Marc Grossman, former United States under secretary of state for political affairs, is expected to replace the late Richard Holbrooke as Barack Obama administration's special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan. The post has been vacant since Richard Holbrooke, 68, who was the Special US Representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan for two years, died suddenly last December.An announcement in this regard is expected to be made by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
India this week made operational its new consulate in Atlanta, the fifth in the US, but the original plan was to have a new consulate each in Atlanta and Seattle.
America's top counter-terrorism official Michael Leiter will quit next month, adding to the turmoil at the top levels of United States President Barack Obama's national security team.
Asserting that the United States is trying to make its relationship work with Pakistan, the Obama Administration's point man for Afghanistan and Pakistan has said that it is important both the countries recognise that terrorism, including Haqqani Network, is a threat to both of them.
Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and Non-Proliferation Thomas Countryman said.
Egyptian Vice President Omar Suleiman was recently the target of an assassination attempt, in which two of his bodyguards were killed.A senior Obama administration official confirmed that the attack happened soon after Suleiman was appointed on January 29. The official described it as an organised attack on Suleiman's motorcade.Suleiman may take over as interim leader of Egypt in some of the proposals reportedly being considered for an expedited political transition.
Embattled Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is likely to step down immediately and turn over power to a transitional government headed by Vice President Omar Suleiman, backed by the army.
Menon reached Washington late Thursday night, several hours after his scheduled arrival, due to inclement weather in the region because of which his flights had to be diverted.
Just back from a trip to Pakistan, United States Senator John Kerry says the Obama administration expected more from that country to root out terrorist groups holed up there, observing a "fullness of measure of effort" is now required.
The United States has said that Taliban is not an enemy of America, a move seen as the latest effort of the Obama administration to send an olive branch to the terrorist outfit that ruled Afghanistan before 9/11.
"When wages rise in China, India, Brazil and elsewhere it helps relieve downward pressure on American wages," Labour Secretary Hilda Solis said.
Even as terrorism emanating from Yemen is a major security concern for the United States, a top Obama administration official has said Al Qaeda core in Pakistan remains an 'extraordinarily formidable and dangerous terrorist organisation' targeting America.
The Obama administration has dismissed demands of a group of lawmakers that United States should stop aid to Pakistan in the aftermath of the killing of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
Struggling hard to restore its ties with Pakistan in the aftermath of NATO air strike last month, the Obama administration on Tuesday said that it has not cut any civilian aid to Pakistan, noting that this is an on-going move in the Congress right now.
The Obama administration is appreciative of the investment made by Indian-owned multinationals to create new jobs in the United States as is evident from the visit of Acting United States Secretary of Commerce Rebecca Blank to Thomas Steel Strip, a Warren, Ohio-based Tata Steel unit.
Ahead of the 10th anniversary of the twin tower attacks, the US Travel Association also urged the Transportation and Security Administration to reduce the security screening wait time at major airports to less than 10 minutes.
The Obama administration hopes to get a treasure trove of information from the materials, including a computer hard drive and disks, recovered from the hideout of Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, who was killed in a United States military operation in Pakistan.
United States Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Robert O Blake, the Obama administration's point man for the subcontinent, still can't get over the Bharatiya Janata Party's opposition to the US-India civilian nuclear deal, despite the fact that it initiated and championed this accord during the time it was in power.
General Mattis has been the most steadfast champion in Trump's cabinet of the US-India defence relationship. If Trump chooses a more pliable successor, the Pentagon's attention could go off India.
Ignoring fresh calls from the United States, Pakistan on Friday said it will not budge from its decision to boycott a key conference on Afghanistan's future in Bonn next week in the wake of a cross-border NATO air strike that killed its 24 soldiers.
Pakistani diplomats are engaged in behind-the-scenes diplomacy in a bid to stop United States President Barack Obama's administration from supporting a lawsuit filed against Inter-Services Intelligence chief Lieutenant General Ahmed Shuja Pasha in a US court by relatives of two Jewish-American victims of the Mumbai terror attacks.
