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The newly installed tapestry of President Obama casts a warm smile over guests at an event @USAinUK last night.

Can you blame him? 13 hours on a plane with Joe Biden is not exactly a dream getaway. 85 year-old Merrill Newman, a war veteran, declined a ride home on Air Force Two with Joe Biden. Newman was deported after being detained over his role in special forces operations in the Korean War six decades ago. (Daily Mail) The Daily Mail reported: An 85-year-old U.S. tourist detained in North Korea for six weeks for alleged ‘war crimes’ has landed back in San Francisco after catching a flight from Beijing. North Korean state media said Saturday that Merrill Newman, a war...

The new U.S. ambassador to Japan has weighed in on escalating tensions between China and Japan over the East China Sea. On Wednesday, Caroline Kennedy criticized China's recent move to create its own Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ), which requires that all aircraft notify Chinese authorities before entering the airspace. "Unilateral actions like those taken by China with their announcement of an East China Sea Air-to-Sea Identification Zone undermines security and constitutes an attempt to change the status quo in the East China Sea. This only serves to increase tension in the region," the ambassador said. The new ADIZ includes...

What would you do next if you had successfully brokered a “Neville Chamberlin” style deal with a rogue state that wants to annihilate America and her Middle East allies? Well. . . You’d downgrade diplomatic ties with the Vatican, of course. At least, that’s what you would do if you were working in the Obama White House. The White House has recently announced that they will shut down the US Embassy to the Holy See, and relocate it to a “safer” location on the grounds of the American Embassy in Italy. Officially, the US is explaining the relocation effort as...

US Envoy Caroline Kennedy Meets Japan's Emperor TOKYO November 19, 2013 New U.S. Ambassador Caroline Kennedy traveled by horse-drawn carriage into the Imperial Palace to present her credentials to Japan's emperor on Tuesday, giving the public a rare look at a diplomatic tradition. Thousands of onlookers lined the avenues near the moat-ringed palace to snap pictures and wave as Kennedy, the 55-year-old daughter of the late President John F. Kennedy, waved back from inside the carriage.

<p>This item just in via an “activity report” from the U.S. Embassy in Bern, Switzerland, headlined “Soul Legend Relinquishes U.S. Citizenship.”</p> <p>“Long-time Swiss resident Tina Turner” was in the embassy Oct. 24 to sign her “Statement of Voluntary Relinquishment of U.S. Citizenship under Section 349 (a)(1) of the INA” — the Immigration and Naturalization Act.</p>

TEHRAN -- At least 10,000 Iranians protested outside the former U.S. Embassy in Tehran Monday, burning American flags and effigies of Barack Obama on the anniversary of the 1979 seizure of the building. Annual demonstrations take place at the site, marking the date on which activists stormed the embassy 34 years ago and took 52 staff hostage for 444 days -- an act that severed diplomatic ties with the U.S. for more than three decades. But this year’s demonstration was larger than usual, fueled by anger among Iranians at President Hassan Rouhani's recent moves to reopen dialogue with the West....

The federal shutdown has disrupted a training program for diplomatic security officers that was ramped up after last year’s attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, U.S. officials confirmed Thursday. The prolonged closing of a key training facility could mean significant delays in efforts to beef up protection for U.S. diplomats abroad, enhancements that were ordered after an independent review board criticized the State Department for its handling of the Sept. 11, 2012 attack, officials said. The Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, a facility operated by the Department of Homeland Security in Glynco, Ga., was shuttered Tuesday due...

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...

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...

... a suspected suicide bomber detonated an explosive device in Ankara, Turkey right outside the U.S. embassy, killing himself and an embassy guard. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said the attack happened at 1:13 p.m. local time, and that they were “working closely with the Turkish national police to make a full assessment of the damage and the casualties, and to begin an investigation.”

