It seems that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's theatrics at the General Assembly have backfired. After 36 rounds of voting, Venezuela still cannot garner the support of 2/3rds of member states necessary to win a seat on the Security Council. In the New York Times today, Warren Hoge explains that member states -- particularly in Latin America -- were none too happy with Chavez's anti-U.S. diatribe.
IHT: "The next secretary-general of the United Nations pledged Tuesday to restore trust in the world body and enact reforms, speaking on the 61st anniversary of the organization's founding. Ban Ki-moon, South Korea's foreign minister who will assume the top U.N. job in January, said the organization cannot forge united global political will in an atmosphere of mistrust.
UN News: States are still showing a "lack of awareness" over the seriousness of torture, despite the fact they are obligated to criminalize the practice, an independent United Nations expert said today, warning that few cases are ever brought to justice and where they are, the perpetrators generally get away with minor sentences.
A little over one month ago, the pollster Frank Luntz released survey data suggesting that members of Congress could profit from making the United Nations into a "wedge issue" in the coming election. At the time, some pollsters questioned his conclusions, calling the work more of a PR driven poll designed to highlight negative sentiment than an objective research exercise.
NYT: "Sudan's government ordered the chief United Nations envoy out of the country today, saying he was an enemy of the country and its armed forces.
Secretary General Kofi Annan said that he was reviewing the letter from the Khartoum government and had requested the envoy, Jan Pronk, to return to New York for "consultations."
As reported in the Washington Post today, the U.N. General Assembly has suspended voting for a week as it tries to find a solution to the deadlock caused by competing bids for membership on the Security Council from Venezuela and Guatemala. Guatemala, backed by the United States, has led over 35 rounds of voting, but has yet to secure the necessary two-thirds majority. Some have predictably and irrationally labeled this as an example of UN inaction. This claim not only betrays a basic misunderstanding of the workings of international politics but of the overwhelming benefit of multilateral versus unilateral outcomes both for the United States and the rest of the world.
"Americans show a strong preference for Congressional candidates who would seek to increase multilateral cooperation. Seventy-two percent say they would prefer candidates who believe that "the U.S. should do its share in efforts to solve international problems together with other countries." Much less popular are candidates who want the United States to "continue to be the preeminent world leader" (9% support) or to "withdraw from most efforts to solve international problems" (16%)." More