State Department

More than half of all terrorist deaths during 2007 occurred in Iraq and the world suffered an overall increase in terrorist deaths, partly due to rises in violence in Afghanistan and Pakistan as well as Iraq, the US state department said today. In its annual counterterrorism report, the US state department said the number of people killed or injured in terrorist attacks jumped to 67,000 in 2007, up from 59,000 the year before. About 60% of those occurred in Iraq.

Under pressure from a lawsuit, the State Department is changing rules that had disqualified HIV-positive people from becoming U.S. diplomats.

After 9/11, the State Department allowed more and more Iranians to legally enter the United States through Diversity Visas, an immigration program that two government investigations have identified as a national security risk. Iran, among four other nations, is defined as a terror-sponsoring state by the State Department.

With so much fighting going on about people who want to get into the country, we didn't realize how hard it is to get out. Chaos at the U.S. Passport office has left thousands of travelers stranded stateside, many of them holding useless airplane and cruise tickets -- a situation one critic calls "reverse Ellis Island."

The murky diplomatic status of a proposed Mexican customs clearinghouse in Kansas City has gotten murkier.

Since last spring, local officials and the Washington office of Sen. Kit Bond all have insisted that the matter was moving through government channels.