New US Ambassador looks forward to 'very exciting stay'

MOLLY BORDONARO, the new United States ambassador to Malta, who has succeeded Anthony Gioia, arrived in Malta yesterday afternoon with her husband Matthew and three young children.

"What a great opportunity it is for me to represent the United States in Malta. I appreciate the expression of confidence from President George W. Bush," Mrs Bordonaro, 36, said in a short address to the press outside the ministerial lounge at Malta International Airport.

"We are pleased to be here and we are rather familiar with this part of the Mediterranean," Ms Bordonaro, explaining that said her husband's family was of Sicilian origin.

"From what we read about Malta in the past months we are sure that our stay here will be very exciting. I look forward to continue the great work done by my predecessors in strengthening the good relationships between our two countries," Mrs Bordonaro said.

The ambassador asked the Maltese to spare a prayer for the United States regions that had been hit by the recent natural calamities.

"I look forward to work in this beautiful country and to working with the Maltese people and the government of this country," she said.

Mrs Bordonaro is expected to present her credentials to President Fenech Adami on Wednesday.

Having accepted her public appointment earlier this year, she left her job as a principal at the Gallatin Group, a Portland public affairs agency where she has worked for the past years.

In 1998, Mrs Bordonaro, a native of Portland, was the Republican nominee for Congress in Oregon's first Congressional District. From 2001 till 2004, she served as a director for the Fannie Mae Corporation.

She has been recognised by the Portland Business Journal as one of the nine business people of the year and one of the "40 under 40" Portland business leaders. She headed Mr Bush's Oregon election campaign in 2000 and 2004.

Mrs Bordonaro's political career began in Washington DC when she worked at the American Legislative Exchange Council leading the campaign against the Clinton Health Plan.

Mrs Bordonaro never hides her love for her three children - Brooke, four years, Colt, two, and four-month-old Skyler - in interviews given to publications in the United States.

"My children are the most interesting people in the world to me right now. They truly fascinate me," she told Oregon Business Magazine in a recent interview related to her Malta appointment.