Stephen Walt wonders "where have all the political songs gone?" Since he seems to have stopped listening to popular music around the time The Origins of War in Neorealist Theory was published, Professor Walt asks the rest of us to weigh in.
Here's my stab at a few:
The Associated Press reports on a new survey of women in Parliaments by the Inter-Parliamentary Union
Women hold just over 18 percent of the seats in parliaments around the world, a 60 percent increase since 1995 but a long distance from equality with men in national legislative bodies, the Inter-Parliamentary Union said Thursday in its annual report card...During 2008, parliamentary elections and renewals took place in 54 countries and women's representation increased to 18.3 percent — up from 17.7 percent last year and 11.3 percent in 1995, the IPU report said.
Of the 2,656 seats that went to women in 2008, the IPU said 1,707 women were directly elected, 878 were indirectly elected and 71 were appointed...Latin American women registered "some impressive gains," taking a 26.5 percent share of seats in the 12 chambers that were renewed — largely due to the success of women candidates in Cuba, Belize and Grenada, the IPU report said...In the United States, both houses of Congress elected their highest proportions of women members — 17 percent in each chamber, the report said. But that's still ranks the U.S. below the global average.As usually in these kinds of measures of social progress, the Nordic countries come out on top. Just over 44% of Parliamentarians in Scandanavia are women. Presumably, this includes the world's first openly gay head of state, Iceland Prime Minister Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir. Check out UNIFEM for more stats on the progress (or, sadly, lack thereof) of the status of women worldwide.
This terribly metaphor-laden Russia Today segment previews a meeting on Friday between Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
The snippet excerpted from the Hillary Clinton speech is a nice example of how the new administration's entire attitude toward Russia is a dramatic departure from the Bush years. The Bush administration would simultaneously press Moscow's buttons on one matter and demand Russian cooperation on another. (EG, I'll take a missile defense system in Poland AND your support for Iranian sanctions at the Security Council!)
Needless to say, kind of diplomatic posturing amounted to a pretty incoherent Russia policy -- and had little to show for it. We will have to wait for the outcome of today's meeting, but I think Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is sending the right message when she says "we have to vigorously press the differences we have while searching for common ground wherever possible."
Last month John Solecki, an American employee of the United Nations Refugee Agency, was kidnapped on his way to work in Quetta, Pakistan. Something called the "Baluchistan Liberation United Front" abducted Sokecki and shot to death his driver, a local UN employee named Syed Hashim. Four days ago the group threatened to kill Solecki in four days should their list of demands, including the release of over a 1,000 prisoners in Pakistan, not be met.
This is obviously a tense situation. The Pakistani Senate has called for his release. The United Nations says it cannot respond to Solecki's kidnappers. Meanwhile, the fate of Solecki and thousands of refugees in western Pakistan -- who depend on UNHCR being able to go about its daily business without this kind of threat -- hang in the balance.
Our thoughts and prayers are with Solecki and his family.
General Merrill McPeak (Ret.) and Kurt Bassuener advise the Obama administration to consider enforcing a no-fly-zone in Darfur by attacking Sudanese air assets. (McPeak, for the uninitiated, is a former air force general and a co-chair of the Obama campaign.)
Whenever this kind of suggestion comes up, humanitarian relief organizations generally protest. They argue that 1) a no-fly-zone would hinder their access to the most vulnerable, 2) they would be the likely target of Sudanese government retribution. Well, now that aid groups are being summarily expelled from Darfur these objections are somewhat less relevant. Still, I'm wary of this kind of logic.
By taking away the Sudanese government's freedom to use air power to terrorize its population, the West would finally get enough leverage with Khartoum to negotiate the entry of a stronger U.N. ground force.While it's true that Khartoum has not been the most cooperative of host countries, the main problem in standing up UNAMID is that member states have not been willing to pony up the troops or equipment needed to make the mission a success. Still. STILL! UNAMID does not have adequate equipment, like transport helicopters, that the mission requires. This has little to do with Omar al Bashir and a lot to do with the apathy of key UN member states.
You hear a lot of terrible news out of Eastern Congo these days. And rightly so. An overwhelmed and undermanned UN peacekeeping mission is struggling to keep a peace that does not exist. Still, there are occasional stories like this that demonstrate the great value that even a struggling peacekeeping mission can bring to a situation like this.
The United Nations peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has demobilized 880 children associated with armed groups in the volatile eastern province of North Kivu between 30 January and 2 March, it was announced today.
Madnodje Mounoubai, spokesperson for the mission, known by its French acronym MONUC, told a news conference in Kinshasa that the great majority of the 839 boys and 41 girls are Congolese, but there are also 31 Rwandans, two Burundians and two Ugandans.
All of the children were handed over to non-governmental organizations (NGOs) for their return and reintegration into their families and communities, after they were demobilized by MONUC’s Child Protection Unit.Unicef just posted a pretty powerful video on the subject.
A few days ago I noted a number of factual inaccuracies in a mindless segment on CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight about a purported attempt by the United Nations to curb Americans' freedom of expression. In the course of the course of responding to Lou Dobbs I made one inaccurate statement of my own. I said "There's never been an anti-blasphemy resolution passed in the General Assembly and I don't expect there ever will be." While technically true, the General Assembly has taken up the functional equivalent in resolutions passed under the aegis of "Combating Defamation of Religions."
There are a couple of further points I feel I should make about this.
At 8 am eastern standard time, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Sudanese president Omar al Bashir for alleged war crimes in Darfur. This was not exactly an unexpected development. We have known for at least a week that today was the day that the shoe was to drop.
Boonstra and I have followed the ICC proceedings against Bashir for quite a long time here on UN Dispatch. You can see posts here, here, and here and a recent American Prospect piece I wrote. Bottom line is that we believe that the warrant has the ability to give the international community added leverage over the Sudanese government, which on balance has been an unhelpful partner for peace in Sudan. We are mindful that certain deleterious humanitarian consequences may follow today's announcement, but if approached with the right diplomatic finesse, the arrest warrant can support wider international efforts at peace and stability in Sudan.
Throughout the day we will update this post with reactions around the world to today's big news. In the meantime, check out this Enough Project report on how the arrest warrant will shake up Sudanese politics and Citizens For Global Solutions' invaluable ICC explainer.