Washington-"Today marks a turning point from focusing on the problems of the Oil-for-Food Program (OFFP) to moving ahead with UN reform. The exhaustive Independent Inquiry Committee's (IIC) report tells us both what went right and wrong with the program. Clearly, the UN made mistakes in the operation of the OFFP. The organization will learn from these lessons and by implementing recommendations offered by the IIC, as it has already begun to do, help ensure that these problems are not repeated in the future." [Read More]
Just a reminder that you can get the latest on the Oil-for-Food inquiry at oilforfoodfacts.org
Selected summary of United Nations related news and events
Students ask about Iraq, United Nations and Katrina
Security Council receives inquiry report on Iraq oil-for-food programme
Katrina's Global Lessons
Life 'worse for world's poorest'
Time for a "Decisive Breakthrough", UN Urges
Blair calls for UN Terror Stand
UN News Service: "The United Nations has mobilized three inter-agency teams to aid the United States' recovery from Hurricane Katrina and further deployments may occur within the next few days, UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said today.
The teams span the whole gamut of UN humanitarian activities from food and health to refugees and children and have been assembled following the US acceptance of help from the world body in the face of the enormous devastation caused by the hurricane."
A sampling of United Nations related blog commentary
Opinio Juris: "U.S. Secretary of State Rice has made a point of publicly thanking foreign countries for their contributions to the Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. Here is an excerpt from her news conference: "The United Nations has mobilized their disaster experts. I want to thank Secretary General Kofi Annan for that. Their people are sitting with our people in Washington to plan out UN support."
Chez Nadezhda: "Brian Ulrich makes a very good point in a post at Liberals Against Terrorism about the urban myths that the rest of the world has given the US the cold shoulder. People who should know better are simply making stuff up! The rest of the world is in fact horrified, and offers of official assistance are coming from all over -- as well as charitable contributions. And then there's everybody's favorite whipping-boy, the UN, which has of course offered help -- and they actually know a lot about how to deliver humanitarian assistance in the wake of disasters."
Chrenkoff: Good News from Afghanistan, part 16 - Ahead of winter, the United Nations is starting food distribution: "The United Nations announced launching of food distribution among half a million poor Afghans ahead of the winter season."
Coalition for Darfur: "From Amnesty International and others: "Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Oxfam International call on a small number of "spoiler" countries to stop holding the UN World Summit hostage over crucial measures on human rights, security, genocide and poverty reduction. These governments have thrown negotiations on the final outcome text into crisis just days away from the biggest meeting of world leaders in history, September 14-16 in New York."
Democracy Arsenal (David Shorr): "I encourage readers to check out the Stanley Foundation's web pages on UN reform; we have been tracking these issues ever since Kofi Annan launched the current push for reform in late 2003."
GraBlog: "The coverage about Hurricane Katrina and the disastrous response - or to say better - initial lack of it and slow start stirred up even conservative politicians and media [...] According to many people involved, like New Orleans Major Ray Nagin, the US government is moving far too slow, but a long list of countries all over the world, even Cuba, which has not the best relations to the US, offered help, countries like Sri Lanka, Jamaica and Afghanistan(!), which are not among the well-off themselves, offered help, immediate neighbors like Canada and Mexico as well as the United Nations and Europe, OAS and WHO, China, Japan, India and South Korea are offering all kinds of help."
Alertnet: "The U.S.-led invasion of Iraq has turned the country into a new hub of terrorism worse than Afghanistan under Taliban, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said on Monday."
"The United Nations announced today that the United States Government has accepted the world body's offer of help in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
A small UN Coordination team is in Washington now consulting with government officials on how the UN can best complement the US's own emergency efforts." [Full story]
UN News Service: "The top United Nations emergency relief official has offered the United States the world body's help in "any way possible" following the loss of life and large-scale destruction wrought by Hurricane Katrina along the US Gulf Coast. The offer was made in a letter from Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland to US Ambassador John Bolton."