, leaving them wounded at the location," it said in a statement. Five days later, Mejias...

This week, the State Department announced that, in "an important symbol of our enduring friendship with Benin," construction has begun on a new $178 million embassy complex in the small West African nation, a neighbor of Togo and Nigeria. As is often the case in the construction of new U.S. diplomatic facilities, the plans include a number of "sustainable" features including solar panels, rainwater harvesting, wastewater reuse, and LED lighting. The complex will cover 8.8 acres, and will include: a chancery/office building, a support annex, a residence for the U.S. Marine detachment, a warehouse, a utility building, a recreational facility,...

To answer possible future democRAT candidate for president Hillary Clinton "What difference does it make?" with another question for her. Do you fly in airplanes because brooms don't have a heat signature to track ?

(snip) A high-ranking Yemeni security official speaking on the condition of anonymity told McClatchy that the claims of a foiled plot had no basis in fact. That source bemusedly attributed media reports about imminent terror strikes to a single official’s comments, which he cast as a misguided attempt at shifting public opinion in the face of increasing and unpopular American drone strikes. Indeed, Yemen has remained at a relative normal – except for increased security measures that sent spy planes over the skies of Sanaa and flurry of apparent drone strikes to points farther afield. The most recent drone attack...

Washington (CNN) -- The State Department has evacuated most of its diplomats from Lahore, Pakistan in response to a terrorist threat against the U.S. consulate, senior State Department and other senior U.S. officials told CNN. "We have picked up what we regard as a threat worthy of taking this action," one senior U.S. official told CNN. The State Department issued an "orderged departure" for all of its diplomats in Lahore Thursday, except for a handful of emergency personnel. The diplomats were moved to Islamabad, the nation's capital, officials said. A travel warning issued by the State Department said the department...

The Obama administration's decision to shutter nearly two dozen U.S. diplomatic posts on Sunday has given jihadists something to celebrate — a sense that America still sees them as a serious threat. Despite the plot being thwarted, many supporters of al-Qaida and other terror groups believe the very fact that President Barack Obama was forced to shutter embassies throughout the Middle East and Africa was a victory in itself, according to The New York Times. "God is great! America is in a condition of terror and fear from al-Qaida," wrote one jihadist in an online forum, according to the Times....

We’ve all run across the pill bug in our gardens. At the first sign of danger, the tiny paranoid crustacean suddenly turns into a ball — in hopes the danger will have passed when he unrolls. That roly-poly bug can serve as a fair symbol of present-day U.S. foreign policy, especially in our understandable weariness over Iraq, Afghanistan, and the scandals that are overwhelming the Obama administration.