NegroPonte still moving along without notice. Many ask "Will he get away with it?"
Yale will fire up to 300 staff
Isaac Arnsdorf and Victor Zapana
Staff Reporter, Staff Reporter
Published Friday, February 27, 2009http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/28012
New projections on staff attrition indicate that as many as 300 employees could be laid off as Yale copes with the economic downturn, though administrators said today that the University will double severance benefits for those who lose their jobs in the next six months.
Letter: Power is not qualification
Published Friday, January 23, 2009
http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/27211I note that John Negroponte is commencing as lecturer here. We all accept as a fact of life that leaders and high officials in democracies will deceive their people in the furtherance or defense of their policies or actions — as, e.g., Tony Blair in the selling of the Iraq invasion (the story to be "fixed," as the Downing Street Memo put it) or in the hiding of Honduras’ civil rights record and the subversion of democracy in a neighboring country (Negroponte’s charge). Still, I wonder if such patriotic or well rewarded liars should be given a lecture platform at an institute of higher learning. Seems like a bad fit, somehow.
Ramsay MacMullen
New HavenAmbassador and alum to teach at Yale
Paul Needham Staff Reporter
Published Thursday, January 22, 2009http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/27199
One day after leaving the State Department, Ambassador John Negroponte ’60 announced Wednesday that he would join Yale’s faculty in the fall of 2009.
Negroponte, who until Tuesday served as deputy secretary of state and was the country’s first director of national intelligence between 2005 and 2007, will spend at least three years at Yale as a lecturer and senior research fellow. In that time, he will co-teach the Studies in Grand Strategy seminar and will also teach an undergraduate and graduate course in international studies and international relations.Turnabouts
By Al Kamen
Wednesday, January 21, 2009; Page A09The first sign of this historic presidential transition occurred at 12:01 p.m., even minutes before Barack Obama was sworn into office. The official White House Web site got a major face-lift.
Moving on
Outgoing Deputy Secretary of State John D. Negroponte, whose résumé would take up this whole column, is heading to McLarty Associates to be a vice chairman. A career diplomat, Negroponte has been ambassador to Mexico, the Philippines and Honduras and ambassador to the United Nations and then Iraq. He was also the first director of national intelligence before moving back to Foggy Bottom. Negroponte will also be lecturing at Yale.Obama and Clinton Announce Envoys to Middle East and South Asia
January 22, 2009 6:10 PMhttp://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=6591920
ABC News' Kirit Radia Reports: President Obama made his first trip to the State Department today, only his second day in office, to showcase what he said was his commitment to renewing American diplomacy.
Obama spoke before a crowd of distinguished guests as well as staffers from each bureau and office of the State Department.
"My appearance today, as has been noted, underscores my commitment to the importance of diplomacy and renewing American leadership," President Obama said. "And it gives me an opportunity to thank you for the services that you perform every single day."
Obama said he would send Mitchell to the Middle East as soon as possible, but later State Department officials could not say when that might happen. The President outlined a position similar to that of the Bush administration, but his position appeared to be more balanced than that of his predecessor and offered additional acknowledgement of Palestinian concerns.
Obama said his team will take an integrated approach to dealing with Afghanistan and Pakistan and boost aid for the two countries, as well as resources for Americans working there. He pledged to pursue elements of terror in Afghanistan and across the border.
John Negroponte, who just two days ago served as deputy secretary, was made to wait for two hours before the President and new secretary arrived. Other faces in the crowd included Bill Cohen, Vernon Jordan, Strobe Talbott, Martin Indyk and Maine Sen. Susan Collins, who introduced Obama's pick for U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice at her confirmation hearing last week.http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/22/AR2009012202550.html
President Obama visits Department of State(APPLAUSE)
CLINTON: Thank you very much, Senator Mitchell.I next have the great personal pleasure of introducing the special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan. Ambassador Holbrooke will coordinate across the entire government an effort to achieve United States' strategic goals in the region.
