Ambassador Stephen Bosworth speaks with the press following talks between the US and North Korea - Photo Eric Bridiers US Mission
Updated: 17:32 GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The second bilateral encounter between North Korea and the United States of America on de-nuclearization concluded on a somehow “positive” note.
It was “generally constructive” said outgoing US Ambassador Stephen Bosworth who responded that both governments had “narrowed differences in terms of what has to be done before [they] can both agree to a resumption of the formal negotiations.”
“We can reach a reasonable basis of departure for formal negotiations for a return to the Six-Party process,” said Bosworth.
The two-day meeting is the latest in recent months between the US and North Korea, as well as the two Koreas.
Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye-gwan of North Korea met with Bosworth, Washington’s outgoing top envoy for Pyongyang, and Special Representative Glyn Davies, who will from now on be “actively engaged” in the discussions on the North Korean nuclear program.
The US Ambassador thanked the Swiss authorities for what he called “the cooperation extended” to the talks.
“I just want to say that we’ve had some very positive and I think generally constructive talks with the DPRK delegation over the course of the last two days.
We narrowed differences on several points and explored our differences on others. We came to the conclusion that we will need more time and more discussion to reach agreement in an effort to assess whether we have sufficient agreement to resume our active negotiations both bilaterally and in the Six-Party process.
Michael Punke, US ambassador to the WTO, 2010
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - “We’re not negotiating with a gun to anyone’s head – that’s not the way the WTO works,” says Michael Punke, the new US ambassador to the World Trade Organization. “What we’re hoping is they will step up and take up their leadership role,” he says, referring to India, China and Brazil. “At the end of day: we have to ask, are the advanced developing economies ready to accept the responsibility and leadership” that goes with their new roles?
The ambassador lost no time Monday morning, during a media breakfast for the new man in Geneva, making it clear that he is keen to start negotiating and to see the Doha Round of trade talks get back on track.
Punke insists there is strong support in the US “to negotiate a Doha outcome that is balanced and ambitious.”
Balanced, in the sense of advanced developing economies taking stronger roles.
Ambitious, in the sense of the Doha Round succeeding without the “arbitrary deadlines or big bang events [that] haven’t worked” in the past, the kind of events where top-level ministers show up and work intensely and everyone hopes the outcome will be a great leap forward.
He believes Geneva has focused too much on these. He is adament that “there aren’t any shortcuts but sitting down, day in and day out” to get through the issues that remain. “The only way to improve that balance is to engage in negotiation.” The US, he says “wants to focus on key sectors in priority markets – the advanced developing economies.”
Title: Luncheon, US Ambassador to the UN
Location: Geneva
Link out: Click here
Description: Sponsored by the American International Women’s Club of Geneva with Ambassador Betty KING, US Permanent Representative to the United Nations in Geneva.
Date: 2010-05-07
Michael Punke, reproduced with permission
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Michael Punke, 44, has been nominated as the next US ambassador to the World Trade Organization in Geneva. He was one of two people nominated to top posts by US President Barack Obama Thursday 3 September. Barbara Bennett was nominated for the post of chief financial officer at the Environmental Protection Agency.
Punke’s appointment to lead the US negotiations at the WTO must now be approved by the US Senate. He is currently living in Montana with his wife and two children, where he works as an international trade consultant and writer of both fiction and non-fiction. He would replace Peter Allgeier, who has stepped down as ambassador to the WTO. He had been in the post since 2005, but had worked for the Office of the US Trade Representative since 1980.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - An empty desk in Geneva is receiving more than normal attention: that of the US ambassador, whose unwieldy title is US Permanent Representative to the United Nations and Other International Organizations. The post has been empty since January 2009 when Warren Tichenor left. Tichenor, a Texan and George W Bush appointment, may not have been a household name, but the new US ambassador could well quickly become one, thanks to sharper interest in how the US will work with other countries on several issues, many of them through international organizations based in Geneva.
This is the era of the Obama administration, with its promise of new relationships, and the period of Hillary Clinton at the helm of the US State Department, re-booting the Start talks with her Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov in Geneva in March 2009. Obama told a group of ambassadors in Washington Wednesday 29 July that “I came into office with a strong commitment to renew American diplomacy, and to start a new era of engagement with the world. This must be a moment when we engage on the basis of mutual interest and mutual respect, so that we can build new partnerships for progress.”
Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe (image: Cisac, Stanford University)
One name being bandied about for the Geneva ambassador’s job is that of Obama fundraiser Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe. Le Temps wrote some weeks ago that she will be named, basing the information on “sources close” to President Obama, and IP Watch, an intellectual property industry newsletter, named her as the likely candidate in a 29 July article.
[includes AllAfrica video, world media coverage] Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Africa is back on the world media map for more than poverty and wars: US President Barack Obama’s speech Saturday 11 July in Accra, Ghana, sparked widespread interest, nowhere more than in Africa itself.
Keynote speaker,World YWCA General Secretary Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda
The University of Geneva, together with five co-sponsors, kicked off the inaugural programme of the Geneva Forum on Social Change (GFSC) Friday 5 June. Keynote speakers include Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel Prize Laureate and Honorary Doctor 2009 of the University of Geneva, World YWCA General Secretary Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda, and Speak-it.org Director, Nick Francis.
The Forum combines documentary film screenings, workshops and panel discussions of the complex social, political and economic challenges presented in the films. The event is organized by the University of Geneva International Organizations MBA (IOMBA) Programme. Geneva Lunch spoke with Forum on Social Change Chair and IOMBA degree candidate, Patrick Huber.
GL: Can you provide some background information on how the Forum was imagined and over what time period?
Maverick Architect Michael Reynolds in Oliver Hodge's "Garbage Warrior." Photo courtesy GFSC and Oliver Hodge
Patrick Huber (PH): This came out of an event last year in Monterrey, California hosted by Independent Television Service (ITVS) out of San Francisco. The Forum was conceived in November of 2008 when ITVS approached the University of Geneva about co-sponsoring a film screening and dialogue.
I was approached as president of the Geneva University chapter of the NetImpact network, an industry network of MBA professionals and students interested in promoting corporate social responsibility. Last year the chapter sponsored a forum on sustainable development which created momentum to discuss what other advocacy efforts the network might promote.
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