Author Peter Daou

Home
peter-daou
Peter Daou

“Love, Labor, Loss”

"A few weeks ago I attended a film fest with my oldest daughter Tonya Sargent. One of the films we watched was a documentary called "Love, Labor, Loss" that told the story of women with fistulas, or holes, caused by obstructed labour.... Fistulas mainly affect women who live in poverty in the developing world and can't obtain quality health care, mostly in Africa, Asia and some Arab states. As a result of this condition, they are often shunned and ostracized by society. According to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), obstetric fistula affects an estimated 50,000 to 100,000 women around the world every year." [More]

Sudan Under Pressure to Accept UN Darfur Mission

"World powers will next week press Sudan to accept a United Nations peacekeeping mission in Darfur amid reports of increasing violence in the province. Tens of thousands have been killed and 2.5 million people forced into camps during three years of rape, murder and pillage in Darfur, in lawless western Sudan." [Read more]

Annan to Send Team to Middle East to Urge Restraint

Annan.jpg Reuters: "U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan is sending a three-person team to the Middle East to urge all parties to exercise restraint and help defuse the major crisis in the region, a spokesman said on Thursday.... Vijay Nambiar, Annan's political adviser, is to head the team. The other members are U.N. Middle East envoys Terje Roed Larsen and Alvaro de Soto."

Nations Sending Iran to Security Council

Security Council "World powers agreed Wednesday to send Iran back to the United Nations Security Council for possible punishment, saying the clerical regime has given no sign it means to negotiate seriously over its disputed nuclear program. The United States and other permanent members of the powerful U.N. body said Iran has had long enough to say whether it will meet the world's terms to open bargaining that would give Tehran economic and energy incentives in exchange for giving up suspicious activities." [Full story]

Media Matters: Fox News Continues ‘Pattern of Attacks on the UN’

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?"

Iraq Says to Ask UN to End US Immunity

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.

UNICEF Appeals for 7.7 Million Dollars for Ethiopian Children

"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]

Annan Appeals for Urgent Action in Gaza

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.

“Red Lines” for North Korea

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."