Guest contributor, Stacy Smith, writes of her experiences interpreting for the State Department's International Visitor Leadership Program. She writes about her first assignment interpreting for two Japanese professionals studying the theme of Planning for Crises: Disasters and Pandemics. _______________________________________________________________________________________ Since...
57 Ways to Weave Your Coverby Babba ZeeOutraged Spleen of ZionOR:Who TF are the Organization of the Islamic Conference,And why should you care? Sada Cumber, an American Ismaili Muslim, is the new U.S. Special Envoy to the anti-American, anti-Israel, anti-Western Organization of the Islamic Conference. Sada Cumber can protest the OIC's extremist positions, or give silent assent to them. Your gover
State Department Daily Press Briefing Sean McCormack, Spokesman FULL STREAMING VIDEO Washington, DC May 9, 2008 1:15 p.m. EDT PODCAST OF THIS ARTICLEMR. MCCORMACK: Good afternoon, everybody. I have a couple things to start off with here, the first of which is a Media Note we’ll put out after the briefing here, and just encourage you to make note of the fact that the Secretary is going to be having an event on Monday in the afternoon.This is at the One Woman Initiative. It’s the Fund for Women’s Empowerment. This is something the Secretary has been deeply involved in, as you know, hosting a number of meetings. The focus on this issue and the centerpiece of this particular meeting is going to be the announcement of a public-private partnership of corporations, foundations, and the U.S.
The State Department’s Annual terrorism report is being released today. Following is the text of the Department announcement. -0- Special Press Briefing and Release: Country Reports on Terrorism 2007 The Department of State will release the annual Congressionally mandated Country Reports on Terrorism 2007 on Wednesday, April 30 at 11:00 a.m. Coordinator of the Office for Counterterrorism Dell L. Dailey and Deputy Director of the National Counterterrorism Center Russ Travers will provide opening...(read more)
Robert Spencer was the first to report this on Tuesday, but I didn’t want to put a post up about it until I heard more reports. Now that the AP has picked it up, it seems like it’s true after all.
In a pathetic display of multicultural equivalency, the State department has caved to Muslim [...]
Sons of Islam everywhere, the jihad is a duty - to establish the rule of Allah on earth and to liberate your countries and yourselves from America's domination and its Zionist allies, it is your battle - either victory or martyrdom.Sheikh A. YassinAccording to Robert Spencer, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is revamping the State Department Lexicon with the orders to eliminate the words jihad and jihadi.The argument, of course, is the old Streusand/Guirard claim that by using the word jihad, we're validating the jihadist claim to be waging jihad. Of course, it's ridiculous to think that the U.S. State Department carries any validating authority within the Islamic world to determine what is Islam and what isn't. This would be the first time that unbelievers have set the meaning of Islam
Daily Press Briefing Tom Casey, Deputy Spokesman FULL STREAMING VIDEO Washington, DC April 21, 2008 12:50 p.m. EDT. PODCAST OF THIS ARTICLEMR. CASEY: Okay. Good afternoon and happy Monday, everyone. I don't have anything to start you out with, so Matt.QUESTION: Yeah. Tom, can you expand at all on what you said this morning about President Carter and his talks with Hamas? And also, I don't know if you've seen these latest comments from Khaled Mashaal, but he's saying that they won't recognize Israel, but they are prepared -- apparently, prepared to be its neighbor in peace and they've offered a 10-year ceasefire.MR. CASEY: Well, first of all, I think we'll let former President Carter speak for himself. But he made this trip on his own initiative. As you know, we counseled him against engagi
Obama, Clinton, and McCain: Breached Passport Information and Mrs Plum with the Gun in the Kitchen...or not.The Obama Campaign, though publicly outraged, privately must have breathed a sigh of relief when the news broke. The focus on Reverend Wright and his incindiary remarks moved to the back burner last Thursday as The Washington Times reported that the Senator's passport information had been breached. The press went wild with the story, and upper level State Department officials couldn't seem to get their story straight.One official said the violations hadn't been reported up the chain of command, while another said that on the dates of the Obama passport violations investigations were initiated by officials at the State Department. Confusion abounded and questions began to be ask
The United States State Department has informed its diplomats they may be required to do a tour of duty in the hell hole known as Baghdad. A similar call-up notice last year created an uproar among foreign service officers who apparently don’t want to be placed in a war situation. Unfortunately, the State Department is [...]
