In move many expect to signal U.S. reengagement in the world body, the U.S. Senate Tuesday confirmed Baker-native Linda Thomas-Greenfield to the cabinet-level position of Ambassador to the United Nations.

She was confirmed on a 78-21 vote , with one senator not voting. Both U.S. Sen. John N. Kennedy, R-Madisonville, and U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-Baton Rouge, voted in favor of confirming Thomas-Greenfield.

“I’m proud she’s from Louisiana, but I’m more proud of her service to our country,” Cassidy said in a statement after the vote.

The 68-year-old LSU graduate is expected to be sworn in Wednesday by Vice President Kamala Harris. Then, she’s expected to travel to New York City, where the UN headquarters are located, to present her credentials to U.N. Secretary General António Guterres on Thursday.

Thomas-Greenfield also will assume leadership of the global policy-making U.N. Security Council on Monday.

Almost immediately Thomas-Greenfield will be thrust into dealing with climate change and COVID-19 along with wars in Syria and Afghanistan and several humanitarian crises.

“This confirmation sends a message that the United States is back and that our foreign service is back,” U.S. Rep. Karen Bass, D-Calif., told the Associated Press. Bass chairs a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Africa, global health, and global human rights.

“We as a country and as a world are safer with Linda Thomas-Greenfield serving as the United States ambassador to the United Nations,” Bass added.

Members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee have voiced concerns that United States’ world leadership had slipped during President Donald Trump’s tenure because he focused more on U.S. concerns at home. In the breach, China stepped forward, pressuring diplomats to accept its wording on directives and hire its citizens to work in the body.

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, has claimed that Thomas-Greenfield could be soft on China and pointed to a speech she gave in October 2019 during which she did not scold the communist leadership on its human rights record. During her confirmation hearings, Thomas-Greenfield said she regretted the speech, which she said was mostly aimed at getting more students of color interested in the foreign service.

Thomas-Greenfield, who because of protocol couldn’t comment after the vote until she is sworn in Wednesday, told The Advocate and The Times-Picayune on Saturday how growing up in Louisiana informed her world views and helped her engage in constructive talks with leaders in other countries.

“I am truly excited about the opportunity to serve my country again and I am ready to get to work,” she added.

U.N. Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric told Politico that Thomas-Greenfield and UN Secretary General Secretary Guterres had worked together in 2005. Thomas-Greenfield then led the state Department’s refugee and migration division. Guterres was then UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

“He has witnessed her effectiveness and dedication in action,” Dujarric told Politico news magazine.

Having served for 35 years in the Foreign Service, Thomas-Greenfield comes to the job with considerably more experience than most UN ambassadors.

Thomas-Greenfield grew up in segregated Baker, graduating in 1970 from an all-Black high school in Zachery because nearby Baker High School was all White. One of the first African Americans to attend LSU, she was there at the same time as David Duke, who later became a leader in the Ku Klux Klan for a while.

She went to the University of Wisconsin for graduate school and in 1982 was one of first Black women to join the U.S. Foreign Service.

In 1994, while serving in Rwanda during that country’s genocidal civil war, she had to talk her way out being killed by a solider.

President George W. Bush, a Republican, named her ambassador to Liberia from 2008 to 2012. President Barack Obama, a Democrat, moved Thomas-Greenfield to head the State Department’s office for African Affairs.

In 2017, she retired and worked for an international relations think tank.

Thomas-Greenfield’s husband, Lafayette Greenfield, also worked at the State Department before his retirement, as does their daughter Lindsay Jamila Greenfield. Her son, Lafayette Greenfield II, who the family calls “Deuce,” is a partner in the Washington, D.C. branch of the Seattle-based law firm of Davis Wright Tremaine LLP.

Universities on the Chinese mainland have started recruiting students from Taiwan this year, Ma Xiaoguang, spokesmanfor the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, said on Wednesday.

A total of 384 mainland universities allowed to enroll students from Taiwan will publish application Information on their official websites from now to early March, Ma said.

High-school graduates from Taiwan can use the score they obtained on the island’s college entrance examas the basis for their application to mainland universities. They also can take an exam designed for students from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan.

Fudan University in Shanghai issued its application information recently. Applicants to the university are required to reach the highest level in each subject in the exam in the island. Test scores in Taiwan are divided into five levels. Online interviews will be held later.

Ma said that in recent years, the quality of universities on mainland has been improving, and the economic and social development prospects on the mainland will bring development opportunities for students from Taiwan.

“Although cross-Straits relations are facing some obstacles, authorities on the mainland will, as always, provide convenience and services for Taiwan students to study on the mainland,” he said.

He called on students from Taiwan to overcome difficulties and grasp chances.

BEIJING, Feb. 24 (Xinhua) — The Chinese mainland will continue to provide support and services for Taiwan people to study on the mainland, no matter how the cross-Strait relationship changes, a mainland spokesperson said on Wednesday.

The improving quality of education and the promising prospects of economic and social development on the mainland have created valuable opportunities for Taiwan students, said Ma Xiaoguang, a spokesperson for the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, when answering a query about mainland university admissions for Taiwan students.

