UK's Tandem Ambassadors Assignment to 'Love Embassy' Roils Yerevan

The Daily Mail recently reported that the UK's Foreign Office has been accused of making Britain a laughing stock by appointing a married couple to share a senior diplomatic appointment.

The married couple is Jonathan Aves and his wife Katherine Leach who will take turns to be the ambassador to Armenia, each doing the job for four months while the other spends that time looking after their children.

Critics in the former Soviet republic say the unusual arrangement means Britain is displaying a ‘lack of seriousness’ towards the country.

The controversy comes after it was revealed that the current ambassador recently married an Armenian woman working at the British Embassy.

The two developments have led to local politicians nicknaming the British mission the ‘love embassy’.

Mr Aves, 51, and his 41-year-old wife will both have the title of ambassador when they move to the Armenian ¬capital, Yerevan, next January with their children Maddie, seven, Mimi, four, and Joe, two.

The report quotes Arman Navasardyan, the country's former deputy foreign minister:

‘The British do not take us Armenians seriously. I doubt whether they would send a couple to the United States or many other countries.’

‘Ambassadors normally spend their first two years getting to know the country and only the third year brings real returns. Yet here we have a wife as ambassador for a few months, then her husband. Then what? Madam again?

‘The attitude here is predictable – raised eyebrows and laughter. We don’t understand why Armenia should be treated in this manner.’

The report also notes that the couple recently completed a joint posting at the British Embassy in Tokyo but the move to Yerevan will be their first ambassadorial role.  The FCO gave two reasons for the tandem posting:

A Foreign Office spokesman said: ‘Joint postings are a modern way of working which help deliver the best possible diplomatic service in the host country.
‘They also provide better value for the UK taxpayer as they keep families together and reduce travel and shipping costs.’

That is so understandable.  Read in full here.

Below is an excerpt from the official FCO statement:

Mr Jonathan James Aves and Ms Katherine Jane Leach, a husband and wife team, have been appointed Her Majesty’s Joint Ambassadors to the Republic of Armenia in succession to Mr Charles John Lonsdale, who will be transferring to another Diplomatic Service appointment. Mr Aves and Ms Leach will take up their appointment during January 2012. Both Mr Aves and Ms Leach will be permanently resident in Yerevan and alternate in exercising the functions of Ambassador on a four-monthly rotation.

Mr Aves and Ms Leach joined the FCO in 1996 and 2000 respectively, following careers in academia and public opinion research. Together they have many years’ experience and knowledge of the history, languages and culture of the South Caucasus and the wider region. Their FCO careers have covered a range of policy areas including security policy, EU trade and development, energy security and human rights. Most recently they had a joint posting to Tokyo where Mr Aves coordinated the UK’s political input into Japan’s 2008 G8 Chairmanship and Ms Leach coordinated UK and Japanese positions in advance of the UN climate change summit in Cancun and worked with UK and Japanese business to promote low carbon prosperity. In 2011, Mr Aves worked on the UK’s input into the UN Human Rights Council on issues such as Libya, Syria and Iran.

The Daily Mail calls it a bizarre job share but I think their joint ambassadorial posting is just swell. They are both career diplomats; can't expect Ms. Leach to just stay home and be homemaker while Mr. Aves run the British mission!  C'mon folks, it's the 21st century!

The State Department has a few tandem couples who are ambassadors (two comes to mind, Mary Warlick in Serbia; James Warlick in Bulgaria; Kristine Kenney in Thailand and William Brownfield, formerly Ambassador to Colombia and now with INL) but I cannot recall a joint ambassadorship ever.

On second thought, because we do have political ambassadorships, I'm not sure a joint ambassadorship would be a good precedent for the U.S. diplomatic service.

Although if it happens, I'm sure it would be a hit for political contributors and über bundlers  in search of plum assignments as Mr. Ambassador and Mrs. Ambassador!

Related articles

• Casinos and darkness en route to Yerevan airport (ditord.com)
• Yerevan pretty affordable according to global survey (ditord.com)
• FCO adopts Foursquare to keep Brits informed overseas (mynewsfix.com)

 

 

 

 

UK's Rory Stewart: Time to end the war in Afghanistan

British MP Rory Stewart walked across Afghanistan after 9/11, talking with citizens and warlords alike. Now, a decade later, he asks: Why are Western and coalition forces still fighting there?

Via TED:

Now the member of British Parliament for Penrith and the Border, in rural northwest England, Rory Stewart has led a fascinatingly broad life of public service. He joined the Foreign Office after school, then left to begin a years-long series of walks across the Muslim world. In 2002, his extraordinary walk across post-9/11 Afghanistan resulted in his first book, The Places in Between. After the invasion of Iraq in 2003, he served as a Deputy Governorate Co-Ordinator in Southern Iraq for the coalition forces, and later founded a charity in Kabul.

To secure his Conservative seat in Parliament, he went on a walking tour of Penrith, covering the entire county as he talked to voters. In 2008, Esquire called him one of the 75 most influential people of the 21st century.

He says: "The world isn't one way or another. Things can be changed very, very rapidly by someone with sufficient confidence, sufficient knowledge and sufficient authority."

"Stewart has long known that diplomacy of the deed is the only kind that matters." - Parag Khana

More details from his books' website:

Rory Stewart was born in Hong Kong and grew up in Malaysia. He served briefly as an officer in the British Army (the Black Watch), studied history and philosophy at Balliol College, Oxford and then joined the British Diplomatic Service. He worked in the British Embassy in Indonesia and then, in the wake of the Kosovo campaign, as the British Representative in Montenegro. In 2000 he took two years off and began walking from Turkey to Bangladesh. He covered 6000 miles on foot alone across Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Nepal -- a journey described in The Places in Between.

In 2003, he became the coalition Deputy Governor of Maysan and Dhi Qar -- two provinces in the Marsh Arab region of Southern Iraq. He has written for a range of publications including the New York Times Magazine, the London Review of Books, the Sunday Times, the Guardian, the Financial Times and Granta. In 2004, he was awarded the Order of the British Empire and became a Fellow of the Carr Centre at Harvard University.

He is also the author of The Prince of the Marshes And Other Occupational Hazards of a Year in Iraq.

Related articles

• The Places In Between by Rory Stewart (lostateminor.com)
• MPs push for better rural broadband (telegraph.co.uk)
• 'British Taliban' arrested in Afghanistan (guardian.co.uk)

FCO to reposition diplomats, EU diplos under fire, India, India, India and more....

Serious concerns are being voiced that the newly-created European External Action Service (EEAS) - known as "Europe's State Department" - and the EU Commission are going beyond their remit to speak for the EU - {The Telegraph}

FCO is increasing its presence in India and China, the world's two emerging superpowers; 50 diplomats to be deployed to China and 30 to India.  {VOA News.com}

India has long shown mouselike diplomatic clout but that's changing as it starts to make waves in Africa {The Economist}.

