The early good news coming out of the United States in support of global women's rights keeps getting better. Not only has the Obama Administration rescinded the exceedingly counter-productive "Global Gag Rule," but the new Congress has stepped up funding for the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM).
As a result of the recent budget passed by the United States Congress, UNIFEM will receive much appreciated increased funding for 2009. The US contribution to UNIFEM core resources will amount to US$4,500,000, an increase of nearly one million from last year. Also benefitting is the UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women, administered by UNIFEM, which will receive US$2,500,000, an increase of more than US$700,000 from 2008.
This is money well spent.
Tipped by Dipnote, Afghanistan has officially established its first national park, at a beautiful locale called Band-e-Amir.
Methinks they should have a few more of these. More pics, courtesy of flickr user wesolson, under a Creative Commons license, after the jump.
Beth Dickinson flags an upcoming big development in the anti-malaria campaign:
Sanaria, Inc. and the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative announced this morning that their potential vaccine for malaria ready to start human trials as early as this May.
An effective vaccine would, as Beth says, "do wonders." We're still a long way off from comprehensive malaria vaccination across Africa, though. So for now, do the best thing we can to prevent infection (and help Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore have lunch eat bison burgers with Ted Turner): send a net, save a life.
To the persistent question of sending a UN peacekeeping mission to Somalia, the Secretary-General very prudently still says something along the lines of: "Not such a good idea right now."
The deployment of a United Nations peacekeeping operation directly, at this stage, would be a high-risk option...Given the divergent views among the main Somali political players...such an operation could trigger opposition from substantial elements of Somali society opposed to international military intervention. It is highly likely that those opposed to the peace process would portray the mission as a new enemy, which would consequently add momentum to the insurgency and detract from the political process. This could result in attacks against peacekeepers, and in efforts to draw the United Nations force into the conflict. Equally important, the deployment of a United Nations peacekeeping operation would undermine the efforts of the new Government to continue its national reconciliation efforts. [emphasis mine]
As dangerous as such a mission would be for the peacekeepers, it would ultimately prove even more deleterious for Somalis. Increased violence, particularly of the indiscriminate kind, will only cause more suffering and displacement for civilians. And the country's Transitional Federal Government is not exactly in a position to weather significant setbacks. If it falls, then one of Somalia's best (but still faint) hopes for peace will dwindle.
For now, the best option in terms of peacekeeping is to do what the EU just did, and significantly bolster international commitments to the under-staffed and under-supplied African Union force currently operating in Somalia. The AU has already suffered numerous incidents of violence, and would be deeply unfair for UN Member States to ask it to hold the place of a UN mission without equipping it to do the job. The hypocrisy would be particularly acute because no Member State has volunteered to provide troops to a hypothetical UN mission in Somalia; when the Department of Peacekeeping Operations sent requests to 60 countries, only ten responded -- all with a curt "no, thanks."
The UN's role for now, at least until the political and security situation in Somalia stabilizes somewhat will need to have, in Ban's words, a "light footprint," focusing on political reconciliation, good governance, and institution-building efforts. UN humanitarian operations -- helping some 3.2 million people in need of aid -- will continue, of course, but these too require a level of security that the Somali government is simply unable to provide right now.
In the video below, Ted Turner promises to have Demi and Ashton over for lunch at Ted's Montana Grill if 10,000 more people join Nothing But Nets. The money quote: "Hope you like bison burgers."
If you want to help Demi and Ashton along, visit Nothing But Nets. After all, as Ted says, you don't have to be Bill Gates or Oprah to make a difference.
And, as always, keep updated with us on Twitter.
This is pretty timid response. True, the LTTE deserve condemnation for holding civilians as human shields. But so too does the government of Sri Lanka for shelling densly populated areas where these civilians are trapped. Susan Rice, at least, sounded the right notes.
U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice criticized the Sri Lanka government for not providing full assistance to all civilians who manage to escape the rebel-held zone.
She also suggested that both the Tamil Tigers and the government might be guilty of violating international law.
"The fact that both sides have been shooting at civilians as they leave the safe zone is one gross manifestation of the apparent violation of international humanitarian law," Rice said.
It is a shame that other members of the Security Council would not endorse these sentiments. Part of the problem is that China and Russia consider this an internal matter to Sri Lanka and are not willing to hold a "formal discussions" about the conflict.
Meanwhile, Doctors Without Borders posts a chilling interview with surgeon Paul McMaster from Vavuniya hospital in Sri Lanka.
What is the situation at the hospital now?
We and our Sri Lankan colleagues have been dealing with casualties brought into us over these last few days from the conflict in the north of us. We've been seeing very severely wounded patients, the numbers of patients have increased rapidly over the last three or four days, so we're seeing a stream of badly wounded people being brought into us.
Our hospital has got about 450 beds, and we've now got more than 1,700 patients in the hospital-on the floor, in the corridors, and even outside. So the hospital is very close to being overwhelmed.
What conditions are the patients arriving in?
About three-quarters of the injured coming in now have suffered from blast injuries, and the rest are gunshot wounds and mine explosions. We're seeing who've survived on the field and actually reached us. We see abdominal injuries, but many of the chest or head injuries we're suspecting don't survive the blasts to get to us.
Remember back during one of the presidential debates last fall, when the two candidates spent a rather excrutiating amount of time quibbling over whose foreign policy platform Henry Kissinger would more agree with? The issue was mainly one of Republican pride, as it would seemingly amount to apostasy for a veteran GOP foreign policy stalwart like Kissinger to "side" with a relative neophyte like Barack Obama. But it was also seen as a test of the legitimacy of Obama's then contentious talk-to-foreign-leaders approach. With a grizzled realist's stamp of approval, Obama was on solid ground, or so the logic went.
Kissinger is in The Washington Post today, and he (basically) makes sense, arguing that "the issue of proliferation is intrinsically multilateral" and that "bilateral U.S.-Iranian talks are indispensable." But on North Korea, he seems to have taken a step back.
North Korea has recently voided all concessions it made in six years of talks. It cannot be permitted to sell the same concessions over and over again. The six-power talks should be resumed only if Pyongyang restores the circumstances to which it has already agreed, mothballing its plutonium reactor and returning international inspectors to the site.
I, for one, am not willing to wait for "mothballs" to accrue in North Korea's nuclear facilities before engaging in the talks to close down those facilities.
(image of Yongbyon nuclear plant, from flickr user earthhopper under a Creative Commons license)