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(CNSNews.com) – The Obama administration’s new ambassador to Azerbaijan raised eyebrows this week with a gesture interpreted by some as paying homage to the country’s late dictator – a one-time KGB general installed by military coup who oversaw an autocratic regime before handing power to his son. “The new U.S. envoy to Azerbaijan, Richard Morningstar, has honored memory of national leader of Azerbaijan Heydar Aliyev,” the Azeri news site News.Az reported. “The newly appointed ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary of the United States in Azerbaijan visited the monument to great leader in the park in front of the Heydar Aliyev’s Palace....

Diplomatic sources in Cairo said the Egyptian government is willing to receive the new Israeli ambassador whenever Israel wishes to send them. The matter is not dependent on diplomatic or security conditions, Cairo daily Al Ahram quoted them as saying Wednesday. The sources said that that the timing for the arrival of a new ambassador is up to Israel and that the Egyptian government will not intervene in the matter. The outgoing Israeli ambassador, Yitzchak Levanon – who has been in Israel since shortly after a mob stormed the Cairo embassy two months ago – returned to Cairo Sunday for...

Dan Shapiro, the new American ambassador to Israel, submitted his credentials to President Shimon Peres on Wednesday. That same day, he submitted a declaration of support for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: In an interview with Channel 2 television, he downplayed the lack of trust between Netanyahu and U.S. President Barack Obama and the latter's rage and sense of insult over Netanyahu's appearance before Congress in May, treating their serial disputes as routine disagreements between friends. Shapiro noted that he was present at all the many meetings between Obama and Netanyahu. So who are we to cast doubt on a videotaped

Israel's ambassador in Spain, Raphael Schutz, who is about to leave his post, denounced the "anti-Semitism and hatred that exist in Spanish society" in a message on the embassy website Saturday. Schutz, who served in the post for a total of four years, referred to his time in Spain as "not very pleasant." (Snip) ''I also take with me the hatred and the anti-Semitism that still exist in Spanish society, and which I experienced personally," he wrote. The outgoing ambassador cited Israel's Operation Cast Lead in Gaza in 2008-9 and the lethal flotilla raid in 2010 as especially difficult periods.

Hugo Chavez went on national television to dare Barack Obama to cut diplomatic relations with Venezuela after Chavez rejected Obama’s choice to replace Ambassador Patrick Duddy, who left in July. Chavez objected to comments made by nominee Larry Palmer that suggested that Chavez was sheltering Colombian rebels and Palmer’s criticism of the actions of the legislature, which gave Chavez 18 months of rule by decree in order to ignore the new National Assembly taking office next month, one with enough opposition to block Chavez’ proposals: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez dared the United States to expel his ambassador or cut off...

Fox has unearthed tapes of Obama Muslim Envoy Rashad Hussain telling audiences that Muslim Sharia Law should be imposed world-wide. Hussain and Obama first denied any such remarks. Then Hussain said the remarks were from his daughter. Then the White House denied any such remarks could be attributed to anyone in the White House. Today Fox reported that Hussain/The White House tried to go back and scrub these remarks from the record. Today Fox aired the tapes, proving that Hussain is a radical Muslim who encourages the adoption of Sharia Law as a goal of global Jihad. Awaiting the next...

Presented with a transcript of his remarks at a 2004 conference, Rashad Hussain, President Obama's nominee to be special envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference, issued a statement Friday evening acknowledging having criticized the U.S. government's case against Sami Al-Arian, who pleaded guilty in 2006 to conspiracy to aid Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Originally, the White House claimed that Hussain denied having made the comments, attributing them instead to Al-Arian's daughter, Laila. But Politico's Josh Gerstein obtained an audiotape of the remarks, in which Hussain said that Al-Arian’s case was one of many “politically motivated persecutions." On Friday evening,...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama took a major step toward improving strained ties with Syria on Tuesday, announcing his intention to reappoint a U.S. ambassador to Damascus after a five-year absence. The White House said Obama had nominated career diplomat Robert Ford to the post. The nomination must still be confirmed by the U.S. Senate. The United States withdrew its ambassador from Damascus in 2005 after the assassination in Beirut of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri. Syria's foes in Lebanon accused Damascus of involvement, a charge Syria denied.

Rashad Hussein, White House official and President Obama’s newly appointed Special Envoy to the Organization of Islamic Conference, has a history of participation in events connected with the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood as well as support for Brotherhood causes, once having called prosecution of the U.S. leader of a Palestinian terrorist organization one of many “politically motivated persecutions.” Mr. Hussain’s official biography states: Rashad Hussain is presently Deputy Associate Counsel to President Obama. His work at the White House focuses on national security, new media, and science and technology issues. Mr. Hussain has also worked with the National Security Staff in...

DOHA (Reuters) – U.S. President Barack Obama said on Saturday he was naming a special envoy to a top Islamic body to further Washington's cooperation with the Muslim world. Obama told a U.S.-Islamic World Forum in the Qatari capital Doha in a recorded video message that he was naming White House official Rashad Hussain as special envoy to the 56-member Organization of the Islamic Conference. "As an accomplished lawyer and a close and trusted member of my White House staff, Rashad has played a key role in developing the partnerships I called for in Cairo," Obama said. In a speech...

