The Enough Project launches a new campaign and website RAISE Hope for Congo to fight the terrible scourge of violence against women in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Watch the video. Take action.
From the UN News Center:
Two local staff members for United Nations agencies operating in Somalia have been killed since Friday and a worker with a non-governmental organization (NGO) in Afghanistan was slain today. "The Secretary-General deplores these acts of deliberate violence against those who are making every effort to alleviate the dire suffering of Somali and Afghan citizens," according to a statement issued by his spokesperson. "He is alarmed at the increasing trend of killing and abduction of aid workers in both countries." Staff of UN aid agencies and NGOs have come under increasing deliberate attack in Somalia and Afghanistan in recent months, as well as in other countries and regions plagued by conflict, such as the Darfur region of western Sudan. In a report released earlier this month on staff security, Mr. Ban called for collective responsibility and closer collaboration between the UN and its Member States to better protect UN staff and other humanitarian workers.Clearly, this is a very disturbing trend. If you want to know what we can do to prevent terrorists from targeting aid workers don't miss Samantha Power's excellent op-ed on how to improve security for aid workers, or in her words "protect the protectors."
Nick Kristoff pushes back against this bit of snarky commentary regarding Angelina Jolie's role as a celebrity spokesperson for refugee issues.
Frankly, if a celebrity isn't genuinely interested in poverty and is simply trying to get good press, there are better ways to do it. Traveling to Darfur or Congo is dangerous, expensive and uncomfortable, and the outhouses have bats, scorpions and camel spiders. But if a celebrity is willing to put up with such challenges, he or she can get public attention in a way that no one else can. I once was on a panel where Angelina's eyes filled up as she spoke of Iraqi refugees she had met in Syria; for anybody who was there, that scene was worth 100 of my columns. And ditto for her speech on Friday at the Council on Foreign Relations.I, too, witnessed this aforementioned moment when Jolie broke done while discussing an Iraqi child she met. It was at last year's Clinton Global Initiative.
The Russian Mission to the United Nations issued a bizarre statement to the UN press corps today stating simply, "We have received a letter from Senator John McCain requesting financial contribution to his Presidential campaign. In this connection we would like to reiterate that Russian officials, the Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations or the Russian Government do not finance political activity in foreign countries."
Intrigued, I called the Russian Mission and a press officer there directed me to this item on the Mission's website. It seems that the McCain-Palin campaign sent a generic fundraising letter to Russia's UN Ambassador Vitaly I Churkin. The letter, dated September 29, 2008, reads in part:
Dear Friend...Today I am reaching out to you to ask you to sign and return the enclosed 2008 Pledge of Support along with a campaign contribution of $35, $50, $100, $500, $1,000, $2,500 or even $5,000 to the McCain-Palin Victory 2008. As we have already witnessed, this has been an extremely tough, hard-fought campaign, and it will be to the very end. In recent years, elections have been fought within the margins of small differences. This one clearly will not be. The differences between our Republican candidates and that of the Obama Democrats could not be greater. And we intend to fight as hard as we can to ensure that our principles prevail.The spokesperson from the Russian UN Mission believes that that this letter was received in error. The letter contains no honorifics to describe Ambassador Churkin nor does it refer at all to Russia. It is simply a generic fundraising letter--albeit sent to the top Russian diplomat at the United Nations. The Russian Mission to the United Nations has not heard from the McCain-Palin campaign since issuing the statement this morning.
This has been a rough week for Iceland. First, Iceland loses to Turkey and Austria for a seat on the UN Security Council. And yesterday, the International Monetary Fund along with Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Russia pledged to loan Iceland $6 billion necessary to keep its economy afloat. Still, there could be a silver lining to this from Icelanders who seek integration into the European Union.
