Selected summary of United Nations related news and events

UN Summit Seeks Climate Solutions

UN AIDS Envoy Says Private Sector Must Help Cash-strapped Global Fund

Baby Becomes First Victim of Cold as Winter Hits Kashmir Survivors

Culling Wild Birds Ineffective Against Flu

Experts 'Weep' Over Shrinking Lake Victoria

90M Girls Worldwide Missing Primary School Education Because of Pregnancy,
HIV/AIDS, Other Factors, UNICEF Report Says

The Long Road Home to South Sudan After a Lifetime in Exile

A sampling of United Nations related blog commentary

Overthrow: "Montreal Climate Summit, the first United Nations climate conference since the Kyoto agreement came to legal force in Feb. 16, 2005, is taking place against a backdrop of increasing concern about the speed of the changes to the global climate and its consequences."

Treehugger: "Today in Montreal the United Nations Climate Change Conference begins, and it will end on December 9th. This event will bring together more than 10,000 people including delegates, official observers from government, industry, business, the scientific community, and other non-governmental organisations (NGOs) interested in figuring out what to do for the post-Kyoto era. This thing will be big! Stay tuned this week for more, including the expected statement by the US that they aren't changing their position and that doing something about greenhouse gas emissions and efficiency is "bad for the economy."

Politics in the Zeros: "Pay up to save rainforests: "A bloc of developing countries plans to make a radical proposal this week at the United Nations summit on climate change in Montreal: pay us, and we will preserve our rainforests. The group of 10 countries, led by Papua New Guinea and Costa Rica, argues that the rest of the world is benefiting from the rainforests' natural wealth without sharing the cost." They do have a point."

Mojo Blog: "Sam Rosenfeld has a very good TAPPED post about aid to Africa, noting that while turning poor African countries into democracies with 10 percent GDP growth a year is very hard, spending a bit of money to provide them with bed nets for malaria is not. That's right. I think, though, he's attacking a straw man here. Very few "aid critics," even William Easterly, think that modest steps like sending malaria nets to Africa are useless. Easterly would probably laud it as the sort of thing we should be doing. But that's not what people like Jeffrey Sachs are proposing. Sachs argues that you can't solve one poverty problem without solving a whole host of others, and wants to send nations not just malaria nets but trees that replenish nitrogen in the soil, rainwater harvesting, better health clinics, etc. etc. The UN Millenium Project is very broad, and as such, is open to the usual criticisms. In fact, critics of Jeffrey Sachs sometimes cite the Gates Foundation's malaria net work as their preferred, more modest alternative."

Stygius: "While I agree with John Bolton that -- theoretically -- unilateralism is not isolationism, an isolated unilateralist makes the two a distinction without a difference. Via Steve Clemons, it looks like Bolton's tactics at the United Nations are managing to alienate America's most steadfast partner. The Telegraph: "Britain has rebuffed a Bolton move to join him in refusing to pass the organisation's 2006 budget until member states approve wide-ranging management reforms."

"Gender-based violence is one of the most pervasive of human rights abuses. It covers a range of injustices - from gender abuse to systematic rape and from pre-birth sex selection to female genital mutilation - that affect as many as one in three women. Ending gender violence will take action on many fronts every day of the year. But 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence is a start..." [Read more]

"The impact of spiralling pollution on the planet poses a threat to civilisation just as catastrophic as much-vaunted weapons of mass destruction, Britain's top scientist warned today.

Lord Robert May, president of the country's leading scientific body, the Royal Society, issued the warning as a 12-day conference was set to get underway today in Montreal to decide the fate of the Kyoto Protocol, the United Nations' troubled treaty for curbing greenhouse gases.

"The impacts of global warming are many and serious: sea-level rise ... changes in availability of fresh water ... and the increasing incidence of extreme events -- floods, droughts, and hurricanes - the serious consequences of which are rising to levels which invite comparison with weapons of mass destruction," Lord May said in an advance copy of a speech released today to coincide with the start of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change on the same day.

The Montreal meeting is the first by the convention since the UN's pollution-cutting Kyoto Protocol, signed by 156 countries, took effect on January 16.