Here’s a simple math exercise for the nimrods in charge of the U.S. State Department.
ITEM:
From the Times:
Yet wealthy Saudis remain the chief financiers of worldwide terror networks. “If I could somehow snap my fingers and cut off the funding from one country, it would be Saudi Arabia,” said Stuart Levey, the US Treasury official in [...]
The Unied States State Department has warned Americans traveling to China for the upcoming Olympic Games they may discover while in the supposed privacy of a hotel room, people are listening into their conversations. The State Department warning suggests tourists can be under surveillance even when resting in a hotel bed. The State Department comment [...]
Daily Press Briefing. Sean McCormack, Spokesman. FULL STREAMING VIDEO. Washington, DC. March 21, 2008, 12:12 p.m. EDT. PODCAST OF THIS ARTICLEMR. MCCORMACK: Good afternoon, everybody. Before I get to your questions, I wanted to provide a little bit of a recap and a little bit of an update on where we are with respect to the questions surrounding unauthorized access of Senator Obama's passport file. Just to do a little bit of a recap, in case you missed the Secretary's words upstairs, she reached out to Senator Obama to say that she was sorry that this had happened, that there were these unauthorized accesses to his passport file. She assured the Senator that we took this seriously and that we were going to do a thorough investigation as well as to take steps to do the - try to ensure that
Well, that did not take long. According to my sources, confirmed by Bill Gertz in the Washington Times, Russia is actively seeking to get the State Department to help spring Viktor Bout from his Thai prison home. One of the reasons the DEA held its sting operation that led to Bout's arrest so close to the chest was precisely because the agents understood the high risk of political interference in the case. There is a strong desire in the State Department, derived partly as a legitimate function of...(read more)
US Report Highlights Possible Human Rights Concerns:
By TOSHEENA ROBINSON-BLAIR -
Nassau, Bahamas:
In its annual human rights report released Tuesday, the US State Department highlights various police killings in The Bahamas, the slowness of the judicial system and election violence.
While saying that the May 2, 2007 elections were free and fair, the report says, "The election campaign, however, was marred by instances of violence, the influential state-owned electronic media’s favortism toward government candidates, and allegations of vote-buying."
The report also documents the December Bimini riot, the alleged police beating of Desmond Key (who later died), and several police shootings, including the killing of a psychiatric patient on hospital grounds in Nassau last November.
"
U.S. Department of State Daily Press Briefing by Deputy Spokesman Tom Casey FULL STREAMING VIDEO Washington, DC. March 4, 2008, 12:34 p.m. EST. PODCAST OF THIS ARTICLEMR. CASEY: Okay. Good afternoon, guys. I don’t have anything to start you out with, so let’s see what might be on your minds.Yeah, go ahead.QUESTION: Do you have any update on the case of Mr. Levinson in Iran? Apparently, his wife was going to be meeting with some State Department officials on Thursday.MR. CASEY: Well, as you know, we’re approaching the one-year anniversary of Mr. Levinson’s disappearance. We still continue to work closely with the FBI as well as through our protecting power, the Swiss embassy in Tehran, to try and locate him and find out what has happened. We do maintain contact with the family on a
The State Department’s relatively new Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Ambassador Dell C. Dailey, http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/biog/87639.htm has outlined a broad integrated approach to countering the international terrorism threat downplaying the military role although he was an Army three-star general who headed the Special Operations Command. In his appearance at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Ambassador Daily also called Ben Ladin a marked man who will eventually be caught.....(read more)
Daily Press Briefing. Sean McCormack, Spokesman. FULL STREAMING VIDEO. Washington, DC. November 29, 2007, 12:38 p.m. EDT. PODCAST OF THIS ARTICLEMR. MCCORMACK: Good afternoon, everybody. I don't have anything to start off with, so we can get right into your questions.Yes.QUESTION: So the emergency will be lifted on the 16th of December?MR. MCCORMACK: Right. I've seen the press reports about that. It's a positive and significant step. We look forward to the elections taking place in early January. I believe the day has been set by President Musharraf. This announcement, combined with the fact that President Musharraf has taken off the uniform and is now sworn in as President of Pakistan as a civilian, are all positive steps that will help get Pakistan back on the pathway to democratic and constitutional rule.Now, it's going to be very important that once you have the state of emergency actually lifted that during that run-up to the election, which will be several weeks now if those
Daily Press Briefing. Sean McCormack, Spokesman. FULL STREAMING VIDEO. Washington, DC. November 08, 2007, 12:55 p.m. EDT. PODCAST OF THIS ARTICLEMR. MCCORMACK: Good afternoon, everybody. I don't have anything to start off with. We can get right to your questions.QUESTION: What's the status of the review of Pakistan aid?MR. MCCORMACK: It's still ongoing, underway.QUESTION: Can I just follow up on that? (Inaudible) I mean, Negroponte yesterday seemed to indicate that the Administration wants aid to continue. He's urging Congress to not block it or cut it. I mean, does that seem to indicate that this review is not going to be striking any of this aid out, that the U.S. policy towards Pakistan is not going to be changing in the light of Saturday's events?MR. MCCORMACK: Well, what I think he's saying, if you look at all of his testimony, is that we are going to conduct a review based on the actions in Pakistan, what are the realities on the ground and our law and our regulations. And
Apparently we can't draft into the military, but hell, we can draft civilian employees. Said one foreign service officer;"It's one thing if someone believes in what's going on over there and volunteers, but it's another thing to send someone over there on a forced assignment, I'm sorry, but basically that's a potential death sentence and you know it. Who will raise our children if we are dead or seriously wounded?"Oh, like they really care. There is no limit to the number of Americans they'll send to die in the desert rather than admit they've made a colossal mistake.
