Long before Susan Rice was Obama's pick for UN Ambassador, she contributed this piece to UN Dispatch. Originally published May 31, 2007.
by Susan Rice, a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution
When Americans see televised images of bone-thin African or Asian kids with distended bellies, what do we think? We think of helping. For all the right reasons, our humanitarian instincts tend to take over. But when we look at UNICEF footage or a Save the Children solicitation, does it also occur to us that we are seeing a symptom of a threat that could destroy our way of life? Rarely. In fact, global poverty is far more than solely a humanitarian concern. In real ways, over the long term, it can threaten U.S. national security.
Though far from the television screens of most Americans, some of the fighting in Ethiopia and Eritrea resembles a war with which they might be familiar. At its peak, hundreds of kilometers of trenches snaked their way around the border region of the two neighboring countries in the Horn of Africa, raising frequent comparisons to World War One. And like World War One, the toll of the trench warfare on conscripts has been exacting. Though no one knows for sure, 70,000 people are estimated to have been killed. There have also been as many as 700,000 displaced or made refugees from the war, which at one point cost these desperately impoverished countries $1 million a day to sustain.
In a 10-0 vote yesterday, the Security Council backed the creation of a tribunal to investigate and prosecute a series of political assassinations in Lebanon, including the February 2005 car bombing that killed Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. From the Washington Post:
The vote will lead to the creation of the first U.N.- backed criminal tribunal in the Middle East, raising expectations that Hariri's killers will be held accountable. But that has stoked fears among Lebanese authorities and some council members that supporters of Syria -- which has been linked to the assassination -- will plunge Lebanon's fledgling democracy into a bloody new round of internal strifeMore.
The UN World Health Organization (WHO) and the Joint UN Programme Against HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) have called for increased care and prevention services related to HIV.
The prevailing model now is voluntary testing and counselling, where individuals actively seek diagnosis. But experts say this system is impeded by the fear of stigma and discrimination, limited accessibility to services and the perception of many – even in areas with high rates of HIV infection – that they are not at risk.Approximately 80 per cent of people living with HIV in low-income countries are unaware that they're infected with the disease. More
The United Nations International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) has announced its support for a $11.5 million development project in Cambodia to help the rural poor.
"The project will not only boost incomes, it will also lay foundations for sustainable social and economic development in the future," said Youqiong Wang, IFAD's country programme manager for Cambodia, noting that it is the agency's first to target the poor, ethnic population living in remote areas of the country.More
Today is the International Day of UN Peacekeepers. From the UN News Center:
Last year marked the fourth in a row when more than 100 men and women died in the service of UN peacekeeping, Mr. Ban noted. "Now, with our deployment at a record high, more soldiers, police and civilian staff face danger in places like Sudan, the Middle East and Haiti," he said, citing Friday's killing of Lieutenant-Colonel Ehab Nazih, a UN peacekeeper from Egypt working in Darfur, as but the latest example of this.More.
The White House today announced long anticipated new steps to pressure the Sudanese government into accepting a peacekeeping force in Darfur. Known as "Plan B," the new measures include expanding existing American sanctions on Sudanese business interests and imposing targeted sanctions against one rebel leader and two Sudanese government officials (including one who is wanted by the International Criminal Court).
President Bush also announced that he would seek additional sanctions against Sudan at the United Nations. This would be a positive development. The unilateral American sanctions are of only limited value--the United States already has an expansive sanctions against Sudan. At this point, the best way to leverage Sudanese cooperation on Darfur is though multilateral forums like the United Nations and International Criminal Court.
In a Boston Globe op-ed that ran three weeks ago, John Prendergast of the Enough Project explains why this is so.
Until the United Nations intervened in 2003, some 250,000 people lost their lives and as many as one million people were displaced or made refugees as a result of fourteen years of conflict in the small, West African country of Liberia. UN Dispatch recently contacted Jordan Ryan, an American citizen who is one of the top administrators of the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL). From his office in Monrovia, Mr. Ryan discusses the history of the conflict, reconstruction efforts, and how UN peacekeepers are contributing to the political and physical rehabilitation of a broken country.
The United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) has released recommendations urging that all indoor environments be completely free of smoke. The organization cites extensive evidence of harm caused by second-hand tobacco smoke in their statement.
WHO Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan said, "There is no safe level of exposure to second-hand tobacco smoke." Chan urged all countries to pass laws requiring all indoor workplaces and public places to be completely smoke-free.
There are about 4,000 known chemicals in tobacco smoke; more than 50 of them are known to cause cancer, according to WHO, which says exposure to second-hand smoke causes heart disease and many serious respiratory and cardiovascular diseases that can lead to premature death in adults. It also causes diseases and worsens existing conditions, such as asthma, in children.More