But a notable non-signatory of the pact committing industrialised nations to reducing or offsetting emissions of carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases is the planet's heaviest polluter: the US." [Read more]

"Detlev Mehlis, who heads the investigation into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, has reached an agreement with the Syrian authorities on the United Nations office in Vienna as a venue for the questioning of five Syrian officials in the case, a UN spokesperson confirmed..." [More]

A thoughtful post from Carol Gee at South by Southwest:

"How does it feel to be hungry, really hungry? It is not the kind of hunger that comes with having missed a meal. It is also not the kind of hunger one feels when doing a very purposeful "cleansing fast," or fasting on Fridays, in the old days of an observed liturgical holy week.

This hunger is that which comes from not getting anything to eat, or very little to eat, on a regular basis for days, weeks, months or years at a time.... There are entire nations starving or desperately endangered today; right now. And there far too many people in these United States that are also hungry. This week, this coming Thanksgiving Day, the weekend following, millions are hungry. For many of the rest of us, we will be trying to figure out what to do with all our leftovers. A recent Reuters story focused on the just published United Nations report on hunger in the world which states that 6 million children a year die from hunger related causes."

Read the rest, it's a great post. We'll see you on Monday...

"No developing region is on track to meet the international goal of reducing the number of hungry people by half, a UN agency has warned.

Nearly six million children die from hunger or malnutrition every year, the Food and Agriculture Organisation says. Many deaths result from treatable diseases such as diarrhoea, pneumonia, malaria and measles, the agency says. They would survive if they had proper nourishment, the agency says in a new report on world hunger." [BBC]

A sampling of United Nations related blog commentary

Crooks and Liars: "Britain has angered John Bolton, America's combative ambassador to the United Nations, by breaking ranks with him over the need for reform. Britain has rebuffed a Bolton move to join him in refusing to pass the organisation's 2006 budget until member states approve wide-ranging management reforms: "Privately, British diplomats express surprise that he has not made greater efforts to cultivate them or build alliances. "You're either with him or against him," said one." That's the Bolton we all knew and the one Bush had to force on the UN. He doesn't have the necessary skills to bring reform to the table, but rather a heavy fist that divides and separates. Not a good tool as you can see."

Tapped (Ezra Klein): "Gareth Evans, former prime minister of Australia and current head of the highly regarded International Crisis Group, has a welcome op-ed in this morning's Los Angeles Times about civil conflicts and atrocities. The reason for the drawdown in hostilities, Evans argues, is international peacekeeping, which has become vastly more widespread and efficient than ever before. Its reputation, however, has not improved commensurately with its record, largely because its successes have averted the sort of high stakes negotiation dramas that attract television cameras."

Tiger Hawk: "President Bush believed that it was important for the United States to invade Iraq and replace its regime. There were a great many arguments in favor of this policy, most of which were made by the Administration in one form or another before the war. One of the arguments was a legalistic one -- that Saddam's government was, by virtue of its alleged present development and possession of WMD, in violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions. It was important to some people, including some Democrats and Tony Blair, that the UNSC endorse the war, or that it be unreasonably vetoed. Colin Powell went to the United Nations to make a legal case for a UNSC stamp of approval, not to make the best geopolitical case for the removal of Saddam Hussein. The geopolitical case did not depend on existing WMD, and still doesn't. But the intelligence that appeared to show Saddam's WMD programs were central to the administration's advocacy in front of the United Nations, so it is neither surprising nor shameful that it omitted all the various footnotes and hedges that have surfaced in the last thirty months or so. Do you want our President to share all our doubts and qualifications with the world? I certainly don't."

Booman Tribune: "John Goetz has been working on the Curveball story for a long time now. It is published today in the Los Angeles Times. I am proud to say that I did what I could to help him and his partner Bob Drogin with this. This story is a massive piece of the jigsaw puzzle that only now is beginning to be solved for the benefit of the understanding of the American people as to why they are now at war in Iraq. Some samples from the article: "...On Feb. 8, three days after Powell's speech, the U.N.'s Team Bravo conducted the first search of Curveball's former work site. The raid by the American-led biological weapons experts lasted 3 1/2 hours. It was long enough to prove Curveball had lied. U.N. teams also raided the other sites Curveball had named. They interrogated managers, seized documents and used ground-penetrating radar, according to U.N. reports. The U.N. inspectors "could find nothing to corroborate Curveball's reporting," the CIA's Iraq Survey Group reported last year."