Some Icelandic authorities have suggested that once matters stabilize, the country should give up having an independent currency, and instead either adopt the euro outright or peg the value of the krona firmly to that of the euro. Another possibility, rejected in the past, is to join the European Union as a member nation, a proposal that Icelandic conservatives have opposed. Still, Olli Rehn, the union's commissioner for enlargement, told Agence France-Presse on Monday that Iceland would not find it difficult to be admitted to the union.What is interesting here is that of the countries committing to bail out Iceland, only Denmark and Sweden belong to the European Union--but even Denmark and Sweden do not use the euro as currency. Nevertheless, Iceland's march toward integration seems to be taking one step forward. It is already a Schengen country, meaning that there is no border control between Iceland and the rest of Europe. The next step, seemingly, is to hoist the EU flag in Reykjavik.
Those warships that NATO promised it would send to Somalia's coast have arrived, bolstering the American force already there and deploying just in time to replace the Canadian ships that were scheduled to return home this week.
Somalia's government? Happy.
"We are so delighted with the arrival of those NATO ships into our waters and they have our full consent to fight against the pirates," the prime minister said at a news conference. "NATO can carry out any acts including military actions in our waters against the pirates," he added.Those who would reclaim their control of Somalia's government, though, the Union of the Islamic Courts, are not as thrilled, having declared war on any foreign ships in its waters. And while the UIC, waging an underground campaign to unseat the current Ethiopian-backed government, certainly benefits from the anarchy wreaked by the pirates, some of the pirates seem aligned with the al-Shabab militant group, a splinter of the UIC, so this seems to be more of a "your enemy is my enemy, too" type of solidarity. With so many enemies milling about, unfortunately, there remains plenty to fear in and around Somalia. (Image from flickr user HolgerVaga under a Creative Commons license.)
Two weeks ago, the General Assembly voted to refer the status of Kosovo's sovereignty to the International Court of Justice. In the UN Plaza segment below, Matthew Lee and I discuss this development, what it means for the United Nations, and it's significance to Serbian national politics.
Much of the rest of the diavalog is devoted to the recent Security Council elections. Check it out!
Jeffrey Gettleman's article in today's New York Times is deeply jarring, but it also reports that some positive developments are being made in the campaign to quell the epidemic of rape in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
European aid agencies are spending tens of millions of dollars building new courthouses and prisons across eastern Congo, in part to punish rapists. Mobile courts are holding rape trials in villages deep in the forest that have not seen a black-robed magistrate since the Belgians ruled the country decades ago. The American Bar Association opened a legal clinic in January specifically to help rape victims bring their cases to court. So far the work has resulted in eight convictions. Here in Bukavu, one of the biggest cities in the country, a special unit of Congolese police officers has filed 103 rape cases since the beginning of this year, more than any year in recent memory. In Bunia, a town farther north, rape prosecutions are up 600 percent compared to five years ago. Congolese investigators have even been flown to Europe to learn "CSI"-style forensic techniques. The police have arrested some of the most violent offenders, often young militia men, most likely psychologically traumatized themselves, who have thrust sticks, rocks, knives and assault rifles inside women. "We're starting to see results," said Pernille Ironside, a United Nations official in eastern Congo.Ending the impunity for rapists in eastern Congo is one of the most important prerequisites to achieving peace in the wartorn region, and the UN has been on the front lines, helping victims come forward and building the judicial structure necessary to end this scourge. For those of you in DC, UNIFEM-USA is screening the documentary The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo at InterAction on Wednesday, October 22, at 6:30 pm. And for those of you not in DC, check out Mark's interview with the filmmaker, Lisa Jackson, below the fold.
Turkey and Austria will join Uganda, Mexico, and Japan as the newest members of the Security Council, defeating what was once considered a strong campaign by Iceland.
Iceland had lobbied hard, although its financial crisis had raised questions about its candidacy. Turkey won 151 votes and Austria 133, surpassing in the first round of voting the 128 votes required for the two-thirds majority out of 192 votes cast.Reykjavik ultimately garnered only 87 votes, and, because of the anonymous voting procedure, we'll never know whether it was Iceland's financial crisis that undid its bid, or the fact that it contributes only two police officers to UN peacekeeping, compared to the 792 personnel provided by Turkey. Hopefully, though, no unsavory dried shark dishes made it onto the table where Iceland was touting its dessert pancakes. As for Iran's quixotic campaign, Tehran gained only 32 votes to Japans' 158, bringing the sort of resounding defeat that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad probably was not looking for.