For those who may have been following the strange saga of whether or not Fijian troops have been barred from UN peacekeeping missions, the tale may -- or may not -- have taken a twist the other day, when Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced rather unequivocally that the UN was not accepting any troops from Fiji. At issue is the fact that the government of Fiji, which came to power in a coup two years ago, still has not held elections. Since troops going to UN peacekeeping missions would come from Fiji's military, this would indirectly lend support to Fiji's military junta.
Australia and New Zealand have a problem with this, and they have led the effort to make sure that no new Fijian troops join UN peacekeeping missions. Except...Fijian peacekeepers haven't been deployed to new missions since the 2006 coup, and even under current policy, Fijian troops currently deployed -- such as 500 in Iraq -- will not be forced to leave. So it's unclear whether Rudd was articulating standing UN policy, or was calling for stricter measures against Fijian peacekeepers.
The military leader of Fiji, for his part, kindly told Prime Minister Rudd to bug off. We'll see where this goes.
UPDATE: The S-G's spokesperson clarifies that using Fijian soldiers in peacekeeping missions proceeds on a "case-by-case basis." No new troops have been accepted, but previously serving contingents remain. Jenny Hayward-Jones at The Interpreter has more.
(image of Fijian peacekeepers in UN Assistance Mission in Iraq, from United Nations Photo)
Over a month ago, the 35 countries that make up the International Atomic Energy Agency tried to elect a new Director to succede Mohamed ElBaradei, who is retiring in November. They tried, and then they tried again -- and again and again, six times in all. Each time, neither of the leading candidates, Yukiya Amano of Japan or Abdul Samad Minty of South Africa, received the necessary 2/3 vote to win.
So, the field was opened to new candidates, and it looks like a Spaniard, one Luis Echavarri, currently the Director-General of the OECD's Nuclear Energy Agency, who might break the stalemate. The question is whether Echavarri will be able to bridge the gap that doomed both Amano, who received the bulk of his support from Western nations, and Minty, the candidate favored by the developing world. Amano and Minty are also both candidates this time around, as are two other experienced European nuclear diplomats, but it's Echavarri who looks like he could be the consensus pick (interestingly, ElBaradei also had not been on the original ballot, and was chosen after a similar stalemate). Echavarri certainly seems confident:
"I can offer a solution to the standoff," Mr. Echávarri said during an interview in Madrid. "We believe a consensus candidacy is taking shape, although we need more time. My goal is to get unanimous support, and I see no reason why it shouldn't be that way."
Another diplomat, though, complained that Echavarri was not "inspiring" enough. With North Korea threatening more nuclear tests and Iran's centrifuges still spinning, though, the IAEA might not have time to find the most "inspiring" candidate.
It is always pleasing when hard-core realists embrace multi-lateral institutions. Vis, Stephan Walt explaining why he thinks global cooperation is useful way to deal with potential pandemics. The kicker?
All this is not to say that the global response will be perfect, or that the potential pandemic will be contained as effectively as SARS ultimately was. But it does remind us that global cooperation is possible, and that some global institutions do provide valuable protection. Libertarian neo-isolationists and neoconservative institution-bashers should take note. [emp. mine]
Fresh off the wires, Reuters is reporting that the Obama administration is seeking to delay a $1.9 billion loan to Sri Lanka from the International Monetary Fund. I'm working on a longer piece about this that I do not want to cannibalize, but here is the money quote from an un-named American official.
"The problem, from our vantage point, is that the Sri Lankans have refused to engage on the humanitarian crisis as a priority," said one U.S. official. Delaying an IMF loan "is an attempt to get their priorities back where they should be."
This is a VERY forceful policy response to the unfolding crisis in Sri Lanka. It places the onus of civilian protection in Sri Lanka squarely at the feet of the government in Columbo and comes after two weeks of tough talk by top officials in the Obama administration. Now, by blocking the loan, the administration is backing tough talk with action, and quite literally putting its money where its mouth is. Needless to say, it is nice to see this kind of policy and messaging coordination in pursuit of something that is clearly not a top American foreign policy priority, but nevertheless an important matter of human rights.
The UN's Special Tribunal for Lebanon, designed to investigate the murder of former Lebanese premier Rafik Hariri four years ago, yesterday released the only four suspects -- all "pro-Syrian security generals" -- that it still had in custody. The news prompted celebration -- featuring the mandatory firing of guns into the air -- in some quarters of Lebanon, including Hezbollah's. But what seems most remarkable about this development is how calmly the Tribunal's supporters, such as Hariri's son Saad, a leader in his party's campaign for June elections, have reacted to what could have been seen as an embarrassing failure of evidence in highly contentious proceedings. Said Saad Hariri:
"I ... don't feel one iota of disappointment or fear over the fate of the international tribunal. What has happened is a clear declaration that the international tribunal has started work and it will reveal the truth," Hariri said on television.