To: The US State Department and Homeland Security
CC: Disney Corporation
Re: see my previous post concerning US film inclusion of Horseshoe Falls in American film
I’ve decided, in my quest to reassert Canada’s claim to the Horseshoe Falls for Canada, to supply the State Department with a little map of the border between Canada and the USA.
I sincerely hope it helps identify where the border is.
I realise borders can be very pesky to you busy folks, but I can’t help but be terribly concerned you may miss a few errant Canadian beavers and other assorted other terrifying northern creatures that may be attempting to cross the border at the Falls, into the US.
I’ve included all pertinent information that may help the State Department in the future. Please feel free to download and print the handy map I have created for you. Seriously consider pinning the map to your cubicle walls if necessary. I know how hard it is to remember just where borders are. I mean, it&rsquo
Contuining with theme that this administration is great at putting the cart before the horse, they have just realized their behemouth embassy in Iraq isn't really attracting many it's workers.Seeing that diplomats do not have any interest in serving in a country as disastrous as Iraq, the state department is FORCING some employees to go and work in the largest bullseye in the Middle East.Has this ever happened before? Yes;In 1969, an entire class of entry-level diplomats was sent to serve in Vietnam, and on a smaller scale, diplomats were forcibly assigned to work at embassies in West Africa in the 1970s and 1980sAgain, Iraq and Vietnam has yet ANOTHER thing in common.
"Anxious not to repeat mistakes of past Middle East peace-making, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has turned to former presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter for tips ahead of her own conference this year."
Rice taps Clinton, Carter for Middle East advice - Yahoo! NewsWhat a stupid statement. Carter and Clinton are the ones who made the biggest mistakes in "Middle East peace-making." The term "Middle East peace-making" is stupid anyways. There will never be a real peace in the middle east as long as Israel's right to exist is not accepted. You can only maintain the appearance of peace in the middle east by having a strong Israeli military that is backed by the United States. Arab/islamic states will attack Israel as soon as they sense a weakness. Middle east peace-making is just an exercise in futility that helps get appeaser useful idiots nobel prizes that are confirmed jokes. It is a shame Secretary Rice turned into one of those idiots.
Turkey’s in Iraq.
China, Japan, and India race to the moon.
This stuff about contractors is troubling. (h/t The Agonist)
A change in the wind may offer some relief in Southern California:
Improving weather and dying winds offered some hope to weary firefighters today as they entered their fourth day of battling a deadly rash of wildfires that have raced through Southern California.
Meanwhile, losses from the fires have been estimated at more than $1 billion.
Bush is “the biggest spender since LBJ.”
BLOGS
The California National Guard cannot respond appropriately to the fires because of equipment shortages caused by the Iraq War.
Digby on Glenn Beck.
Colbert has more support among young voters than Giuliani Thompson.
Email this post...
As desperate as State is for translators, that won't hire Jews that speak Arabic. (YidwithLid, via Tomorrow War.)According to Israel National News. The US State Department was funding a business training course for middle east residents, run by the University of California (no surprise there). This program was initially open to citizens of "Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Israel (limited to Israeli Arab citizens), Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, West Bank/Gaza and Yemen."On the other hand:"Israeli-made bullets bought by the U.S. Army to plug a shortfall should be used for training only, not to fight Muslim guerrillas in Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. lawmakers told Army generals on Thursday."(Useful Fools, via Tomorrow War.)
