Americans Security

Forewarned is forearmed, so far as travel by Americans to Algeria is concerned. At least that's the State Department's advice. For months, the department has been advising Americans to steer clear of the North African country, where civil strife and violence are widespread.

On Valentine's Day, Congress received a gift from President Obama: the federal budget for fiscal year 2012. As its opening shot in what promises to be a long and hard budgetary battle, the White House requested $47 billion for the Department of State and the U.S. Agency for International Development. Although this is a 1% increase overall ? with extra money primarily dedicated for preventing and treating HIV/AIDS and malaria ? it makes cuts in most other major programs. Although belt-tightening is undoubtedly necessary, too many Americans ?

Despite warnings about the dangers of travel abroad and a "heightened awareness" of terrorism at home, most Americans went about their lives Friday with only the slightest of such worries. The State Department issued a "worldwide caution" on Thursday in the wake of the U.S. military strikes at suspected terrorist targets in Sudan and Afghanistan. The bulletin urged Americans overseas to "review their security practices . . . remain alert . . . [and] exercise much greater caution than usual."

As California Pizza Kitchen Inc. announced that its second-quarter earnings weren't quite as grim as expected, rumors bubbled over a reportedly dead deal between the casual dining chain and its would-be buyer, private-equity firm American Securities Capital Partners. The Los Angeles-based company declined Thursday to comment on talk about whether a deal was quashed, as was reported this week in the New York Post. The company, which offers unusual items such as Korean barbecue steak tacos and pear and gorgonzola pizza, reported net income of $4.2 million, or 17 cents a share, for the quarter ended July 4. That's a drop of just over 31% from $6.1 million, or 25 cents, a year earlier.

Insurance broker Leslie Saunders knew she was violating her personal safety code when she wore a fur coat on the Paris subway to go to the Louvre on a recent trip. "I was followed out of the Metro," Saunders recalls. "I made sure I stayed with a crowd after that, but I was very much aware of what I looked like. I stuck out as an American." Blending in and keeping a low profile is rule No.

The United States received threats against its diplomatic and military personnel in Saudi Arabia prior to Monday's deadly bombing but decided not to alter security arrangements because the desert kingdom has been among the world's "safest places," U.S. Ambassador Raymond Mabus said in Riyadh on Wednesday. U.S. intelligence has also been aware for several months that Iranian agents put U.S.

In the wake of recent threats of reprisals by terrorists for U.S. military actions in Sudan and Afghanistan, the American Automobile Assn. is urging travelers to be extra cautious while visiting abroad or passing through airports in the United States. For travel abroad, AAA offers the following tips: * Review your travel, homeowner, automobile and medical insurance policies to determine coverage for trip cancellation, interruption, loss, theft, accident or injury while overseas.

The State Department on Friday ordered all but essential employees at the U.S. Embassy and three consulates in Pakistan to return home, a move that signaled serious concern with security in the country. The order was issued five days after an embassy employee and her 17-year-old daughter were killed along with three others in a grenade attack on a Christian church in the diplomatic quarter of Islamabad, the Pakistani capital. Secretary of State Colin L.

The State Department issued a warning Wednesday to U.S. citizens abroad to beware of possible anti-American violence worldwide because of recent events in the Middle East and elsewhere. An announcement listed as reasons for caution the convictions this month of two foreigners in U.S. courts for acts of violence, guerrilla attacks in Pakistan and Egypt and "the general situation in the Middle East."

The glass has been replaced in the American Center's display windows that were smashed by vandals a few weeks ago and the soot from two firebombs has been mostly washed away. Across town, at the U.S. Embassy, there remains no trace of the grenade tossed at the face of America in February. But recent expressions of anti-American sentiment have left an indelible mark on the confidence of the few Americans who still make their home in Belgrade.

Cars breezed by the trimmed green hedges and flowers of Baghdad's Nisoor Square on Friday, while pedestrians strolled past billboards of smiling men and women promoting national elections. Little trace was left of the September 2007 day when Blackwater security guards opened fire on the crowded intersection, killing 17 civilians. On Thursday, a judge in a U.S. federal court had thrown out the criminal prosecution of five Blackwater guards involved in the shootings. The consequences of that decision were still being felt Friday by survivors of the attack, politicians and ordinary Iraqis, who expressed feelings of helplessness at the hands of the United States.

Five U.S. security contractors arrested in Baghdad have been cleared in the killing of a fellow American contractor, but two of them face drug-related charges, the Iraqi government said Thursday. Three of the U.S. contractors, and an Iraqi colleague arrested with them, will be released on bail and will still face charges of carrying unauthorized weapons and fake documents, government spokesman Ali Dabbagh said.

Guards for a U.S. security firm obstructed an investigation of allegations that one of the company's supervisors had killed his interpreter, an Afghan police chief said Friday. Noor Ahmad, 37, was shot in the head Tuesday at the compound of his employer, U.S. Protection & Investigations, in the village of Tut in Farah province, police and provincial officials said.

U.S. Marines forcibly detained a team of security guards working for an American engineering firm in Iraq after reportedly witnessing the contractors fire at U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians from an armed convoy, the military said Tuesday. After three days of detention in jail cells at a U.S. military base in Iraq, 19 employees of North Carolina-based Zapata Engineering, including 16 Americans, were released last week. All have resigned from the company and are returning home, U.S.

A private helicopter carrying civilians was shot down over central Iraq on Thursday, killing six American security guards and five others, according to a U.S. official. No one aboard the Mi-8 helicopter survived, according to the company that managed the chartered aircraft. The helicopter was 12 miles north of Baghdad on its way to a U.S. military base in Tikrit when it was struck by ground fire.

A Pakistani military supplier has been indicted in an investigation into a network now suspected of supplying both Pakistan and India with outlawed components for their nuclear weapons and ballistic missile systems, federal authorities disclosed Friday. Humayun A. Khan, 47, of Islamabad was indicted by a federal grand jury Wednesday, based in part on information provided by a former business associate who has been secretly cooperating with authorities for more than a year.

Guards for a U.S. security firm obstructed an investigation of allegations that one of the company's supervisors had killed his interpreter, an Afghan police chief said Friday. Noor Ahmad, 37, was shot in the head Tuesday at the compound of his employer, U.S. Protection & Investigations, in the village of Tut in Farah province, police and provincial officials said.

It's important for America to get the cart back in front of the horse--that is, to plan first how to succeed in peace and second how to succeed in combat. It is too early to separate real from imagined threats in the still-seething Persian Gulf or the remnants of the Soviet Union, parts of it in flames.

The State Department on Friday ordered all but essential employees at the U.S. Embassy and three consulates in Pakistan to return home, a move that signaled serious concern with security in the country. The order was issued five days after an embassy employee and her 17-year-old daughter were killed along with three others in a grenade attack on a Christian church in the diplomatic quarter of Islamabad, the Pakistani capital. Secretary of State Colin L.

Framed against the snow-draped peaks of the Wasatch Range, downtown buildings have been draped in huge blue-tinted wraps. There's a skater on the Mormon church's central office building. A skier on a bank building. A biathlon racer on the concert hall. There are also 8-foot-high chain-link fences around the press center, the medals plaza, the athletes' village. Night and day, soldiers in camouflage gear stand watch, helmets on, rifles slung over their shoulders.