Americas

U.S.-Cuban talks on resuming mail links don't indicate that any great rapprochement between the two Cold War foes is afoot, the Obama administration said Monday.

Officials from the State Department and the U.S. Postal Service are scheduled to meet their Cuban counterparts on Tuesday and Wednesday, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki confirmed Monday. The two countries suspended direct mail service in 1963, although mail between the two routinely travels through third countries.

“The reason we're doing this is because it's of course good for the Cuban people,” Psaki said. “This is something we feel is good for us, but it's not meant to be a signal of anything or indicate a change in policy.”

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s popularity took a hit in June amid scrutiny of the terrorist attack in Libya, according to a Gallup survey released on Monday.

The Obama administration on Friday applauded the election of its candidate to the Organization of American States' (OAS) Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. 

James Cavallaro, a Stanford Law School professor, was one of six candidates to three open spots on the panel. Critics say the United States should not have a voice on the panel since it won't submit to rulings from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the other part of the OAS's human-rights protection system.

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki predicted Friday that Cavallaro “will make a significant contribution to the independent and respected Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, a founding pillar of the Western Hemisphere's human rights architecture."

K Street's Podesta Group on Thursday announced the hiring of two new strategists, including a senior State Department official.

Bay Fang, who was deputy assistant secretary in the State Department’s Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, is joining the firm. William Bohlen, the former director of communications for the German Marshall Fund of the United States, is coming to Podesta as well.

“The accelerated growth we’ve enjoyed within our international sector has shown no signs of slowing down,” said Kimberley Fritts, CEO of Podesta Group, in a statement. “Bay and Will further cement the diplomatic experience, communications savvy and relationship advantage that only we can provide, and that our clients require to be successful on the world stage.”

A socialist newspaper has sued the State Department over its failure to hand over documents allegedly showing that the United States paid anti-Castro journalists writing about five Cuban spies who were sentenced to prison in 2001.

Liberation Newspaper says the department has failed to respond to its 2010 public-records request, in violation of the Federal Freedom of Information Act.

The complaint argues that the department has records suggesting that a U.S. jury was manipulated by the Bush administration when the five spies were sentenced to long prison sentences.

“The State Department is in possession of responsive information regarding payments made to these journalists,” the complaint alleges. “The State Department is refusing to provide this information to the Plaintiff requestor, Liberation Newspaper.”

The House on Wednesday quickly eliminated language in a 2014 spending bill that would have effectively banned immigration from Brazil for a year.

The language was a proposal from Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio), and included in the Department of Homeland Security spending bill in a House Appropriations Committee markup. Ryan's language was aimed at pressuring Brazil to extradite Claudia Hoerig to the United States for trial in the murder of her husband, Air Force Major Karl Hoerig.

President Obama should press Chinese President Xi Jinping to curb emissions of a short-lived, but highly potent heat-trapping pollutant when the leaders meet this week in California, a group of House and Senate Democrats wrote Wednesday to Obama.

The Democratic lawmakers said Obama should push Xi to join an effort led by the United States, Canada and Mexico to slash production and use of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs).

“We encourage you to raise HFCs with President Xi and to ask for his support of the North American HFC proposal. This would send a powerful and concrete message about the ability of United States and China to cooperate to address the enormous challenge of climate change,” they said, noting scientists predict HFCs could account for 20 percent of global warming by 2050.

"We're not reinventing the wheel here," TransCanada Corp. CEO Russ Girling said of the controversial pipeline.

Reports earlier this year suggested State might remove Cuba, marking a policy shift under Secretary Kerry.

The vice president is scheduled to meet with Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff on Thursday.