Dafna Hochman Rand
Washington D.C./10.11.23/Turan: U.S. President Joe Biden on Thursday announced his new pick for the State Department's top human rights envoy position, TURAN's Washington correspondent reports.
Dafna Hochman Rand, who is currently at Georgetown and Princeton, is Biden’s nominee to be assistant secretary of State for democracy, human rights, and labor.
She previously served as a deputy assistant secretary of state under the Obama administration.
Rand "will be an extraordinary leader in this job. I hope the Senate will swiftly confirm her," her former boss Tom Malinowski tweeted Thursday afternoon.
If confirmed, she will be the Biden administration's first top human rights envoy as the president's previous pick Sarah Margon had withdrawn from contention last year in the face of unrelenting opposition from Senate Republicans who questioned her support for Israel.
The new announcement came just a day after Biden pledged that his country, together with partners and allies, "will continue to defend the fundamental freedoms and human rights entitled to every person around the world."
When asked on Thursday by TURAN's correspondent if the State Department was going to beef up its toolkit to protect human rights better globally, principal deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel told a daily briefing: "One of the first things that Secretary Blinken, President Biden, Vice President Harris made clear at the beginning of this administration was the role that human rights is going to continue to play and the forefront at which we put it when it comes to our foreign policy. And that will continue to be the case. Around the world, when we have seen infringements on human rights, we have been clear about that."
Alex Raufoglu
Politics
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On the eve of the closing of the COP29 climate conference in Baku, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has drawn attention to the criminal cases of journalists detained in Azerbaijan.
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Negotiations at the 29th session of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Baku have been extended until November 24, a source in the UNFCCC Secretariat told the Turan news agency. According to the source, participants aim to finalize and sign the concluding documents by that date.
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According to the Turkish newspaper Sabah, officials from the Istanbul Prosecutor's Office's Anti-Smuggling Unit have detained an Azerbaijani citizen with a large shipment of gold. The detention took place near the Vadi İstanbul shopping center in the Sarıyer district, where a taxi was stopped. During the search, 70 kg of gold was found. The Azerbaijani citizen in the vehicle claimed ownership of the cargo and also stated that he was a diplomat. The investigation by the prosecutor's office is ongoing, reports Sabah newspaper. The media outlet does not disclose the name of the "diplomat," only his initials – M.G.Ş. The Azerbaijani Ministry of Foreign Affairs has declined to comment on the situation.
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On November 22, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan discussed negotiations with Azerbaijan regarding a peace treaty in an interview with Public TV. In particular, he emphasized that society should move away from certain stereotypes. “We are outraged when we hear the term ‘Western Azerbaijan.’ But we don’t think that when we say ‘Western Armenia,’ it also irritates anyone,” he stated.
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