The UN Human Rights Council passed a resolution endorsing the Goldstone Report, which found evidence suggesting that the Israeli Defense Forces and Hamas may have committed war crimes during Operation Cast Lead last winter (but reserves its harshest criticisms for Israel.) The report was discussed at the council for a vote for the first time earlier this month, but the Palestinians (under heavy pressure from the United States) opted to defer a vote on the resolution until the Council met again
The General Assembly held Security Council elections yesterday. As is the case with many procedures at the UN, a certain number of seats are set aside for specific regional blocs. And, as is often the case, the blocs decide amongst themselves who will stand for election. This is what happened yesterday in which five countries ran un-opposed for five seats on the council. The results are as follows:
Africa & Asia: Gabon, Lebanon & Nigeria
Switzerland is going to vote on a national referendum, banning the construction of minarets at Swiss mosques. There are only four minarets in the country, but the referendum argues that minarets are a sign of Islamic conquest, not religious faith.
Today, Pakistan saw five coordinated terrorist attacks in Lahore and Kohat. The attacks took place in the space of a few hours, and forty-three people are dead. The attacks were highly coordinated, and targeted the police – two police stations, a federal police office, and a police training facility – as well as a school in Peshawar.
UN Dispatch is joining thousands of blogs across the world for the 2009 Blog Action Day on climate change. I have one simple point to make:
The Alan Guttmacher Institute has issued a new report on global abortion rates. They found that while the total number of abortions globally fell from 45.5 million in 1995 to 41.6 million in 2003, 20 million unsafe abortions still occur every year. That’s a huge number. These 20 million unsafe abortions kill 70,000 women each year and seriously harm millions more.
A lot of ink has been spilled so far about the dispute in the United Nations Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) between the mission's former deputy Peter W. Galbraith and his boss, Kai Eide. What has been lost in the discussion, though, is the basic point that the disagreement over how to handle fraud in the Afghan elections is an honest one between two people who both believe that they have the best interests of Afghans at heart.
Tomorrow, UN Dispatch will be one of nearly 7,000 blogs in 135 countries that will send up a post on climate change. The event is being organized by the same folks who brought you the 2007 Blog Action Day on Environment and the 2008 Blog Action Day on Poverty. The idea is that no matter what kind of content a blog covers, you should take time out of your regular blogging schedule to educate and inform readers about a globally critical topic. This year climate change is the obvious choice as the world heads to the COP 15 summit in Copenhagen. UN Dispatch w