Brazil and Bolivia reacted strongly to the US message to Latinamerica about “flirting” with the Iran regime. Brazil is “minimizing” the Monday visit of a top US Department official and Bolivia said that it is sovereign and practices a “dialogue culture” with all countries. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last week warned Latinamerican countries “to think twice” about strategic alliances with Iran, which she described as the “world’s leading promoter and exporter of terrorism”. Last month Iranian president Mahmud Ahmadinejad was on an official tour of Brazil, Bolivia and Venezuela. The US and Israel are fearful of the Teheran...

BEIJING – Washington's ambassador to Beijing hit out Friday at negative U.S. media coverage of President Barack Obama's visit to China, saying it failed to take into account important progress on many issues. Although producing no breakthroughs on key issues, Obama's first state visit to the Asian giant that ended Wednesday was heralded by both sides as a success. The trip was the top news story in China, drawing strong interest from the Chinese public who, surveys suggest, are largely positive in their view of the American president.

(IsraelNN.com) MK Michael Ben-Ari (National Union) has been engaged in a battle to honor former MK Rabbi Meir Kahane, who was murdered in New York City in 1990, by giving a memorial speech from the Knesset podium. On Wednesday, it was revealed that Ben-Ari's struggle has drawn opposition from well beyond the Knesset, and that U.S. envoy George Mitchell has taken an interest in the matter. Arutz Sheva quotes unnamed sources that said that Mitchell reportedly sent a message via the American embassy asking Knesset speaker Reuven Rivlin if he planned to approve Ben-Ari's request to speak about Kahane in...

As the son of Cuban immigrants, Miguel Diaz was drawn to Barack Obama for his ability to cross cultures and engage people from different backgrounds. Now, plucked from the relative obscurity of central Minnesota to be President Obama's envoy to the Vatican, the St. John's University theologian finds himself in the vortex of an unwelcome battle over what it means to be a Catholic in the service of a president who supports abortion rights. All sides say the debate was inevitable, no matter whom Obama sent to the Holy See. But for Diaz, the swirling debate seems as confining as...

Obama’s envoys at risk of becoming a flop By Daniel Dombey in Washington Published: October 22 2009 23:53 | Last updated: October 22 2009 23:53 The  Obama administration’s policy of appointing special envoys to sort out the world’s biggest problems could turn out to be a spectacular flop. Just look at this week’s news from Kabul. President Hamid Karzai’s decision to agree to a run-off election was a rare moment of success for Washington’s effort to get to grips with Afghanistan’s raging insurgency and the country’s recalcitrant government. But who was the US official standing at the podium next to Mr...

Senators Want Envoys For Jailed Journalists Carmichael Native Laura Ling Jailed In North Korea POSTED: 7:16 am PDT June 19, 2009 UPDATED: 7:41 am PDT June 19, 2009 SAN FRANCISCO -- California Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer and seven Senate colleagues want the White House to consider sending "high-level envoys" to North Korea to try to free two American journalists.

GENEVA – Nations need common rules for responding to flu outbreaks to prevent discrimination and unfair trade restrictions, Mexico's U.N. envoy said Friday, complaining that Mexican citizens and exports were being unfairly singled out. Some countries have "developed some attitudes which I will straightforward qualify as discriminatory against Mexicans," Luis Alfonso De Alba said. The World Health Organization is looking into the measures countries take in combatting the outbreak and the justifications they give, but WHO has no plans to make the findings public, said spokesman Gregory Hartl.

PARIS (AFP) – France's special envoy to Pakistan painted a grim picture Thursday of a country collapsing under pressure from Islamist rebels which could one day seize control of its nuclear arsenal. "Today the Taliban are making progress not just in Afghanistan but in the Pakistani interior itself, and at the end of this road there's a stock of nuclear weapons," Pierre Lellouche told Europe 1 radio. Lellouche is President Nicolas Sarkozy's representative dealing with the conflicts in Afghanistan, where French forces form part of a NATO force, and in Pakistan, where the government is struggling to deal with the...

America's N.Korea Envoy Lying Low Diplomats in Korea are grumbling that the U.S. special envoy on North Korea Stephen Bosworth has been conspicuous by absence in the 10 days since North Korea launched a long-range rocket. Bosworth, a part-time government employee, has not been seen in public since he resumed his duties as dean of The Fletcher School at Tufts University following a press interview he gave in Washington on April 3, two days before the North launched the rocket. Since then, he has not spoken to South Korea's chief nuclear envoy Wi Sung-lac, ostensibly his counterpart. "We know that...

TEHRAN, Iran – Iran dismissed American government reports that senior U.S. and Iran envoys had a cordial — and promising — face-to-face exchange at an international conference, saying Wednesday that no "talks" took place. The competing accounts of Tuesday's encounter in the Netherlands appeared to reflect the different approaches to overtures to end the United States' and Iran's nearly 30-year diplomat standoff. Washington has seemed eager to build on President Barack Obama's surprise video message last month to seek engagement with Iran's ruling clerics. Iran has — in public, at least — been far cooler to making immediate contacts, but...