A total of 384 mainland colleges and universities qualified to admit Taiwan students will publish their admission information online at the end of February and in early March, said Ma, suggesting that Taiwan students should check the university websites in a timely manner.

Online and offline admission exams will be organized under strict COVID-19 response measures, according to Ma. Enditem

FASHION designer Alexander Wang is facing further allegations of sexual misconduct as a student alleges he was groped on a nightclub dancefloor.

Keaton Bullen, 21, a student at New York’s Parsons School of Design, alleges he was assaulted by Wang, 37, at a club in the city in 2019.

He claims the fashion tycoon “unzipped his trousers” and started “grabbing my penis” at Fishbowl club, he told the BBC .

Mr Bullen, then 20, was with a friend at the club in New York City when he says he encountered Alexander Wang on 24 August 2019 at about 11.30pm.

He told the BBC they initially talked about their shared college, Parsons School of Design in lower Manhattan, where Mr Bullen is currently studying interior design.

Wang then invited him to his table and offered him vodka before leading him to the dance floor, Mr Bullen alleges.

“All of a sudden he unzipped my trousers, put his hands in my pants and started grabbing my penis in front of a bunch of people,” said the student. “I completely froze.

“He then said: ‘I want to take you home with me,'” Mr Bullen alleged. “I felt weirded out… and removed myself from the situation as fast as possible.”

Wang robustly denies all the claims made against him.

Paul Tweed, one of Mr Wang’s lawyers, said he was currently awaiting CCTV footage of the club from the night which he said “his client believes will totally disprove this allegation”.

He told the Sun Online he had been handed the case yesterday and had been in touch with the nightclub to gather evidence from the night.

“The nightclub has told me they are getting the CCTV but it is not certain when,” he said.

“Those are my instructions at the moment.”

Mr Bullen told the BBC he felt a duty to speak out to support others who had come forward with allegations.

He is not taking legal action and said he did not want his photo used, out of concern the public would accuse him of seeking attention.

Allegations against Wang previously emerged in December after British model Owen Mooney claimed on TikTok that the designer had groped him during a concert at a New York City nightclub in January 2017.

In the video, which subsequently went viral, Owen Mooney, 26, said: “I was by myself at one point and this guy next to me obviously took advantage of the fact that no one could move.

“And he just started touching me up. Fully up my leg, in my crotch. It made me freeze completely because I was in so much shock.”

And in a follow-up video, Owen said that the Chinese American designer needs to be “exposed” and “cancelled.”

He said: “…turns out Alexander Wang is a massive sexual predator.

“He needs to be exposed. People with this kind of status, they think their power gives them this pass to do this to people.

“It’s so wrong. Any time I see his name mentioned… it just reminds me of what he did.

“He just needs to be cancelled.”

In a statement at the time, Mr Wang denied the allegations as “baseless and grotesquely false” and said he would “hold accountable” those responsible for spreading them.

Mr Mooney, from Peterborough, is one of 11 people being represented by the victim’s rights lawyer Lisa Bloom, who has led a number of high-profile sexual harassment cases.

In December, a number of other male and transgender models alleged Wang had also assaulted them by drugging and groping them.

Sh* Model Management, a watchdog in the industry, shared anonymous stories on Instagram and they went viral.

“Alexander Wang is an alleged sexual predator, many male models and trans models have come out and spoken about the alleged sexual abuse that Alexander Wang has inflicted upon them,” the watchdog stated in the post.

“It is important to show your support to these victims by unfollowing Alexander Wang and boycotting his clothing line.”

The Italian ambassador to the Democratic Republic of Congo, Luca Attanasio, was killed on Monday during a visit to the eastern part of the country in a World Food Program (WFP) convoy.

“The three fatalities have been identified as the Italian Ambassador to DRC, Luca Attanasio, an Italian embassy official, and a WFP driver,” the UN agency said in a statement.

Other passengers were also injured as the delegation was set to visit a WFP school feeding program, the agency added.

Italy’s Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio left a meeting in Brussels to return to Rome following the news.

“The circumstances of this brutal attack are not yet known and no effort will be spared to shed light on what happened,” Di Maio said on Facebook , h o noring the victims as “two servants of the state . ”

Enovy died of his injuries

Attanasio died of his injuries after the convoy was ambushed in Virunga National Park near the eastern city of Goma , the province’s governor Carly Nzanzu Kasivita told reporters.

The governor added that the unidentified attackers fled after opening fire on the UN’s World Food Program (WFP) convoy. WFP said it was investigating the incident.

The Congolese army said its forces were “combing to find out who the assailants are,” according to AFP.

Media reports suggest that the ambush was an attempt to kidnap UN personnel, but authorities have not announced more information about the attackers.

Congo’s ‘deadly area’

The attack reportedly took place at around 10:15 a.m. local time near Goma, the capital of North Kivu province , where armed groups have spread violence for decades.

In 2018, a group of armed men kidnapped two British nationals near the same area.

At least a hundred rebel groups are active in the area, where they fight over the country’s natural resources.

fb/rc (AFP, AP, dpa, Reuters)