Obama selects Dubliner Power as UN ambassador

A Dublin-born Pulitzer prize winner has been selected by President Barack Obama as nominee for US ambassador to the UN.

Samantha Power, who in 2008 called Hillary Clinton “a monster” is due to be named by the White House as the successor to Susan Rice as UN ambassador.

Ms Power, a former White House aide and Harvard professor who lived in Castleknock in Dublin until she was 9, is a strong advocate for human rights.

She caused a stir during the tense contest between Obama and Clinton for the Democratic nomination in the 2008 election. Ms Power was serving as an adviser to Obama at the time.

“She is a monster, too — that is off the record — she is stooping to anything,” Ms Power was quoted as telling Britain’s Scotsman newspaper in reference to Clinton.

The remarks prompted her resignation.

Republicans in the US Senate — which must approve the nomination — are likely to give her a rough confirmation hearing.

If confirmed, Ms Power’s return to government service would be a comeback.

She left the White House earlier this year as senior director for multilateral affairs and human rights on the national security staff.

While that job was relatively low profile, she was widely reported to have argued for the US decision to intervene in 2011 to support the rebels who went on to topple Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

Her earlier work as a journalist sent her covering the Balkan wars and conflicts in countries such as Rwanda.

She later won the Pulitzer Prize for her book A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide, a study of US policy responses to genocide in the 20th century.