Free Republic

The United States stands with interim President Juan Guaido, the democratically elected National Assembly, and the people of Venezuela as they peacefully restore constitutional order to their country. We stand ready to support interim President Guaido as he establishes a transitional government and carries out his constitutional duties as interim President, including determining the status of diplomatic representatives in the United States and other countries. We welcome interim President Guaido’s directive to all diplomatic missions in Venezuela that Venezuela intends to maintain diplomatic relations with all countries. The United States maintains diplomatic relations with Venezuela and will conduct our relations...

Hostile: When U.S. diplomatic staff at the American Embassy in Havana, Cuba, and in China began to fall ill earlier in December 2016, investigators were stumped as to why. More than three dozen U.S. diplomats and family members living in Cuba and China reported confounding brain disorders like dizziness, headaches, and blurry vision.

The Swiss Federal Prosecutor's Office has issued arrest warrants against two Turkish diplomats. The diplomats linked to the Turkish domestic intelligence service MIT are accused of planning to kidnap a businessman. The Swiss federal prosecutor's office has issued arrest warrants against Turkish diplomats Haci Mehmet Gani and Hakan Kamil Yerge. The diplomats are accused of having planned to kidnap a businessman in the late summer of 2016. The Zurich businessman with Turkish roots is said to be a married family man in his mid-fifties. The businessman was advised by the diplomats because he belonged to the movement of the Islamic...

Russia is to expel 23 British diplomats amid tensions over the nerve agent attack on a former spy and his daughter in the UK. The Russian foreign ministry said staff from the UK's Moscow embassy would be expelled within a week. It also said it would close the British Council in Russia, which promotes cultural ties between the nations, and the British Consulate in St. Petersburg. The move comes in response to Britain's decision to expel 23 Russian diplomats.........

WASHINGTON — Of all the State Department employees who might have been vulnerable in the staff reductions that Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson has initiated as he reshapes the department, the one person who seemed least likely to be a target was the chief of security, Bill A. Miller. Republicans pilloried Hillary Clinton for what they claimed was her inadequate attention to security as secretary of state in the months before the deadly 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya. Congress even passed legislation mandating that the department’s top security official have unrestricted access to the secretary of state. But in...

The ranks of top US diplomats are being depleted at a “dizzying” speed, the head of America’s diplomatic trade union has warned. Since January, the number of “two-star” minister counselors has dropped by 42% and “three-star” career ministers by 14%, according to Barbara Stephenson, president of the American Foreign Service Association (AFSA) and former ambassador to Panama. At the highest ranks of the State Department, the number of career ambassadors has dropped from five to two, after the retirement of three top diplomats. “These numbers are hard to square with the stated agenda of making State and the Foreign Service...

The US pulled the bulk of its diplomats from Cuba in September, blaming attacks on its staff that caused hearing loss and concussions. Cuba has denied any involvement, and now it is offering a counter-explanation: The alleged “sonic attacks” are coming from cicadas and crickets.

It’s a sleazy scenario that plays out in bars and clubs across the Big Apple: Everybody’s having a great time until some creep just can’t keep his hands to himself. But early Sunday at Bar None — a Third Avenue dive in the East Village where NYU co-eds squeeze in every weekend to chug cheap Bud and dance to ’90s rock — one of these guys would finally face the consequences. A creep put his paws all over an unwitting young woman’s boobs and backside, she said, and the victim immediately reported the sleazy moves to a bouncer.

show Published August 23, 2017 Fox News NOW PLAYING US probing possible Cuba role in hearing loss of diplomats U.S. diplomats were diagnosed with mild traumatic brain injuries and possible damage to the central nervous system from exposure to an “acoustic attack” in Cuba last year, CBS News reported Wednesday, citing obtained medical records. The records suggest that the apparent attack caused more extensive damage than previously reported. The diplomats stationed in Havana reported symptoms that resembled concussion and hearing loss. Following months of investigation, U.S. officials concluded that the diplomats had been exposed to an advanced device that operated...

Former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul railed against President Trump on Thursday after he thanked Russian President Vladimir Putin for ordering the U.S. to cut its diplomatic staff by 755 people. In his first comments on the move by Russia, Trump said he was thanking Putin because the decision allows the U.S. government to "cut down our payroll." “I want to thank him because we’re trying to cut down our payroll and as far as I’m concerned I’m very thankful that he let go of a large number of people because now we have a smaller payroll," Trump told...