Daily Press Briefing. Tom Casey, Deputy Spokesman. FULL STREAMING VIDEO. Washington, DC. September 26, 2007, 12:30 p.m. EDT.MR. CASEY: Okay. Well, good afternoon, everyone. Glad to be here with you. I do actually have a couple of small items I wanted to mention. First of all, we talked about this a little bit yesterday, but I wanted to encourage you all to go to www.blogs -- that's blogs with an "s" -- .state.gov and check out our launch of yesterday's new product, which is the first-ever official State Department blog which we fondly named "Dipnote" and go take a look at it. There's an introduction there from Sean. There's some postings. There's a couple of comments from Kristen Silverberg, our Assistant Secretary for International Organizations, and a little video with her as well about UN issues. And we hope what this will do is stimulate and prompt some increased activity and interaction between the Department and members of the public. QUESTION: (Inaudible.) MR. CASEY: There
The government generally has been unable to adequately address serious human rights abuses committed in the past. Inadequate resources, weak leadership, and limited accountability contributed to continued abuses by security force personnel, although with sharply reduced frequency and gravity than under past governments. The following human rights problems occurred during the year: unlawful killings by security force personnel, terrorists, vigilante groups, and mobs; torture; harsh prison conditions; arbitrary detentions; a corrupt judicial system; warrantless searches; infringements on free speech; restrictions on peaceful assembly; interference with freedom of religion by private parties, sometimes with complicity of local officials; intercommunal religious violence; violence and sexual abuse against women and children; trafficking in persons; failure to enforce labor standards and violations of worker rights, including forced child labor.On August 11, President Yudhoyono signed the W
An accident waiting to happen
A virus attack aimed at US State Department computers last May penetrated government networks after a worker in Asia opened a contaminated email.…
Read more…
A week after receiving a second consecutive failing grade on cybersecurity, officials from the Department of State on Thursday will be called on the carpet to answer questions from a House committee about a serious intrusion of the department’s computer network last summer. As part of a broader review of the federal government’s [...]
State Dept. Briefing with Tom Casey U.S. State Department spokesman Tom Casey briefs the press and answers questions. 01/18/2007: WASHINGTON, DC: 33:17 min. FULL STREAMING VIDEO. TRANSCRIPT:, 12:48 p.m. EST.MR. CASEY: Good afternoon, everyone. Pleasure to be here with you. Nice to see you here, Barry.QUESTION: Thank you.MR. CASEY: And don't have any opening statements for you, so go right to your questions.QUESTION: I have no questions.MR. CASEY: Okay. I'll move over there.QUESTION: Let's go to North Korea.MR. CASEY: Sure.QUESTION: Do you have any further readout on such conversations as may have taken place today with -- between Assistant Secretary Hill and Ambassador Kim Gye Gwan?MR. CASEY: Well, just to again recap, Chris is in Berlin. He did have meetings yesterday with Kim Gye Gwan, his North Korean counterpart, in the six-party talks. He did have an additional meeting with him today. That took place -- yesterday's took place at the U.S. Embassy in Berlin. These took place at
Daily Press Briefing, Spokesman Sean McCormack, FULL STREAMING VIDEO, file is windows media format, running time is 28:47. Department Spokesman Sean McCormack (shown during the Daily Press Briefing) was sworn in as Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs and Department Spokesman on June 2, 2005.Immediately prior to returning to the State Department, Mr. McCormack served as Special Assistant to the President, Spokesman for the National Security Council, and Deputy White House Press Secretary for Foreign Policy. State Department Photo by Michael Gross. TRANSCRIPT:, 12:45 p.m. EST.MR. MCCORMACK: Good afternoon, everybody.QUESTION: Good afternoon.MR. MCCORMACK: Good afternoon to you, Lambros. How are you?QUESTION: Very well. Happy New Year.MR. MCCORMACK: Good. Happy new year to you. I don't have any opening statements, so we can get right into your questions.QUESTION: We'll let Lambros ask his question and get it out of the way.MR. MCCORMACK: All right, Lambros. (Laughter.)QUESTION: May I