State Department's "Experience America" to Bring Ambassadors to Alaska {Alaska Journal}

U.S. authorities are investigating whether an Indian software giant Infosys Technologies Ltd.  repeatedly violated American visa laws in order to place its own foreign employees in temporary jobs at some big corporate clients in the U.S. {Wall Street Journal}

Diplomatic Immunity Interpretation: US  vs. India {Hindustantimes}

Tom Shah and Molly Huckaby Hardy were among the 44 U.S. Embassy employees killed when a truck bomb exploded outside the embassy compound in Kenya in 1998. Though it has never been publicly acknowledged, the two were working undercover for the CIA. In al-Qaida's war on the United States, they are believed to be the first CIA casualties.
{Yahoo/AP}

Catherine Hurd: Woman, Mother, Wife of UK Diplomat Dies in NYC, Leaves No Note

In death, we only know her as a mother of five who fell four storeys, and as wife of a British diplomat posted at the UN in New York. The Telegraph's news account is headlined "Lord Hurd's daughter-in-law plunges to death ..." Her father-in-law was Douglas Hurd, a former foreign secretary for the UK's diplomatic service.

The news stories also made mention of the apartment where the Hurds lived -- "available for rent last year at $15,000 (£10,000) a month." As if somehow, what -- that an expensive rental should go with a perfect life? There was no mention where she had been, what she was like, what were her dreams -- only that she was a wife of a diplomat, and is now dead.
Via the Telegraph:

Catherine Hurd, who is thought to have been a mother of five, fell the four storeys from the top of the building where she lived with the former foreign secretary's son Thomas, a British diplomat.

Mrs Hurd, 46, left no note but New York police are believed to be treating the case as a suicide. “All we can say is that no criminality is suspected,” a spokesman told The Daily Telegraph.
[...]
It is thought Mrs Hurd was due to return to London next week as her husband, 45, is at the end of a stint working as a senior British official at the UN. He is described as a “political counsellor”.
[...]
Mr Hurd is a former investment banker and was a contemporary of David Cameron's at Eton and Oxford, where he was two years ahead of the Prime Minister.

He read Arabic and Modern Middle Eastern studies at Oxford between 1983 and 1987 and worked for Credit Suisse First Boston before joining the Foreign Office in 1992.

For the past few years he has been in New York, where he is listed as working for the British delegation on the UN security council, specialising in the middle east, G20 and Africa.
[..]
His father was one of the Conservative government's most senior figures in the 1980s and 1990s. He served both Lady Thatcher and John Major as foreign secretary, after also serving as home secretary.

This is not the first suicide of a diplomatic spouse in the FCO. In the early 1970's a wife of a British foreign service officer committed suicide. According to Cynthia Enloe in Bananas, Beaches and Bases, a book making feminist sense of international politics (and where there is one large section just on diplomatic wives), the unnamed wife was believed to have committed suicide due to the loneliness and lack of support she encountered upon her return "home" to the UK. Her suicide shocked the UK Treasury's Medical Officer that he set up networks of women volunteers in different parts of the country to help foreign service wives readjust to life in Britain.

No one can say why she walked off that ledge on Saturday.  Catherine Hurd did not leave any note behind.  Even in death, she appears to stay true to the ancient "never complain" ethos of diplomatic life. 

Catherine Hurd, rest in peace.

Related articles

• 'Suicide leap' by in-law of top Tory (thesun.co.uk)
• Hurd's daughter-in-law falls to death in New York (independent.co.uk)
• Lord Hurd's daughter-in-law plunges to death (telegraph.co.uk)
• Wife of British diplomat plunges to death in NYC (seattletimes.nwsource.com)

State Dept unable to move dependents and staff out of #Libya ... why?

The State Department ordered the voluntary departure of family members from the US mission in Tripoli on Sunday. Yesterday, that became an ordered departure which means, the ambassador has determined that the situation has deteriorated to a point that family members and certain employees should leave post for their safety.  

Today PJ Crowley talks about State being "not able to move any of them out of the country" and moving the staff and family members out of Libya "over the next few days." Which is kinda confusing considering that he also said the airport in Tripoli remains open and we're talking about 35 individuals, plus whatever is the number of private Americans who requested to be evacuated. 

The spokesman said that the embassy dependents and staff members "are prepared to leave" and yet they were unable to leave. This bring us to the possibility that the Libyan government is causing problems over their departure ... ?  This is the same government who sent thugs to arrest two Swiss citizens in Libya (one of them the director of the Libyan office of the technology company ABB) after one of the Gaddafi sons was jailed for alleged physical abused of members of his domestic staff in Switzerland. 

[T]urning to Libya, yesterday the Department ordered U.S. Embassy family members and non-emergency personnel to depart Libya, and they will depart over the next few days. The safety of all American citizens in Libya remains our paramount concern. At our Embassy, we have approximately 35 employees and their families who are affected by this ordered departure. We continue to evaluate a range of transportation options to help them depart, along with other U.S. citizens who are present in Libya.

The airport in Tripoli remains open, but it is kind of a very challenging circumstance at the airport currently. Many international air carriers are increasing the number of seats available to respond to the demand for flights from Libya. And for American citizens who are there, they should maintain contact with their airline if they have tickets to depart.

QUESTION: Can I follow up on that real quickly?

MR. CROWLEY: Sure.

QUESTION: Just on the evacuation question. Can you tell us why they weren’t able to move out of the country already? My understanding was there was some expectation they would have done so yesterday.

MR. CROWLEY: We are – as I said, we have some options. We’ve been in touch with airlines, asking them – those that have regular commercial service and have been allowed to land in Tripoli – to perhaps send larger aircraft so that there are more seats available for those who wish to depart. We have charter flights standing by to travel to the airport if necessary. This is something that we continue to work with Libyan authorities. But the fact is, today we were not able to move any of our personnel out of the country.

QUESTION: Is it –

QUESTION: And why was that?

QUESTION: Can you – first of all – hold on a second. I want to understand why that is the case. And then is it not true that some of them did go to the airport and then for some reason did not leave the country?

MR. CROWLEY: Kirit, I’m --

QUESTION: Why they didn’t leave already, and is it not true that some of them went to the airport and then did not board flights?

MR. CROWLEY: I think I just said for our official party, we are not able to move any of them out of the country today. And we will do our best, working with Libyan authorities, to move them out as quickly as we can.

QUESTION: And would you – are you considering any sort of sea routes as opposed – or overland routes as opposed to the airport?

MR. CROWLEY: We are evaluating, as are other countries – we’re not in this – other countries have made similar decisions to ours. They are looking for the safest course of evacuation. Land is an option, sea is an option, the commercial airport is open. Obviously, there are a great many people who are trying to depart Tripoli currently, so – and – but we’re working this with Libyan authorities.

