Last week, the Obama Administration issued an executive order that extended certain diplomatic privileges to Interpol--the International Criminal Police Organization. This was a pretty innocuous bureaucratic move, but it has apparently sparked some serious concerns among a certain cadre of blogger. For example, you have Steve Shippert and Clyde Middleton of ThreatsWatch worrying that this "could conceivably include...Americans arrested on our soil by
The United Nations Operation in Côte d’Ivoire (UNOCI) has been accused of sexual abuse and exploitation among its military personnel. It has announced that it is investigating the allegations, and adding additional preventative procedures to ensure that the UN’s zero-tolerance policy against abuse and exploitation is followed.
Six months ago, I predicted that Eritrea was on its way to becoming the newest pariah state on the international scene. Later today, that status may be officially confirmed as join the ranks of Sudan, North Korea, and Iran when the Security Council votes on a sanctions resolution on Eritrea and its political leadership. How did it come to this? I'll refer back to my original post.
Over at the Huffington Post Dispatch god-father Peter Daou offers his prediction that 2010 will be a horrible year for women. He writes, "Another decade closes, another decade dawns, another thing you can bet on in the years to come: women across this planet will be disrespected, beaten, abused, violated, oppressed. Simply for being born female."
There was a flurry of activity at the United Nations last week on the human rights front. For the past three months the "Third Committee" of the General Assembly, which includes under its purview human rights issues, has been considering a number of items. These ranged from country-specific resolutions against Iran, Myanmar and North Korea to thematic issues like from discrimination, torture and human rights treaties.
Five Republican members of Congress penned a letter to Ugandan President Yoweri Mouseveni urging him to do everything within his constitutional authority to stop legislation that would criminalize homosexuality, sometimes under the penalty of death, from being enacted in Uganda. The signatories, Representatives Chris Smith, Frank Wolf, Joe Pitts, Trent Franks and Anh "Joseph" Cao are conservative, members of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission and self-proclaimed "men of faith."
Scientific American has a cheery article on up their website right now, estimating the global impact of a nuclear war between India and Pakistan. The result: sunlight is reduced, the planet cools, and the growing season shortens. Drought ensues. The ozone layer erodes. Global agriculture is decimated.
This just came in over my transom. Ban Ki Moon's official statement on the Copenhagen Accord, issued yesterday afternoon.
The Secretary-General welcomes the outcome of the 15th meeting of the Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the 5th Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol. He thanks the Government of Denmark for hosting the conference and leading the negotiations to a successful conclusions with substantive outcomes.
In this edition of UN Plaza, I speak with Patrick Meier of Tufts University and the blog iRevolution. Patrick is also co-author of the UN Foundation and Vodafone Foundation Technology Partnership report New Technologies in Emergencies and Conflicts. In the clip