Now that's what I call diplomacy! The US ambassador to Paraguay has become a music sensation in the country after recording an album of folk songs in the indigenous Guarani language.
posted on Jul 2, 2008 - View this thread

Hello Kitty becomes Japan's ambassador to China. The little half-Japanese, half-English cat has become so globally recognisable that it is, perhaps, inevitable that the Japanese board of tourism has appointed her their official tourism ambassador to China and Hong Kong. This is not the first time the world has looked to Hello Kitty to perform an ambassadorial role; she has been United States children's ambassador for Unicef since 1983.
posted on May 25, 2008 - View this thread

Bobby Egan: Restaurateur and Amateur Diplomat.
posted on Apr 10, 2008 - View this thread

Vanity Fair has obtained confidential documents, since corroborated by sources in the U.S. and Palestine, which lay bare a covert initiative, approved by Bush and implemented by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Deputy National Security Adviser Elliott Abrams, to provoke a Palestinian civil war.
posted on Mar 3, 2008 - View this thread

Sweden sends ambassadors to Second Life, becoming "the first country to establish diplomatic representation in the virtual reality world..."
posted on Jan 30, 2007 - View this thread

In 1982, ten-year old Samantha Smith from Maine wrote a letter to Yuri Andropov asking whether there was going to be a nuclear war. Andropov responded, and Samantha accepted his invitation to stay at a Russian pioneer camp with Soviet children. Tragically, within the following two years both the young Samantha and Secretary Andropov passed away. (wmv)
posted on Dec 23, 2006 - View this thread

Around A.D. 800, the storied Caliph Haroun Al-Raschid sent a diplomatic delegation some two thousand miles from Baghdad to Aachen, the seat of Charlemagne's empire. Among the many gifts for the Frankish ruler that accompanied the delegation was Abul-Abbas, the first recorded elephant north of the Alps.
posted on Oct 8, 2006 - View this thread

The Trade Surplus and the Olive Tree The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has seen its loan portfolio drop 73 per cent since 2003. Nobody seems to be defaulting on their loans lately, and there hasn't been a big bailout since 2001. The IMF's summit this week in Singapore will look at this issue and how to better the world balance of trade betweed the developing world and the industrial economies of the west. But is there really a place (warning: PDF) for the IMF in the trade agreements between China and the US?
posted on Sep 15, 2006 - View this thread

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan is the newest movie from Ali G creator Sacha Baron Cohen. Unfortunately, it seems to have sparked an honest-to-God diplomatic incident.
posted on Sep 14, 2006 - View this thread

By now, we know the story: first the U.S. Treasury department wouldn't let Cuba participate in the upcoming World Baseball Classic, only to change their mind later. Whether to play ball with Cuba or not has been debated since at least 1975, when then-commissioner of baseball Bowie Kuhn contacted Henry Kissinger about plans to arrange a game between U.S. and Cuban teams, prompting this now-declassified exchange (made available through George Washington University's National Security Archive.) Indeed, sport and politics are often intertwined in the Case of Contemporary Cuban Baseball.
posted on Feb 12, 2006 - View this thread

Bush administration admits denies making mistake! Starts off new relationship with conservative German chancellor by personally insulting her. "We are not quite sure what was in her head." - a senior Bush administration official, referring to Merkel. This after Condoleeza Rice gave Merkel private assurances and made a public statement in which she said "when and if mistakes are made, we work very hard and as quickly as possible to rectify them. Any policy will sometimes have mistakes . . . we will do everything that we can to rectify those mistakes." Obviously, Condi was mistaken. The Bush administration does not make mistakes.
posted on Dec 6, 2005 - View this thread

I, for one, welcome our... Oh, the hell with it. Canadians want to start diplomatic relations with aliens.
posted on Nov 25, 2005 - View this thread

"The haggis was pronounced excellent by all that ate it, foreigners and Koreans, including the Vice-Minister." A diplomat describes opening the British embassy in Pyongyang. Direct link (rtf) here.
posted on Apr 26, 2005 - View this thread

Dear Condi, -- Lloyd Axworthy was Canada's Minister of Foreign Affairs for five years (1995-2000). Now that he's no longer in government, he doesn't need to be so diplomatic.
posted on Mar 3, 2005 - View this thread

Is a political solution on the horizon in Iraq? Time Magazine reports that US military commanders are negotiating with Sunni nationalist insurgents or the first time.

"There are some hints of compromise: insurgent negotiators have told their U.S. counterparts they would accept a U.N. peacekeeping force as the U.S. troop presence recedes. Insurgent representative Abu Mohammed says the nationalists would even tolerate U.S. bases on Iraqi soil. 'We don't mind if the invader becomes a guest,' he says, suggesting a situation akin to the U.S. military presence in Germany and Japan."
posted on Feb 22, 2005 - View this thread

Campaign Contributions and U.S. Ambassadors
In 1972 President Nixon appointed thirteen noncareer ambassadors to Western European countries; eight of them had contributed at least $50,000 to his reelection campaign...(-Source, scroll to item 2.)
In 1980 a federal law was created to combat this, stating that ambassadors must "possess clearly demonstrated competence, including, to the maximum extent practicable, a useful knowledge of the principal language or dialect of the country in which the individual is to serve, and knowledge and understanding of the history, the culture, the economic and political institutions and the interest of that country and its people. … Contributions to political campaigns should not be a factor in the appointment."
Currently 1/4 to 1/3 of U.S. Ambassadors are noncareer appointees, not experienced diplomats, causing criticism since the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. Critics point out that neither the Pentagon, the CIA nor any other U.S. government agency must shoulder the burden of a significant cadre of "nonprofessionals" encumbering senior field positions. (-Source.)

