Daily Archives: February 11, 2016

SFRC Hearing on Feb 11: Stewart, Riley, Dandekar, Matthews, Escobari

February 11, 2016 By in Congress, Nominations, Obama, Officially In, SFRC, State Department, USAID Tags: , , , , , ,

Posted: 4:28  pm EDT
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Today, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a confirmation hearing for the following State Department and USAID nominees:

  • The Honorable Karen Brevard Stewart
    Of Florida, A Career Member Of The Senior Foreign Service, Class Of Minister-Counselor, To Be Ambassador Extraordinary And Plenipotentiary Of The United States Of America To The Republic Of The Marshall Islands
    Adobe Acrobat DocumentDownload Testimony
  • Mr. Robert Annan Riley III
    Of Florida, A Career Member Of The Senior Foreign Service, Class Of Minister-Counselor, To Be Ambassador Extraordinary And Plenipotentiary Of The United States Of America To The Federated States Of Micronesia
    Adobe Acrobat DocumentDownload Testimony
  • Ms. Swati A. Dandekar
    Of Iowa, To Be United States Director Of The Asian Development Bank, With The Rank Of Ambassador
    Adobe Acrobat DocumentDownload Testimony
  • Mr. Matthew John Matthews
    Of Oregon, A Career Member Of The Senior Foreign Service, Class Of Minister-Counselor, For The Rank Of Ambassador During His Tenure Of Service As United States Senior Official For The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Forum
    Adobe Acrobat DocumentDownload Testimony
  • Ms. Marcela Escobari
    Of Massachusetts, To Be An Assistant Administrator Of The United States Agency For International Development
    Adobe Acrobat DocumentDownload Testimony

The SFRC page with the video of the hearing is available here.

 

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What about your own embassy staff and employees? Are you urging pregnant women to come home? #Zika

February 11, 2016 By in Americans Abroad, Foreign Service, FSOs, MEDical, Realities of the FS, Spouses, State Department, U.S. Missions, WHA|Western Hemisphere Tags: , , , 2 Comments

Posted: 2:14 am EDT
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During the February 5 Daily Press Briefing, State Department spox John Kirby talked about the zika virus. And he was asked this:

QUESTION: What about your own embassy staff and employees? Are you urging pregnant women to come home?

MR KIRBY: At this time, I’m not aware of any warning to pregnant U.S. Government employees overseas in terms of coming home. These are obviously decisions that they have to make. But we are, however, just like we would for American citizens, certainly making sure that we’re providing our posts and our employees all the information that they need and that they have – that is available so that they can make these informed decisions. But I’m – I’m not aware of any order or requirement here at the State Department to order them back home.

But there’s a lot going on. And I can tell you Secretary Kerry is very focused on this. We were – he was talking about this just yesterday morning in a – I’m sorry, just this morning in a staff meeting, in a morning staff meeting. So it’s very much on his mind, and we’re going to continue to work with the interagency to do as much as we can. And obviously, it’s an evolving situation. As information becomes available or needs to change, we’ll change that.

We understand that an ALDAC that was sent out on January 21st, that says ALL pregnant USG employees or family members covered under the Department of State Medical Program are authorized voluntary medical evacuation from posts affected by Zika.

 

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We could use your help to carry on for another year

February 11, 2016 By in Blognotes Tags: ,

Posted: 1:38 am EDT
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Our fundraising effort to keep the blog running for another 12 months is entering its 5th week (Go Diplopundit 2016). We’ve reached the halfway mark on February 10 but have so far raised 38% of the funding goal.  There are still four weeks to go so we are cautiously optimistic but also realistic. We have more readers than ever before but the donation/ad revenue hybrid to fund the blog is difficult to sustain.

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Last year was a gift that extended the blog’s presence for 12 months.  We could still get funded (or win the lottery, hey :-)) but this year could also be an already familiar story from the past.

In any case, we will see GFM II through until March 10.  This is the year when we’re going to just let the river run as the song goes.  You know best whether our work is of value to you or not. If it is, and if your circumstances allow it, we could use your help to carry on for another year. Thanks!

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