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Iranians elect to protest

21 Jun 2009 - Preaching the News for Sunday

In this Sunday’s first reading the Lord addresses Job out of a storm. In response to a storm of protest, Iran’s supreme leader reversed course this week and ordered an investigation into allegations of election fraud in last Friday’s presidential election. Earlier having called the reelection of Mahmud Ahmadinejad a “divine assessment,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Monday directed a high-level clerical panel to look into the charges of fraud. The move was not enough to placate supporters of opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, who have daily taken to the streets of Tehran to protest. Tuesday the country’s most senior Islamic cleric, an opponent of Khamenei, threw his weight behind charges that Ahmadinejad’s reelection was rigged. “No one in their right mind can believe” the official results from Friday’s contest, Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri said of the landslide victory claimed by Ahmadinejad. Montazeri accused the regime of handling Mousavi’s charges of fraud and the massive protests of his backers “in the worst way possible.” In an effort to quash media coverage, the Iranian Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance issued a ban on foreign news reporting of rallies in Tehran, revoked the credentials of those with temporary visas, and ordered them to leave the country as soon as possible. Cell phone service was cut in the city. To counter these restrictions a U.S. State Department official Monday emailed the social-networking site Twitter with an unusual request: Delay scheduled maintenance of its global network, which would have cut off service while Iranians were using Twitter to swap information and inform the outside world about the mushrooming protests around Tehran. The State Department said its request did not amount to meddling in Iranian affairs because the department did not contact Twitter until three days after the vote was held and well after the protests had begun. Source: Articles by Warren P. Strobel and Jonathan S. Landay for McClatchy Newspapers, Mark Landler and Brian Stelter for the New York Times, and Hashem Kalantari and Fredrik Dahl for Reuters

twitter ministry of culture and islamic guidance ali khamenei hossein ali montazeri tehran mir hossein mousavi fraud mahmud ahmadinejad election iran state department
Treacherous human trafficking condemned

21 Jun 2009 - Preaching the News for Sunday

This Sunday's gospel describes a perilous journey by boat that threatens the lives of the disciples until Jesus intervenes. The U.S. State Department, which Tuesday released its Annual Trafficking in Persons Report, strongly urged affected nations to intervene in an underground industry that threatens the freedom and well-being of impoverished children and adults forcibly shipped to countries where they are sold into virtual slavery. The report cites International Labor Organization statistics that estimate that at least 12.3 million adults and children are victims of forced labor, bonded labor, and sex slavery each year. "This is modern slavery. A crime that spans the globe, providing ruthless employers with [an] endless supply of people to abuse for financial gain," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said as she announced the report. "With this report, we hope to shine the light brightly on the scope and scale of modern slavery, so all governments can see where progress has been made and where more is needed." The report said the global economic crisis is boosting the demand for human trafficking because of a growing demand for cheap goods and services. "A striking global demand for labor and a growing supply of workers willing to take ever-greater risks for economic opportunities seem a recipe for increased forced labor cases of migrant workers and women in prostitution," it said. This year the Justice Department also put out a report on U.S. efforts to combat trafficking at home. In 2008 the Federal Bureau of Investigation opened 132 trafficking investigations, made 139 arrests, and obtained 94 convictions. Source: An article by Elise Labott for CNN

hillary clinton state department annual trafficking in persons report human trafficking slavery international labor organization
Religious persecution persists

01 Nov 2009 - Preaching the News for Sunday

Jesus promises in this Sunday's gospel that those who are "persecuted for the sake of righteousness" will be blessed. Around the world persecution of religious minorities continues to be a serious problem, according to the latest U.S. State Department report on global religious freedom. The report, released Monday, named North Korea, Iran, Myanmar, China, Sudan, Eritrea, Saudi Arabia, and Uzbekistan among the worst offenders, placing them on a watch list put out earlier this year. Officials said the latest review would help determine whether they stay on the list, which could leave some open to additional U.S. sanctions. Michael Posner, the State Department's top official for democracy and human rights, said President Barack Obama's call this year for a new beginning between the United States and Muslims did not mean sidelining religious liberty. "Religious freedom is a fundamental right, a social good, a source of stability, and a key to international security," Posner said in the introduction to the report. Posner praised interfaith dialogue efforts promoted by Jordan, Spain, and other countries. But religious repression and discrimination remained huge problems worldwide. "We're fully aware that even in countries with robust legal safeguards, including the United States, we're not immune from acts of intolerance," he said. The annual report, compiled from sources including journalists, academics, nongovernmental organizations, and human rights and religious groups, provides a long list of both setbacks and progress on religious freedom around the world. Source: An article by Andrew Quinn for Reuters

religious freedom state department persecution religious minorities michael posner
How undiplomatic of you, Wikileaks

