A sampling of United Nations related blog commentary
Democracy Arsenal's Suzanne Nossel on China and the UN
Bradford Plumer on the "water wars"
Coalition for Darfur on setting up UN forces in Darfur
Mark Leon Goldberg on the new Human Rights Council
News Hounds on Fox News' UN coverage
"When Toshiko Kitahara arrived in Ragh district in Badakhshan province, north-east Afghanistan, two things struck her: its natural beauty and the fact that girls did not attend school.
As a UN Volunteer with the World Food Programme (WFP), Toshiko decided to make girls' education a priority. [She first arrived in Afghanistan in 2002 and started as a UN Volunteer in 2003.] A programme officer with WFP's Food for Education unit in the province, the Japanese national took up her concern directly with department of education officials - and just about anyone else who would listen.
WaPo: "Cuba, Saudi Arabia, China and Russia won seats on the new U.N. Human Rights Council on Tuesday despite their poor human rights records, but two rights abusers - Iran and Venezuela - were defeated.
Human rights groups said they were generally pleased with the 47 members elected to the council, which will replace the highly politicized Human Rights Commission. It was discredited in recent years because some countries with terrible rights records used their membership to protect one another from condemnation.
"The spoiler governments, the governments that have a history of trying to undermine the protection of human rights through their membership on the old commission are now a significantly reduced minority when it comes to the council," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. "That doesn't guarantee that the council will be a success, but it is a step in the right direction."
"The United States is proposing a Security Council resolution that would give the United Nations control over Darfur peacekeeping operations, which are now being handled by the African Union. The Council will take up the matter at a special ministerial level meeting." [More]
"Iran has vowed that it would refuse to comply with any UN Security Council demand to halt its disputed nuclear programme and warned the crisis was leading the two sides towards a "confrontation".
Asked how Iran would respond if the Council adopted a tough resolution drafted by Britain and France, foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said Sunday that Iran "will certainly reject it and cannot carry it out."
"With renewed carnage in Sudan's Darfur region spilling into Chad and displacing hundreds thousands more in the past few months, the United Nations top relief official today warned that humanitarian disaster there was imminent if the world did not take quick strong action to get aid in, protect the population and secure a political settlement that stopped the violence once and for all.
"If we are to avoid an imminent, massive loss of life, we need immediate action - from the government of Sudan, the rebels, U.N. Security Council members and donor governments," Jan Egeland the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator wrote in an editorial published in The Wall Street Journal on the eve of his first visit to the strife-torn region since being blocked from visiting by the Government during his trip to Africa last month." [Read more]
UPDATE: The largest rebel group in Sudan's Darfur region has agreed to sign a peace deal with the government. BBC
"Poor nutrition contributes to the deaths of some 5.6 million children every year, and the world has fallen far short in efforts to reduce hunger by half before 2015, the U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF) said Tuesday. In its report, UNICEF said one of every four children under age 5, including 146 million children in the developing world, is underweight.
The most troublesome area in the world is South Asia, where 46 percent of children are underweight. India, Bangladesh and Pakistan account for half of the world's underweight children even though they have only 30 percent of the world's population of children under 5." [Read more]