President Barack Obama said today at a press conference that he's "not familiar" with reports that Benghazi whistleblowers are being threatened:
"I'm not familiar with this notion that anybody has been blocked from testifying," said Obama. "So what I'll do is i will find out what exactly you are referring to."
In a statement marking Earth Day, Secretary of State John Kerry pledges to deal "responsibly with the clear and present danger of climate change." The former presidential candidate also notes the "fragile planet we share with the rest of humanity and which we must protect for future generations."
During President Obama’s trip to Israel last month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to apologize for the “operational mistakes” that in May 2010 led to the deaths of nine Turks who attacked Israeli commandoes after they boarded the Turkish-sponsored Mavi Marmara to prevent it from violating the maritime blockade of Gaza.
Tokyo John Kerry’s first visit as secretary of state to Asia this week will be rightly dominated by the heightened tensions on the Korean peninsula, where Kim Jong-un’s regime continues to generate headlines around the world with its bluster and brinksmanship.
Last week, the U.S. embassy in Macedonia hosted a fashion show "with a goal of supporting Macedonia’s economic development, the fashion and textile sectors, and youth entrepreneurship."
As tension rises between North Korea and America, the U.S. ambassador to South Korea, Sung Kim, went on a family vacation. The ambassador today shared his experience in a lengthy blog post.
Since Samuel Tadros first reported for THE WEEKLY STANDARD on prospective International Woman of Courage Award winner Samira Ibrahim’s anti-Semitic, pro-9/11 tweets Wednesday afternoon, some observers have argued that the State Department, as Jeffrey Goldberg writes, “narrowly averted a moral and public relations disaster.” That’s true insofar as you agree that her public statements are odious.
Yesterday, THE WEEKLY STANDARD first reported that the State Department was about to bestow an International Woman of Courage Award on an anti-Semite and 9/11 fan. Egypt women’s rights activist Samira Ibrahim had left a record on her Twitter feed of statements quoting Hitler, celebrating the murder of Israelis in Bulgaria last summer, and the September 11, 2012 siege of the U.S. embassy in Cairo.
Yesterday, Sam Tadros reported that Michelle Obama and John Kerry were planning to award the Secretary of State’s International Women of Courage Award to Samira Ibrahim, a woman who the State Department says “was among seven women subjected by the Egyptian military to forced virginity tests in March 2011.”
The world continues to experience much turmoil and angst over the possible proliferation of nuclear arms, particularly relative to North Korea, Iran, and even Russia. Just today comes word that North Korea made its most provocative statement yet, threatening a preemptive nuclear strike on the United States.