ARLINGTON, Va. — Active-duty airmen who are facing dependent-restricted tours and are married to foreign-born spouses can now apply online for the Air Force’s Designated Location Move assignment program.

Qualified candidates receive government funding to temporarily return to their native country while their military spouse serves a dependent-restricted tour.

DLM applications are now available on the Air Force’s CAC-enabled, Web-based virtual Military Personnel Flight, or vMPF. But each candidate will still be interviewed by his commander, according to officials from the Air Force Personnel Center at Randolph Air Force Base, Texas.

The commander will assess whether a spouse can cope independently, or whether language barriers, a lack of driver’s license, or other assimilation issues make it too difficult in the absence of the military member.

For more information on the DLM program, call the AF Personnel Center at (800) 616-3775.

Air Force unveils new Web site for retireesARLINGTON, Va. — The Air Force has a new public Web site for the Air Force retiree community: www.retirees.af.mil.

The site includes information on issues of special interest to retirees, such as the Survivor Benefit Plan and a list of Air Force Retiree Activities Offices worldwide, and a special icon that gives readers quick access to the Combat-Related Special Compensation information page. There are also sections dedicated to the Afterburner, the Air Force retiree newsletter, and Air Force Retiree News Service.

Visitors can find their way around the site by using the top navigation bar on the home page, which can also be used to subscribe electronically to publications and news releases.

Air Force officials said they are eager to make sure the site is easy to use, particularly “for those subscribers who are not quite as computer savvy, who do not have the latest and greatest computer systems, or who lack the fastest Internet Service Providers.”

U.S. office in Kosovo now is embassySeven weeks after formally recognizing Kosovo as an independent state, the United States Office in Pristina has officially changed its status to that of an embassy.

U.S. State Department officials held a ceremony Tuesday to mark the occasion, according to a statement. The event was attended by several Kosovar dignitaries.

The elevated status follows the Feb. 17 declaration of independence by the Kosovo parliament, a move the U.S. formally endorsed the next day. Most European capitals back the decree, though Serbia and Russia vehemently oppose it.

The U.S. Office in Pristina opened in 1999 following the NATO-led campaign against Serbia, triggered by Serbia’s violent crackdown on ethnic Albanians. Since then, Kosovo has been administered by the United Nations, and tens of thousands of U.S. troops have deployed there as peacekeepers.

Migrated