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The view from Secretary of State John Kerry's airplane as it flies over the Red Sea on the evening of March 24, 2013, en route from Amman, Jordan, to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. [State Department photo/ Public Domain]
Today's "Photo of the Week" comes to us from Secretary Kerry's staff who are currently traveling with him to the Middle East and Africa. This photograph was taken as the Secretary's U.S. Air Force jet was flying over the Red Sea on its way to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Since taking office only a few months ago, Secretary Kerry has logged 85,540 travel miles by visiting 21 countries in 44 days. According to our estimates, he's spent 188 hours (or 8 days) inside his plane!
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Ghanaian children weclome U.S. Ambassador to Ghana Gene Cretz to the Northern Region in May 2013. [State Department photo/ Public Domain]
I recently had the opportunity to travel to Tamale and the environs of the Northern Region. Throughout Ghana we have broad and rich relationships, but the relevance of our development efforts really crystallized for me in Tamale.
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President Barack Obama talks about national security, May 23, 2013, at the National Defense University at Fort McNair in Washington. [AP Photo]
Today at National Defense University, President Obama laid out the framework for U.S. counterterrorism strategy as we wind down the war in Afghanistan.
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Visitors work inside a meeting room at the world's largest mobile phone trade show in Barcelona, Spain, Feb. 28, 2012. [AP File Photo]
One year ago today, President Obama issued a directive entitled "Building a 21st Century Digital Government." The Administration launched a comprehensive Digital Government Strategy aimed at delivering better digital services to the American people.
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A woman, left, originally from Trinidad, looks at a display showing faces of immigrants with her sons after a ceremony on Ellis Island, where she took the Oath of Allegiance and became a U.S. citizen, Sept. 16, 2005 in New York. [AP File Photo]
The diaspora experience has long been "America's Story." As Russell Shorto's book, The Island at the Center of the World, details, seventeenth-century Manhattan was a microcosm of the much larger American diaspora to follow: among the island's then-400 inhabitants, 18 different languages were spoken. Centuries later, this description not only fits New York, but also the United States as a whole. Today, almost one quarter of Americans are first- or second-generation diasporans.
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Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Tara D. Sonenshine and Acting National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Chairwoman Carole Watson sign an Interagency Agreement (IAA) that provides overseas embassies the right to use grant-funded films without added expense to the American taxpayer at the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C., on May 21, 2013. [State Department photo/ Public Domain]
American movies have always been a bright and flickering window into our nation's history -- a great narrative tool to tell the American story to foreign audiences. What better way could there be to support our public diplomacy than by screening documentaries about our culture and history at more than 500 American Spaces around the world?
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A nurse tends to a patient at the Ugandan Cancer Institute in Kampala, Uganda, n.d. [AP File Photo]
During a World Health Assembly side meeting on May 20, I joined U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, and leaders from across Africa to highlight the contributions the Medical Education Partnership Initiative (MEPI) is making in meeting the priorities of national ministries of health.
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Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom Suzan Johnson Cook at the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference in Beijing, China, in May 2013. [State Department photo/ Public Domain]
During my travels on behalf of the Department of State, people sometimes ask, "Why does the Department of State expend so much effort to chronicle the status of religious freedom around the world?" Because religious freedom matters. In a world where 84 percent of the population claim a religion, it matters that people be free to make personal choices regarding their faith: to believe or not to believe, as well as to change one's religion without fear. Religious freedom matters not only because it is a universal human right, but also because it is essential for ...
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The Office of Global Intergovernmental Affairs and the Bureau of Diplomatic Security co-hosted a Symposium on Security for Major Sporting... more
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A drought simulator looms over a crop of corn at the Bradford Research Farm at the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri, on August 26, 2011. [AP File Photo]
Americans understand that one of our great national strengths is innovation. Great innovators -- Benjamin Franklin, Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and others -- are household names.
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