US names Laurence Pope new envoy in Libya

The United States has chosen a veteran diplomat who retired more than a decade ago to serve as its senior envoy in Libya following the death of Ambassador Christopher Stevens in a Sept. 11 attack in Benghazi, the State Department said on Thursday.

Laurence Pope, a former US ambassador to Chad and senior State Department counter-terrorism official, has arrived in Tripoli to serve as "charge d'affairs," the title given to a diplomat who represents a country in the absence of an ambassador, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said in a statement. (Reuters)