In response to the US government’s expulsion of Russian diplomats from the United States and closure of the Russian Consulate in Seattle, Russia has responded by announcing the expulsion of sixty American diplomats along with envoys from other countries as well as the closing of the American Consulate in St. Petersburg, Russia’s second-largest city. The crisis is the result of investigations into the March 4 poisoning of a former Russian double agent and his daughter in Salisbury, England that showed Russia was likely responsible. The Consulate in St. Petersburg has been closed effective March 31, and the US Embassy in Russia notified Americans in the St. Petersburg consular district that they should contact the US Embassy in Moscow for all emergency assistance and routine services.
Read moreDiplomats and Their Special Privileges
Over 100,000 representatives of foreign governments, including their dependents, are in the United States, and many of these foreign representatives are entitled to some degree of diplomatic immunity and certain privileges. We have written about a variety of immigrant and nonimmigrant visa types for foreign nationals, but diplomats are, in a word, special. We thought we’d take a closer look at visa types for diplomats as well as their privileges while in the US and, importantly, whether they are really responsible for those unpaid parking tickets!
Read moreUnited States to Resume Diplomatic Relations with Cuba After More than Fifty Years
The United States will restore diplomatic relations with Cuba, President Obama announced last week, ending he said "an outdated approach that for decades has failed to advance our interests, and instead we will begin to normalize relations between our two countries." The announcement was the result of secret eighteen-month negotiations between the two governments aided by Pope Francis that involved a prisoner swap as well as the release of imprisoned Cuban political dissidents and, separately on humanitarian grounds, American contractor Alan Gross.
The next steps will involve re-establishing the US Embassy in Havana in the coming months and high-level diplomatic talks between the two governments under the leadership of Secretary of State John Kerry, who said that the move to restore relations (severed in January 1961) is the "best way to help bring freedom and opportunity to the Cuban people, and to promote America's national security interests in the Americas, including greater regional stability and economic opportunities for American businesses."
While the US trade embargo will need congressional action to be fully lifted, President Obama's actions will facilitate the expansion of travel to Cuba by US nationals under the general travel licenses (which, incidentally, is how Jay-Z and Beyoncé traveled to Cuba), ease travel for Americans for business purposes, facilitate authorized financial transactions between the US and Cuba as well as the use of American debit and credit cards in Cuba, and expand commercial sales and exports to and from the US.
Cuban President Raúl Castro praised the move but "told his nation that the change did not mean the end of communist rule in Cuba."