US Embassy Haiti: Employees on “Shelter In Place” Order, 15-Mile Radius Travel Restriction

November 19, 2018 By in Americans Abroad, Corruption, Hotspots, Protests, Realities of the FS, Security, U.S. Missions, WHA|Western Hemisphere Tags: , , , , Leave a comment

 

The US Embassy in Port-au-Prince issued a Security Alert on November 18 as anti-corruption protests broke out in Haiti. The alert cites protests, roadblocks, burning tires, and possible gunfire within the capital city including the areas of Petionville, Peguyville, Delmas, La Saline, Cite Soleil, Nazon, Sans Fil, Bel-Air, Champ-de-Mars, Carrefour Aeroport, Bourdon, Canape Vert, and outside the capital, in the areas of Port-de-Paix, Les Cayes, Cap Haitien, Hinche, Gonaives, and Jeremie.

The Embassy required its American employees to shelter in place. “Pending further changes, the Embassy plans to announce a delayed opening (10 a.m., Monday, November 19.” Employees remain “prohibited from traveling within Haiti beyond a 15-mile radius of the Embassy without prior Chief of Mission approval.”

Finns and Friends #RakeTheForest For Trump’s California Fire Prevention Moment

November 19, 2018 By in Disasters, Funnies, Huh? News, Social Media, Spectacular, Trends, Trump, US Presidents Tags: , , , Leave a comment

 

After you’re done laughing out loud, please consider (if you can) helping the displaced people in California who lost loved ones and homes in the wildfires.  Below are links to a few groups. Thank you!

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Snapshot: Student and Exchange Visitor Visas-Issuances/Refusals (2012-2017)

November 19, 2018 By in Consular Work, Federal Agencies, Functional Bureaus, Snapshots, State Department, Trends Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Via GAO | August 2018:

There are three categories of nonimmigrant visas for prospective students and exchange visitors. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement administers the Student and Exchange Visitor Program, under which schools are certified for enrollment of foreign students (i.e., F and M visa holders) pursuing academic, vocational, or other nonacademic studies. The Department of State’s Exchange Visitor Program manages the issuance of J visas to exchange visitors with programs for foreign nationals such as teachers, certain scholars, au pairs, camp counselors, and professorial programs. Foreign nationals on F, M, or J visas in the United States are monitored through U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Student and Exchange Visitor Information System.

  • F Student in an academic or language training program and their dependents.
  • J Exchange visitor and their dependents.
  • M Vocational student or other nonacademic student and their dependents.

Top 5 nationalities (FY 2017): Chinese 19%, Indian 10%, Korean 4%,  Vietnamese 4%,  Brazilian, 3%

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US Embassy Bamako: Two Navy SEALs, Two Marines Face Multiple Charges in Melgar’s Murder

November 15, 2018 By in AF |Africa, Americans Abroad, Court Cases, Defense Department, U.S. Missions Tags: , , , , , ,

 

This is a follow-up to our post in October 2017 about the  death of Army Staff Sgt. Logan J. Melgar who was found dead in his room at post housing in Bamako, Mali on June 4, 2017.  Two members of the Navy’s elite SEAL Team Six were reportedly under investigation in his death. (see U.S.Embassy Bamako: Army Green Beret Logan J. Melgar’s Death in Mali Under Investigation as Homicide).  Now two Navy SEALs and two Marine Raiders are facing murder charges in the 2017 death (see USNI News for charge sheet).  A medical examiner ruled that Sgt. Melgar’s death was a homicide by asphyxiation.  USNI News reports that the SEALs and Melgar lived in the same house and were members of the same joint special operations team attached to the U.S. Embassy in Bamako. These individuals will face a preliminary Article 32 hearing on the charges at Naval Station Norfolk on Dec. 10 according to USNI.

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Handbag Designer Lana J. Marks to be U.S. Ambassador to South Africa

November 15, 2018 By in Nominations, Officially In, Political Appointees, Trends, Trump Tags: , , ,

The White House announced the president’s intent to nominate handbag designer and Mar-a-Lago member Lana Marks to be his ambassador to South Africa. If confirmed, she would replaced Patrick Gaspard who served as Ambassador to Pretoria from  2013-2016.  The last career diplomat appointed as Ambassador to South Africa was Cameron R. Hume who served from 2001-2004.

