From Media Matters: "Continuing a pattern of attacks on the United Nations by Fox News, Big Story Weekend guest host Julie Banderas asked: "[W]hen it comes to issues like North Korea and Iran, our supposed allies Russia and China always seem to be all talk, so why bother having a U.N. at all?" During the segment, on-screen text read: "What's the point of the U.N. if allies are all talk?"
The New York Times' Monday editorial page leads with an item dismissive of the Security Council's role in resolving the North Korea missile crisis. The editorial board, however, may have spoken too soon.
Reuters: "Iraq will ask the United Nations to end immunity from local law for U.S. troops, the government said on Monday, as the U.S. military named five soldiers charged in a rape-murder case that has outraged Iraqis.
For all the flack that critics hurl at the United Nations, the crisis sparked by North Korea's missile tests shows just how indispensable the United Nations can be during times of global emergency. As David E Sanger of the New York Times reports, there are few good policy options available to President Bush as he approaches North Korea's nuclear saber-rattling. However, at the Security Council, Ambassador Bolton told reporters that Pyongyang was isolated, and that there is "broad and deep support" for a Japanese resolution to sanction North Korea over the tests.
"The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) issued an urgent appeal Monday for 7.7 million dollars to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of the 'most vulnerable' children in Ethiopia during the second half of 2006.
UNICEF said in a statement that unless it secured the funding, it would have to cancel the second half of a programme which reaches 7 million children twice a year with vitamin A supplements, measles vaccination and anti-malaria nets." [More]
UN News Service: "Concerned at the situation facing civilians in strife-torn Gaza, Secretary-General Kofi Annan today issued a strong appeal for urgent action to alleviate their plight, calling on Israel to lift restrictions hampering the work of UN agencies there.
New York Times: "President Bush said Friday that he believed the nation's nascent missile defense system would have had a "reasonable chance" of shooting down a long-range missile launched by North Korea had it come close to the United States, and he said he was determined to use the United Nations to set "some red lines" for future behavior by the North Koreans."
"The No. 2 United Nations official met with top Iraqi leaders in Baghdad on Thursday to promote a new partnership meant to help muster political and economic support for Iraq's government, the U.N. said.
Mark Malloch Brown, the deputy U.N. secretary-general, discussed setting up a preparatory group that will have the backing of the World Bank and include representatives of international donors, the U.N. said in a news release from its headquarters in New York." [More]