QUESTION: And do you consider the airport to be a safe place for people to be right now?

MR. CROWLEY: Obviously, we’ve made this decision because we are concerned about the safety of our citizens, and – but we’re working as hard as we can to help our citizens depart.

QUESTION: P.J., number one, recognizing that it’s not a completely accurate figure, how many Americans are there registered with the Embassy in Libya?

MR. CROWLEY: Matt, it’s a good question. There are several thousand American citizens in Libya. Most of them are dual-nationals. Of those who have American citizenship, we’re talking in maybe the 600 range, give or take. Now, some of them work for energy companies, and as you’ve seen and reported, they themselves are shutting down their operations and making their way out of the country today. So as to how many require assistance from the Embassy, hard to know at this point. Our Embassy itself, as you can see in the numbers, it’s a relatively small post.
[...]
QUESTION: P.J., could you clarify the forced – the ordered departure? Could you clarify? You said you couldn’t get them out. Were there actually charter flights on the ground and you couldn’t --

MR. CROWLEY: No.

QUESTION: There were not? Were the people gathered there as you were trying --

MR. CROWLEY: Again, Jill, I can’t give you a play-by-play from here. Our family members, the 35 or so that are affected by this, are prepared to leave. They may well be at the airport. I don't know. I’m sure there are American citizens at the airport who are attempting to leave. We are going to do everything in our power to help them. But right now, we’re working through existing commercial airline arrangements. We have the ability to bring in charters or other means to get people out if that becomes necessary. But that also requires the support of the Libyan Government.

QUESTION: So what --

QUESTION: So in other words, the Libyan Government said you cannot do this? They --

MR. CROWLEY: No, the Libyan Government has said that they will cooperate as we remove our citizens. And we are working with them on these arrangements.
[...]
QUESTION: My last question on Libya: You said that your priority now is to secure the evacuation of American citizens. Is this something that you were worried that the Libyan Government might retaliate from the American citizen if you speak up loudly or criticize them?

MR. CROWLEY: We obviously are concerned about the safety of our citizens. We’re working with the Libyan Government. They’ve pledged to support us in our evacuation, and we hope that cooperation will be forthcoming.

The Guardian reported on 22 February 2011 20.59 GMT that the UK is scrambling to match the rescue efforts of other countries evacuating their citizens from Libya, redeploying a Royal Navy warship and trying to get permission to send a charter plane to Tripoli in the next 48 hours.

"At a press conference, the foreign secretary announced that officials were now working with airline companies to get an aircraft out of Libya and would also be chartering their own plane, although it had not yet been given permission to land. Hague said HMS Cumberland would be redeployed from the eastern Mediterranean to berth in international waters off the coast, with a view to being given permission to enter Libyan waters in the event of a sea-borne evacuation of British citizens."

Foreign governments need permission from the Libyan govt to land, to enter its territorial waters, etc....which makes everything dicey and dangerous if that government is hanging by a thread at the edge of a deep cliff...

Map from CIA World Factbook/Regional Map

Related articles

• Libya protests: UK deploys warship to help evacuate British citizens (guardian.co.uk)
• Europeans flee violence in Libya (bbc.co.uk)
• Foreigners making dash out of Libya (cnn.com)
• Libya Protests: Moammar Gadhafi Remains In Power As Bodies Reported In Streets (huffingtonpost.com)

UK-Russia exchanged PNG'ed diplomats for the holidays

We're late on this -- but apparently, a British diplomat was ordered out of Russia in a tit-for-tat expulsion. Moscow calls the ejection from its London embassy of a Russian diplomat as groundless. The UK Foreign Office insists there is 'clear evidence' of spying.

Via the Guardian:

The mutual diplomatic expulsions between Russia and Britain are the first since 2007, when Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko was killed in London with a rare radioactive isotope.

"The British side took an unfriendly step the other day, having groundlessly declared one of our colleagues in our embassy in London persona non grata," Russia's foreign ministry said in a statement.

Active links added above.  I bet you, neither side bothered to buy Christmas wrappers and ribbons or wrapped their PNG'ed gifts for the holidays.    

Related articles

• Russia expels British diplomat in tit-for-tat move over 'groundless' removal of suspected spy from London embassy (dailymail.co.uk)
• Britain and Russia expel diplomats (guardian.co.uk)
• Russia, UK exchange diplomats after another spy scandal (rt.com)

Is David Miliband heading to WashDC as Her Majesty's Ambassador?

Image via WikipediaUpdated 12/29: Not at all surprising.  David Miliband just poured  cold water over the ambo to US rumor via Twitter:

@DMiliband
Seen the UK ambassador to US rumours. I am not in for it and wouldn't take it.

* * *

Well, not right away like tomorrow... but is he? Here is the Guardian:

Downing Street is considering offering David Miliband the post of British ambassador in Washington, the Guardian has learned.

The former foreign secretary, still recovering from being beaten to the Labour leadership by his brother Ed, has the skills, contacts and abilities to make a success of the post, it is believed.

His name has also been mentioned by shadow cabinet members in connection with the post, which has been occupied by Sir Nigel Sheinwald since October 2007. Sheinwald, a lifetime diplomat, is due to retire shortly.

It has been pointed out inside the cabinet that Miliband has forged strong personal relations with the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, and would be a voice trusted by the Obama administration.
[...]
The precedent of Peter Jay is seen as relevant to Miliband's appointment. Jay, a broadcaster and economist, was made ambassador to the United States between 1977 and 1979 by the then foreign secretary, David Owen, a move that caused controversy among diplomats angry that a plumb posting had been taken away from the professional diplomatic service.

Former cabinet colleagues who have spoken to David Miliband have found him wary of the idea, partly because he is not clear it is a job with real power, rather than a message carrier from the British government to the US.

Continue reading, David Miliband may be offered US ambassador post

Oh, that sounds awfully familiar, down to the career diplomats who might be upset with that choice.  American career diplomats on the other hand, no longer set their clear sights on the US Embassy in London.  The last five ambassadors we have over there (save one who was an Admiral) all have rich stripes.  The last career diplomat sent to London was Raymond G. H. Seitz who served there from 1991-1994. If another political appointee is sent there between now and say 2013, the American diplomatic service will not be shocked.     

On not having enough power to operate -- Hillary Clinton was reportedly wary of the SoS position when initially offered for similar reasons (Woodward's Obama's Wars, p.27). David Miliband was the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs from 2007-2010 under Gordon Brown's government.  Also he is a much younger politician (born 1965) than Hillary. Young, dashing, brainy guy -- I think he'll be great in WashDC but he might not think it's great in DC since he'll be away from domestic politics.  HMA's position in Washington, DC is one of the plum positions in the FCO, of course, but if he takes the job, that would be like Condi Rice taking on the chief of mission post at the US Embassy in London, after she got off the 7th floor.


