The Foreign Service Journal, April 2020

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | APRIL 2020 15 White House to Purge “Disloyal” Feds? T he White House confirmed that it is seeking out disloyal employees in federal agencies, Government Executive reported on Feb. 25. “It’s not a secret that we want people in positions that work with this presi- dent, not against him, and too often we have people in this government—I mean the federal government is massive, with millions of people—and there are a lot of people out there taking action against this president and when we find them we will take appropriate action,” White House spokesperson Hogan Gidley told Fox News on Feb. 24. This follows a Feb. 23 report on the online news website Axios that over the past 18 months the Trump adminis- I f you’re interested in tracking the COVID- 19 coronavirus, Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineer- ing has put together a dashboard showing real-time data on the number of patients diagnosed with the virus, the number of deaths and the number of people who have recovered by country. The dashboard also features a map that lets you track where coronavirus cases have been found. At press time, there were 136,929 confirmed cases of coronavirus worldwide, and 5,065 deaths, accord- ing to the portal. CSSE uses several Site of the Month: Mapping the Coronavirus (bit.ly/cor-virus-map) data sources, including theWorld Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The dashboard was first shared publicly on Jan. 22. “It was developed to provide researchers, public health authorities and the general public with a user-friendly tool to track the outbreak as it unfolds,” according to Lauren Gardner, an associate profes- sor in JHU’s department of civil and systems engineering. tration has “assembled detailed lists of disloyal government officials to oust.” According to a Feb. 21 Washington Post article: “The National Security Co un- cil, the State Department and the Justice Department are targets of particular focus, according to two administration officials, and there have recently been multiple resignations and reassignments at each of those agencies.” Yovanovitch Wins Trainor Award A mbassador Marie Yovanovitch, who retired from the Foreign Service not long after testifying in the impeachment hearings, received the Trainor Award on Feb. 12 from Georgetown University’s Institute for the Study of Diplomacy. The award is presented annually to an outstanding American or foreigner who has shown distinction in the conduct of diplomacy. “We need to build a constituency among Americans,” Amb. Yovanovitch said in accepting the award. “Over the last few months, I have received hun- dreds of letters, from all over the United States, from individuals thanking me for explaining what diplomats do. Clearly, we need to do a far better job at commu- nicating our story.” Ambassador (ret.) William Burns joined Yovanovitch on the stage for a question-and-answer session following her remarks. You can view the event at bit.ly/trainor-award. United States, Taliban Reach Peace Deal T he United States signed a peace deal with the Taliban on Feb. 29 in Doha, marking the potential end of America’s longest war. But media reports suggested that key elements of the agreement were starting to buckle just days later. The agreement includes a 14-month timetable for the final withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, according to a Feb. 29 New York Times report. In exchange for the withdrawal of U.S. troops, the Taliban promises to cut ties with al-Qaida, the terrorist group respon- sible for the 9/11 attacks, and prevent the use of Afghan soil to threaten the United States and its allies. Hours after the agreement was reached, the insurgent Taliban and Afghan security forces had resumed fighting, Politico reported on March 2, “marking an end to the reduction in violence that paved the way for the agreement.” Also on March 2, the Taliban refused to take part in talks with the Afghan government, Politico reported, until the ASOFMARCH 13,2020