A sampling of United Nations related blog commentaryPeek: "Number one of the eight Millennium Development Goals that all 191 United Nations member states have agreed to try to achieve by the year 2015 is to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger. In addition to the security concern noted above, there's an ethical imperative. Is there a belief system on Earth that doesn't essentially tell you that you're connected to every other human and that your soul suffers as theirs does?"
Security Council
"The chairmen of the three anti-terrorism committees briefed the Security Council today on recent measures undertaken to tackle the global scourge, with one chair highlighting the danger of non-State actors gaining access to weapons of mass destruction, and another saying that closer ties with Interpol had increased effectiveness.
Peter Burian, Chairman of the so-called "1540" Committee named after its Security Council resolution, warned that "all States were vulnerable to being used by non-State actors who might want to gain access to weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery." [Read more]
Also see:
UN Action Against Terrorism
A sampling of United Nations related blog commentaryInformed Comment: "Bringing the United Nations Back In - There will be anti-War protests in the coming month, as the 3-year anniversary of the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq approaches. I think it is time to demand a timetable for US withdrawal from Iraq. I suspect a majority of Iraqi parliamentarians want that. The Sunni Arabs demand it. The Sadrists demand it. It is time. Saying that the guerrillas would take advantage of a timetable, given the carnage we saw on Monday is frankly silly. They are taking advantage of the current situation. We have to create a new situation, with which they might be happier so that they stop blowing things up. Staying this course is untenable. But that step will not necessarily resolve the crisis. I think the peace movement has a real opportunity here to make a push for much heavier United Nations involvement in Iraq. I say, let's make up placards calling on Kofi Annan to get involved, and calling on Bush to let the UN come in in a big way, with proper protection."
Democracy Arsenal: "I spent this weekend at a conference organized by the Stanley Foundation on UN Reform. Stanley is deeply valued at the UN for convening in-depth, substantive sessions that are small enough to allow participants to engage and actually reach decisions. David Shorr, an occasional guest-blogger here, has masterminded these UN events in recent years. This weekend he and Stanley Foundation President Dick Stanley focused on the nuts and bolts of how to streamline the thousands of UN mandates that have accumulated over the years. They convened a group including a dozen UN ambassadors from major countries (none with mustaches), a handful of their deputies, a few top Secretariat and US government officials, one academic and one blogger. For me it was a chance to delve back into reform issues 5 years after completing negotiations at the US Mission to the UN to reform the organization's financial system in 2001. Here are 10 reasons why the weekend left me somewhat heartened on prospects for UN reform..."
"The United Nations released an emergency grant of P2.6 million and dispatched a disaster assessment and coordination team with medicine and supplies for up to 10,000 people, the Philippine mission at the U.N. said in a statement." LINK
"President Bush on Friday called for doubling the number of international troops in the war-ravaged Darfur region of Sudan and a bigger role for NATO in the peacekeeping effort.... After private talks with world leaders, including U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, Bush decided to call for an additional 7,000 or more troops to be placed under U.N. command, along with the 7,000 African Union troops already there, because such an expansion would be the quickest way to intervene in the bloody conflict, the officials said." [Read more]
"The head of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) today supported Haiti's Provisional Electoral Council's declaration that former President Rene Preval was the winner of last week's presidential elections and stressed that the Council's decision had not been influenced by the mission." [More]
A sampling of United Nations related blog commentaryAgonist: "CSM - Amid new escalation in fighting in the troubled Darfur region of Sudan, with rebels shooting down a government helicopter Tuesday, there's fresh pressure on the international community to step in to help stop the three-year-old conflict. It comes as consensus is hardening in Western capitals and at the United Nations that the 7,000 African troops now in Darfur, as part of a force supplied by the African Union, are inadequate. Because of limited training, equipment, and marching orders, the AU troops have been unable to contain the fighting, provide safety for civilians, or adequately protect humanitarian aid groups operating in the desert region, which is the size of Texas."
Ethiopundit: "Deepening poverty shatters families in Ethiopia: "Ethiopia has the world's largest population of orphaned children, with 4.6 million having lost parents to AIDS and other diseases such as tuberculosis and malaria, according to a 2004 study by the United Nations and Ethiopia's labor and social affairs ministry." God and fate have not betrayed Ethiopians but her rulers have. As Rural Ethiopians Struggle, Child Labor Can Mean Survival: [WaPo] "Ethiopia has one of the highest rates of child labor in the world, according to the United Nations' International Labor Organization and the African Network for the Prevention of and Protection Against Child Abuse and Neglect."