Statement by Senator Timothy E. Wirth, President of the United Nations Foundation, on United Nations Reform
WASHINGTON - Former Senator Timothy E. Wirth, President of the United Nations Foundation, issued the following statement regarding today's House International Relations Committee hearing [Room 2172, Rayburn House Office Building] on UN reform.
"The challenges of the 21st Century, including combating terrorism, alleviating poverty, addressing global climate change, stopping diseases like AIDS, and helping people recover after the devastation of natural disasters need the commitment of many nations and a United Nations even better prepared and able to meet these challenges. Secretary-General Kofi Annan recognizes the change and reform that is needed and is making modernization of the UN a top priority.
A debate erupted on conservative blogs over the UN Foundation's placement of Blogads on blogs that have been critical of the United Nations. The ads in question describe the UN's efforts to combat terrorism and link to this page.
Bloggers discussing the issue include:
Donald Sensing
John Hawkins
Michelle Malkin
"UN Assistant Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland complained Monday of lack of speed and generosity in most traditional donors' giving to humanitarian efforts worldwide.
Egeland said he would meet with United Nations donor countries throughout Monday afternoon "to express the deep frustration of the humanitarian community" in the face of the limited resources being made available to them.
Worst hit by the funding crisis is Africa. "We have received no money so far this year in most of our African humanitarian emergencies," said Egeland.
"Even in high profile and highly risky, vulnerable situations like Sudan, we have too little funding to undertake our relief operation." More...
From UN News Service: "Visiting Basra in southern Iraq, the senior United Nations envoy to the country pledged the world body's assistance in helping that war-ravaged region to reconstruct.... Nearly two dozen UN funds, programmes and agencies are working under UNAMI to provide humanitarian support to Iraq and coordinate international aid."
UPDATE: Chrenkoff has more: "United Nations Development Programme, too, is helping with the Iraqi electricity sector: it is facilitating the training of Iraqi engineers in Jordan; supplying equipment, expertise and planning to develop better networks; providing spare parts for maintenance of existing infrastructure, and working on new projects which will add between 180 and 200 MW to Iraq's grid."
"United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan began a Mideast trip Sunday to promote Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts and attend the opening of a Holocaust museum in Jerusalem.
Annan's spokesman said the U.N. chief offered to help coordinate peace efforts between Israel and the Palestinians.... Annan has won praise in Israel for his tough stance on terrorism and the U.N. role in resolving a border dispute with Lebanon after Israel withdrew its forces from the country in 2000." Full Story
In a Washington Times piece on the John Bolton nomination, Secretary of State Rice is quoted as saying, "The United Nations "is not an outpost in New York, it's an extremely important instrument of American policy, and I think [Mr. Bolton is] going to be great."
"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...
"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...
Text of Secretary-General Annan's Speech (PDF)
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?