Tag Archives: State Department

CNN reports: Colin Powell, the first Black US secretary of state whose leadership in several Republican administrations helped shape American foreign policy in the last years of the 20th century and the early years of the 21st, has died from complications from Covid-19, his family said on Facebook. He was 84. “General Colin L. Powell, former U.S. Secretary of State …

CNN reports: Daniel Foote, the US special envoy to Haiti, has handed in his resignation to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, saying he will “not be associated with the United States inhumane, counterproductive decision to deport thousands of Haitian refugees” from the US-Mexico border. Foote stated in his resignation letter to Blinken that Haiti is wracked with poverty, crime, government …

From the State Department’s COVID response team: So far, the United States has committed to donate more than 630 million coronavirus vaccine doses globally. Nearly 160 million of those doses are already on the ground in more than 100 countries — from Peru to Pakistan, Sri Lanka to Sudan, El Salvador to Ethiopia, Mexico to Morocco, and Cameroon to Cambodia. …

Reuters reports: The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and State Department on Monday both warned against travel to Spain, Portugal, Cyprus and Kyrgyzstan because of a rising number of COVID-19 cases in those countries. The CDC raised its travel advisory to “Level Four: Very High” for those countries telling Americans they should avoid travel there, while the …

The BBC reports: The US government is investigating a series of health incidents in the Austrian capital Vienna involving its diplomats and other administration staff. More than 20 officials have reported symptoms similar to Havana Syndrome – a mystery brain illness – since President Joe Biden took office in January. The syndrome is unexplained, but US scientists say it is …

Via press release from the State Department: On July 16, the U.S. Department of State, along with the U.S. Department of the Treasury, the U.S. Department of Commerce, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, issued a business advisory to caution U.S. businesses about emerging risks to their operations and activities in Hong Kong. Many of these risks stem from …

Reuters reports: The State Department on Tuesday called for calm in the republic of Georgia after the death of a cameraman beaten up during violence against LGBT activists and said those who attacked peaceful protesters and journalists should be prosecuted. State Department spokesman Ned Price told a regular news briefing that Washington was following the situation in Georgia and was …

CNBC reports: President Joe Biden is nominating former Republican Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona as his ambassador to Turkey, whose alliance with the U.S. has in recent years been marked by major disagreements on key foreign policy issues. “I am honored and humbled by the trust President Biden has placed in me with this ambassadorial nomination,” Flake wrote in a …

Posted to Franklin Graham’s Facebook page: It is so disappointing that our government would fall for this kind of absurdity. They are now going to add a third possible gender option for people applying for a passport who don’t want to identify as a man or a woman. This administration seems to have declared war on common sense, and they …

The New York Times reports: Hackers linked to Russia’s main intelligence agency surreptitiously seized an email system used by the State Department’s international aid agency to burrow into the computer networks of human rights groups and other organizations of the sort that have been critical of President Vladimir V. Putin, Microsoft Corporation disclosed on Thursday. Discovery of the breach comes …

CNN reports: The Tokyo Olympics, postponed in 2020 during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, are facing increasing hurdles in putting on a 2021 show. The latest troubling sign for the Summer Games came Monday when the State Department advised US citizens against traveling to Japan because of a sharp increase in Covid-19 cases. The “Level 4: Do Not …

Reuters reports: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday confirmed that the United States does not seek to buy Greenland, after then-President Donald Trump had proposed buying the island, sparking diplomatic fallout. Sitting beside Danish Foreign Minister Jeppe Kofod, Greenland’s premier, Mute Egede, and Foreign Minister Pele Broberg during a news conference, Blinken confirmed to a reporter it was …

Axios reports: The State Department will now grant U.S. citizenship to children born abroad through in vitro fertilization, surrogacy and other assisted reproductive technologies, the agency said Tuesday. The Trump administration had denied citizenship to children born abroad to same-sex parents in several cases. The State Department under Trump defended a long-standing policy that categorized children born abroad via surrogate …

Politico reports: U.S. officials suspect that a notorious Russian spy agency may be behind alleged attacks that are causing mysterious health issues among U.S. government personnel across the world, according to three current and former officials with direct knowledge of the discussions. The intelligence community has not reached a consensus or made a formal determination. However, officials have told lawmakers …

Fortune reports: The U.S. government told its citizens to leave India as soon as possible because of the country’s escalating COVID-19 crisis. In a Level 4 travel advisory — the highest issued by the Department of State — U.S. citizens were told “not to travel to India or to leave as soon as it is safe to do so.” There …

Foreign Policy reports: Secretary of State Antony Blinken has issued a blanket authorization for U.S. diplomatic outposts around the world to fly the Pride flag on the same flagpole as the U.S. flag at their embassy or consulate showcasing support for LGBTQ rights. The directive marks a departure from how the Trump administration handled the matter while the State Department …

Axios reports: The Senate voted 51-49 on Wednesday to confirm Vanita Gupta as associate attorney general, the third-highest ranking official at the Justice Department. Why it matters: Most Republicans strongly opposed her nomination, which faced procedural hurdles after the Senate Judiciary Committee split 11-11 along party lines on whether to approve her. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) was the lone Republican …

The Daily Beast reports: That big vacation still seems a long way away. The State Department announced Monday that it will massively extend its “Do Not Travel” guidance to cover about 80 percent of countries around the globe. That will mean adding around 130 countries to the list of of 34, which already includes places such as Brazil, Argentina, and …

Politico reports: President Joe Biden is preparing to name Republican Cindy McCain to a coveted ambassador post in Western Europe in what would be his administration’s first Republican appointee to a Senate-confirmed position. McCain is undergoing vetting to be nominated for U.S. ambassador to the U.N. World Food Programme, a mission based in Rome, according to two sources with knowledge …

The Associated Press reports: In a sharp rebuke to Trump-era policies, Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday formally scrapped a blueprint championed by his predecessor to limit U.S. promotion of human rights abroad to causes favored by conservatives like religious freedom and property matters while dismissing reproductive and LGBTQ rights. Blinken said a report prepared for former Secretary of …