This effort will be closely coordinated, not only within the State Department and, of course, with USAID, but also with the Defense Department and under the coordination of the National Security Council.
It has become clear that dealing with the situation in Afghanistan requires an integrated strategy that works with both Afghanistan and Pakistan as a whole, as well as engaging NATO and other key friends, allies, and those around the world who are interested in supporting these efforts.
It is such a great decision on the part of the ambassador to respond to the call that the president and I sent out, asking that he again enter public service and take on this very challenging assignment. And we are grateful that he has.
Ambassador Holbrooke?(APPLAUSE)
HOLBROOKE: Mr. President, Mr. Vice President, Madam Secretary, Senator Special Envoy Mitchell, I thank you so much.
It's an extraordinarily moving thing for me to return to this building again, having entered it so many years ago as a junior Foreign Service officer.
As somebody whose career was determined in that initial decade of my life in the Foreign Service, I want to tell you, Mr. President, that I know that the Foreign Service and the Civil Service and the Foreign Service officers serving around the world will appreciate and remember the fact that you chose to come to the department on your second day to demonstrate what you have with this fantastic team.
And if I may, on behalf of all Foreign Service officers, active and retired, I want to thank you so much.(APPLAUSE)
I'm also honored by the presence of two good and close friends, Vice President Biden and, of course, my boss, immediate boss, Secretary Clinton, and to share the podium with a colleague from the Irish days and many Senate events, Senator George Mitchell.
I thank you for your confidence in offering me this daunting assignment, and all I can do is pledge my best to undertake it. I see -- thinking of my early years in the Foreign Service, I see my former roommate in Saigon, John Negroponte, here. We remember those days well. And I hope we will produce a better outcome this time.(LAUGHTER)
I also have to thank Kati, my two sons, David and Anthony, and my stepdaughter, my beloved stepdaughter, Lizzie (ph), and her fiance, David, especially for coming down here today. And I hope that I'll be able to see you sometime in the next few years.(LAUGHTER)
Mr. President, Madam Secretary, Mr. Vice President, you've asked me to deal with Afghanistan and Pakistan, two very distinct countries with extraordinarily different histories, and yet intertwined by geography, ethnicity, and the current drama.US envoy in Beijing to celebrate 30th anniversary of ties that began with 'pingpong diplomacy'
By TINI TRAN Associated Press Writer
BEIJING January 7, 2009 (AP)
The Associated Press
Photo: A senior U.S. diplomat said Wednesday that relations with China have deepened over the past decades, as the countries played a friendly game of table tennis to commemorate 30 years of ties warmed by
U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte, center, and China Vice Foreign Minister Wang Guangya, right, watches a games during a commemorative table tennis match marking China's invitation to a U.S. table tennis team to visit in 1971, Known as "pingpong diplomacy," in Beijing, China, today. John Negroponte met with his Chinese counterpart in Beijing on Wednesday to commemorate 30 years of formal diplomatic ties between the two countries.
It was the small game of pingpong that got the big ball of diplomacy moving on U.S.-China relations, and on Wednesday, the two countries commemorated 30 years of formal ties with a friendly exhibition game of table tennis.
In 1971, a long-isolated China invited a U.S. table tennis team to visit Beijing — the first friendly overture in decades. The move helped pave the way for a historic visit by President Richard Nixon the following year. Washington and Beijing established formal ties on Jan. 1, 1979.
Among the players Wednesday was the youngest member of the original 1971 American team, Judy Bochenski Hoarfrost.
"Our mantra was 'friendship first, competition second,'" said Hoarfrost, now 50, of Portland, Ore. "I didn't know what impact it would have on the world. I was just playing table tennis. But I'm thrilled that pingpong and my part in pingpong has played a small role in diplomatic relations between China and the USA."
New U.S. Embassy Dedicated in Baghdad as Bombs Explode Elsewherehttp://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/06/world/middleeast/06embassy.html?_r=1
With video
By CAMPBELL ROBERTSON
Published: January 5, 2009
Continued...