Daniel Drezner: "The Financial Times reports that the United States has made a new concession over Iran's ambiguous nuclear program: "In a major concession towards Iran's nuclear programme, the US on Friday gave its public backing to a proposal by Russia and the European Union that would allow the Islamic republic to develop part of the nuclear fuel cycle on its own territory. The shift in US policy "revealed after talks between President George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin, the Russian leader" came despite a report from the UN nuclear watchdog that lent credence to US and European claims that Iran is trying, or once had ambitions, to develop nuclear weapons."

Dogooder: All Africa: "In a major volte face, President Robert Mugabe's government has accepted United Nations (UN) assistance for the provision of shelter to thousands of victims of its controversial Operation Murambatsvina scattered in and around the country. The government's change of heart, coming a month before the arrival of another special UN envoy to assess the humanitarian crisis triggered by the widely condemned clean-up exercise, follows this week's forcible removal of hundreds of people that had been sleeping in the open in Mbare after the demolition of slums six months ago."

Uncooperative Blogger: "Iran Has Plans To Build a Nuclear Bomb - From an article in the News Telegraph: "Iran has admitted obtaining designs that could help it make a nuclear bomb, the United Nations nuclear watchdog said yesterday in a confidential report. The IAEA report said documents bought by Iran on the black market included designs "on the casting and machining of enriched, natural and depleted uranium into hemispherical forms." Experts said the casts are used in atomic weapons." What have I been saying folks? Iran plans on building the Islamic Bomb. This is not even open to debate any longer, they are enriching Uranium and they have purchased plans to build a bomb. Do we have to wait until they actually use it to do something about it??? That is the last straw. Bush has to act, and act soon. No more talking, or EU discussion the time to act is here!"

"Almost 5 million people were infected by HIV globally in 2005, the highest jump since the first reported case in 1981 and taking the number living with the virus to a record 40.3 million, the United Nations said on Monday.

The 4.9 million new infections were fueled by the epidemic's continuing rampage in sub-Saharan Africa and a spike in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, the UNAIDS body said in its annual report.

"Despite progress made in a small but growing number of countries, the AIDS epidemic continues to outstrip global efforts to contain it," the report said." [Full article]

Selected summary of United Nations related news and events

UN Official Wants Probe of Iraq Jails

Annan Asks Greater Support for Pakistan Quake Relief

UN to Set up Bird Flu Warning System

UN Council Works to Avert Eritrea-Ethiopia War

UN Slams North Korean Rights Abuses

"A prototype of a cheap and robust laptop for pupils has been welcomed as an "expression of global solidarity" by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. The green machine was showcased for the first time by MIT's Nicholas Negroponte at the UN net summit in Tunis.

He plans to have millions of machines in production within a year. The laptops are powered with a wind-up crank, have very low power consumption and will let children interact with each other while learning." [Read article]

A sampling of United Nations related blog commentary

Urban Eco: "It's a shame that it takes a major disaster to make us look at our environmental practices. The recent earthquake in Pakistan and India caused more devastation in areas that had been deforested, and the problem could only get worse as people forage remaining trees for shelter and fuel. It's heartening to see that the U.N. Environmental Programme is already stepping in to help clean up and recycle waste created by the earthquake, as well as encourage planting of new trees to help in the future: "[BBC NEWS] UN warns of quake 'toxic wast' - Debris could pollute the water sources, the UN says. The UN has warned that waste and debris left in the wake of the 8 October quake could become toxic and seriously endanger the health of survivors..."

Colcam: "Green Machine At The United Nations. The prototype of the $100 wind-up laptop for kids in developing countries has made its debut at the United Nations. Millions of the lime green machines should be in production within a year. The laptop will run on open source software."

Think Progress: "Last night, Bill O'Reilly referred to his comments approving of a terrorist attack on San Francisco as a "satirical riff." We're not sure President Bush would agree. Recall the recently adopted UN Security Council Resolution 1624 - passed unanimously on Sept 14, 2005, with President Bush actually personally casting the vote for the United States. In his speech to fellow heads of state, Bush singled it out and said the United States "strongly supports the implementation of this resolution." ... It sounds like O'Reilly has run afoul of at least the spirit of the UNSC resolution - and the wishes of his president."

