Leaving years of exile in a refugee camp in Kenya
behind them, Sudanese refugees travel through
the dramatic scenery of South Sudan on the first
convoy of UNHCR's organised repatriation which
officially started on Saturday.
"This is a joyous day, the day we welcome refugees home from exile after decades of war," a representative of the government of South Sudan said at a ceremony on Saturday in Nadapal, just inside South Sudan on the Kenyan border, where local residents waved paper flags of what they call "New Sudan" to welcome their kinfolk home." [Read more]
See also: South Sudan Repatriation Outlook
A sampling of United Nations related blog commentaryGlobal Voices Online: "Passion of the Present reports that the UN is to facilitate the return of 60,000 refugees to the South of Sudan by May next year ... "The move started Saturday and it could take up to five years to repatriate all 560,000 southern Sudanese refugees in seven neighboring countries - Central African Republic, Congo, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda - said Jean-Marie Fakhouri, the head of operations in Sudan for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees."
Superspade: "The BBC today has a story about the escalating conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea. This story talks about how U.N. peacekeepers are leaving, more specifically, have been ordered to leave by the U.N. Security Council, by Friday. Who knew about this? Not most Americans. Instead, we are talking about Iraq."
Opinio Juris: "In yesterday's Washington Post, we find an article in which Detlev Mehlis, the chief UN investigator into the murder of Rafik al-Hariri, actually accuses Syria of direct involvement in the assassination, as well as linking Syria to the murder of Gibran Tueni. While we can only sit and wait for the UN to release its evidence, let's hope that what has been gathered is so damning that Russia, China, and Algeria will have no hope but to support punishment."
TPM Cafe (Larry Johnson): "The revelation that the National Security Agency was allowed to conduct non-FISA intercepts of American citizens should bring last summer's hearing on John Bolton's nomination to the United Nations back into focus. As Legal times noted in September of this year, "During the confirmation hearings of John Bolton as the U.S. representative to the United Nations, it came to light that the NSA had freely revealed intercepted conversations of U.S. citizens to Bolton while he served at the State Department."
Harowo: "Toxic waste poisoning Somalia - Just before last December's tsunami hit the coast of Somalia, local fisherman thought their lucky day had arrived. The preceding force of the wave drove lobsters from the seabed onto the shoreline. But as fishermen collected the valuable harvest the biggest wave they had ever seen came towards them. Many homes have been rebuilt along the coast and many villages now have schools and hospitals for the first time ever. In some areas the situation is better now than before the tsunami, says Maxwell Gaylard, U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia. ... However, it appears Somalia is experiencing another disaster of unknown proportions thanks to the tsunami."
New Communications Blogzine: "Each year, the Millennium Project of the American Council for the United Nations University publishes its State of the Future report. [Disclosure: Jen McClure and I did some pro-bono work for this organization a few years ago to promote this report.] Designed to provide easy-to-read snapshots of the global situation as it pertains to topics such as democracy, technology, organized crime, ethics and so on, it is an excellent resource to get a broad sense of what is happening around the world and how experts expect trends to continue. Each year the SOTF report comments on 15 Global Challenges for Humanity, identified by the think tank's several hundred futurists, scholars, business planners, and policy makers from around the world."
"A year of disasters around the world sparked an unprecedented outpouring of aid, but richer nations still are not giving enough money to tackle lingering humanitarian crises, the United Nations' humanitarian chief says.
Jan Egeland said, for example, that as many people died in Congo every eight months as in last year's Indian Ocean tsunami.
He also criticised political leaders for failing to take action to end the wars that created humanitarian crises or invest in disaster prevention to ease the impact of earthquakes, hurricanes and floods.
The work of UN and other relief workers in conflict-wracked eastern Congo, in the Darfur region of western Sudan, and in northern Uganda had become "an alibi for lack of political and security action", Egeland said." [Emphasis added]
Read more...
A sampling of United Nations related blog commentaryStories in America: "Millions of children "invisible": UNICEF - "Millions of the world's neediest children are not even a blip on the radar of their own governments because there is no record of their birth, the United Nation's Children's Fund UNICEF said on Wednesday."
Becks & Posh: "Perhaps you have noticed by now that Food Bloggers all over the world have pulled together to raise money for Unicef's efforts to help out Earthquake-stricken area of India and Pakistan. Here at Becks & Posh there are three prize packages up for grabs. We hope, that by tempting people with the opportunity to win the gifts our kind sponsors have generously donated, the people who enjoy our food blog will make a donation to Unicef."
Blony: "It may well be that the time has come for Iraqis to take over arranging their own future. The threads that may intertwine Iraqis in the near term: A fresh start at a constitution with U.N. assistance * UN forces to secure borders * Trusted brokers (probably UN) to mediate differences."
"Hundreds of millions of children are suffering from severe exploitation and discrimination and have become virtually invisible to the world, UNICEF said Wednesday in a major report that explores the causes of exclusion and the abuses children experience.
Launching the report in London, UNICEF Executive Director Ann M. Veneman said millions of children disappear from view when trafficked or forced to work in domestic servitude. Other children, such as street children, live in plain sight but are excluded from fundamental services and protections. Not only do these children endure abuse, most are shut out from school, healthcare and other vital services they need to grow and thrive.