 

Related articles

• David Miliband paid £25,000 for speech at luxury Middle East resort (telegraph.co.uk)
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Overseas Views: How WikiLeaks Changes Things for Us All

Via HBR | by Carne Ross, who resigned from the British foreign service over the Iraq war.  He founded and now runs Independent Diplomat, the world's first non-profit diplomatic advisory group. Follow his ongoing analysis of the Wikileaks disclosures on Twitter. Excerpt:

The massive disclosure of classified US diplomatic cables by Wikileaks is an event of historic, if not seismic, significance. So great is the number of cables, and so sensitive is much of the information they divulge, that the consequences will be profound, long-lasting, and manifold. No one — neither Wikileaks nor the U.S. government — can know whether the effects will be good or bad. They will undoubtedly be both. We can be sure only that they will be many and unpredictable.

Governments are no doubt rushing to secure their data and hold it more tightly than ever, but the horse has bolted. If a government as professional, technically sophisticated, and well-protected as the U.S. can suffer a breach of this magnitude, no government is safe. Politicians can roar their demands for the prosecution of Julian Assange or — absurdly — that Wikileaks be designated as a terrorist organization, but the rage is in truth a tacit admission that government's monopoly on its own information is now a thing of the past.

Diplomacy will be changed forever. The presumption that governments can conduct their business in secret with one another, away from the prying eyes of the public, died this week. Diplomats and officials around the world will now realize that anything they say may now hit the public sphere.

Read the whole thing here.

Scare the kids: You will die as a midlevel Washington bureaucrat ...

The 4 min 4 sec video below So You Want To Be A Diplomat was created by Georgetown's School of Foreign Service students, Morgan McDaniel, Amanda Lanzillo, and Mike Madoff and posted in xtranormal. H/T to Two Crabs. We got our three laughs for the day!

What they forgot was to include the view from the Brits like -- "unthinkable” for a diplomat to “produce babies." How about “the clever woman would not be liked and the attractive woman would not be taken seriously." Also, "the trouble with you women is that you will go and get married.”

Read Alex Barker's piece, Britain’s first female diplomats in FT magazine. It is quite a romp down diplomatic history.

Murder in London: No Diplomatic Immunity Pass for Saudi Prince

Via the Guardian UK:

Saud Abdulaziz bin Nasser al Saud, a grandson of the billionaire king of Saudi Arabia, was found guilty at the Old Bailey of killing Bandar Abdulaziz at their five-star hotel suite in central London.
[...]
When he was then taken to Paddington Green police station and arrested, Saudi officials tried to claim he had diplomatic immunity, but this was scotched by a check of Foreign Office records.

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UK Ambassador on the Problem with Diplomatic Blogging

Frances Guy is the UK Ambassador to the Republic of Lebanon. She has been in Beirut since October 2006. Her previous jobs include Ambassador to Yemen (2001 -2004) and Head of Engaging with the Islamic World Group (2004 -2006).  Ambassador Guy has also been posted in Ethiopia, Sudan, Thailand and France.  Recently, she posted a blog post on Lebanon's recently deceased top Shi'ite cleric, the Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah.  Unless you are following UK developments in Lebanon, you may not have heard about her, but for the controversy generated by that blog post that had since been removed.  The British government removed it last week, saying it did not reflect government policy.

Frances Guy HMA Beirut meeting Sheikh Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah a leading Shia scholar in Lebanon
Photo from FCO/Flicker used under Creative Commons License

Ambassador Guy has now written a public apology in her blog at the FCO Global Conversation page.

The problem with diplomatic blogging is that you risk being anodyne or controversial. Clearly in the last few days I have been the latter. This was not my intent. My comments on the late Sayid Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah have now been removed because they were leading to confusion about British policy. I would like to be clear. I have no truck with terrorism wherever it is committed in whoever’s name. The British Government has been clear that it condemns terrorist activity carried out by Hizballah. I share that view. I believe that it should be possible for Hizballah to reject violence and play a constructive, democratic and peaceful role in Lebanese politics, in line with UN Security Council Resolutions, including UNSCR 1701. This is something I discussed often with Sayid Fadlallah when we met.

The blog was my personal attempt to offer some reflections of a figure who while controversial was also highly influential in Lebanon's history and who offered spiritual guidance to many Muslims in need. I recognise that some of my words have upset people. This was certainly not my intention. I have spent most of my career in the Arab world working to combat terrorism, and the extremism and prejudice which can fuel it. I am sorry that an attempt to acknowledge the spiritual significance to many of Sayid Fadlallah and the views that he held in the latter part of his life has served only to further entrench divisions in this complex part of the world. I regret any offence caused.

The Guardian reports that "a Foreign Office spokesman said [...] Guy's post had been removed "after mature consideration". The Guardian piece also speculates that diplomats' personal blogs, which flourished under Hague's digitally aware Labour predecessor, David Miliband, may be more closely vetted in future because of this incident.

Remains to be seen how this is going to play out in William Hague's FCO but Oliver Miles, a former UK ambassador to Greece writes in the Guardian with a call to "Stop the blogging ambassadors," saying that "the immediacy of social media does not lend itself to the measured nature of international diplomacy." Excerpt:

[T]here is a real problem here. Why do diplomats (and Whitaker's article quotes some examples from Americans as well as the British) feel the need to let it all hang out?

The reason is simple. The Miliband regime in the Foreign Office, obsessed with "process", "image", and to be blunt anything trendy, encouraged the idea that running a blog was a good career move. And, of course, a blog of this nature has to be a little bit spicy. Who wants to read the ambassador in South Korea, after attending the great jamboree of ambassadors summoned to London to listen to William Hague, opining that "to hear what the new coalition government expects of the diplomatic service was both helpful and fascinating"?
[...]
So why not go all the way with blogs, Twitter, Facebook and no doubt umpteen other forms of social media? Before answering that, we need to consider what ambassadors are for. They are not super-journalists, or super-agony-aunts. Their job is to advise their governments on policy, for which deep understanding of the country in which they work is required, to carry out policy and on occasion to advocate and promote it publicly; and to provide a discreet and reliable channel of communication between governments.
[...]
Modern media, like old-fashioned media, can of course be used effectively, and that is part of an ambassador's skill. I think Frances Guy blogging on the subject of a green Queen's birthday party (that's a green birthday party, not a green Queen) got across a few points highlighting the Foreign Office and the Queen's green credentials, possibly as effectively as writing an article in a local newspaper.

But it's a pretty miserable benefit compared with the risks. Leaving aside the trivia, the issues with which ambassadors have to deal are better dealt with penseroso rather than allegro. Blogs by ambassadors were bound to end in tears. Let's hope William Hague will blow the whistle. There is a good Yorkshire saying: Hear all, see all, say now't.