05 Dec 2010 - Preaching the News for Sunday

“All the nations” have reason to proclaim the happiness of the Lord, says the psalmist this Sunday. Yet nations around the world are proclaiming their unhappiness this week after the unauthorized leak of a treasure trove of private U.S. diplomatic correspondence by whistleblower website Wikileaks. Given that the nations of the world lack the harmony and accord St. Paul calls for in this Sunday’s reading from the Letter to the Romans, U.S. diplomats routinely send their frank and unvarnished private opinions of foreign leaders back to the State Department. The gradual publication of some quarter-million such communications has left the Obama administration scrambling to contain the damage. On Tuesday the State Department severed its computer files from the government's classified network, significantly reducing the number of government employees who can read diplomatic posts, as U.S. and world leaders tried to tighten procedures in the wake of the damaging leak. Meanwhile, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton embarked on a hastily planned trip to smooth ruffled diplomatic feathers worldwide. Ratcheting up the heat on Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, the European law enforcement agency Interpol put him on its most-wanted list after Sweden issued an arrest warrant against Assange as part of a drawn-out rape probe. Assange’s lawyer claims Assange is being persecuted on trumped-up charges. One of the more diplomatically embarrassing revelations in the documents is that the U.S. State Department asked its diplomats to collect sensitive personal information on foreign leaders. "What worries me is the mixing of diplomatic tasks with downright espionage," U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said. State Department spokesman P. J. Crowley sought to reassure the world that U.S. diplomats were not spies, even as he sidestepped questions about why they were asked to provide DNA samples, iris scans, credit card numbers, fingerprints, and other deeply personal information about leaders at the United Nations and in foreign capitals. Source: Articles by Raphael G. Satter and Malin Rising for the Associated Press, TIME, and msnbc.com

ban ki-moon state department wikileaks diplomats hillary rodham clinton julian assange spying p j crowley
Mideast upheaval has State Department a-Twitter

20 Feb 2011 - Preaching the News for Sunday

The reading from the Book of Leviticus instructs Israel to “take no revenge and cherish no grudge against any of your people.” In the wake of Egypt’s cyber-aided uprising, the U.S. State Department is using Twitter to prod Iran’s repressive leadership to let up on the Iranian people. After launching an Arabic Twitter feed last week to communicate with Egyptian protesters, the State Department began posting in Farsi on Sunday to reach media-savvy Iranians. One message called on Iran "to allow people to enjoy same universal rights to peacefully assemble, demonstrate as in Cairo." Commenting on the new diplomatic strategy, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Tuesday that the United States stands with cyber-dissidents and democracy activists from the Middle East to China and beyond. She pledged to expand the administration's efforts to foil Internet repression in autocratic states. The State Department will spend $25 million this year on initiatives designed to protect bloggers and help them get around curbs like the Great Firewall of China, the gagging of social media sites in Iran, Cuba, Syria, Vietnam, and Myanmar as well as attempts such as Egypt's recent one to thwart anti-government protests by simply pulling the plug on online communication. She also said the department would broaden the reach of its online mini-appeals for human rights and democracy by creating accounts to cater to audiences in China, Russia, and India in their native languages. In related news, events in Egypt have set off a chain reaction of revolt around the Middle East and North Africa, with anti-government demonstrations Wednesday in Libya, Bahrain, Jordan, Yemen, and Iraq. Articles by Matthew Lee and Sarah El Deeb for the Associated Press, Paul Taylor for Reuters, and Yahoo News

twitter iran state department hillary rodham clinton
State Department raises visibility of religion

31 Jul 2011 - Preaching the News for Sunday

The awesome power of God is on display in this Sunday's readings. The U.S. State Department is going out of its way to assure observers that the most powerful nation on earth takes religion seriously, making it a growing priority for U.S. diplomacy. As an example of the new stance, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in Istanbul recently promoted a new U.S.-backed international agreement to protect freedom of speech and religion, an accord described by her department as a "landmark" change. "These are fundamental freedoms that belong to all people in all places," Clinton said, "and they are certainly essential to democracy." Clinton said the U.N. Human Rights Council’s resolution “calls upon states to protect freedom of religion, to counter offensive expression through education, interfaith dialogue, and public debate, and to prohibit discrimination, profiling, and hate crimes, but not to criminalize speech unless there is an incitement to imminent violence.” Elsewhere in the State Department the school for foreign fervice officers rolled out a new seminar last month on how diplomats can practice "religious engagement." Thomas Farr, director of the Religious Freedom Project at Georgetown University's Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, & World Affairs, welcomed the new approach. Farr, a former diplomat, was an instructor at the Foreign Service Institute's three-day seminar on religion and diplomacy. In addition, the National Security Council is touting a new partnership with the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships that represents a "renewed focus on the intersection of religion and foreign policy across the United States government," announced Faith-Based director Joshua DuBois earlier this month. Sources: Articles by Nicole Gaouette for Bloomberg.com, EcumenicalNews Service, and Lauren Markoe for Religion News Service

religion state department hillary rodham clinton foreign policy diplomacy thomas farr foreign service institute national security council joshua dubois
U.S. officials hunker down, downsize Iraq embassy