Alas, a Blog!: "Over at The Inkwell, the IWF's blog, one of the Charlottes explains why feminists oppose Ellen Sauerbrey, Bush's nominee for Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration at the United Nations: "[She] supports the Bush administration's withholding $34 million from the U.N. Population Fund because the agency has made financial contributions to China's policy of forced-abortions to limit family size."

Adoption Guide: "Statistics On Orphans - GENEVA (VOA) -- The United Nations says the situation of children in Sierra Leone is dire, with a huge problem of children being trafficked abroad. UNICEF is urging that adoptions be stopped until protective measures are put in place in the West African country."

War and Piece: "Go read Laura Secor's interview in the New Yorker about the limitations and achievements of Iran's internal reform movement: "What do the dissidents want? To overthrow the government? Or are there specific, more modest reforms that they seek? [Secor] Iran had a revolution pretty recently, followed by the traumas of war and dictatorship. As badly as many people want change, very few are inclined to put their lives and their country's fundamental stability on the line for it. That said, there are dissidents who flatly say that the system has to go, and that it should be replaced by a constitution based not on Islamic law but on the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights."

Selected summary of United Nations related news and events

Nations Seek $500M U.N. Humanitarian Fund

Four killed as U.N. Troops, Haitians Fight

Concern Over Colombian Refugees

UN Reins in Staff After Afghan Suicide Attacks

Internet Governance To Be Tackled At UN Summit

Bosnia and Herzegovina at Brink of EU Membership,
Security Council Told

Greece: UN Expert Seeks Improved Child Protection

A sampling of United Nations related blog commentary

Textually: "Millions of SMS have been sent as part of a global campaign by UNICEF to raise awareness of the enormous impact of HIV/AIDS on children around the world, reports Mike Grenville for 160characters.org. "The launch of Unite for Children. Unite against AIDS took place on 25 October 2005 in 50 countries around the world and in two countries SMS has been used to back up the poster campaign. Uzbekistan: Nearly a million cell-phone subscribers in Tashkent received an intriguing 'wake-up call' on 25th October through an SMS message to launch the campaign in Uzbekistan. The message asked "Why are so many young people contracting HIV?" Each SMS message had a link to the UNICEF website where everyone interested was able find more detailed information about the campaign..."

Bump in the Beltway: "Survivors of the Pakistani earthquake left to die of cold. Thousands have no shelter with the first snows of winter only days away. By Justin Huggler in Bagh, Kashmir: "At least 500,000 earthquake survivors in Pakistan still have no shelter with the fierce Himalayan winter just days away, international relief agencies have warned. Aid agencies say they are doing what they can but governments have not put up enough money. The United Nations has received only $133m towards an emergency appeal for $550m. It urgently needs $42m just to keep the current aid effort going." Can someone tell me why the victims of the tsunami are somehow more worthy of aid?"

Eccentric Star: "Reconstruction Chief Challenged by Iraqis - [Reuters] Iraqi perceptions that not enough is being done to rebuild the country after the U.S.-led invasion are simply a case of bad public relations, Washington's new reconstruction chief said on Sunday. Challenged by Iraqi reporters at his first news conference since he arrived in Baghdad to head the U.S. embassy's Iraq Reconstruction Management Office, Dan Speckhart listed a string of U.S.-funded projects covering health, education, transport, water and electricity generation... Another Iraqi reporter asked him about a recommendation by a UN watchdog agency that Washington should repay $208 million in apparent overcharges paid to a Halliburton Co. subsidiary."

Harowo: "Discontent Simmering in Horn of Africa - [VOA] The UN peacekeeping mission along Ethiopia-Eritrea border region has cost one billion dollars since the 2000 peace accord. The border region between Ethiopia and Eritrea is mostly barren and sparsely populated. According to most observers, it is hardly a region worth fighting for. Yet, Eritrea and Ethiopia fought a two-year war over it, between 1998 and 2000, in which an estimated 70-thousand people lost their lives. Robert Rotberg, Director of Harvard University's Program on Interstate Conflict says despite the 2000 peace agreement, the border dispute between Ethiopia and Eritrea remains unresolved."