Read the entire Stop the blogging ambassadors here.  Our blog friend, three-times UK ambassador Charles Crawford also has an item here on FCO's ambassadorial blogs.


As an aside, Robert Baer, a former Middle East CIA field officer, who is TIME.com's intelligence columnist and the author of See No Evil and, most recently, The Devil We Know: Dealing with the New Iranian Superpower wrote about the Sheik: 

He was a founder of Da'wa, the Islamic group to which Iraq's current Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki belongs. In the 1980s, Fadlallah was at the top of the Reagan Administration's enemy list. The White House mistakenly believed he was the spiritual leader of Hizballah, the Lebanese militant group the U.S. was at war with at the time.
[...]
The problem is, there never has been a shred of evidence that Fadlallah was responsible for the Marine bombing, other than his preaching against foreign occupation. But in that sense, he was no different from Lebanon's other Muslim clerics who also did not want foreign troops in the country. Fadlallah was with near certainty not involved in Hizballah's terrorist attacks in Lebanon.
[...]
But where we really got Fadlallah wrong was when we started to call him the spiritual leader of Hizballah. That honor belonged exclusively to Ayatullah Khomeini — and now to his successor, Ayatullah Khamenei, in Tehran.
[...]
Leaving those meetings, I thought that rather than me, it should be our ambassador in Beirut meeting Fadlallah. But he wasn't allowed to, because Fadlallah was on a terrorism watch list.

Don't get me wrong. Fadlallah was not a friend of the U.S. He preached jihad against the West and created a climate for the attack on the Marine barracks in Beirut. But at the end of the day, he was an independent Arab voice, a Shi'a Muslim courageous enough to stand up against Iran. In that sense, we should regret his passing.

Read the whole thing here.

So there. As simple or as convoluted an issue as you want it. There is already a call for for Ambassador Guy's head here. 

Which just shows the perilous thin line diplomats walk in the new social media lane of public engagement -- 

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• The passing of decent men (guardian.co.uk)
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• Online Praise for a Cleric Draws Fire, Again (thelede.blogs.nytimes.com)
• The Sheik Who Got Away (foreignpolicy.com)
• William Hague must sack British ambassador over Hizbollah tribute (blogs.telegraph.co.uk)
• Foreign Office takes down blog praising late Hezbollah mentor (guardian.co.uk)
• Sharmine Narwani: Octavia, Frances, and the Late, Great Ayatollah Fadlallah (huffingtonpost.com)

Quikie: Bond, James Bond, must be net-savvy or else....

This one from my old Daily Mail clips that I thought was interesting but filed in the wrong brain folder for weeks. Anyway, it appears according to Ryan Kisiel that UK spies are expected to use wi-fi and be net-savvy or be included in MI5's "redundancy programme." Almost sounds like an afternoon performance, it's not. Excerpt below:      

For James Bond, high-tech once meant scrambling his telephone to stop the enemy listening in. But today's real-life spies are expected to be much more savvy to counter the threat from terrorists. MI5 is making dozens of its older staff redundant as they do not have the computer skills to use social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

Intelligence chiefs say the main terrorism threat now comes from Islamic extremists who use the internet to plan their attacks. The fanatical young terrorists use social networking websites to communicate and officers need to be able to monitor their posts. Officials have also highlighted the need to use technology to defend against the threat of cyber attacks from rogue states which could cripple Britain during high-profile events such as the 2012 Olympic Games in London.
[...]
MI5 is making older staff redundant as they do not have the computer skills to use social networking sites.  A recruitment drive for younger officers who have computer degrees has also replaced the previous 'old-boy' network method of the discreet chat with candidates in the junior common rooms of Oxbridge colleges. Mr Evans told Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee last month there was concern some older secret agents' computer skills were not up to scratch. He said: 'I think some of the staff perhaps aren't quite the ones that we will want for the future.'  Mr Evans added that the programme would include both ' voluntary and compulsory redundancies' believed to affect mainly senior spies.

Whitehall officials have said the MI5 redundancy programme was aimed at altering the skills profile of the organisation and increasing the number of staff which can be deployed on counter-terrorism operations. The number of redundancies is expected to run into dozens and will be made across the organisation and not confined to specialist IT staff.

Patrick Mercer, chairman of the Parliamentary sub-committee on counter-terrorism, said: 'As terrorism changes, counter-terrorism officers have to adapt to keep up. 'Our enemies use every available method to attack including using technology. We have to be aware of the imminent threats of cyber attacks and the old generation of MI5 have to be completely comfortable using computers and the latest technology. 'There is no room now for the old school tie or recruitment from just certain Oxbridge colleges. 'We need people from all walks of life who can speak a range of languages and possess certain technical skills.'

Continue reading "No Mr Bond, we expect you to use wi-fi: MI5 pensions off spies who can't use I.T."

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• MI5 'slashing staff' to boost overall computer skills (telegraph.co.uk)
• MI5 dumps spies who can't use Facebook and Twitter (telegraph.co.uk)
• MI5 dumps staff lacking IT skills (news.bbc.co.uk)
• Ageing spies unable to use the internet (telegraph.co.uk)

An Undiplomatic Mistress Writes Book, Does Tour

I recently just saw this piece about UK's Ambassador to Yemen, Tim Torlot. The same one who survived a suicide attack last April in Sana'a.

Apparently, there's more to Ambassador Torlot than you and I may not care to know, but soon would be public knowledge because his mistress has written a book.  This whole thing went down the last couple of years when the ambassador's wife and daughter returned to England at the beginning of 2008 and the ambassador's mistress moved into the ambassador's official residence in the spring of that year. That must have been quite a scandal in a country where adultery is punishable with death by stoning.

This is not the first incident involving a British Ambassador and a mistress in recent years, of course.  Her Majesty's Ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray also walked away from a 20-year marriage in favor of a bellydancer from a Tashkent nightclub. That dancer later opened a one-woman show in a London stage called The British Ambassador's Belly Dancer and wrote about it here.

Hey! I can see you rolling your eyes.

Anyway, below is Barbara Davies of Mail Online with some more bits on this story. Be warned, some parts might make you want to -- well, run to the vomitorium ... 

Six months after his affair with 41-year-old journalist Jennifer Steil threatened to cause a diplomatic crisis in the deeply Muslim country, the amorous 52-year-old's tumultuous private life has come back to haunt him once again.

And this time the drama comes straight from the pen of his raven-haired lover, who - having given birth to Torlot's daughter, Theadora Celeste - last November, has now published an extraordinary no-holds-barred account of the events leading up to their affair and their life together in Yemen's ancient walled capital.
[...]
As one source put it to the Mail: 'Torlot has behaved with a complete lack of honour. He is presumably well aware of how distasteful his behaviour was to so many people at the Embassy, and how it compromised his reputation.'
[...]
When news of her affair with Torlot became public, many assumed that the Ambassador was having some kind of mid-life crisis. Their liaison began not long after Torlot paid tribute to his loyal wife Bridie at his 50th birthday party.

