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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky issued executive orders late on Sunday sacking the head of Ukraine’s powerful domestic security agency, the SBU, and the prosecutor general. The orders dismissing SBU chief Ivan Bakanov, a childhood friend of Zelensky, and Prosecutor-General Iryna Venediktova, who led the effort to prosecute Russian war crimes in Ukraine, were published on the president’s official website.

Summary via videos of some prior reporting and perhaps more recent info from inspector general of the State Dept.

Demonstrating just how ideologically alligned with the Obama administration was the entire US State Department, moments ago the WaPo reported that "the entire senior level of management officials resigned Wednesday, part of an ongoing mass exodus of senior foreign service officers who don’t want to stick around for the Trump era."

CAIRO (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry, in an apparent warning to Iran, tried to reassure America’s Arab friends on Sunday that the United States will not allow them to be attacked “from outside.” He specifically mentioned Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Jordan and Egypt as nations, alongside unspecified “others,” that the U.S. will defend. Those others likely would include Israel, the strongest U.S. ally in the region. “The United States will be there for the defense of our friends and our allies,” Mr. Kerry told reporters in Cairo. “We will not allow those countries...

CNN reported on the personal journal of slain American ambassador Christopher Stevens over objections from his family, a State Department spokesman said Saturday. The news channel, in a story posted online Saturday, said that it found a journal belonging to Stevens four days after he died in a Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Three other Americans also were killed. CNN broke a pledge to the late ambassador's family that it wouldn't report on the diary, said State Department spokesman Philippe Reines, a senior adviser to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. In a blistering...

…. So what are their policies? Where do they get their funds? Are they linked to any political organisation? No idea. Nobody asked. Ms Adams then asked the mysterious Lucy: ‘So what’s to stop hooligans or hardline protesters who really have no care for your cause joining in and making this something that it shouldn’t really be?’ Lucy completely failed to answer this question (and it was not pressed)... [snip] The [BBC] report concluded with some editorialising about undercover policing: ‘It must be necessary, proportional and lawful, and that’s something that many activists would seriously question.’ No doubt activists would...

The residents of this poor, multiracial Paris suburb say they have been abandoned. For 30 years, they say, the French authorities have written off Bondy and neighborhoods like it, treating their inhabitants as terminal delinquents and ignoring their potential. This, residents note, is not the approach taken by the United States Department of State. “We’re waiting for the president of the Republic, for his ministers,” said Gilbert Roger, the mayor of Bondy. “And we see the ambassador of the United States.” The United States Embassy in Paris has formed a network of partnerships with local governments, advocacy groups, entrepreneurs, students...

While he was getting lectured by Vladimir Putin, Prime Minister of Russia, he took the time to give a speech that totally ignored the Constitution of Honduras. “America supports now the restoration of the democratically-elected President of Honduras, even though he has strongly opposed American policies,” the president told graduate students at the commencement ceremony of Moscow’s New Economic School. “We do so not because we agree with him. We do so because we respect the universal principle that people should choose their own leaders, whether they are leaders we agree with or not. “ I wonder if the President...

Note: The following text is a quote: Former State Department Official and Wife Arrested for Serving as Illegal Agents of Cuba for Nearly 30 Years Couple Allegedly Conspired to Provide Classified Information to Cuban Government A former State Department official and his wife have been arrested on charges of serving as illegal agents of the Cuban government for nearly 30 years and conspiring to provide classified U.S. information to the Cuban government. The arrests were announced today by David Kris, Assistant Attorney General for National Security; Channing D. Phillips, Acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia; Joseph Persichini, Jr.,...

The State Department yesterday condemned as "offensive" cartoons in a Danish newspaper depicting the prophet Muhammad but defended the paper's right to publish them as a fundamental principle of democracy. It also urged Muslims, who have been staging mass protests against the cartoons and their reprinting in newspapers in Europe, to express outrage when they see anti-Christian or anti-Semitic publications. "We find them offensive," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said of the cartoons. "While we share the offense that Muslims have taken at these images, we at the same time vigorously defend the right of individuals to express points of...

‘Real Men Moisturize’ http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com |"Real Men Moisturize." So begins an article on "Sharp Dressed Men" that appeared in a State Department funded magazine aimed at youth in the Arab world. The magazine, called "Hi" is published in Arabic and English. A State Department website explains that Hi is published "with the hope of building bridges of greater understanding among our cultures." The article continues: "In fact, some of them, [snip], even have separate moisturizers for the face and body. Facial pores can clog with too heavy a salve, it seems. Not long ago, these and other habits would have...

Sami al-Arian, the Florida professor accused of leading a Palestinian terrorist group, will try to embarrass the U.S. government at his trial by revealing his numerous White House meetings with high-level figures in both the Clinton and Bush administrations, according to court records reported by Newsweek. Al-Arian, a former computer science professor at the University of South Florida, goes on trial next month on charges that he served as a secret leader of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a group in the State Department's list of terrorist organizations. U.S. officials say PIJ is responsible for numerous deadly suicide attacks against Israelis and...

U.S. State Department report: Israeli troops frequently use excessive force leading to many Palestinian deaths (Army Radio)

Madonna Defies US Warnings, Will Perform in Israel By Joel Leyden Israel News AgencyJerusalem----March 31...Madonna, one of the world's most famous performers, is about to teach the U.S. State Department a lesson in counter-terrorism. Madonna, who will be performing twice at Israel's Tel Aviv Bloomfield Stadium in September, is saying: don't give into terrorism's greatest weapon - fear. "We are pleased to confirm the rumors. Madonna will be touring during the coming summer and fall," Caresse Henry, the singer's longtime manager, said yesterday. This would be Madonna's second appearance in Israel. Her first was in October 1993. "The Re-Invention Tour"...

The Treasury Department has sought economic sanctions for a number of Saudi groups tied to terrorism, an agency official told Congress yesterday, but has been stymied by the State Department and other government agencies. R. Richard Newcomb, director of Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control, told a Senate panel that an interagency national security committee -- including representatives from State, the Justice Department and other agencies -- has rejected his office's recommendations that certain charities and other entities be subject to sanctions for ties to terrorism. Newcomb was reluctant to name the organizations or say how many times his office...