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Cover Story
As Balkans Emerges from Bloodstained
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People of World Influence
Hillary’s Tech Guru Ponders
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Peculiar Politics
Road to White House Paved
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Reneging on Gitmo?
Obama and Guantánamo Bay:
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Budget Breakdown
Omnibus Grab Bag Has Something
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21st-Century Barbarism
No Place for Niceties in Fight
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Ambassador Accolades
NUSACC Honors Lebanon’s
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Diplomacy Verbatim
Small in Size, Prestigious Microstate
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Digital Diplomacy Forum
Can Online Tools Replace
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Alec Ross has come a long way from his college days in West Virginia. Today, the 44-year-old consultant, author and father of three young children now travels in lofty circles as one of America’s foremost innovation experts, a badge he burnished as Hillary Clinton’s first-ever senior advisor for innovation during her tenure as U.S. secretary of state. 
So you want to be president of the United States? It takes a thick skin and an appetite for the quirks and peculiarities that make up an American election. We’ve compiled a list of some of the oddities and eccentricities that make the road to the White House such a distinctly American journey. 
Campaigning for president in 2007, Sen. Barack Obama described the U.S. military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, as a stain on the American soul. In one of his first executive orders as president, Obama called for the detention center’s closure within a year. Seven years later, the most expensive prison on earth threatens to outlive his presidency. 
The tussle for fiscal 2016 was different, with eleventh-hour verbal jousting taking place behind close doors, and all sorts of policy measures buried deep in the 2,000-plus pages of law that will guide federal spending for the next fiscal year. 
At the ripe old age of 7, Leyla Hussein had become one of millions of girls who are the victims of female genital mutilation (FGM), though she prefers the term survivor. Today, the Somali-born social activist is leading the charge to end FGM, which, she notes, impacts some 140 million girls around the world, even in places you might not expect. 
For the first time in its 11-year history, the National U.S.-Arab Chamber of Commerce’s Ambassador of the Year award has gone to a Lebanese diplomat: Antoine Chedid. NUSACC presented Chedid with the prize Dec. 8 at a luncheon attended by more than 100 business and government leaders at Georgetown’s Ritz-Carlton hotel. 
Monaco is the world’s second-smallest country at just under one square mile, and one of its most densely populated. But according to Monaco’s articulate ambassador in Washington, Maguy Maccario Doyle, Monaco is not only teeming with people and prestige, it’s also packed with history and flair. 
Italian Ambassador Claudio Bisogniero welcomed guests to “Beyond Social Media: The Role of Data Visualization, E-Learning and Digital Mapping in Diplomacy,” a discussion held at the Italian Embassy as part of its Digital Diplomacy Series. 