On Jan. 29, Domingos Fezas Vital, Portugal’s ambassador to the United States, hosted a webinar with top representatives of the Greek, Irish, Italian, Polish and Portuguese diaspora communities.
Larry Luxner
Miami native Larry Luxner, a veteran journalist and photographer, has reported from more than 100 countries in Latin America, Africa, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Asia for a variety of news outlets. He lived for many years in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and the Washington, D.C., area before relocating to Israel in January 2017. Larry has been news editor of The Washington Diplomat since 2005.
“Virtual diplomacy” just took on a whole new meaning. On Feb. 1, for the first time in history, two countries — in this case Israel and Kosovo — established official ties remotely, during a 28-minute ceremony broadcast via Zoom from two capital cities nearly 1,100 miles apart.
With COVID-19 casting a frightening shadow over the world, several experts debated the pluses and, mostly, minuses of our current virtual reality, in which public health concerns have trumped international travel, making it nearly impossible for diplomats to meet face-to-face.
In the midst of political chaos in the nation’s capital—and with coronavirus death tolls across the United States now exceeding 4,000 a day, the Meridian International Center welcomed 15 newly credentialed foreign ambassadors to Washington, D.C.
It’s not too late to check out “Nordic Women in Film 2021,” a five-week celebration of Scandinavian artistic ambition and cultural exchange, will allow audiences across the United States to watch five contemporary films, followed by intimate panel discussions with groundbreaking female Nordic and American filmmakers.
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.
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.
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.
