In 1994, rumors circulated that President Bill Clinton would nominate James Hormel, the openly gay American philanthropist, to the post of U.S. ambassador to Fiji. While the reason Hormel was not nominated was never clear, some argued that the White House did not pursue his nomination because the Fijian Penal Code criminalized homosexuality at the time.

Europeans were largely underwhelmed by Barack Obama's speech on limited reform of US espionage practices, saying the measures did not go far enough to address concerns over American snooping on its European allies.

Secretary of State John Kerry and Vice President Joe Biden will deliver remarks on 100,000 Strong in the Americas on Friday, January 17, 2014, at 2:45 p.m. at the Department of State. The event will also feature remarks by Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes, Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roberta S. Jacobson, and Special Advisor Kathleen Kennedy Townsend.

When historians look back at the first few decades of the 21st century, 2013 will almost certainly be seen as a game-changing year. That judgement can in the main be attributed to a series of disclosures made by American fugitive Ed Snowden, formerly a low level CIA employee and National Security Agency sub-contractor whose flight and subsequent revelations have given rise to sensational reverberations across the globe.

Russia has barred a U.S. journalist who is critical of President Vladimir Putin for five years, a move that could upset relations with the United States and has echoes of the Cold War. Moscow's treatment of David Satter could fuel concern about freedom of speech before the Winter Olympics in Sochi next month, although Putin has tried to appease critics by freeing former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky and members of the Pussy Riot protest group in the run-up to the Games.

The Internet, and particularly left-leaning U.S. blogs, are abuzz with a story in the Mexican newspaper El Universal alleging that the United States cut secret deals with one of Mexico's largest drug cartels. The nature of those deals change based on which English-language rewrite you're reading, but in the most extreme and widely circulated tellings, the U.S. allowed the Sinaloa cartel to "smuggle billions of dollars of drugs" and granted the organization "immunity and undisturbed drug trafficking" in exchange for information on rival cartels.

In 2010, I sat across the table from Assistant US Trade Representative Barbara Weisel, who was responsible for negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the mega-regional free-trade treaty among Vietnam, Malaysia, and ten other Pacific Rim countries that President Barack Obama’s administration wants to conclude in the coming weeks.

Israel's defence minister has accused US Secretary of State, John Kerry, of an "incomprehensible obsession" with his push for Middle East peace, drawing an angry response from the country's chief ally. The US State Department on Tuesday described Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon's comments as "offensive," in a mark of the degree of outrage in Washington at the latest public spat between the two allies, which follows a major row over Iran policy.