'There was a lot of joking that he'd given himself a 50th birthday present to remember by sleeping with Steil,' says a source.
[...]
[H]er descriptions, often in semidiary form, also make clear that she set her sights on the Ambassador right from the moment she met him.
[...]
'My heart trips over itself. This is the man I want to marry. The thought flashes through my mind only seconds after our hands meet. I want to check his left hand but I can't look away from his eyes.'
[...]
My love for him has no expectations; it just is. But why, why must there be a wife?'

In fact, throughout her entire account of her relationship with Torlot, it is clear that Steil barely gave Bridie Torlot a second thought as she moved in to seduce her husband.
[...]
Friends say that Bridie Torlot finally 'deduced' what was going on from her husband ' s erratic behaviour. Steil says: 'By Christmas eve he'd told her everything, and by January she is gone.'
[...]
Since then, Steil has taken Bridie Torlot's place at the Ambassadorial Residence. She returned to London with Torlot last year to give birth to her daughter, and all three are now living back in Yemen.
[...]
The Foreign Office has continued to insist that it is a private matter for Torlot and Steil.

But thanks to Steil's indiscretions, it is hard to see how it can be described as that any longer.

What - you're calling this gossip? No, it's not. It's now called literature. Read the whole thing here. 

The book's title?  The Woman Who Fell from the Sky: An American Journalist in Yemen. Below is Random House's book blurb:

Restless in her career and her life, Jennifer, a gregarious, liberal New Yorker, initially accepts a short-term opportunity in 2006 to teach a journalism class to the staff of The Yemen Observer in Sana'a, the beautiful, ancient, and very conservative capital of Yemen. Seduced by the eager reporters and the challenging prospect of teaching a free speech model of journalism there, she extends her stay to a year as the paper's editor-in-chief. But she is quickly confronted with the realities of Yemen--and their surprising advantages.  In teaching the basics of fair and balanced journalism to a staff that included plagiarists and polemicists, she falls in love with her career again. In confronting the blatant mistreatment and strict governance of women by their male counterparts, she learns to appreciate the strength of Arab women in the workplace. And in forging surprisingly deep friendships with women and men whose traditions and beliefs are in total opposition to her own, she learns a cultural appreciation she never could have predicted.  What’s more, she just so happens to meet the love of her life.

That blurb seem almost romantic, doesn't it?  The Woman Who Fell From the Sky  is on Facebook and also has its own website now. 

The last name acknowledged in the book?

"Timothy Achille Torlot, for reading this book more times than anyone should, and for loving me more than I thought anyone could."

No, she did not thank Mrs. Torlot for vacating the official residence quickly.

At the back of my mind I wonder about Mr. Torlot's career prospects after this.  I can't imagine a scandal like this would play well with the new FCO boss, traditionalist conservative, William Hague. But that remains to be seen. 

Related articles by Zemanta

• British ambassador to Yemen faces embarrassment as lover lays bare affair in book (telegraph.co.uk)
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• Book reveals details of affair with British ambassador to Yemen (thestar.com)

Cherry Denman: the Not so Outrageous Confessions of a Diplomat's Wife

For many years, Cherry Denman has followed her British diplomat husband to his assignments in Libya, Cyprus, Hong Kong and China. Now she has written a pretty funny book about that experience. Diplomatic Incidents: The Memoirs Of An (Un) Diplomatic Wife, by Cherry Denman, is published by John Murray. Not yet available at amazon.com but you may pre-order or visit www.MailLife.co.uk/Books. Here is the book blurb from amazon.com: "The hilarious memoirs of an undiplomatic wife. This is Cherry Denman's witty take on her life trailing husband Charlie round some of the most godforsaken outposts of the world. Illustrated by brilliantly funny cartoons of diplomatic life, this is a collection of clever and very funny tales of global misunderstanding."

Ms. Denman is fantastic storyteller and wrote a piece in the Daily Mail recently. Some excerpts below:

About that posting in China:

Once, during the deafening Chinese New Year celebrations, a stray firework smashed through the window of an absent colleague, and set the flat on fire. A fire engine arrived but the guards refused to allow it entry into the compound because the crew didn't have a written invitation ('The First Secretary of the British Embassy and his wife, Nigel and Amaryllis Boggis Rolfe, invite you to the burning of their flat at 21.30. Dress formal. RSVP').

On another occasion, I came back to our flat to find two men sitting on the sofa. Above their heads the wall lights had been disconnected and wires poked out from two holes in the wall. When I asked what they were doing, they told me they were fixing the TV aerial. We did not have a TV but who was I to argue? If ever there was a fault in the flat, I complained to the wall and someone came to fix it.

A smelly problem is not always a persuasive excuse for the State Department's Embassy Housing Board but perhaps that's because you've never tried entertaining goats:

We finally persuaded the Embassy to move us upwind on the grounds that we could entertain goats or contacts, but not both.

Below are a few more zingers or words of wisdom however you like to take yours:

"Many years ago, in a moment of absentminded self-indulgence, I married a diplomat called Charlie. I still haven't made up my mind whether this was a good move or not. I turned from a happy, stay-at-home children's book illustrator into a chaotic nomad."

"My brain seems to be permanently locked in a suitcase, my children are lost somewhere in transit and my husband might as well have 'Heavy Baggage' tattooed somewhere on his person."

"Living abroad changes you - it marks you out. We don't look right or sound the same."

"When I fly back, it takes days for me to get back up to speed with my friends, who never know what I am talking about. I sometimes do not know what they are on about either."

"It is altogether different making a home in a strange place, knowing that your happiness depends on you making it work. It is hard. It is exhilarating and I am gloriously bad at it."

"What keeps me going are the crowds of homesick, wonderful women I have found wherever I have ended up. Each one is creating her own small version of her homeland around her and wearing it like a protective snail-shell, trying to make the puzzles of everyday a little easier to cope with."

"The simple cry of 'Does anyone know where to buy loo paper?' can bond a group of women in seconds."

"There is nothing more nauseating than someone who thinks it is all wonderful - especially on a morning when the sewers have backed up, the electricity has gone off and there is a guinea-pig-sized cockroach in your sink."

"So pitch it right: miserable, but not too miserable; cheerful, but not too cheerful. In front of your husband, or Officially Recognised Partner (as the Foreign Office titles those not bound in holy matrimony), you must be as miserable as you possibly can because he is the one who brought you to this godforsaken hole."

"Living abroad is very humbling. Being in someone else's country is a great leveller, especially if you do not speak their language. While abroad I am, in effect, dumb and illiterate."