Prior appointees to this position also include Donald Gips who previously served as Vice President Al Gore’s Chief Domestic Policy Advisor; career diplomat and three-time Ambassador Princeton N. Lyman; and career diplomat and four-time Ambassador Edward Joseph Perkins,

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Pompeo Swears-In @JTIP_State Ambassador-at-Large John C. Richmond #HumanTrafficking

November 15, 2018 By in Ambassadors, Mike Pompeo, Secretary of State, State Department, Top Ranks Tags: , , , ,

 

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Retired Army General John P. Abizaid to be U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia

November 14, 2018 By in Nominations, Officially In, Political Appointees, Trump Tags: , , , , ,

 

On November 13, the White House announced the president’s intent to nominate retired U.S. Army four-star General John P. Abizaid to be the next U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia. The WH released the following brief bio:

John P. Abizaid of Nevada, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
General Abizaid currently serves as the first Annenberg Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and works as a private consultant at JPA Associates. Previously, he held the Distinguished Chair of the Combating Terrorism Center at the United States Military Academy at West Point.  He has worked with the Preventative Defense Project at Stanford University and Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.  General Abizaid began his career in the U.S. Army as an infantry platoon leader and rose to become a four-star general and the longest serving commander of United States Central Command.  He served as the Director of Strategic Plans and Policy on the Joint Staff and then Director of the Joint Staff among other leadership positions.  General Abizaid was a Distinguished Graduate of the U.S. Military Academy and earned his M.A. in Middle Eastern Area Studies from Harvard University.  He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the International Institute for Strategic Studies.  General Abizaid is a recipient of the Defense Distinguished Service Medal, the Army Distinguished Service Medal, Legion of Merit, and the Bronze Star.

If confirmed, General Abizaid would succeed Joseph William Westphal (1948–) who was Ambassador to the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh from March 28, 2014–January 9, 2017.  Ambassador appointments to Saudi Arabia going back to the mid-1990’s have all been noncareer political appointees. The last career diplomat appointed as Ambassador to Saudi Arabia was Charles W. Freeman Jr. who served from 1990-1992 under George H. W. Bush.

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U.S. Secretary of State Calls Newsweek “Fake” After It Accurately Quotes Him

November 14, 2018 By in Foreign Policy, Iran, Media, Mike Pompeo, Secretary of State, Trends Tags: , , , ,

 

AND NOW THIS:

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Foreign Relations of the United States, 2018, Volume XXXXIX, Part 🍌: The Pompeo Cheese Incident

November 14, 2018 By in Huh? News, Media, Pompeo, Secretary of State, Social Media, State Department Tags: , , , , ,

 

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Whistleblower Protection Memo – How Useless Are You, Really?

November 13, 2018 By in Congress, Diplomatic Security, Org Life, Oversight, Questions, Realities of the FS, Security Clearance, State Department Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Back in July, we blogged that State/OIG cited a State Department’s revocation of an employee’s security clearance in retaliation for whistleblowing in its Semi-Annual Report to Congress for October 2017-March 2018. State/OIG recommended that the whistleblower’s security clearance be reinstated (see State/OIG Finds @StateDept Revoked Security Clearance in Retaliation For Whistleblowing).  Retaliatory revocation is not an unheard of practice but we believed this is the first time it’s been reported publicly to the Congress.

Also in July, there was a joint OIG-State memo noting that “Whistleblowers perform a critically important service to the Department of State and to the public when they disclose fraud, waste, and abuse. The Department is committed to protecting all personnel against reprisal for whistleblowing.  This summer OIG told us that Congress enacted a new provision in 2017 that requires an agency to suspend for at least 3 days a supervisor found to have engaged in a prohibited personnel practice, such as whistleblower retaliation, and to propose removal of a supervisor for the second prohibited personnel practice. (see @StateDept’s Retaliatory Security Clearance Revocation Now Punishable By [INSERT Three Guesses].

In September, we note the time lapse since the official report was made to the Congress and wondered what action the State Department took in this case.  If the State Department believes, as the memo states that “Whistleblowers perform a critically important service to the Department of State and to the public” we really wanted to know what the State Department has done to the official/officials responsible for this retaliatory security clearance revocation.

We also want to see how solid is that commitment in protecting personnel against reprisal — not in words, but action.  So we’ve asked the State Department the following questions:

1) Has the security clearance been reinstated for the affected employee, and if so, when?

2) Has the senior official who engaged in this prohibited personnel practice been suspended per congressional mandate, and if so, when and for how long? and

3) Has the State Department proposed a removal of any supervisor/s for engaging in this prohibited personnel practice now or in the past?

As you can imagine, our friends over there are busy swaggering and to-date have not found the time to write back.

Folks, it’s been eight months since that annual report went to the U.S. Congress. If you’re not going to penalize the official or officials who revoked an employee’s security clearance out of retaliation, you were just wasting the letters of the alphabet and toner in that darn paper writing out a whistleblower protection memo.

And the Congress should be rightly pissed.

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