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In a phone conference with reporters on Monday, U.S. Special Envoy to Afghanistan Thomas West said the Biden administration is considering a “roadmap” to normalizing relations with the Taliban regime. The vague roadmap West spoke of included some requirements the Taliban seems to have little interest in meeting.

At their June 16, 2021, summit in Geneva, Presidents Joseph Biden and Vladimir Putin agreed to return their previously recalled ambassadors: Anatoly Antonov to Washington and John Sullivan to Moscow. Antonov stayed in Moscow for over three months in an unprecedented demonstration of anger. Sullivan was pressed by the Russian authorities to leave. In addition, both presidents agreed to form multiple joint working groups to deescalate tensions and solve outstanding problems in arms control, the manning of respective diplomatic missions, cyber security and exchange of prisoners (see EDM, June 17). The working groups have met while diplomats discuss ways to...

Russian President Vladimir Putin in an interview with NBC News ahead of his meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden next week, said U.S.-Russia relations are at their lowest point in years. This is reported by Reuters. Putin and Biden will meet in Geneva on Wednesday. The White House has said Biden will bring up ransomware attacks emanating from Russia, Moscow's aggression against Ukraine, the jailing of dissidents and other issues that have irritated the relationship. "We have a bilateral relationship that has deteriorated to its lowest point in recent years," Putin said in an interview broadcast on Friday. Putin praised...

The United States will continue to support Ukraine irrespective of the change of administration in either country, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said. "There are relations between the United States and Ukraine. The presidents can improve these relations, but it is hard to alter the sentiment in general. The United States is well disposed towards Ukraine and gives it support. No matter who becomes the president of the United States or Ukraine, the relations will exist," Zelensky said in an interview with the French media outlet Le Figaro published on the presidential website on Friday. Zelensky said he could understand the...

Russian businessman Konstantin Kilimnik, business partner of Paul Manafort, ex-head of the campaign headquarters of 45th U.S. President Donald Trump (2017-2021), tried to influence the U.S. elections and damage the ties between the United States and Ukraine. The U.S. Embassy in Ukraine said on its Twitter that he acted in concert with non-factional MP of Ukraine Andriy Derkach, against whom the U.S. imposed sanctions in September 2020 for trying to influence the U.S. presidential elections in 2020, as well as others, associated with Russian intelligence. "Russian influence agent Konstantin Kilimnik is wanted in the United States for obstruction of justice....

Before Covid upended everything, the US president upended relations with Beijing – without interest or ability to build anew Lloyd Green Sun 14 Mar 2021 06.00 GMT 84 Covid-19 has left more than 530,000 Americans dead and China’s standing with the US at a historic low. Only Iran and North Korea fare worse. US opinion is no outlier. China’s reputation has taken a beating in Australia, the UK, Sweden, the Netherlands and Germany. Images of tanks rolling through Tiananmen Square in summer 1989 have been supplanted by Beijing stonewalling on the origins of the plague. Lucky review: how Biden beat...

One feels no sympathy for Andrew Cuomo, but he's being hounded by the Left for awkward flirting. Sure, stealing a kiss can be construed as "crossing the line," but how many first kisses have been stolen over the centuries, not just by the rich and powerful, but by ordinary joes? It might even be that most first kisses throughout history were stolen, even celebrated. Certainly a public record has been built up that is nothing short of iconic. There’s that famous VJ Day photo of the sailor on Times Square stealing a kiss from a nurse. We’ve seen athletes steal...

Among the several ways to judge a person's fitness for office are the enemies he has made. In the case of John Bolton, President Trump's choice to become national security adviser, those who oppose his appointment -- liberals, neocons and some Republicans all with differing worldviews and questionable foreign policy experience -- appear to say more about his qualifications than those who support him. A New York Times editorial said that at least Bolton speaks his mind, though it also said it didn't like what was on it. The Times and their ideological sister publication, The Washington Post, have spilled...

This happened November 9th. Is just being publicly released now: -- On Thursday Nov. 9, when President Trump and his team visited Beijing's Great Hall of the People, Chief of Staff John Kelly and a U.S. Secret Service agent skirmished with Chinese security officials over the nuclear football. I've spoken to five sources familiar with the events. Here's what happened, as they describe it: When the U.S. military aide carrying the nuclear football entered the Great Hall, Chinese security officials blocked his entry. (The official who carries the nuclear football is supposed to stay close to the president at all...

