WORLD
September 13, 2011 | From Bloomberg
Guerrilla fighters set off bombs in central Kabul and fired toward the U.S. Embassy from atop a nearby building under renovation, the local Afghan television channel Tolo reported. The explosions erupted early in the afternoon in Kabul's New Mikrorayon neighborhood, and gunfire could be heard an hour later, according to Tolo and residents reached by phone. An unknown number of gunmen rushed into an empty building that overlooks the U.S. Embassy and the nearby headquarters of the U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force for Afghanistan, Tolo and the Pajhwok news agency reported.
ENTERTAINMENT
June 20, 2011 | By Jeff Bailey, Special to the Los Angeles Times
As the events leading up to World War II go, Franklin Roosevelt's 1933 appointment of a naïve history professor as ambassador to Germany — and the professor's decision to take his adventurous adult daughter with him — rank pretty low in importance. But in these lives, Erik Larson, author of "The Devil in the White City," finds a terrific storytelling vehicle, as William E. Dodd and his daughter, Martha, are initially taken with Adolf Hitler and his reinvigoration of Germany, and then slowly come to realize that nothing would stop Hitler from waging war and seeking to wipe out Europe's Jews.
OPINION
March 3, 2011 | By Kal Raustiala
Surely a screenplay is already in the works. An American diplomat guns down two men in broad daylight in Lahore, Pakistan. The diplomat, who secretly works for the CIA, is apprehended and turned over to the local police. In his car, according to news reports, is a Glock 9-millimeter handgun, 75 rounds of ammunition, a global positioning system device, a survival kit and a satellite phone. As U.S. officials from the president on down press for his release, he is held in a Pakistani jail, his food sniffed by dogs for fear he will be poisoned.
WORLD
March 11, 2009 | TIMES WIRE REPORTS
The U.S. Embassy authorized nonessential staff and family to leave Sudan, saying protests against the indictment of the country's president by the International Criminal Court increased the danger of anti-Western violence. The Sudanese government expelled aid groups from the Darfur region. The embassy said it had received information on terrorist threats aimed at American and European interests in Sudan. It gave no details.
WORLD
May 1, 2008 | From Times Staff and Wire Reports
Belarus declared most U.S. Embassy staff members personae non gratae and ordered them to leave the country. The United States is one of the fiercest critics of the former Soviet republic's authoritarian president. The U.S. ambassador left last month after Belarus pulled its ambassador from Washington. The embassy in Minsk, under pressure from authorities, cut its staff by half, reflecting similar cuts made by the Belarusian Embassy in Washington. Charge d'affaires Jonathan Moore, the top U.S. diplomat in Belarus, said only six officials will remain at the embassy after the latest order.
WORLD
February 12, 2008 | From Times Wire Reports
President Evo Morales declared a U.S. Embassy security officer an "undesirable person" after reports that the officer asked an American scholar and 30 Peace Corps volunteers to pass along information about Cubans and Venezuelans working in Bolivia. It was not immediately clear whether Morales intended to seek the expulsion of the official, Vincent Cooper, who according to the U.S. Embassy was recalled to Washington for consultations. Embassy spokesman Eric Watnik insisted that no embassy employee had asked the scholar or Peace Corps volunteers to participate in gathering intelligence.