Sans Frontiers

World Tour

US In a blow to Indian IT professionals, President Trump has signed an executive order asking federal agencies to hire Americans and preventing them from contracting or subcontracting foreign workers, mainly those with H-1B visas. It follows the June 23 suspension of H-1B and other foreign work visas till the end of 2020 to protect American jobs in a crucial election year.

Mississippi Magnolias, stars, guitars, the cross, beer cans, a Gulf Coast lighthouse, Elvis, even Kermit the Frog appear on proposals submitted for a new Mississippi flag. Mississippi recently retired the state banner with the Confederate battle emblem that’s widely condemned as racist. A nine-member commission will design a replacement eschewing the Confederate symbol but with ‘In God We Trust’.

France The organ that once thundered through Notre Dame Cathedral is being taken apart after last year’s devastating fire. The mammoth task of dismantling, cleaning and re-assembling France’s largest musical instrument can take four years. The 8,000-pipe organ survived the April 2019 fire that consumed the cathedral’s roof and toppled its spire, but was coated in toxic lead dust.

Foreign Hand

In Iceland, a nation so safe that its president runs errands on a bicycle, US ambassador Jeffery Ross Gunter has left locals aghast with his request to hire armed bodyguards. Gunter has also enraged lawmakers by casually hitching Iceland to President Donald Trump’s controversial ‘China virus’ label for the novel coronavirus. But then, Gunter is hardly a diplomat. He’s a dermatologist. But as a contributor to Trump’s campa­ign, he landed the post in Reykjavik. Gunter’s actions and those of other politically connected US ambassadors highlight the risks of handing diplomatic postings to donors and presidential friends. The practice has increased under Trump. “America is an extreme outlier in sending inexperienced and unqualified ambassadors,” says Barbara Stephenson, a former ambassador to Panama. A personal relationship with the president and understanding of his agenda can be an advantage. Those unfit are expected to be weeded out through the Senate confirmation process. But still, some lack the ability to sidestep controversy. In Britain, ambassador Robert ‘Woody’ Johnson faces accusations that he tried to steer golf’s British Open toward a Trump resort in Scotland and that he made racist and sexist comments. In the Netherlands, ambassador Peter Hoekstra, a former congressman, posted a photograph of himself visiting a cemetery for German soldiers killed during the two world wars, including Nazi troops who occupied the country.

Other ambassadors have little regard for experienced diplomatic staff. Gunter has run through seven deputies, though four of them had been assigned to Reykjavik for only 30-day tours. What really raised Icelandic eyebrows was the embassy’s advert for armed bodyguards—in a country that for 13 consecutive years has been deemed the world’s most peaceful country, according to the Global Peace Index.

Days after the advertisement, Gunter caused another stir, inviting condemnation from MPs, for a post on Twitter: “We are United to defeat the Invisible China Virus!” The message included a symbol of the Icelandic flag, which critics thought implicated the country in calling the disease “the China virus”--a term used by Trump to deflect blame for the virus on China as his handling of the pandemic was criticised.

The foibles of ambassadors lacking diplomatic experience in both Democratic and Republican administrations have long confounded efforts at reform. They attract greater attention now as the percentage of such envoys has soared to 42 per cent, the highest since the mid-1970s. The administration has pointed to a backlog in Senate confirmations as a reason for the high percentage of non-career envoys.