The Trump administration on Friday detailed its plans to put the U.S. Agency for International Development, the government’s main agency for distributing foreign aid, fully under the State Department and reduce its staff to some 15 positions. An email to U.S.A.I.D. employees informing them of the impending layoffs, titled “U.S.A.I.D.’s Final Mission” and sent just … Read more
The Trump administration sent a flight carrying deportees from the United States to Venezuela on Sunday, the first such flight since the Venezuelan government reached an agreement with the Trump administration on Saturday to resume accepting them. Diosdado Cabello, Venezuela’s interior minister, invited journalists to an airport near Caracas, the capital, on Sunday at 8 … Read more
The Trump administration invoked an obscure legal statute over the weekend in an attempt to deport a recent Columbia University graduate — and lawful permanent resident of the United States — who helped lead campus protests against Israel last year, people with knowledge of the action said on Monday. Mahmoud Khalil, 30, who graduated in … Read more
President Trump’s sweeping executive order to halt foreign aid threatens to freeze a U.S. program supporting security forces inside a notorious camp in the Syrian desert that holds tens of thousands of Islamic State members and their families, Syrian and U.S. officials said. The order has also wreaked havoc on another U.S. organization in Syria … Read more
The U. S. State Department raised the India Travel Advisory to Level 2 on a scale of 1 to 4, with Level 4 being the highest advisory level due to greater likelihood of life-threatening risks The U. S. State Department raised the India Travel Advisory to Level 2 on a scale of 1 to 4, … Read more
Afghanistan is “at the brink of economic collapse” and the international community must urgently resume funding and provide humanitarian assistance, Pakistan‘s foreign minister warned Thursday as US, Chinese, Russian and Taliban diplomats met in Islamabad. Shah Mehmood Qureshi spoke at the opening of the so-called “troika plus” meeting, which included Thomas West, the new US … Read more
President Joe Biden authorized on Saturday an additional 1,000 U.S. troops for deployment to Afghanistan, raising to roughly 5,000 the number of U.S. troops to ensure what Biden called an “orderly and safe drawdown” of American and allied personnel. U.S. troops will also help in the evacuation of Afghans who worked with the military during … Read more
Senior diplomats from the United States and Russia held what the State Department described as “substantive and professional” talks on arms control and other strategic issues on Wednesday despite myriad other differences that have sent relations into a tailspin. The State Department said the discussions in Geneva produced no breakthroughs but said they did yield … Read more
A report on the origins of COVID-19 by a U.S. government national laboratory concluded that the hypothesis claiming the virus leaked from a Chinese lab in Wuhan is plausible and deserves further investigation, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, citing people familiar with the classified document. The study was prepared in May 2020 by … Read more
US President Joe Biden on Monday asked his top diplomat Antony Blinken to travel to the Middle East to meet Israeli and Palestinian leaders, among other regional leaders, and advance the peace process, amid a ceasefire between the two sides. “Following up on our quiet, intensive diplomacy to bring about a ceasefire between Israel and … Read more