Politburo Dikat: "Annan pays first visit to Iraq since start of war / He calls for factions to come together for Dec. 15 elections: "U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan visited Iraq on Saturday for the first time since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq 2 1/2 years ago ... The United Nations, which pulled out of Iraq in October 2003 after a bombing at its Baghdad headquarters, is slowly re-establishing its presence in the country. The attack killed 22 people, including the top U.N. envoy to Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello."

PSD: "Kenyan Nobel Peace laureate Wangari Maathai on the importance of Africa's SME's and diaspora: "I commend the African diaspora for believing in small and medium-sized enterprises, which are key to enabling Africans to fulfill their aspirations for jobs and economic security. The United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (Unido) reports that 90% of all businesses in Africa are small and medium-sized. We must support this sector and ensure that it thrives." Via Africa Unchained."

True Blue Liberal: "From The Standard China: Iran has dismissed fresh US allegations about its atomic ambitions as a bid to blight a crucial meeting of the United Nations nuclear watchdog later this month. US officials said new evidence suggested Iran had made significant progress in what they call its secret pursuit of nuclear weapons, and that this strengthened the case for more international pressure on Teheran to end the program. Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi rejected the allegations as an attempt to ratchet up pressure on Teheran."

"The United Nations will this week launch a major air operation to ferry food and other supplies to earthquake survivors high in Pakistan's mountains in frantic bid to beat the problems of winter.

Britain has supplied three Chinook transport helicopters that will fly up to 200 tonnes of supplies a day into the mountains from Tuesday for five days, said senior U.N. official Pat Duggan." [LINK]

Secretary General Kofi Annan (front, second) is shown
the damage caused to the Grand Hyatt Hotel by the
suicide terrorist bombing in Amman, Jordan, by the
Minister of Tourism, Akel Bitaji (front, left).
UN PHOTO/Mark Garten

"United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan arrived in Iraq for a one-day visit to the capital, Baghdad, where he met with a number of top Iraqi leaders and the staff of the UN Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI) while voicing support for an Arab League conference on the troubled country.

Speaking to reporters, he stressed the importance of Iraq's political transition, and said the process must be inclusive and transparent, taking into account the concerns of all groups." [LINK]

Selected summary of United Nations related news and events

Security Council Presidential Statement Condemns
9 November Amman Terrorist Bombings

UN Council Seeks Quick Justice for Amman Bombings

Annan to Visit Jordan Tomorrow Following Terrorist Suicide Attacks

UN Urges Governments to Help Track Down Jordan Bombers

At critical juncture, UN Political Affairs chief to visit Middle East Next Week

U.N. Patrols Curtailed Between Ethiopia, Eritrea

Pakistan: UN reports urgent need for female doctors in quake relief

Toxic Sites in Iraq to be Made Safe

UN Extends Mandate of Multinational Force in Iraq for a Year

UN Has Reformed, Will Continue: Frechette

A sampling of United Nations related blog commentary

Overthrow: "The main objective of the United Nations conference World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) to be held this month in Tunisia is to ensure affordable internet access to all the poor countries and to get the full benefits that new information and communication technologies can bring to economic and social development. In all probability this will take the back seat and the summit will turn in to an acrimonious showdown between the United States and the challengers of its monopoly over internet, including the European Union."

Scaramouche: "It's looking a bit precarious for Syrian despot Bashar Assad. Not only does he have the UN on his back -- big tsuris for any leader -- he has to find a way to strike a balance between co-operating with the international body while showing his own people he's still the commanding, authoritative strongman they've come to know, love, and cower in front of. Or at least, to remind them he's the son of a commanding, authoritative strongman. With that in mind, he's making some loud, macho noises: From the Globe and Mail: "President Bashar Assad said Thursday his country will co-operate with a U.N. investigation implicating the military in the killing of a Lebanese politician ... Mr. Assad, while maintaining Syria's innocence during a speech at Damascus University, also disclosed that a U.N. investigator has rejected Syria's conditions for co-operating with investigators."

PSoTD: "From Canada.com: "A treaty aimed at reducing deaths from smoking has been ratified by 106 countries who can now vote at the first meeting of the anti-tobacco convention, the United Nations said. The treaty, known as the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, was finalized in May 2003 and came into force earlier this year."

