Former NBC News correspondent and native Canadian Dawna Friesen makes her debut tonight as anchor of Global National, the early evening newscast of Canada’s Global TV.

Friesen will be based in Vancouver, and becomes the first woman to anchor full-time a national, English nightly TV news program in Canada (rival network CTV has named Lisa LaFlamme as its next National News anchor, but she will not take over the anchor chair until next year).

At Global TV, Friesen succeeds former Good Morning America co-anchor Kevin Newman, who anchored Global National until his departure last month.

Friesen left NBC in July after eleven years with the network.

NBC News Correspondent Dawna Friesen is leaving the network after 11 years and will join Canada’s Global National Newscast as anchor, TVNewser has learned.

Friesen replaces former “Good Morning America” co-anchor Kevin Newman whose last newscast will be August 20.

Friesen, who is Canadian, joined NBC News in the London bureau in 1999 after stints at Canada’s CTV and CBC Networks. For NBC News she has reported throughout Europe and the Middle East — on stories ranging form the British royal family to the war in Iraq.

Newman left ABC News in 2001 after an unremarkable stint as GMA co-anchor with Lisa McRee during 1998-99. He spent 10 years atop the Global National newscast. And there is speculation he may be headed to Canada’s state broadcaster CBC.

The big three anchors are wrapping up their anchoring from across the pond. Katie Couric will anchor Evening News from New York tonight, while Diane Sawyer will sub for Charlie Gibson and Ann Curry will be in for Brian Williams. (Couric/Sawyer/Curry – The Three Amigas)

Meanwhile, WaPo’s Howard Kurtz writes about the media’s fascination with first lady Michelle Obama‘s first turn on the international stage: “The Michelle gush-a-thon is growing louder by the day. To be sure, she is a fascinating first lady with a 76 percent approval rating in this week’s Washington Post-ABC News poll… But this first lady has generated endless media chatter about everything from her sleeveless dresses to her vegetable garden…” Kurtz continues:

NBC’s Dawna Friesen noted “her Ivy League education and relaxed, easy charm…

Couric reported that “all of Britain seems to be embracing America’s new first lady,” before tossing to a CBS piece on the Brits being gobsmacked that Obama doesn’t carry a handbag.

…CNN asked its hyperactive London correspondent, Richard Quest, for his reaction: “Michelle Obama is an absolutely extraordinary woman in an extraordinarily ordinary way… She’s taken the city by storm.”