With Condoleezza Rice, US secretary of state, due in Brussels again on December 8, observers are wondering why there is no US ambassador to meet her.

C. Boyden Gray, the Washington power broker nominated this summer by President George W. Bush, has been in limbo for months while Democratic senators sit on his nomination. One senator, Dick Durbin of Illinois, recently lifted his objection - apparently after Gray wrote a deeply apologetic letter to him for an incident dating back two years.