Daily Press Briefing, Spokesman Sean McCormack, FULL STREAMING VIDEO, file is windows media format, running time is 29:16. Department Spokesman Sean McCormack (shown during the Daily Press Briefing) was sworn in as Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs and Department Spokesman on June 2, 2005.Immediately prior to returning to the State Department, Mr. McCormack served as Special Assistant to the President, Spokesman for the National Security Council, and Deputy White House Press Secretary for Foreign Policy. State Department Photo by Michael Gross. TRANSCRIPT:, 12:30 p.m. EST.MR. MCCORMACK: Good afternoon, everybody. No opening statements, so we can get right into your questions. Who wants to start?Mr. Gedda.QUESTION: Do you want to tell us all that you can about the six-party talks?MR. MCCORMACK: Six-party talks. Chris talked a little bit with the press there in Beijing. After his meetings, he had a number of bilateral meetings: North Koreans, Chinese, Japanese. He characterized them
Daily Press Briefing, Spokesman Sean McCormack, FULL STREAMING VIDEO, file is windows media format, running time is 52:41. Department Spokesman Sean McCormack (shown during the Daily Press Briefing) was sworn in as Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs and Department Spokesman on June 2, 2005.Immediately prior to returning to the State Department, Mr. McCormack served as Special Assistant to the President, Spokesman for the National Security Council, and Deputy White House Press Secretary for Foreign Policy. State Department Photo by Michael Gross. TRANSCRIPT:, 12:56 p.m. EST.MR. MCCORMACK: Good afternoon. I don't have any opening statements so we can start with the questioning. Whoever would like to start.QUESTION: I wonder if you could provide any insights into the -- on the advice that the State Department collectively and individually gave the President today about Iraq.MR. MCCORMACK: Well, today's briefings were designed to update the President on what the Department of State'
President Bush Meets with Senior State Department Officials on Iraq, FULL STREAMING VIDEO, United States Department of State, Washington, D.C.THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all for coming. I just had a briefing with senior policy advisors here at the State Department. I want to thank you for your hospitality, Madam Secretary.We talked about a lot of things. We talked about what's taking place on the ground in Iraq, particularly from the perspective of the State Department. I must tell you, there are some fantastic, brave souls who are heading PRTs, provincial reconstruction teams. These are our civilian components on the ground there in Iraq. And we got a briefing from Baghdad with one of our PRT leaders here in Washington about the challenges and the tasks to help this Iraqi government get a country that can sustain and govern and defend itself.No question in my mind, there are some very brave State Department officials who are engaged in this really important endeavor. And I want to thank
Daily Press Briefing, Spokesman Sean McCormack, FULL STREAMING VIDEO, file is windows media format, running time is 32:17 Washington, DC, October 23, 2006 Department Spokesman Sean McCormack (shown during the Daily Press Briefing) was sworn in as Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs and Department Spokesman on June 2, 2005.Immediately prior to returning to the State Department, Mr. McCormack
Did you hear about the State Department official who claimed on Al-Jazeera that history may show that the United States was arrogant and stupid in it’s handling of the Iraq war? Well suddenly he’s changing his tune.
Alberto Fernandez now say’s that he want's to take it all back. According to an E-mail sent from the State Department to reporters (allegedly from him) Mr. Fernandez states that “Upon reading the transcript of my appearance on Al-Jazeera, I realized that I seriously misspoke by using the phrase ‘there has been arrogance and stupidity’ by the U.S. in Iraq.” The E-Mail further states that “This represents neither my views nor those of the State Department. I apologize.”
Now I don’t know about you, but when I use words like arrogance and stupidity I normally don’t mean brilliance and humility. Those are some pretty straightforward, hard to good up kind of words. Their meaning isn’t at all subtle. For
State Dept. Briefing with Tom Casey U.S. State Department spokesman Tom Casey briefs the press and answers questions.10/19/2006: WASHINGTON, DC: 21:29 min. FULL STREAMING VIDEO.TRANSCRIPT: 11:51 p.m. EDT.
MR. CASEY: Okay. Good morning, everyone, since we are still a little before noon. Pleasure to be here with you. I don't have any announcements for you. And the only statement I have in light of
Daily Press Briefing, Spokesman Sean McCormack, FULL STREAMING VIDEO, file is windows media format, running time is 28:10 Washington, DC, October 12, 2006 Department Spokesman Sean McCormack (shown during the Daily Press Briefing) was sworn in as Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs and Department Spokesman on June 2, 2005.Immediately prior to returning to the State Department, Mr. McCormack
