Monthly Archives: March 2005
WP: Top U.N. Envoy To Present Syria With Ultimatum
“A top U.N. envoy will tell President Bashar Assad that Syria will face political and economic isolation if he does not completely and quickly withdraw from Lebanon, U.N. and U.S. officials said … Terje Roed-Larsen plans to inform Syria that the international community is united in insisting that Damascus comply with U.N. Resolution 1559 — and is prepared to impose wide punitive sanctions if it does not act quickly, the officials said.
“If he doesn’t deliver, there will be total political and economic isolation of his country. There is a steel-hard consensus in the international community,” a senior U.N. official said.” More…
BBC – Annan: Nuclear Terror a Real Risk
“Terrorists must be denied the means to carry out a devastating nuclear attack, the UN secretary general has told an anti-terror summit in Madrid.
Kofi Annan was setting out a global strategy to fight terrorism which calls for preventive and deterrent measures – without sacrificing human rights. Mr Annan said the time had come to outlaw terrorism in all its forms. The summit comes nearly a year after the 11 March bomb attacks on Madrid trains which left 191 dead.
About 400 international experts and academics have spent three days discussing ways to combat terrorism while maintaining democracy.” Full article…
Secretary Rice on Bush Budget Request for FY 2006
Following is an excerpt from Secretary Rice’s March 9, 2005 testimony before the House Committee on Appropriations Subcommittee on Science, State, Justice, and Commerce, and Related Agencies:
[REP. BUD] CRAMER:
Thank you.
Madam Secretary, welcome before this subcommittee.
As you can tell by the number of members here, we’re very interested in your issues, the issues that you represent, and that you represent this country over.
Yesterday, in the full committee, we did, as we made mention earlier and as you know already, marked up a supplemental appropriations bill. And in that bill there was $580 million that was included for the U.N. international peacekeeping mission.
The administration, I think, had requested $780 million, but we included the $580 million because that’s the amount of bills that are due.
And given the recent and some would say systematic problems at the U.N., I would enjoy your help in allowing us to understand why it’s important that we maintain this funding.
A number of our colleagues considered this to be an issue that we shouldn’t fund and shouldn’t be involved in, and members are, in fact, making those positions known. In fact, they want the funding stripped out of the bill.
Would you care to comment on this?
Fact-Checking FOX News on Oil-for-Food
The following documents detail correspondence between the UN and FOX News with respect to a Breaking Point investigation, “United Nations Blood Money,” that aired on FOX News Channel and was posted on FOXNews.com. UN Under-Secretary Shashi Tharoor has written two letters outlining inaccuracies in the FOX report. FOX acknowledges receipt of the first letter but did not correct nor defend the inaccuracies listed in Mr. Tharoor’s first letter, prompting him to repeat the information in yet another letter.
Letter to FOX News Senior Vice President John Moody from Shashi Tharoor, UN Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information
Dear Mr. Moody,
I am, once again, compelled to write to you concerning David Asman’s Breaking Point story “UN Blood Money,” the latest incarnation of which aired on Fox on 9 February 2005.
It was with genuine disappointment that we, at the UN, noted this new edition repeated many of the errors we had drawn to Fox’s attention in September last year, and even added some new inaccuracies.
I am most grateful to Fox for giving me the chance to correct some of these problems on air, during the Geraldo Rivera segment that immediately followed the broadcast.
However, in the interest of fair and balanced reporting, I would appreciate the opportunity to set the record straight on matters I simply did not have the time to confront during that three-minute appearance. To that end, I would be grateful if you would post this letter on the Fox News website along with the attached update to the ‘The Facts about the Oil for Food Programme’ sheet that you originally posted in September last year.
As my colleague, UN Chief of Staff Mark Malloch Brown, made clear at a press conference in February, the Volcker Inquiry’s interim report demonstrated that some of the problems Fox News and others identified about the Oil for Food Programme were clearly correct. We thank you for helping bring these to light. Secretary-General Annan has already instituted changes to our management practices that will improve accountability and transparency, and should make such failings less likely in the future.
That said, highly exaggerated accounts of what went wrong (and why) only do a disservice to everyone, including your viewers. In the short term it is the UN that suffers, but such claims can only ultimately damage the credibility of Fox News itself. I certainly hope that Fox and other media outlets maintain their scrutiny of our efforts, just as I hope that they insist on reporting their findings in an accurate, fair and objective fashion.
Yours sincerely,
Shashi Tharoor
Under-Secretary-General
for Communications and Public Information
UN Assembly Urges Cloning Ban
LA Times: “The General Assembly approved a nonbinding resolution Tuesday that urges member states to adopt legislation “to prohibit all forms of human cloning in as much as they are incompatible with human dignity and the protection of human life.”
Blogger feedback:
Middle East a Topic at Terror Conference
“Resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is key to any hope of curtailing global outbursts of violence, panelists at a summit on democracy, terrorism and security said Wednesday…. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan was due to arrive and meet with Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero on Wednesday evening ahead of his presentation of a special U.N. report on terrorism at the conference Thursday.” Read more…
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The SC; HRC; DPRK; South Sudan
The SC: The Security Council today held its last consultations under the Council Presidency of ROK. Tomorrow, Russia will take over the rotating Presidency of the Security Council for March under Ambassador Vitaly Churkin.
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The SG; Mali; Middle East; Palestine
The SG: At the Fifth Global Forum of the UN Alliance of Civilizations in Vienna, Austria today, the SG emphasized the role of youth in ensuring a “prosperous, equitable and peaceful future.”
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The SG; DRC; HRC; Palestinian Prisoner
The SG: In Ethiopia over the weekend, the SG is now in the United Arab Emirates. Today he met with Sheikh Mohammad bin Rashed Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE, where the two discussed developments in the region, including Syria, Iran, Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan, and in the Middle East Peace Process.
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