Two of the biggest international stories of 2020 — COVID-19 and the Arab world’s gradual warming to Israel — dominated the awards gala hosted by the Washington-based nonprofit group America Abroad Media.
Larry Luxner
The ongoing pandemic has turned Washington’s annual Winternational event into an online, year-round marketplace celebrating the D.C.’s diverse diplomatic community and its artisan diaspora.
Say the word “diplomat” and most people automatically think of the roughly 175 ambassadors who represent their countries at physical embassies in the nation’s capital. Yet when foreign nationals find themselves in a pickle, they usually turn to consular officers — not ambassadors — for assistance.
With the pandemic raging all around us, folks are doing their best to stay healthy and keep immunity levels as high as possible. No wonder 700 people tuned in last week to the Italian Embassy’s Nov. 16 webinar “The Healing Power of the Mediterranean Diet.”
“The Minsk government’s repeated attempts to intimidate society has been ineffective. We cannot abandon the democratic movement in Belarus in its time of need,” said Polish Ambassador Piotr Wilczek, who joined a recent panel of experts to discuss the brutal crackdown on protesters by the Lukashenko regime.
From tiny Monaco, the world’s second-smallest country in size, to vast Canada, the world’s second-largest, foreign governments have more women representing them here than ever before. And for roughly the last three years, an informal club exists for these sisters-in-diplomacy: the Washington Women’s Power Group.
Ambassadors from Albania, Monaco, Uzbekistan and the Czech Republic describe how COVID-19 has hurt their countries — and upended diplomacy in D.C.
As NATO faces a barrage of criticism from President Trump, two former U.S. ambassadors have come to its defense.