News item | 05-02-2018 | 11:13The Netherlands and Turkey have recently held talks at various levels. At this stage, these talks do not yet offer a perspective to normalizing the bilateral relations. Minister Zijlstra: 'Recent talks offered Turkey and the Netherlands an opportunity to come closer to each other, but we have not been able to agree on the way normalization should take place.' Therefore the Dutch government has decided to officially withdraw the Netherlands’ Ambassador in Ankara, who has not had access to Turkey since March 2017. As long as the Netherlands has no Ambassador to Turkey, the Netherlands...

The NY Times published an interesting piece today on the burden of regulations and how they apply to one mid-sized apple farm in upstate New York. What’s interesting is that the piece while not anti-regulation, is certainly skeptical of the increasing volume of regulations and the burden they place on small businesses forced to comply with a litany of over-lapping requirements from several different agencies.

If you were born anywhere north of Baltimore, you won’t believe a word of this. And that’s unfortunate, because the survival of our America may depend on enough Americans realizing I’m right. There are, indeed, those who brandish the Confederate flag with the same diseased passion as some Germans revere the swastika. That same crowd will spring to their feet defiantly when the band plays “Dixie.” And there are those who would gladly volunteer to take their shotguns and guard the local statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee during the overnight shift. Don’t deny it, You All, there are such...

WASHINGTON: The United States (US) looks unlikely to follow through on a threat to relegate Britain to second-class trade status once its ally leaves the European Union, as it weighs the potential costs of undermining the countries close diplomatic and military ties. President Barack Obama had warned ahead of Thursday's "Brexit" referendum that Britain would move to the back of the queue on US trade priorities if it voted to leave the bloc, well behind a much larger US European trade deal now under negotiation. But in the face of a severe financial market reaction to the vote to...

WASHINGTON: The United States (US) looks unlikely to follow through on a threat to relegate Britain to second-class trade status once its ally leaves the European Union, as it weighs the potential costs of undermining the countries close diplomatic and military ties. President Barack Obama had warned ahead of Thursday's "Brexit" referendum that Britain would move to the back of the queue on US trade priorities if it voted to leave the bloc, well behind a much larger US European trade deal now under negotiation. But in the face of a severe financial market reaction to the vote to...

srael and Britain’s relations will not change once Britain leaves the European Union (EU), British ambassador to Israel David Quarrey said on Friday. Speaking to Channel 2 News after UK residents voted to leave the EU in a referendum and Prime Minister David Cameron announced his resignation, Quarrey said, “The relationship between Britain and Israel will not change significantly.” "...lies...more lies...self delusion..." .....

Saudi Arabia has announced that it is severing diplomatic ties with Iran following Saturday's attack of its embassy in Tehran during protests. Adel al-Jubeir, Saudi foreign minister, made the announcement on Sunday as the foreign ministry announced that it would ask the Iranian diplomatic mission to leave the kingdom within 48 hours. The Saudi foreign ministry has also announced that the staff of its diplomatic mission have been evacuated, and are now on their way back to Saudi.

Relations between Binyamin Netanyahu and Barack Obama are not quite as bad as they have been made out to be - and things could yet improve in the coming months, according to former leading Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman. Speaking at Haifa University Tuesday, Lieberman - who served as Senator from 1988-2012, during which time he was nominated as the 2000 Democratic vice presidential candidate - did acknowledge that the personal relationship between the two was far from perfect. Lieberman was the keynote speaker at the opening of the third session of the Ruderman Program for American Jewish Studies at the...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Relations between President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans have hit a new low. There has been little direct communication between Obama and the GOP leadership on Capitol Hill since Republicans took full control of Congress in January. Obama has threatened to veto more than a dozen Republican-backed bills. And House Speaker John Boehner infuriated the White House by inviting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address Congress without consulting the administration first. But the dispute over Obama's high-stakes nuclear negotiations with Iran has put the relationship perhaps beyond repair. The president and his advisers are seething over...

Two high school teachers in Southern California have been arrested on suspicion of having sexual relations with students on an overnight beach camping trip. South Hills High School teacher Melody Lippert allegedly met a group of male students in November at the beach in San Clemente, where she gave them alcohol and "engaged in a sexual relationship with one of them," according to the Orange County Sheriff's Department.

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