John Bolton - Machar's Lady MacBeth

Hopefully, John Bolton will give the UN's World Food Programme a shake up to help prevent another disaster like what happened in Darfur and Niger.



AP report and cartoons via Cox & Forkum Aug 1, 2005:

Bush Appoints Bolton, Bypassing Senate

President Bush sidestepped the Senate and installed embattled nominee John Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations on Monday, ending a five-month impasse with Democrats who accused Bolton of abusing subordinates and twisting intelligence to fit his conservative ideology.

"This post is too important to leave vacant any longer, especially during a war and a vital debate about U.N. reform," Bush said. He said Bolton had his complete confidence.


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UPDATE: Copy of Aug 1 post at Captain Marlow blog:

"Bolton ambassador to the UN

President Bush today used a recess appointment to sidestep the U.S. Senate and install John Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations.

Before anyone starts crying "abuse" and criticizing Bush for exceeding his powers:

Clinton made recess appointments for everything from the judiciary, to a controversial ambassador, to three seats on a library commission and others. The Dems are either lying, or have less than four years of historical memory and no access to the internet. I'll let you decide which. [this refers to the Dems reaction to Pickering's recess appointment, but it will be the same, I bet]"

Captain Marlow says he looks forward to seeing Bolton at the UN. Me too.
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Lady MacBeth in mini skirt is still talk of Sudan - and Hollywood

"[Riek] Machar - long neglected and today little known outside southern Sudan - might well emerge as a national leader of considerable consequence.

But in Khartoum he is best remembered as the husband of the late Emma McCune, an aid worker dubbed by John Garang as 'Lady Macbeth in a mini skirt'.

Full story in The Scotsman Aug 7, 2005.
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Why Museveni Didn't Bury Sudan's Garang

Excerpt re Riek Machar from AllAfrica today:

Salva Kiir Mayardit, the First Vice-President of Sudan and the leader of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), has appointed Riek Machar as his deputy in both the SPLM and Southern Sudan region. The Al-Ittihadi (Democratic Unionist Party) website reported the appointment.

Machar belongs to the Nuer ethnic community, the second largest tribe, in Southern Sudan, after the Dinka tribe, which is the tribe of the late Garang and his successor. Last month before his death, Garang appointed Riek Machar as supervisor of Western Equatoria State.

Machar had disassociated himself from Garang in 1991, and signed a peace agreement with Khartoum in 1997, and was appointed assistant to President Omar al-Bashir. Machar later resigned from his position and rejoined Garang as his deputy. Kiir was expected to be sworn in today.

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At long last, pictures of U.N. peacekeepers in South Sudan



Jan Pronk, Special Representative of the United Nations for Sudan, walks with Bangladeshi U.N. troops to lay a wreath at the tomb of the country's Vice President John Garang, who was also president of the autonomous government for southern Sudan, in Juba, Sudan Sunday, Aug. 7, 2005. Southern rebel-leader-turned politician Garang, who died in a helicopter crash on July 30, was buried in Juba on Saturday. (AP Photo/Sayyid Azim)