HERE is the current tally of Embassy Row and their campaign contributions, including Clark Randt, Jr, former Geo W Yale fraternity brother who defended Bush against drug allegations during Bush's last campaign. "Rangers" and "Pioneers" abound. Mauritius is sunny, tropical, and expensive. (Inspired by this AskMe question.)
posted on Oct 14, 2004 - View this thread

The Avalon Project: Documents in Law, History and Diplomacy.
posted on Apr 25, 2004 - View this thread

An American in Mongolia. A new breed of American soldier—call him the soldier-diplomat—has come into being since the end of the Cold War. Meet the colonel who was our man in Mongolia, an officer who probably wielded more local influence than many Mongol rulers of yore.
posted on Feb 20, 2004 - View this thread

Stumbling Into War by James P. Rubin, From Foreign Affairs, September/October 2003

Why did most of the world abandon Washington when it went after Saddam Hussein? The war in Iraq could never have been an easy sell, but nor should it have been such a difficult one. The Bush administration badly botched the prewar maneuvering, presenting a textbook study in how not to wage a diplomatic campaign.
posted on Sep 21, 2003 - View this thread

Salon interviews John Brady Kiesling. JBK: "The talking points were pretty pathetic. They may work at home, but they do not work with an audience of sophisticated people who have some experience with the world, who are profoundly nervous about the Middle East and terrorism, and would like to see some signs of intelligent life in American foreign policy." Are Americans too isolationist for their own good?
posted on Mar 19, 2003 - View this thread

Even Shakespeare bashed the French. Here's the play in which Willie the Shake indulges in a bit of Frog-bashing.
posted on Feb 25, 2003 - View this thread

From a European Perspective

"President Bush recently declared that the U.S. was "the single surviving model of human progress." Maybe some Americans think this self-evident, but the rest of us see it as a clumsy arrogance born of ignorance. "

Is this something many Americans need to hear but don't want to listen? Personally I appreciated Mr. Eno's honest and candid observations. And no, I don't think he hates America.
posted on Jan 23, 2003 - View this thread

"In the war on terrorism, alliances are not an obstacle to victory. They're the key to it." General Wesley Clark on the lessons of Kosovo and why diplomacy and international cooperation are essential to winning the war on terrorism.
posted on Aug 26, 2002 - View this thread

Zionism - Outspoken criticism from the unlikeliest of places. Neturei Karta, members of this orthodox clique condemn zionism, claiming there is no place in the modern world for a jewish state.
posted on Jul 22, 2002 - View this thread

With friends like the Saudis, who needs enemies? "There is, then, no real need for us to be frightened by the loss of the kingdom's oil friendship. But we should be concerned by the evidence of its strategic enmity. It may be true that the Saudis are neither Iraqis nor Iranians nor Libyans; but it is quite dangerous enough that they are Saudis."
posted on Jul 9, 2002 - View this thread

Jimmy Carter made history today being the first U.S. President [in or out of office] to visit Cuba since 1959. At the initial press conference Mr. Carter switched from English to Spanish, in reverence to his host [his Spanish was actually pretty good]. What can Mr. Carter hope to achieve this week and how does his action [albeit as a private citizen] affect the current administration?
posted on May 12, 2002 - View this thread

Crazy talk from the State Department! “Any conflict between the two countries can have no good result for either country. They need to resolve their differences through dialogue.”
posted on Dec 26, 2001 - View this thread

Kofi Annan mediates between muppet rivals and says that "diplomats could learn a thing or two from its characters." Muppets in politics seem to be emblematic of the current conflicts these days...
posted on Dec 14, 2001 - View this thread

Bush woos Putin at his Texas ranch - after apparently failing to come to a consensus about the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty. Good for Bush for getting his diplomacy on, but -- I'm wondering how popular the proposed American missile-defense system is with members of the Metafilter community. If it means scrapping the ABM... is it worth it?
posted on Nov 15, 2001 - View this thread

Bush, Powell pushing Peres into Peace Talks “Bush urged the prime minister to make progress with the Palestinians on ending the violence in the Mideast, White House spokesman Sean McCormack said.” war : diplomacy :: problem : solution
posted on Sep 14, 2001 - View this thread

Taliban seeks "friendship" with the U.S. Despite their myriad human rights violations and long-standing involvement in a brutal and bloody civil war, the Afghani Taliban government wants to open diplomatic relations with the U.S. Is there really anything to gain by having friendly relations with a nation under UN sanction which treats their own with brutality and has threatened and defied us at every turn?
posted on Jul 31, 2001 - View this thread

G8 Backs Middle-East International Observers With the US onboard for the first time, it seems an international monitoring force will be sent to the Palestinian territories to observe the "ceasefire." Positive step towards calm or just another feeble diplomatic attempt from the international community to stem the tide?
posted on Jul 19, 2001 - View this thread

US China relationship risked by brinkmanship , says a new analysis. White House advisers on China policy grow hawkish, but may not have a well-worked out strategy for dealing with China in this new light. Beijing loses patience, and coincidental events may force a crisis. Allies are expressing concern; everyone expects choppy waters through the fall economic summit. And that was written two weeks ago. If they're bad now, how much worse are they today? Is there an even hand on the keel?
posted on Apr 2, 2001 - View this thread