'The State of the World's Children 2006: Excluded and Invisible' (www.unicef.org/sowc06) is a sweeping assessment of the world's most vulnerable children, whose rights to a safe and healthy childhood are exceptionally difficult to protect. These children are growing up beyond the reach of development campaigns and are often invisible in everything from public debate and legislation, to statistics and news stories" [Read more]
A sampling of United Nations related blog commentaryWashington Note: "The American Prospect's Mark Leon Goldberg writes the first serious assessment of John Bolton's tenure thus far as the recess-appointed U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations... the big news that Mark Goldberg breaks is that the American Prospect has confirmed that it was John Bolton himself who scuttled Secretary of State Rice's efforts to offer Syria a Libya-like opportunity to get itself out of the international dog house. Goldberg writes: "The tension between Rice and Bolton has grown dramatically in several areas, most notably with regard to Syria: The Prospect has learned that Bolton was the source of an October leak to the British press that submarined sensitive negotiations Rice was overseeing with that country."
Daily Kos: "The $100 laptop has arrived. It is hand-crank-powered, has built-in wi-fi, and promises to bring the technology to millions of children in the developing world. This is really cool stuff, even if Intel's Craig Barret is being a grinch about it. Apparently, the $100 laptop competes against his own company's efforts. (Here's a story with picture of the device.)"
Eclecticity: "My friend Tyson Vaughan pointed me to this article outlining the findings of a UN study of poverty in the United States. A primary conclusion of the report is that racial poverty is systemic in our country and that such poverty constitutes a human rights violation under the meaning of that term as defined by the U.N. Commission on Human Rights."
Arms Control Wonk: "ElBaradei Accepts Nobel Prize - what he said: "I believe it is because our security strategies have not yet caught up with the risks we are facing. The globalization that has swept away the barriers to the movement of goods, ideas and people has also swept with it barriers that confined and localized security threats. A recent United Nations High-Level Panel identified five categories of threats that we face: 1. Poverty, Infectious Disease, and Environmental Degradation; 2. Armed Conflict - both within and among States; 3. Organized Crime; 4. Terrorism; and 5. Weapons of Mass Destruction. These are all "threats without borders" - where traditional notions of national security have become obsolete. We cannot respond to these threats by building more walls, developing bigger weapons, or dispatching more troops. Quite to the contrary. By their very nature, these security threats require primarily multinational cooperation."
Coalition for Darfur: "Congo: As Militiamen Flee, Calm Descends At Last - From Knight Ridder: "After years of false starts and costly failures, peace is finally taking hold in Congo's remote northeastern Ituri region, a key battleground in a pan-African war that's claimed 4 million lives. In recent weeks, Congo's patchwork national army, backed by United Nations peacekeepers, has chased some 4,000 militiamen into the dense forests near the Ugandan border. It was the most aggressive military action to date against the once-fearsome militias that held sway here. The militias still control some Ituri villages. But 16,000 have turned in their guns under a 2003 peace agreement, and U.N. and Congolese officials say the militias are on their last legs."
Daily Kos (Plutonium Page): "Yesterday was the last day of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Montreal. It was a historical conference because it is the very first meeting of the countries who have ratified the Kyoto Protocol; one goal of the conference is to discuss the extension of the Kyoto Protocol. So, how did the conference go? There was definite progress made, but not without difficulty, and that's the subject of this post."
Disinformation: "Washington Post's Elizabeth Gross investigates the 'digital dumps' and landfills that have swamped Nigeria in recent years. Organizations such as the Basel Action Network and the United Nations Environment Program have been monitoring the environmental degradation and export of legacy computer parts."
Gristmill: "Finally, some good news. From Mongabay: Friday, at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Montreal, the U.N. agreed to a proposal that allows developing nations to receive financial compensation from industrialized countries for agreeing to preserve their rainforests. Environmentalists hope the deal -- set forth by ten developing countries led by Papua New Guinea -- will give developing nations a financial reason to get more involved in climate talks while safeguarding globally important ecosystems."
Ethan Zuckerman: "Jane Perrone spent the full day with us at the Global Voices summit, representing The Guardian. Her article on the conference is spot on (as is her accompanying blog post) and begins with a lead that's going to be one of my favorites of all time: "The Global Voices conference called to mind a United Nations of blogging: there was a Cambodian sitting next to an Iranian sitting next to an Indian sitting next to a Kenyan sitting next to Richard Dreyfuss."
OUPBlog: "Louise Arbour, a former Canadian judge who is now the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, told the United Nations on December 7 that "Governments are watering down the definition of torture, claiming that terrorism means established rules do not apply anymore." The United Nations press release on her remarks further describes her as calling "on all Governments to reaffirm their commitment to the absolute prohibition of torture by condemning torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment and prohibiting it in national law." There can be little doubt that the "government" she is most trying to speak to is our own."
President Bush: "The United Nations is playing a vital role in Iraq -- they assisted in last January's elections, and the negotiations for the constitution, and in the recent constitutional referendum. And at the request of the Iraqi government, the U.N. Security Council unanimously approved a resolution extending the mandate of the multinational force in Iraq through 2006."