UN News Service: "A two-day donors' conference to support the peace accord between the Government and rebels in southern Sudan has pledged $4.5 billion for 2005-2007, nearly $2 billion more than the amount United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan identified as needed to resurrect the ravaged region over the next two and a half years.
Addressing the opening session yesterday in Oslo, Norway, Mr. Annan had appealed to participants to "pledge - and pledge generously," quipping when asked about the tendency of governments not to honour their pledges that "pledges are good, but cash is better."
"A high-level U.N. meeting is trying to tackle what a senior U.N. official called the world's "silent humanitarian crisis" - dirty water, poor sanitation and slums.
Jose Antonio Ocampo, undersecretary-general for economic and social affairs, told the 53-member Commission on Sustainable Development at the opening of a two-week meeting on Monday that providing safe drinking water and basic sanitation to the world's slum dwellers is an achievable goal." Read More
(Via UN Wire)
"Nepal agreed on Monday to let the United Nations send observers to the country, where both government forces and Maoist rebels are accused of abusing human rights.
Under an agreement with Kathmandu, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights will set up offices and try to bring to account those guilty of abuse.
"Breaking the cycle of serious and systematic abuses will be the first essential step toward achieving peace and reconciliation in Nepal," U.N. High Commissioner Louise Arbour said in a statement.
Some 11,000 people have been killed in the Maoist revolt since 1996. Insurgents control large parts of Nepal's countryside and want to establish a communist republic." LINK
Media Matters: "Right-wing evangelical radio host Janet Parshall and guest Frank Gaffney, neoconservative Center for Security Policy director and former Reagan administration acting assistant secretary of defense, baselessly accused those who oppose the nomination of undersecretary of state John Bolton to become U.S. ambassador to the United Nations of partisanship and bad faith.
Opening an April 5 interview of Gaffney on her syndicated radio program, Parshall asserted, "People who think the U.N. should rule the world will have some serious problems with John Bolton."
On C-SPAN. Streaming video.
UPDATE: Protestors temporarily disrupt hearings.
UPDATE 2: Here's the Washington Post on the ongoing hearings.
"Ben Gaddis doesn't want a degree from Lincoln Land Community College. He has taken only a couple of political science classes, basically to practice for graduate school this fall.
Slight as it may be, Gaddis' affiliation with LLCC brought an extra $1,000 to the 28-year-old stay-at-home father. So if nothing else, those two classes have been a financial success.
Gaddis recently was awarded the 2005 Michael Steven Shower Memorial Scholarship at the Midwest Model United Nations meeting in St. Louis, for a research paper he wrote about U.N. responses to human rights violations." Full Story....
"The United Nations human rights investigator for Sudan demanded on Friday that the government disarm militia who continue to kill and rape civilians in Darfur, warning of a "time bomb" that could explode.
Emmanuel Akwei Addo, the independent U.N. expert on the situation of human rights in the Sudan, said 2,000 African Union troops lacked power to deter crimes in the remote region where aid workers were pulling back due to deteriorating security." Read More...
Reuters: "More than 70 Syrian military trucks left Lebanon overnight, witnesses said on Friday, carrying tanks, mortars and anti-aircraft guns as Damascus raced to complete its withdrawal by the end of the month.
Syria pledged to pull out by April 30 in response to U.S.-led pressure and in face of popular protests after the Feb. 14 killing of former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri, which the Lebanese opposition blames on Syria. Damascus denies the charge.
The U.N. Security Council ordered an international investigation into Hariri's assassination on Thursday, a move long called for by the anti-Syrian opposition. Lebanon and Syria have both said they will cooperate with investigators."
"A 25-year-long $1-billion United Nations aid program for China that fed over 30 million people drew to a close today with the arrival of a final shipment of grain, and a senior UN official urged the world's most populous country to now step up support for hundreds of millions of malnourished people beyond its borders." Full Story