wait.. 2 other rogue nations !

[Muadib]

Barbados and Dom Rep (among 80) without US Ambassador.

No worries though.. Narco-State Jamaica being fast-tracked.

Anti-Drivah Propaganda Machine suffers a setback !

[Rudi]

Barbados and Dom Rep (among 80) without US Ambassador.

No worries though.. Narco-State Jamaica being fast-tracked.

Anti-Drivah Propaganda Machine suffers a setback !

I admire your work ethic if not your philosophical motivation. Like I said before, whatever they are paying you now would be a good time to demand a substantial increase.

[Muadib]

pro-bono

The withering, dying and appropriate re-birth of a viable PNP is my only reward.

PNP need less 'Black Man Time' more 'Action Time'..

[ReggaeMike]

I'm disappointed that Jamaica appointed an ambassador to the US that can't count:

http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/glean...ead/lead5.html

"So the ambassador to Jamaica is being fast-tracked above some 80 other countries (including Barbados and the Dominican Republic) that are still without a top US envoy since the Obama administration took office a year and a half ago," she said.

Audrey Marks must have failed math. There are 193 nations in the UN including the USA. Therefore there are only 192 nations with which the US should be expected to have official relations. Of those 192 the US has no relations with 5 (Iran, Cuba, North Korea, Bhutan and Somalia). The US has accredited ambassadors with 159 of the rest.

192-159 = 33, not 80.

Even if you somehow try to inflate the number by factoring in those countries for which the US doesn't have a sole ambassador (e.g. the US Ambassador to San Marino is the US Ambassador to Italy and is resident in Rome) then you only add 22 more to get 55, not 80. The only way I can see them getting 80 is if they include places like Western Sahara, the Palestinian Authority, South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Transnistria, North Cyprus, Somaliland, Taiwan (and even Taiwan has American officials who are are given the same pay and benefits as ambassadors) and Nagorno-Karabakh...but that would still fall short. Unless she is counting non-independent areas like the Cayman Islands. But those places NEVER had a US ambassador (except Taiwan) before Obama and would NEVER be expected to have one.

Out of the 33 without accredited US Ambassadors, 2 have Ambassador-Designates (meaning they are already appointed by just waiting to have the receiving country accept their credentials) and 3 have nominees (meaning Obama has nominated them and they are awaiting US Senate confirmation before going to present their credentials). The Dominican Republic is one of those countries for which there is already a nominee.

I'm also not sure how Marks gets the idea that the ambassador is being "fast-tracked". The normal time between nomination and taking up the ambassadorial role is 1-4 months depending on the workload of the Senate.

Of the 23 countries without any US ambassadors (or nominees or ambassador-designates) but which have relations with the US some have had their ambassadors expelled or basically expelled (Belarus and Bolivia), 3 lost their ambassadors just this year (terms expired), 2 others lost their ambassadors in 2009 but after Jamaica did upon the expiration of their term and 7 share one ambassador post (Antigua & Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, St. Kitts-Nevis, St. Lucia and St. Vincent-Grenadines).

Sharing a post must suck for the Eastern Caribbean in case the US has any problems with say...Antigua....over things like fraud and gambling.....

Guyana also doesn't have a US ambassador and there has been speculation that it is for a very, similar reason to that proposed for the lack of one in Jamaica for over a year....i.e. US dissatisfaction with Guyana's governments efforts to get drug lords (in addition to the Guyanese government apparently having been uncomfortable with the previous 2 ambassadors).

What is really sad about this is that neither Marks, nor the journalist even took the time needed (less than an hour) to research all of this before actually saying something or writing about it. Poor Drivah's Propaganda machine still not getting the basics right.

[Don1]

It's just about spin to serve her political masters.

That's the definition of her job