The New U.S. Ambassador

UPDATE: Welcome FARK readers. No, the full text of the Nelson Report is NOT here (it was dropped in a comment, which I deleted) although you can read part of it here, explaining the South Korean government is trying to influence American media against talking about the political cleansing of 2 million innocent people in North Korea. There are many more substantive posts relating to human rights in North Korea and regional policy here.

UPDATE 2: Here’s something else the South Korean Embassy would rather you didn’t see (more here). Their government would also rather not pass a law to prohibit it. I served as a soldier in Korea for four years, and these signs are not common, but the practice of barring Americans from various business establishments is. The Korean media do their best to inspire the hatred that drives it.

Original Post:

Meet Alexander Vershbow. He already sounds like my kind of ambassador:

Since becoming ambassador to Russia in July 2001, Vershbow has acquired a reputation for bluntness. It is not an easy task for ambassadors representing their governments to speak diplomatically in Russia, but Vershbow’s running commentary on Russia’s handling of the Beslan hostage incident, democratic revolutions in former Soviet states and Russian democracy itself have left his host government perpetually embarrassed. He has stressed that Moscow needs to guarantee freedom of the press and freedom of corporate activity. He has more than once expressed concern about Russian democracy, not least in the case about Yukos and the arrest of its chairman, Mikhail Khordokovsky. While he is understood to be speaking for Washington and not for himself, Moscow has nonetheless reacted sensitively to his comments.