US Ambassador to New Zealand Scott Brown has been told to brush up on his diplomacy and be more culturally aware after gaffes at a reception in Samoa led to an inquiry into his conduct.
Brown, named as Washington’s man in Wellington and envoy to Samoa in one of US President Donald Trump’s earliest diplomatic appointments, confirmed the probe following comments made at a Peace Corps event in Samoa in July.
The 58-year-old this week told New Zealand media that he had called guests “beautiful” and suggested to one waitress she could “make hundreds of dollars” working in the service industry in the US.
While he acknowledged there might have been cultural misunderstandings, he also believed there was an element of “political motivation” behind the complaint.
“At this event there were a lot of people that didn’t like [Trump]. Sadly, it’s politics and it is what it is,” he said.
Brown said he was revealing what happened because of mounting “innuendo and rumor” about a US Department of State investigation into his behavior.
He said an official complaint had been made about his remarks and an “administrative inquiry” concluded he should be more culturally aware.
Brown commented on the appearance of guests because when he and his wife, Gail, saw people before the event, “they were all like dirty and grungy... We walked in and everyone was dressed to the nines,” Brown said. “They all looked great, Gail looked great, you know I was dressed up and Gail and I both walked in and said: ‘You guys are beautiful, you look really handsome sir, you guys are great.’ And apparently somebody took offense to that.”
He also told some staff they would do well working in the US.
“Absolutely, told people they could make great waitresses,” he said. “And as a result of that I was told that: ‘You know, listen you’re not Scott Brown from Ryan, New Hampshire anymore, you’re an ambassador and you have to be culturally aware of different cultures and different sensitivities,’ and I’m always welcoming that kind of advice.”
Brown was once named “America’s sexiest man,” worked as a male model, served as the Republican senator from Massachusetts and was a colonel in the US Army National Guard.
Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg was deported from Israel yesterday, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, the day after the Israeli navy prevented her and a group of fellow pro-Palestinian activists from sailing to Gaza. Thunberg, 22, was put on a flight to France, the ministry said, adding that she would travel on to Sweden from there. Three other people who had been aboard the charity vessel also agreed to immediate repatriation. Eight other crew members are contesting their deportation order, Israeli rights group Adalah, which advised them, said in a statement. They are being held at a detention center ahead of a
A Chinese scientist was arrested while arriving in the US at Detroit airport, the second case in days involving the alleged smuggling of biological material, authorities said on Monday. The scientist is accused of shipping biological material months ago to staff at a laboratory at the University of Michigan. The FBI, in a court filing, described it as material related to certain worms and requires a government permit. “The guidelines for importing biological materials into the US for research purposes are stringent, but clear, and actions like this undermine the legitimate work of other visiting scholars,” said John Nowak, who leads field
NUCLEAR WARNING: Elites are carelessly fomenting fear and tensions between nuclear powers, perhaps because they have access to shelters, Tulsi Gabbard said After a trip to Hiroshima, US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard on Tuesday warned that “warmongers” were pushing the world to the brink of nuclear war. Gabbard did not specify her concerns. Gabbard posted on social media a video of grisly footage from the world’s first nuclear attack and of her staring reflectively at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial. On Aug. 6, 1945, the US obliterated Hiroshima, killing 140,000 people in the explosion and by the end of the year from the uranium bomb’s effects. Three days later, a US plane dropped a plutonium bomb on Nagasaki, leaving abut 74,000 people dead by the
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is to visit Canada next week, his first since relations plummeted after the assassination of a Canadian Sikh separatist in Vancouver, triggering diplomatic expulsions and hitting trade. Analysts hope it is a step toward repairing ties that soured in 2023, after then-Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau pointed the finger at New Delhi’s involvement in murdering Hardeep Singh Nijjar, claims India furiously denied. An invitation extended by new Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to Modi to attend the G7 leaders summit in Canada offers a chance to “reset” relations, former Indian diplomat Harsh Vardhan Shringla said. “This is a
RSS