Though the Tribunal took years to assemble, had to release three suspects shortly upon assuming jurisdiction of the case in February, and now finds itself back at square one, it is in fact working. The decision made by the Tribunal yesterday was not a political one, bolstered by the fact that it resisted calls to postpone its pronouncement until after elections, as well as by its release of the pro-Syrian generals, since it had been accused by opponents of being biased against Syria. Rather, the Tribunal will continue, and with continued support and opportunities to accrue more evidence, it just might get to the bottom of this nasty business.
(For what it's worth, I disagree with what seems like the conventional analysis that the Tribunal's decision should be seen as a "blow to [the] anti-Syrian political alliance" led by Hariri. Had the four pro-Syrian generals been found guilty, particularly if credible evidence against them was lacking, that would have galvanized Hezbollah and other opposition groups skeptical of the Tribunal. As it is, they won't have that card to play in the June elections.)
(image of Rafik Hariri, from flickr user madmonk under a Creative Commons license)
Henry Niman we hardly knew ye. We loved your mash-up with swine flu updates, but the MSM has got you beat in slickness with its fancy designers. The NY Times now has a map up, as does the Washington Post. I think the Times map gets the data into my veins more efficiently, but suspect the Post map might be updated more regularly. Prove me wrong Times.
UPDATE:I forgot to mention Google's Flu Trends, through which they've discovered that certain search activities are good indicators of flu activity. They've got an "experimental" trend map up for Mexico.
Via Josh at Passport, Bill Easterly assesses what to make of the fact that some Kenyans are apparently using anti-malaria mosquito nets "for purposes other than covering beds." Such as, um, fishing and making wedding dresses. Officials are gearing up to prosecute the offending fisherfolk and dressmakers, a step that may seem like it addresses the issue, but whose ultimate efficacy Easterly rightly questions:
Perhaps net education might have a bigger payoff than prosecution. Net promoters seem to consistently underestimate the challenge of spreading the scientific knowledge about the risks of getting malaria from mosquito bites. Traditional views of disease persist.
The profit motive for misusing the nets -- even though to do is to dangerously ignore one of the most effective anti-malaria strategies available -- is unfortunately not surprising. But Easterly's critique is right on -- it's not sufficient to just hand out nets (or condoms, for that matter); for these measures to have a demonstrable effect, the population needs to be shown how to use them and convinced that using them is reasonable and in fact imperative.
You should be all the more reassured to know that, included in the $10 that it takes to send a mosquito net through Nothing But Nets is a concerted program of training recipients how to use the nets. And in case you were wondering, transporting the nets is not all that easy either:
Bruce Jones and Michael O'Hanlon call attention to what they call the "world's deadliest spot" -- the Democratic Republic of Congo. It's not exactly news, but you know that if O'Hanlon -- who found a niche, during the throes of the Iraq insurgency, in penning op-eds in major papers consistently asserting that the situation was improving -- thinks things are going badly, then they really must be.
One major problem: the additional contingent of peacekeepers that the Security Council requested five months ago still have not been deployed. This, in turn, is because the UN still has not received enough offers for these troops. O'Hanlon and Jones:
The United Nations has called for precisely that [increased peacekeeping capability], requesting 3,000 more foreign troops on top of the 17,000 already in the country. But war-weary nations in the West are ignoring the request, leaving it to Egypt, Bangladesh and Jordan to volunteer troops.
None of these nations, alas, has the requisite airlift to deploy the troops, so the mission is still understaffed. And at just this moment, a dispute between President Joseph Kabila of Congo and India's military command threatens to cause the departure of Indian troops from the U.N. mission, which would hobble the mission at a critical time. [emphasis mine]
The authors go on to advocate a more robust U.S. footprint in providing military assistance to MONUC and in lobbying Europe to offer troops. "Congo is not Darfur," they argue, and the Congolese government has not objected fervently, as Sudan's has, to the inclusion of European peacekeepers.
U.S. and European troops -- and especially supplies and logistical assistance -- would be welcome, of course, but we should not be picky in where MONUC peacekeepers come from. What we should be picky about is making sure that the force's joint operations with the Congolese, Rwandan, and Ugandan governments follow established humanitarian principles. And just because it is facing a shortage of troops, that isn't reason for MONUC to turn to an indicted war criminal; the involvement of Bosco "the Terminator" Ntaganda in these operations should be clarified and made public.