Diplomats

Secretary of State George P. Shultz is angry that Congress is cutting money to protect U.S. embassies abroad against terror and to aid deserving allies like the Philippines. Next time another embassy tragedy occurs, he railed, he'll place the blame at Congress' door. Those are fighting sentiments, but if Mr. Shultz really wants to protect U.S. diplomats he should direct his anger at the White House, where it belongs. Of course, budget cuts should not deny American diplomats adequate protection against growing terrorist threats abroad.

Iran is holding contacts with visiting officials from Iraq, France, Algeria and Yemen to find ways to end the Gulf War, television and newspaper reports said. Today's Washington Post quoted a senior Iranian diplomat as saying the diplomatic activity provided a unique opportunity to see whether interested parties collectively could end the war. NBC, which also reported the visits, said the gathering had caught everyone "by surprise. " The Post identified those in Tehran as Iraq's deputy prime minister, Saadoun Hammadi; Algerian Foreign Minister Sid Ahmed Ghozali; French Foreign Ministry Secretary Gen. Francois Scheer; and a deputy foreign minister from Yemen.

Dave Wilding doesn't want to come off sounding too cocky, but Franklin and Marshall's center figured his team had to be the NCAA Division III basketball favorite. It just makes sense, said Wilding, a 6-foot-7 senior from Feasterville. The Diplomats were 28-3 in 1990-91, reached the national championship game, and have all their starters back, plus their top two reserves. "It was kind of a logical choice, looking back at the teams that made it to the Final Four," Wilding said.

Last season, for the first time in the five-year history of the Centennial Conference, a football team went undefeated in the seven conference games. That, says Swarthmore coach Fran Meagher, won't happen again. Franklin & Marshall, which went 9-1-1 overall, was the epitome of perfection in the conference. And despite Meagher's prediction, F & M could be better this year. Coach Tom Gilberg welcomes back nine starters, including senior wide receiver Dale Amos, who led the conference in receiving with 50 catches for 700 yards, both Centennial records.

The Soviet Union yesterday ordered five U.S. diplomats to leave the country for "actions which are incompatible with their official status," diplomatic parlance that usually refers to spying. The action coincided with an American deadline for the departure of 25 diplomats at the Soviet U.N. mission who were ordered to leave the United States. The United States had accused them of using their U.N. positions for espionage. In Washington, Secretary of State George P. Shultz said the United States would retaliate for the expulsions ordered by Moscow.

UNITED NATIONS - American diplomats led a walkout Thursday at the General Assembly as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad fiercely attacked the United States and major Western European nations as "arrogant powers" ruled by greed and eager for military adventurism. The two U.S. diplomats, who specialize in the Middle East, were followed out of the chamber by diplomats from more than 30 countries. They included the 27 European Union members, Australia, New Zealand, Somalia, Liechtenstein, Monaco, San Marino, and Macedonia, a U.N. diplomat said.

Afghan mujaheddin fighters have committed several bloody atrocities in recent months after taking control of government-held towns, according to Western diplomats. One was a slaughter so gruesome and premeditated that at least one Western government lodged an official protest with the mujaheddin group believed to be responsible, said the diplomats, in Afghanistan and New Delhi. In that case, the mujaheddin, who have been armed and supported by the United States for about a decade, shot and killed about 70 disarmed Afghan soldiers who surrendered to them in November at the border town of Torkham, on the Afghan side of the Khyber Pass.

He was in Iran in 1981, Libya in 1984, and Lebanon last week, this imposing, 6 1/2-foot, bearded man who looks more like a Russian Orthodox patriarch than the Anglican missionary he is. He has been variously likened to Henry Kissinger, a boy scout and a ministering angel. It's difficult to pigeonhole Terry Waite - a layman working for the Anglican Church who willingly takes himself to some of the most dangerous places a Westerner can tread, a representative of no government who succeeds where professional diplomats have failed.

Iraq, apparently breaking a promise it had made to the United States, has stopped a group of American diplomats and their dependents from leaving the country, the State Department said yesterday. The department also acknowledged that Iraq had now defined the thousands of Americans and other foreigners trapped there and in Kuwait as "restrictees," who would be used as bargaining chips or shields until the conflict was over. Iraqi officials said last week that diplomats and their dependents could leave after a seven-day waiting period.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - The Pakistani government has put new travel restrictions on American diplomats there, a U.S. official said Saturday, the latest sign of the breakdown in ties between Islamabad and Washington since the U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden. Pakistan reacted furiously to the May 2 raid deep within its borders because the mission was carried out with no warning to authorities. The fallout has battered an already frayed relationship seen as key to the fight against al-Qaeda and Washington's hopes of reaching a settlement in Afghanistan and withdrawing troops.

