The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) is re-locating about 600 international following last week's brazen attack on a UN compound which killed five international UN workers. From the UN News Center:
The House Committee on Foreign Affairs held a hearing this morning on international climate negotiations. Todd Stern, the administration's top international climate change negotiator, briefed the committee and was followed in a seperate hearing by UN Foundation head Sen. Tim Wirth (who had Stern's job during the Kyoto negotiations), Ellen Claussen of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change and Steve Groves of the Heritage Foundation.
This year is the 40th anniversary of the John Lennon-Yoko Ono classic, "Give Peace a Chance." To commemorate the event, the Plastic Ono Band and its record label are re-publishing the song through Itunes, and donating the proceeds to the UN Peace Building Fund.
As Breast Cancer Awareness Month ended in the U.S. last week, new information reminds us that focus shouldn't be delegated to just one nation, let alone to just one month. AP had a story yesterday not only on the rise of breast cancer in poverty-striken nations, but on how women are developing the disease at a much younger age than in the developed world. Additionally (and not surprisingly), diagnosis is often made late in the game:
A video produced by UN TV shows the wonders that await future tourists in Afghanistan. I can't wait for the day that I can convince my wife that this trip is for us. The landscape in this video is breathtaking.
By Aaron Wiener
U.N. climate change talks in Barcelona have gotten off to a rocky start, with around 50 African nations boycotting meetings in protest of the low emissions reduction targets set by the world's developed countries.
The General Assembly will take up the Goldstone Report in a session tomorrow. There are two competing resolutions circulating. The first (below) is drafted by Arab states and calls for the Secretary General to transmit the report to the Security Council. The EU, lead by France and Germany, are trying to prevent that outcome by inserting language in the resolution that calls on both the Palestinians and Israeli's to pursue internal investigation into alleged war crimes, the credibility of which would be verified by the High Commissioner for Human Rights before a future Huma
I am looking forward to Angela Merkel's address to the U.S. Congress today. (Watch it live). Next Monday is the 20th anniversery of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Knowing Merkel, I expect her to use the platform to impress upon the U.S.
Bleak news today for those hoping to one day see the iconic snow atop Kilimanjaro. You don't have much time left.
According to the author of a new report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, that snow could be gone by 2022. In 2002, the same team predicted that ice levels would be where they are now. Since 1912, roughly 85 percent of the ice cover has disappeared.