GOVERNMENT

Nikki Haley

United States ambassador to the United Nations

If any US diplomat embodies America's newly-rediscovered determination to confront the world's tyrannies, then it's the ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley. Previously the first governor of South Carolina to be both a woman and from a minority – Haley's parents immigrated to the US from India – President Trump paid tribute to her as “proven deal-maker” in nominating her for the UN post in January 2017. Nearly two years later, she has established herself as the leading voice at the UN on human rights emergencies from Syria to Burma, as well as a passionate defender of Israel. Haley has also taken concrete action to show she means business, leading the US withdrawal from the UN's fatally-flawed Human Rights Council, as well as cultural body UNESCO. At the same time, Haley is also winning friends, making history in June when a US-sponsored resolution at the General Assembly condemning Hamas passed with a plurality of votes. That vote, a US official told The Algemeiner afterwards, is a sign that "times are changing at the UN." (Photo: Reuters / Mike Segar.)