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - Saudi Arabia closed its Cairo embassy Saturday and recalled its ambassador following protests over a detained Egyptian human-rights lawyer in a sharp escalation of tension between two regional powerhouses already on shaky terms due to uprisings in the Arab world. The unexpected Saudi diplomatic break came after days of protests by hundreds of Egyptians outside the Saudi Embassy in Cairo and consulates in other cities to demand the release of Ahmed el-Gezawi. Relatives and human-rights groups say he was detained for allegedly insulting the kingdom's monarch.

Gov. Christie said Wednesday that his visit to Israel, where he has met this week with that nation's top leaders, will help strengthen diplomatic ties and drum up business back home. The Republican said he was confident his talks with Israeli business and political leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres, would pay off for New Jersey. "I think we'll see a lot come out of it from an economic perspective and a diplomatic perspective," Christie said Wednesday from the Sea of Galilee in a teleconference with U.S. reporters.

Iranian diplomats may have carried out "hostile reconnaissance" of sites in New York as many as six times, a warning sign that the city might be targeted for terrorist attack, according to a police official. The incidents took place between 2002 and 2010 and involved videotaping or photographing landmarks, rail service and bridges, said Mitchell Silber, director of the city police department's intelligence analysis unit, in testimony before a U.S. House panel Wednesday. Hezbollah, a militant group allied with Iran that has been designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department, also has ties to the New York region, he said.

VIENNA, Austria - Iran is poised to greatly expand uranium enrichment at a fortified underground bunker to a point that would boost how quickly it could make nuclear warheads, diplomats have told the Associated Press. They said that Tehran has put finishing touches for the installation of thousands of new-generation centrifuges at the cavernous facility - machines that can produce enriched uranium much more quickly and efficiently than its present machines. While saying that the electrical circuitry, piping and supporting equipment for the new centrifuges was now in place, the diplomats emphasized that Tehran had not started installing the new machines at its Fordo facility and could not say whether it was planning to. Still, the senior diplomats - who asked for anonymity because their information was privileged - suggested that Tehran would have little reason to prepare the ground for the better centrifuges unless it planned to operate them.

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran's top diplomat offered Monday to extend the current visit of U.N. nuclear inspectors and expressed optimism that their findings would help ease tensions, despite international claims that Iran is trying to build nuclear weapons. The comments by Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi, reported by Iran's official news agency, underscored efforts to display cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency team and downplay the expectations of a confrontation atmosphere during the three-day visit that began Sunday.

MIAMI - The United States has ordered the expulsion of Venezuela's consul general in Miami after allegations surfaced that she discussed possible cyberattacks on U.S. soil while she was stationed at her country's embassy in Mexico. The State Department said it declared the diplomat, Livia Acosta Noguera, persona non grata and had given her until Tuesday to leave the country. The Venezuelan government was notified of the decision Friday, giving Acosta 72 hours to depart under standard diplomatic procedure, department spokesman Mark Toner said.

LONDON - Britain's defense secretary warned Iran Thursday that any attempt to block the key global oil passageway the Strait of Hormuz would be illegal and unsuccessful - hinting at a robust international response. During his first visit to the Pentagon for talks with U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, Philip Hammond told the Atlantic Council in Washington that the presence of British and American naval ships in the Persian Gulf would ensure the route is kept open for trade.

KABUL, Afghanistan - The U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan said Saturday that it was unlikely that the slaying of 56 people at the Shiite shrine on a Muslim holiday would open up a new, sectarian front in the decade-long war. An extremist group that has been blamed for many attacks targeting Shiites in neighboring Pakistan has claimed responsibility for Tuesday's suicide bombing in Kabul, raising fears it was trying to stoke Shiite-Sunni tensions in...

Robert Ford, the U.S. ambassador to Syria, is back in Damascus after leaving the country in October due to concerns about his safety. In announcing his return, the State Department said he is to engage "with the full spectrum of Syrian society" and that his presence will "send the message that the United States stands with the people. " The suggestion is that President Bashar al-Assad is irrelevant; the Syrians are Ford's clients. Ford is our first true post-WikiLeaks ambassador.

TEHRAN, Iran - Iranian diplomats expelled from London in retaliation for attacks on British compounds in Tehran arrived home Saturday, the official IRNA news agency reported, sealing Iran's most serious diplomatic rift with the West in decades. About 150 hard-liners waiting with flower necklaces had gathered at Tehran's Mehrabad airport to give the roughly two dozen diplomats and their families a hero's welcome. But the Iranian government, apparently opposed to any high-profile display that could worsen the fallout, took the diplomats off unseen from a back door, reflecting Iran's own internal political rifts.