12 Feb 2012 - Preaching the News for Sunday

The reading from the Book of Leviticus this Sunday says that the person who is declared unclean “shall dwell apart, making his abode outside the camp.” A mere two years after opening a $750-million-dollar embassy in Iraq--the largest in the world--U.S. State Department officials and contractors increasingly find themselves isolated, confined to the embassy because of security concerns and frustrated by what they see as Iraqi obstructionism. As a result, fewer than two months after American troops left Iraq, the State Department is preparing to slash by as much as half the enormous diplomatic presence it had planned for Iraq, a sharp sign of declining American influence in the country. Envisioned and built by the George W. Bush Administration, the expansive diplomatic operation was billed as necessary to nurture a postwar Iraq on its shaky path to democracy and establish normal relations between the two countries. Officials spent more than a year planning the expansion, and many of the thousands of additional personnel have only recently arrived. The sudden realization that the diplomatic buildup and its $6 billion annual price tag were ill-advised and need to be scaled back represents a remarkable turnaround. After the last U.S. troops departed in December, life became more difficult for the thousands of diplomats and contractors left behind. Convoys of food that had been escorted by the U.S. military from Kuwait were delayed at border crossings when Iraqis demanded documentation that the Americans were unaccustomed to providing. At every turn, the Americans say, the Iraqi government has interfered with the activities of the diplomatic mission, one the U.S. acknowledges the Iraqis never asked for or agreed upon. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s office--and sometimes even the prime minister himself--now must approve visas for all Americans, resulting in lengthy delays. American diplomats have had trouble setting up meetings with Iraqi officials. For their part, Iraqis say they are simply enforcing their laws and protecting their sovereignty in the absence of a working agreement with the U.S. on the embassy. “We always knew that what [U.S. officials] were planning to do [with the embassy] didn’t make sense,” said Kenneth M. Pollack of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. “It’s increasingly becoming clear that they are horribly overstaffed given what they are able to accomplish.” Source: An article by Tim Arango for the New York Times

iraq nuri al-maliki state department kenneth m pollack embassy
U.S. Vatican embassy Rome relo draws criticism

08 Dec 2013 - Preaching the News for Sunday

"Welcome one another," Saint Paul tells the Christians at Rome, "as Christ welcomed you." Romans these days will be called on to welcome the staff of the United States embassy to the Holy See after the State Department announced it's moving its Vatican mission into a larger compound which includes the U.S. Embassy to Italy. The relocation has troubled several former U.S. ambassadors to the Vatican and also goes against the policy of the Holy See, which wants every country to put its missions to Italy and the Vatican in separate places.The State Department says security and cost savings of $1.4 million a year were behind the move. Former U.S. Ambassador James Nicholson, however, called the move a “massive downgrade” in U.S.-Vatican ties, turning the Vatican embassy “into a stepchild of the embassy to Italy,” he said in an interview with the National Catholic Reporter. Other former U.S. representatives to the Vatican—Francis Rooney, Mary Ann Glendon, Raymond Flynn, Thomas Melady—also objected.In the past the Vatican has insisted that countries maintain embassies to the Holy See and to Rome in different locations, but it hasn’t protested the current U.S. move. A State Department official said that while the embassies will be located on the same compound, the Vatican embassy will have separate entrances.The safety of embassies has been a concern since the 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya. The U.S. has multiple embassies in places such as Brussels and Vienna.Homily hint: The exact location of an embassy to the Vatican may not seem particularly earthshaking—the U.S. mission's move itself will be only one tenth of a mile—but it draws attention to the important role that the Holy See, the smallest internationally recognized independent state in the world, plays in international relations. Find out more about the activities of the Vatican's diplomatic arm, the Secretariat of State, on its website. Source: An article by Sarah Pulliam Bailey or Religion New Service

holy see vatican italy state department embassies james nicholson
Court cancels Congress’ passport to Jerusalem

14 Jun 2015 - Preaching the News for Sunday

The Lord may have sovereignty in Israel, expressed as the planting of a cedar tree in this Sunday’s first reading, but the U.S. Congress must defer to the president on the question of recognition of Israel’s (and any nation’s) sovereignty and territorial boundaries, according to the Supreme Court. The court struck down as unconstitutional Monday a congressional attempt to allow Americans born in the contested city of Jerusalem to list Israel as their birthplace on passports, affirming the principle that the president alone has the power to recognize foreign nations.Homily hint: There are no end-runs around peace. The status of the holy city of Jerusalem, revered by Jew, Christian, and Muslim alike, has to be resolved at the negotiating table with all parties present. The U.S. has maintained neutrality on the status of Jerusalem since the earliest days of Arab-Israeli conflict. Let’s work for a lasting peace rather than trying to legislate the problem away. For more on the passport controversy, see: Supreme Court says president’s powers prevail on foreign borders

israel jerusalem state department