"When you arrive in a new place, working out which things at the local market are fit for human consumption is a challenge. I always try things out on Charlie first - if it makes him nauseous or dizzy, I save it for dinner with the French."

"So after 25 years as a Trailing Spouse, what, if anything, have I learnt? Firstly, that the world is smaller than I ever imagined. That every country has something they do uniquely well, but that nowhere has found all the answers. Take something from every place and allow it to change your life a little. Above all, expect the unexpected."

You can read more here.  Over at the Daily Mail's comment section you can see the lack of sympathy for diplomatic wives.  As if somehow, diplomatic spouses are nothing but free loaders. She was a children's book illustrator before she went on this adventure.  I have yet to read the book, so I don't know if she talked about career prospecting overseas.  Books like these are fun to read, of course.  Folks who went through similar experiences can laugh out loud at these.  Folks who never went through similar experience (a majority of one's compariots) often do not get it. And often do not understand what life is like for spouses. Take the following comments:

"This allows your class to pretend that your hobbies - partying with top people, international travel, flitting around and being important and not working too hard - are paid for by the taxpayer."

Ugh! Get that one to wear heels in a 4-hour reception you were arm-twisted to go, would you, please?

"Just be grateful you didn't have to get a real job."

You can get a haircut but can't get a real job.  There are no real jobs out there, dude!

"How very British...get given opportunities to explore the world, new cultures, new perspectives...see how over 90% of the population live & learn...but still moan and groan about something ! Wasted opportunity on someone who is stuck in her ways."

Psst! Not wasted opportunity.  She got a book out of it.  Wit and humor decidedly if written by an accompanying spouse gets known in Main Street as moaning and groaning. Nonetheless, I'm sure expat and diplomatic spouses would agree that the moaning and groaning and the ability to laugh is what saves your sanity overseas.  You don't have to like everything about your international "adventures" but you certainly can laugh about it. The alternative is counting trees in  padded white wall rooms. 


The book is Diplomatic Incidents: The Memoirs Of An (Un) Diplomatic Wife. The author is Cherry Denman. Published by John Murray. Visit www.MailLife.co.uk/Books or order through Amazon.

A Rough Week in the Diplomatic World (assassination attempt, brainstorm gets a bad rap, a plumber as diplomat, invasion in NYC and Twitter, etc.)

This has been a rough and rocky week in the diplomatic universe. First off, one bad guy tried to blow up the British Ambassador to Yemen.

The Guardian reports that "Ambassador Tim Torlot was unhurt in the attack, which left the bomber dead and three others injured – two security guards escorting the motorcade and a bystander. An investigation was launched into how the bomber – identified as Ali as-Selwi, 22 – was able to identify the route of the convoy and come so close to his assumed target." It also reports that Yemen's interior ministry later announced that the bomber was from Taiz, a major city between Sana'a and the southern port of Aden, and that the attack bore the hallmarks of al-Qaida.

It quotes Abdel Karim Aryani, a long-time adviser to President Ali Abdullah Saleh who said the bombing was "one of the most serious acts of terrorism to have happened in Yemen." "To target an ambassador who was under the protection of the Yemeni government makes the damage to Yemen immeasurable. We didn't need this attack to tell us that al-Qaida has not left Yemen and that we must continue in our effort to track and confront them."

Still on the British Foreign Office and Whitehall, a memo leaked to The Sunday Telegraph, contained the "brainstorm" of British civil servants regarding the Pope's upcoming visit to the UK:

"The ideas, included in a memo headed 'The ideal visit would see ...’, ridiculed the Catholic Church’s teachings including its opposition to abortion, homosexual behaviour and contraception. Many appeared to be deliberately provocative rather than a serious attempt to plan an itinerary for the September visit." [...] The proposals, which were then circulated among key officials in Downing Street and Whitehall, also include the Pope opening an abortion ward; spending the night in a council flat in Bradford; doing forward rolls with children to promote healthy living; and even performing a duet with the Queen.  In reference to the hugely sensitive issue of child abuse engulfing the Catholic Church, the Government document suggests that the Pope should take a “harder line on child abuse – announce sacking of dodgy bishops” and “launch helpline for abused children”. The document was apparently sent out by a junior Foreign Office civil servant with a covering note admitting that some of the plans were “far-fetched”.

The Telegrah in a separate article reports that "The memo, which also called for the Pope to bless a homosexual marriage, was emailed around Whitehall by Steven Mulvain, a 23-year-old Oxford graduate who describes his sexual orientation on a social networking website as “gay.”

Oy! And? 

On April 27, The Telegraph identified Anjoum Noorani as the diplomat who has been disciplined over a Foreign Office memo mocking the Pope. "Anjoum Noorani, 31, was the leader of the Papal Visit Team which drew up a document suggesting the Pope should launch his own range of “Benedict” condoms, open an abortion clinic and stay in a council flat in Bradford."

The same article notes that “The most striking thing about the Foreign Office team has been how ineffectual they are. They have been disengaged and, frankly, clueless."

I'm sorry -- "disengaged" and "clueless" could just as well described the Vatican's handling of the sex abused scandal. I'm siding with the civil servants here; I also think that "the Pope should take a “harder line on child abuse – announce sacking of dodgy bishops” and “launch helpline for abused children." Never mind performing a duet with the Queen. I'd like to go to sleep without nightmares about that scene.

On April 28, An Indian diplomat was arrested by her government on charges of spying for Pakistan, officials said Tuesday, a development that could hurt relations between the wary nuclear neighbors and almost certainly leave New Delhi red-faced. According to LAT: "Madhuri Gupta, 53, a second secretary at the Indian Embassy in Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, was reportedly lured back to India on the pretext that her help was needed to prepare for an upcoming regional meeting in Bhutan. She was detained as soon as she landed at the airport several days ago and was found to be in possession of seven sensitive documents, according to Indian news reports. "We have reason to believe that an official in the Indian High Commission in Islamabad had been passing information to Pakistani intelligence agencies," said Vishnu Prakash, spokesperson for the Indian Foreign Ministry. "The official is cooperating with our investigation and inquiries." Gupta has worked in the embassy's press and information department for 2 1/2 years as an Urdu translator, Indian news reports said, citing police sources. She had been under suspicion for a few months."

Over next door -- the Afghanistan's ambassador to Canada called that country's continued discussion of the treatment of Afghan detainees a waste of time.  "It's a terrible waste of time, unfortunately," Jawed Ludin said of the federal government's months-old debate about whether Canada knowingly turned over detainees to torture at the hands of Afghanistan security forces. "I'm very, very upset that the Parliament in Ottawa is so focused on this. First of all, it talks about a long time ago. If there weren't any problems in Afghanistan, if there wasn't human-rights violations, if our police and prisons were perfect, why did we need your help? That's why you're there, helping us," Ludin told the Edmonton Journal's editorial board.

