Climate change expert and foreign negotiator, Michael Brotherson heads a list of Guyanese selected for diplomatic appointment overseas, Foreign Affairs Minister Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett announced recently. The minister speaking at a media conference revealed a number of new picks for diplomatic postings, including Michael Brotherson as honorary consul general to Barbados.
Brotherson has worked for 20 years with the Foreign Service in various capacities, and more recently with the Climate Change Office attached to the Office of the President.
The Foreign Ministry has also appointed Ambassador Extraordinaire George Talbot as permanent representative of Guyana to the United Nations. Prior to his appointment, Talbot was charge d’ affaires of the Permanent Mission to the UN in New York with the rank of minister counsellor.
He previously served as second secretary and first secretary in the Permanent Mission.
Talbot holds a master of arts in international relations from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University and a bachelor of arts degree in modern languages (Spanish/French) from the University of Guyana. He has represented Guyana at the United Nations and at other international fora on related areas.
Keith George has also been appointed ambassador to Suriname. He joined the ministry over 19 years ago and served as director of the Frontiers Department.
He has also worked in both the technical cooperation and political departments.
George Talbot
“As director of the Frontiers Department, he has been instrumental in the efforts aimed at protecting the territorial integrity of Guyana and ensuring that Guyana enjoys its rights and meets its obligations with respect to the maritime spaces over which Guyana exercises jurisdiction under international law,” Minister Rodrigues-Birkett disclosed.
George played a vanguard role in the drafting and finalisation of the Maritime Zone Act of 2010, and led the team in the preparation of the submission for Guyana’s claim to the extended continental shelf. He has a bachelor of arts in history and a postgraduate diploma in international relations from the University of Guyana.
Longtime senior foreign service officer Audrey Jardine-Waddell will now serve as Guyana’s ambassador to the Union of South American States. Waddell joined the Guyana Foreign Service in 1985. She was attached to the embassy of Guyana in Brasilia from 1996 to 1999, and in 2003, was appointed director of the Department of America and Asia; a position which she held until September 2008 when she was posted to the embassy of Guyana in Havana as minister counsellor and head of chancery.
Protocol Officer Esther Griffith will now serve in the capacity of chief of protocol.
Griffith joined the ministry in 1989, where she worked directly with a number of specialist officers.
Satyawattie Sawh who has been acting as honorary consul general to Canada since November 2010, was also appointed to the post.