Following the bill signed into law by President Donald Trump imposing sanctions on Russia, Vladimir Putin announced the expulsion of 755 U.S. diplomats from Russia on July 30. Trump’s response to what would seem to be a hostile action on the part of Russia? Thank you. During a question and answer session with the press pool on Thursday, Trump appeared to be serious while saying that he appreciated Putin’s decision to expel the diplomats as it would allow the U.S. to cut costs. “I want to thank him because we’re trying to cut down on payroll,” Trump said. “And as...

The two-year-old U.S. diplomatic relationship with Cuba was roiled Wednesday by what U.S. officials say was a string of bizarre incidents that left a group of American diplomats in Havana with severe hearing loss attributed to a covert sonic device. In the fall of 2016, a series of U.S. diplomats began suffering unexplained losses of hearing, according to officials with knowledge of the investigation into the case. Several of the diplomats were recent arrivals at the embassy, which reopened in 2015 as part of former President Barack Obama’s re-establishment of diplomatic relations with Cuba. Some of the diplomats’ symptoms were...

Break out the champagne The New York Times reported last Friday that “an exodus is underway” in the State Department. The Times didn’t think this was good news; it gave space to one career diplomat who lamented that there was “complete and utter disdain for our expertise.” This could be the best news to come out of Washington since the Trump administration took office. We can only hope that with the departure of these failed State Department officials, their failed policies will be swept out along with them. Chief among these is the almost universally held idea that poverty causes...

Oh, this is almost too much winning… almost. A pearl-clutching op-ed in the New York Times declares the hurt sensibilities within the State Department are leading to multiple people quitting Specifically citing the different managerial strategy of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and the priorities of the entire Dept. of State mission being reset, the career bureaucrats are dropping like flies hitting the T-Rex zapper.

arly last August, an envelope with extraordinary handling restrictions arrived at the White House. Sent by courier from the CIA, it carried “eyes only” instructions that its contents be shown to just four people: President Barack Obama and three senior aides. Inside was an intelligence bombshell, a report drawn from sourcing deep inside the Russian government that detailed Russian President Vladi­mir Putin’s direct involvement in a cyber campaign to disrupt and discredit the U.S. presidential race.

N.K. claims U.S. seized its diplomatic package, demands explanation SEOUL, June 18 (Yonhap) -- North Korea claimed on Sunday that the United States recently mugged its delegation carrying a diplomatic package in New York, calling on Washington to provide an explanation on what it calls a provocation. According to the (North) Korean Central News Agency, which quoted its foreign ministry, a group of government officials and police officers from the U.S. took a diplomatic package from its delegation on Friday at John F. Kennedy International Airport before it was about to board a flight home. The delegation was in New...

The acting U.S. ambassador to China, David Rank, has reportedly resigned from his post over President Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate agreement, according to a new report. CNN reports that several sources familiar with the matter say Rank’s decision was directly tied to Trump’s decision to remove the U.S. from the accord, though his replacement in Beijing has already been approved by the Senate. "Mr. Rank made a personal decision," a senior State Department official told CNN. "We appreciate his years of dedicated service to the State Department." Rank has served as the deputy...

The U.S. Ambassador to Qatar took a direct swipe at President Trump, seemingly over his firing of FBI Director James Comey. “Increasingly difficult to wake up overseas to news from home, knowing I will spend today explaining our democracy and institutions,” Dana Shell Smith wrote on Twitter late Tuesday. Trump had fired Comey just hours earlier.(TWEET-AT-LINK) Smith, a career diplomat, was nominated to the ambassadorship in 2014 and confirmed the same year. Federal Election Commission records show she donated $1,000 on eight separate occasions to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. She also recently expressed support for former Acting Attorney General...

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday a major conflict with North Korea is possible in the standoff over its nuclear and missile programs, but he would prefer a diplomatic outcome to the dispute. "There is a chance that we could end up having a major, major conflict with North Korea. Absolutely," Trump told Reuters in an Oval Office interview ahead of his 100th day in office on Saturday. Nonetheless, Trump said he wanted to peacefully resolve a crisis that has bedeviled multiple U.S. presidents, a path that he and his administration are emphasizing by preparing a variety of new...

While few might consider being a diplomat a life-threatening or even dangerous job, that trend may be quickly reversing — that is, at least for Russian diplomats.[snip] Since late December, four top Russian diplomats, including three ambassadors, have died under circumstances that remain unclear. .....................................