On Sunday, the world's top humanitarian official met one of the world's worst war criminals in a remote jungle outpost on the Congo-Sudan border. Jan Egeland, the UN Undersecretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator met Joseph Kony, leader of the brutal Lord's Resistance Army, in the depths of the jungle in an effort to promote peace in the devastated region.
"Elements of Sri Lanka's security forces are helping a breakaway rebel group abduct children to fight the separatist Tamil Tigers, while the rebels themselves continue to use child soldiers in their conflict against the Government, a United Nations adviser has said after a 10-day assessment mission to the strife-torn country. "It is increasingly clear that children are at risk from all sides," Allan Rock, the Special Adviser to the UN Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict on Sri Lanka said yesterday." More
A couple of weeks back, we told the story behind the creation of Nothing But Nets, a grassroots campaign asking people to donate $10 toward the purchase of bed nets to combat malaria. Today, Nothing But Nets officially goes online.
WASHINGTON, DC (November 14, 2006) - The United Nations Foundation (UN Foundation) announced today the launch of Nothing But Nets - a grassroots campaign asking individuals to donate $10 to "send a net, save a life." Each $10 donation pays for an insecticide-treated bed net, distributes it to a family in need in Africa, and provides education on its proper use to prevent malaria. Founding partners of the campaign are NBA Cares, The People of the United Methodist Church, and Sports Illustrated.
CNN: "Human trafficking, including women forced to become prostitutes or minors forced to do child labor, is worse now than the trade in African slaves of past centuries, a top Vatican official said on Tuesday.
"This trafficking in human beings has intensified, persons put into slavery because they depend on certain criminals who take possession of these human beings," said Cardinal Renato Martino, former longtime Vatican envoy to the United Nations and current head of the Holy See's office concerned with migrant and itinerant peoples."
More here
At various times, blogs like Atlas Shrugs and Michelle Malkin hurl sundry invectives at the UN and its Secretary General for allegedly coddling terrorists in Lebanon. Invariably, these criticisms are always more bluster than fact-based, so I am hardly surprised that these two have been silent on a recent positive development in Lebanon.
BBC: "Lebanon's cabinet has approved draft UN plans for setting up an international tribunal to try suspects in the killing of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Syria has been implicated in the bombing that killed Mr Hariri in February 2005, but denies involvement."
"They are dubbed the 'climate canaries' - the people destined to become the first victims of world climate change. And as government ministers sit down in Nairobi at [the] UN Climate Conference, the people most likely to be wiped out by devastating global warming will be only a few hundred miles away from their deliberations.
"Two Jordanian UN peacekeepers have been shot dead in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, UN officials say. The soldiers are reported to have come under attack near Cite Soleil, a slum where armed street gangs are based." More
My french may be a bit rusty, but I can't help but think that the outrage in this Martin Peretz post is a bit misplaced. At issue is a Ban Ki-moon interview in Le Monde in which Mr Ban says (roughly) that the United Nations should be more responsive to the needs of its member states.
Any casual UN observer knows that this is a wholly uncontroversial statement. It is perhaps the equivalent of a new football coach saying he looks forward to working with his players.