Ludin was previously Afghanistan's ambassador in Norway and previously served as President Hamid Karzai's chief of staff.

This I don't understand. These were his countrymen! A long time ago? Ugh! 


Closer to home, the Eurasian Review reports that US Embassy Personnel In Kyrgyzstan Are On Hot Seat: "Top officials at the State Department in Washington are said to be "fuming" with US Embassy personnel in Bishkek for supposedly failing to maintain strong ties with erstwhile opposition politicians who now are leading figures in the Kyrgyz provisional government."  The report cited Professor Eugene Huskey who reportedly claimed at a congressional hearing that "US Ambassador Tatiana Gfoeller had rebuffed meetings with Almazbek Atambayev when he was a member of the opposition during the Bakiyev era. Atambayev is now deputy head of the provisional government. Huskey also claimed that US embassy personnel made Kyrgyz civil society activists feel as though they were "untouchables."[...] In Washington, a "sense of unhappiness about perceived passivity" in the Bishkek embassy’s approach had been building for more than a year, the source added. Disapproval has now transformed into a profound sense of embarrassment at Foggy Bottom, as the sudden demise of Bakiyev’s administration exposed US policy flaws before they could be addressed.

On April 28, CBS News reports that Ben Ren Yu, a diplomat stationed at China's consulate in Houston, Texas was arrested and injured Saturday night by Houston police who were unaware he was a diplomat when they cuffed him on consulate property. "According to information obtained by CBS News, Deputy Consular General Yu, 53,  was driving in Houston with another passenger, when a marked Houston Police car attempted to pull him over for a missing license plate. Yu did not slow down and kept driving to the Chinese Consulate, entering a garage via an automatic door with officers in pursuit. Multiple Houston PD officers chased Yu into the building and placed him in handcuffs. The officers were unaware the building Yu entered was the Chinese Consulate, according a source." Houston blog, Spaced City quotes Houston Mayor Annise Parker saying that "The HPD [Houston Police Department] and the U.S. State Department are coordinating the investigation into the circumstances surrounding the arrest."

As if the week could not get any worse -- a plumber was convicted of posing as a diplomat in Virginia!

WaPo reports that when Richard Earl Jaensch, 52, of Annandale, traveled through security checkpoints at airports and at the Fairfax County courthouse in 2008, he flashed his diplomatic credentials. Problem was Jaensch is a plumber and a federal jury in Alexandria on Thursday found him guilty of producing false diplomatic credentials after a trial in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. According to court documents and trial evidence, Jaensch, produced an identification card, a badge, and a credentials holder. He used a similar set of diplomatic credentials at TSA checkpoints at airports and at an April 2008 hearing in Fairfax County Circuit. WaPo reports that after court personnel confiscated the identification, Jaensch ordered another set.

Apparently, you can order those credentials anytime. Who would have thunk? And they are not cheap, mind you.  Of course, as a plumber, he is in a recession-resistant industry and probably can even afford spare credentials.  The report did not say if Mr. Jaensch was posing as a US diplomat or a foreign diplomat.  If he was posing as a US diplomat, well, heck TSA only need to see if he was holding a US diplomatic passport. If he was posing as a foreign diplomat, he should have an identity card issued by the State Department. TSA may not know what that card looks like but, but a badge? From a diplomat? Diplomats with no law enforcement roles do not carry badges, dude!  Now if Mr. Jaensch was following DSS news, he would have know that three guys in Missouri in 2009 were convicted of a similar offense. These guys aimed high -- giving their clients no less than the title “Ambassador."

If that news is not troubling enough -- here comes Josh Rogin of The Cable reporting that an Ambassador nominee is still haunted by a 15-year old Cuban romance. "President Obama's nomination of Mari Carmen Aponte to be the next U.S. ambassador to El Salvador still faces Republican opposition due to a relationship she had with a Cuban American more than 15 years ago. The objections surfaced again during today's business meeting of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which approved her nomination despite "no" votes by several GOP committee members. Led by South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint, the Republicans are demanding more information about Aponte's long-ago romance with Roberto Tamayo, a Cuban-born insurance salesman who was alleged to have ties to both the FBI and Castro's intelligence apparatus. Josh's report notes that "The FBI later gave Aponte "a clean bill of health," a National Security Council spokesman told the Washington Times in 1999."

Good grief! No escape from a romance gone bad? Really? Wonder if our congress folks ever give male nominees the same third degree burn treatment over old romances. I'm betting that Mari Carmen Aponte's nomination will be deminted shortly.

And just when I thought that's it for this week, the international scene intrudes big time.  Mahmoud of Ahmadinejad is reportedly set to invade the Big Apple. Again. He has apparently applied for a US visa  to attend the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference at the UN. No, you won't get a chance to collect his fingerprints, this is an official trip of a foreign leader. But, for the sake of creative exercise -- imagine if you have to collect his fingerprints in ten-print and interview him for that visit to NYC:

Q: You need to press your fingers harder on that scanner.
A: Why? So you can burn my digits?
Q: What is the purpose of your visit to the United States?
A:Where else to preach freedom of speech than in the belly of the beast?
Q:What US sites do you want to visit?
A: Do I really have to answer that in a free society such as yours?
Q:How much money are you taking with you?
A: I can buy you now if you don't stop asking me these silly questions.

Tricky, eh?  If you want to catch up on your Persian in case you get to grill MofA when he comes for a private visit - check out the FSI courses here, including the Persian Basic Course: Units 1-12 (sorry 1963 edition).

As if this news is not unsettling enough, Hugo the Gladiator who sees the bad, bad gringos behind every nook and shadow has invaded Twitter. So we went and checked (http://twitter.com/chavezcandanga).  And we were disappointed that Hugo has now been reduced to 140 characters. How hard is that when you're used to doing hours-long speeches?   First tweets below, fresh from the oven, 130,438  followers as of this writing:

#    Hola mis queridos Candangueros y Candangueras. Esto ha sido una explosión inesperada. Gracias.Thanks. Ahora en Barinas con Evo. Venceremos!!    
about 4 hours ago  via UberTwitter  

("This has been an unexpected explosion. Thanks. I'm here with Evo. We will conquer!!")

#    Epa que tal? Aparecí como lo dije: a la medianoche. Pa Brasil me voy. Y muy contento a trabajar por Venezuela. Venceremos!!    
9:43 PM Apr 27th  via UberTwitter  

("Hey how's it going? I appeared like I said I would: at midnight. I'm going to Brazil. And very happy to work for Venezuela. We will be victorious!!")

By the way, FSI also has seven Spanish lessons available online as public domain materials to help beef up your language skills; most helpful if you want to follow the candanga's tweets.


I'm praying for a quiet weekend so I could bake pies, but don't count on it.