CUBA/REX TILLERSON/STATE: “The U.S. will make staff reductions at its embassy in Havana permanent, the State Department said Friday [3-2-18], as officials have so far failed to determine the source of ‘health attacks’ against personnel stationed there.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had ordered most staff except for emergency personnel to leave the embassy in September. The so-called attacks, which began in late 2016 and continued on and off into the summer of 2017, affected at least 24 U.S. embassy officials or family members, with symptoms including dizziness, headaches, hearing loss and mild brain damage.
The State Department said Friday that the U.S. will initiate a plan that will keep in place reduced staffing levels that amounted to half of the personnel posted there after the embassy reopened in 2015 under then-President Barack Obama. There now will be about two dozen staffers there.
Diplomats assigned to Havana no longer will be allowed to bring family members along, an arrangement common to dangerous assignments such as in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
-Felicia Schwartz, “U.S. Permanently Reduces Staff at Embassy in Cuba,” The Wall Street Journal online, Mar. 2, 2018 02:14pm