By any standards, 2010 would be remembered as a watershed year in India-United States ties, when American President Barack Obama paid his maiden visit to India and endorsed his country's "indispensable partner" for a permanent United Nations Security Council berth, recognising New Delhi's emergence on the world stage.
Demanding an end to the American drone attacks in the restive tribal belt, Premier Yousuf Raza Gilani has said Pakistan was trying to secure the spy plane technology from the United States and seeking enhanced intelligence- sharing so that it can act on its own against militants.
Rahul 'Richard' Verma has become the second high-ranking Indian-American official in the Obama administration to resign and return to the private sector.
Noting that the 123 Agreement between India and the US reflected deepening relationship between the two countries, top Obama Administration officials have said that it would have broader impact in the Indo-US ties.
Richard Holbrooke, US Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, who died on Monday at age 69, throughout his tenure in the Obama administration, scrupulously eschewed using the 'K' word despite constantly being baited by South Asian journalists and even US lawmakers after it was first rumoured that he would be President Obama's trouble-shooter for the subcontinent.
The United States and Pakistan are heading towards a confrontation as the Obama administration is preparing to pursue Islamabad to halt the production of nuclear bomb materials by forcing it to sign the Fissile Material Cut off Treaty, a media report said on Friday.
South Asia watchers are mixed in their opinion about whether the exposure of the Pakistani Inter Service Intelligence's incestuous relationship with the Taliban would result in the Obama administration coming down hard on Pakistan's double-game.
Dr Rajiv Shah, administrator, United States Agency for International Development, who accompanied President Barack Obama to India, said his agency's developmental relationship with India has evolved into a peer to peer partnership unlike in the past when India was simply an aid recipient.
Republican Congressman Peter King, Ranking Member of the Committee on Homeland Security, said this in two separate letters to the Attorney General Eric Holder and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
The United States is the worst affected country in the world from the coronavirus infection. There are 1.3 million coronavirus cases in the country and the death toll stands at 78,000.
The Barack Obama administration's Coordinator for Counterterrorism at the Department of State Daniel Benjamin, in an interaction with rediff.com on Wednesday, has admitted that the social services the Lashkar-e-Tayiba delivers through its front organisations like Jamat-ud-Dawah make the terror outfit even more insidious and dangerous.
Ashley Tellis, a former official in the George W Bush administration and key foreign policy adviser to Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain, had initially been a sceptic of the (United States President Barack) Obama administration's policy toward South Asia and specifically India.
Dr Rajiv Shah, administrator of the United States Agency for International Development and the highest ranking Indian American in the Obama administration, who accompanied US President Barack Obama to India said that today his agency's developmental relationship with India has evolved into a peer to peer partnership unlike in the past when India was simply an aid recipient.
Blake said, "What this visit will be remembered for is that it will mark really the first time that we have really embarked on serious, specific, global strategic cooperation in areas like open government, in areas like agriculture, or in women's empowerment, or in working together in Africa, working together in Afghanistan."
Ahead of the crucial Indo-United States strategic dialogue, the Obama administration has said that counter-terrorism cooperation with India is a "very high priority" for it as it would help prevent Mumbai-type attacks in future.
U.S. authorities have identified Sajid Mir as one of the masterminds of the 2008 Mumbai attacks that killed 166, including Gavriel Holtzberg, a young American rabbi, and his wife, Rivka.
TechNet executives are meeting with senior Obama Administration officials and an array of bipartisan Congressional leaders to advocate for a robust innovation policy agenda.
Dr Rajiv Shah, the highest-ranking Indian-American member of the Obama administration, has traveled with the President to the country his parents left in the late 1960s.
The United States on Thursday said it "strongly and vehemently" supports the Nuclear Suppliers Group clean waiver for India and hoped that the civil nuclear deal between the two countries will continue to move in a positive direction.
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