Just heard on the blaze on Glenn Beck's TV show from a Coptic Priest who keeps in contact with the Coptic Pope in Egypt, the US embassies are turning away Copts. Sounds a hell of a LOT like when FDR was turning away Jewish refugees from Europe.

(CNSNews.com) - Ryan Crocker, who was a career diplomat with long experience in the Middle East, and who served as the U.S. ambassador to Syria from 1998 to 2001, says “there’s every chance we’ll lose aircraft” if U.S. planes enter Syrian airspace. During an August 23 National Public Radio (NPR) interview Crocker was asked about possible U.S. military action against Syria. “I was in Lebanon when the Israelis invaded in June of 1982, and the entire Syrian air force was basically just destroyed in a matter of hours because of inadequate air defenses,” said Crocker. “The Syrians learned from that...

The State Department has evacuated non-emergency U.S. government personnel from the U.S. Consulate in Lahore, Pakistan, and has warned Americans to defer all non-essential travel to Pakistan due to 'specific threats' to that mission, a U.S. official said. In the travel warning issued Thursday night, the State Department advised Americans to defer all nonessential travel to Pakistan. “The presence of several foreign and indigenous terrorist groups poses a potential danger to U.S. citizens throughout Pakistan,” the statement read. “The Government of Pakistan maintains heightened security measures, particularly in the major cities. Threat reporting indicates terrorist groups continue to seek opportunities...

War On Terror: The way the White House has hyped a supposedly imminent al-Qaida plot, only one thing has to happen for President Obama to come off as a hero: nothing. It smells fishy. It´s not at the level of Robert De Niro and Dustin Hoffman cinematically fabricating a war with Albania to get the public´s mind off a presidential sex scandal, as in David Mamet´s 1997 black comedy "Wag the Dog," but the indefinite shutdown of 20 U.S. embassies in the Mideast and Africa after the announcement of a for-sure, impending terrorist mega-attack looks suspiciously gift-wrapped and well-timed

Watch the video beginning at 11:20 - she can't bring herself to say, "evacuation" since it isn't in her written talking points. The term is "ordered departure" or "reduction in staffing" [mentioned beginning at 4:45] instead.

t wasn’t just any terrorist message that triggered U.S. terror alerts and embassy closures—but a conference call of more than 20 far-flung al Qaeda operatives, Eli Lake and Josh Rogin report. The crucial intercept that prompted the U.S. government to close embassies in 22 countries was a conference call between al Qaeda’s senior leaders and representatives of several of the group’s affiliates throughout the region. snip Several news outlets reported Monday on an intercepted communication last week between Zawahiri and Nasser al-Wuhayshi, the leader of al Qaeda’s affiliate based in Yemen. But The Daily Beast has learned that the discussion...

I have to ask, think this through, what has been the reason for a series of embassies to ever close in our past history? Are we so scared of a group that was once defeated that we cower in fear like this? Or does Obama have other plans? Embassies, closed, this many, at the same time...only in time of war, folks, only in time of war

The Pentagon has placed its elite cadre of special operations teams on full alert to launch preemptive attacks against suspected al Qaeda targets across the globe, according to reports. The American special forces teams have spent the past week waiting for U.S. military and intelligence officials to confirm the whereabouts of the terror cell plotting to attack U.S. diplomatic outposts in the Mideast and North Africa. Unnamed sources told CNN on Monday that the teams were poised to carry out the preemptive strikes, but declined to comment on where the U.S. forces were located or which potential targets the Pentagon...

I'm sure al-Qaeda is suitably impressed with the seriousness with which our president takes the threat of a terrorist attack in the next few days. Associated Press: President Barack Obama kicked off his birthday weekend Saturday with a round of golf with friends and a getaway to Camp David. Obama, who turns 52 on Sunday, left the White House just after 8 a.m. EDT -- that's unusually early for the half-hour motorcade ride to Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland -- to squeeze in some golf before the celebration shifted to the presidential retreat nestled in Maryland's Catoctin Mountains. Before...