Reuters: "France will greatly increase the size of the contingent it is promising for a peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon, possibly making it easier to recruit other nations, officials and diplomats said on Thursday.... The United Nations says a strengthened U.N. force in south Lebanon is urgently needed to preserve the fragile truce which came into effect on August 14 after a month of fighting which killed more than 1,300 people, mostly Lebanese civilians."
NYT: "By the United Nations' latest estimate, more than 49 million sub-Saharan children age 14 and younger worked in 2004, 1.3 million more than at the turn of the century just four years earlier.
Their tasks are not merely the housework and garden-tending common to most developing societies. They are prostitutes, miners, construction workers, pesticide sprayers, haulers, street vendors, full-time servants, and they are not necessarily even paid for their labor.
Some are as young as 5 and 6 years old."
"Repeating his earlier calls for an end to the fighting that erupted in the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) following Sunday's provisional election results, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has also called for all opposing forces to withdraw from the streets of Kinshasa.
In a statement issued by his spokesman, Mr. Annan underlined the "responsibility of President Joseph Kabila and Vice-President Jean-Pierre Bemba to resolve the situation through dialogue and peaceful means, and urges them to meet as quickly as possible to ease tensions." More
Reuters: "New rules of engagement for U.N. troops in Lebanon permit soldiers to shoot in self-defense, use force to protect civilians and resist armed attempts to interfere with their duties, a U.N. document says.
NYT: "More than two billion people already live in regions facing a scarcity of water, and unless the world changes its ways over the next 50 years, the amount of water needed for a rapidly growing population will double, scientists warned in a study released yesterday.
Reuters: "Iran, set to reply on Tuesday to an offer by world powers aimed at defusing a nuclear standoff, has insisted it would not stop enriching uranium as they demand by an August 31 deadline to avoid possible sanctions. But a rebuff would not yet trigger immediate action by the U.N. Security Council, which passed a resolution on July 31 giving Iran a month to halt enrichment or risk sanctions."
In May, the Security Council authorized the deployment of peacekeepers to Darfur. Three months later, blue helmets are nowhere in sight. Meanwhile, the UN's top humanitarian official recently warned that a peace accord signed in Abuja, Nigeria between some of the rebel factions and Khartoum is "doomed to failure" and that the situation was going from "really bad to catastrophic."
So who or what is to blame for this appalling inaction in Darfur?
Martin Peretz of The New Republic views the continuing violence in Darfur as a failure of the United Nations to enforce its own resolutions. In a sense, he is correct: The Security Council resolution passed in conjunction with May's peace accords called for the paltry African Union monitoring force in Darfur to be replaced with a robust United Nations peacekeeping force.
"U.S. President George W. Bush says Lebanon needs an international force "as quickly as possible" to safeguard the ceasefire ... The UN-brokered ceasefire resolution, which kicked in on Aug. 14, ended 34 days of cross-border attacks by Israel and Lebanon-based Hezbollah militants that left more than 1,000 dead." [Full story]
"The Secretary-General stressed that in a time of acute crisis in the Middle East, progress on the nuclear issue was essential for the stability not only of the region, but the international system itself. "It is time to take steps in the right direction," Mr. Annan said. "I am convinced that a way is now open for setting a milestone for international non-proliferation efforts."
Noting that the EU3 plus 3 had reaffirmed Iran's right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, the Secretary-General said it was important for Iran to assure the world that its intentions are peaceful, and that it re-builds confidence in its nuclear programme, as both the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the Security Council had called for." [More]