And there's more....
BAGHDAD — After months of delays and other problems, the enormous new United States Embassy compound here was dedicated on Monday by Iraqi and American officials, who declared the start of a new era for relations.
After months of delays and other problems, the enormous new United States Embassy compound in Baghdad was dedicated on Monday by Iraqi and American officials, who declared the start of a new era for relations. The embassy is America’s largest in the world, and the final cost was said to be $736 million.
But while the celebrators reflected on what they called the accomplishments of the past six years and the challenges ahead, a wave of bombs went off across Baghdad, leaving at least six dead and dozens wounded. The bombs came a day after a suicide attack killed more than 40 people at a Shiite shrine in central Baghdad.
The hourlong ceremony, held outside on a sunny and unseasonably warm morning, was attended by Iraqi ministers and senior military officers as well as American military and diplomatic officials. The speakers included Ryan C. Crocker, the ambassador; Jalal Talabani, the president of Iraq; and John D. Negroponte, the first ambassador to Iraq after the invasion in 2003 that toppled Saddam Hussein. Mr. Negroponte is now the deputy secretary of state.
Security in Baghdad and across Iraq has improved enormously in the nearly two years since Mr. Crocker was confirmed as ambassador, but many Iraqis, including Iraqi political leaders, worry that the current situation is merely a lull given the still-fractious political system.
Mr. Crocker acknowledged the troubles since the invasion but said the implementation of the security agreement between Iraq and the United States, which went into effect on Jan. 1, was a sign of Iraq’s progress toward being a stable, sovereign state.
Of the 120 years since the United States first established a presence in Baghdad, Mr. Crocker said, "no period has been more intense, more challenging or more promising than that since April 2003. And of that period, perhaps no single week has been more important than this past one."
On Dec. 31, the embassy officially moved out of the Republican Palace, the jewel of Baghdad’s government buildings and the headquarters of the American presence in Iraq since shortly after the invasion. For months, officials and members of the support staff, adding up to 1,200 people in all, have been gradually moving into the new embassy, America’s largest in the world. The Congressional Research Service said the final cost was $736 million; the original estimate was $592 million.|
Though its construction also was troubled by long delays, structural problems and allegations of abusive labor practices, the embassy, a campus of adobe-colored buildings on 104 acres, has a far more functional appearance than the lavish palace. Surrounded by concrete walls topped with razor wires, the compound is less than a mile from the Republican Palace in the Green Zone, which was handed over to Iraqi control on Jan. 1 as part of the security agreement.
Several hours after the ceremony came the deadliest explosion of the day, in which four people were killed, in the southeastern Baghdad neighborhood of Dora. Officers from Iraq’s national police were trying to dispose of a bomb when it was set off by remote control, said an official at the hospital where several of the wounded were taken.updated 1:49 p.m. EST, Mon January 5, 2009
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/01/05/iraq.main/index.html#cnnSTCText
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Just days after the U.S. military formally handed authority of Baghdad's "Green Zone" over to the Iraqis, the new American Embassy opened in Baghdad.
The American flag is raised at Monday's dedication ceremony for the new U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.
Situated on the banks of the Tigris river, one mile south of Saddam Hussein's Republican Palace -- U.S. headquarters in Baghdad since 2003 -- the new embassy opened early Monday afternoon in a closely controlled ceremony that included Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker, and Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte.
"The return of the Republican Palace to the government of Iraq last Thursday and the raising of the flag over a new embassy four days later are potent symbols of this record of achievement," Negroponte said during his opening ceremony speech Monday.
The new U.S. Embassy covers 104 acres and is the largest in the world, housing 1,200 U.S. diplomats, soldiers, and government staff from 14 federal agencies, according to a U.S. State Department news release.
"As our military presence ramps down, many other aspects of our relationship are going to ramp up," Crocker told CNN on Monday.
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