Diplomatic Times Review: "UN Secretary General Kofi Annan sought Tuesday in Cairo to assuage Arab fears over possible action against Syria but urged Damascus to cooperate fully with the international probe into the assassination of former Lebanese premier Rafik Hariri," according to an Agence France Presse report in the Daily Times of Pakistan."

Patridiot Watch: "Saddam Hussein should burn in hell, but he shouldn't have to face trial with his lawyers getting death threats all the time, and murdered twice. "Lawyers for Saddam Hussein and his aides severed all contact with the court trying the former Iraqi president on Wednesday after the second murder of a member of the defense team since the trial began last month. Attorneys representing Saddam and seven co-accused on charges of crimes against humanity considered a second day of hearings set for November 28 to be "canceled and illegitimate," lead counsel Khalil al-Dulaimi told Reuters. Interviewed in the Sunni Arab rebel stronghold of Ramadi, west of Baghdad, he said he felt personally threatened and renewed demands for the United Nations to intervene to stop the trial following Tuesday's killing of lawyer Adil al-Zubeidi."

War in Context: "The Security Council on Tuesday unanimously adopted a one-year renewal of the United Nations mandate for the United States-led multinational force in Iraq. The resolution, sponsored by Britain, Denmark, Japan, Romania and the United States, extends the mandate until Dec. 31, 2006, but calls for a review of the decision by June 15 and allows for the ending of the mandate at any point if Iraq requests it. The review clause was added as a compromise with the demands of France and Russia, which initially asked that the term be extended for only six months."

"United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who is currently travelling in the Middle East, today strongly condemned the bombings in Amman, Jordan, and reiterated his longstanding call for the adoption of a comprehensive international treaty to fight the scourge of terrorism." Link

"Mark Regev, a spokesman for Israel's foreign ministry, said that the idea of Israeli troops serving as UN peacekeepers had been raised in the 1990s but received new momentum recently. "In light of our improved standing at the United Nations, we are exploring greater membership and involvement in a number of UN agencies." [MORE]

A sampling of United Nations related blog commentary

Abu Aardvark: "Yesterday I skimmed through the final report of the Independent Commission investigating the UN's Oil for Food Program. For 1000+ pages, it didn't contain a lot of surprises - the Duelfer report on WMD already revealed a lot of this information, and press leaks have revealed a lot of the rest - but it did contain a lot of useful documentation and fascinating detail about the operation of the program for all its corruption, ineffectiveness, and contributions to strengthening Saddam's domestic and foreign policy position, the Oil for Food Programme "reversed a serious and deteriorating food crisis" in Iraq. It saved a lot of people, especially the young and vulnerable."

Paper Chase: "The UN-Afghan Joint Electoral Management Body (JEMB) said Monday that final results of Afghanistan's legislative polls will be announced on Wednesday [press release, PDF], and that fraud allegations will not call the results into question. The September 18 vote was the first opportunity for Afghans to elect members to its Wolesi Jirga, or lower house of parliament ... A JEMB spokesman said Monday that "All complaints of the losing candidates have been dealt with carefully and very few have been accompanied with facts such as time and locations. We are confident that the legitimacy of the elections is intact." A slow vote count and the fraud allegations have delayed the announcement of official results, originally scheduled for October 19. Reuters has more."

Illmethinks: "This article by Stirling Newberry gives a great example of how the right wing (little "r") closet dwellers love to stir up trouble and how they accomplish it: "The Republican Congress is on the oil for food which hunt."

Daily Kos: "After their deep concern with the "oil for food" scandal, I am positive the Right Wing (Faux, et al.) will be all over this theft from the good people of Iraq: "An auditing board sponsored by the United Nations recommended yesterday that the United States repay as much as $208 million to the Iraqi government for contracting work in 2003 and 2004 assigned to Kellogg, Brown & Root, the Halliburton subsidiary. The work was paid for with Iraqi oil proceeds, but the board said it was either carried out at inflated prices or done poorly." This is the type of story that is unlikely to create trust for the United States in Iraq."

Democracy Arsenal: "There's an important debate underway on America Abroad about where the liberal internationalist consensus for humanitarian intervention stands after Iraq (see Anne-Marie Slaughter's latest post for a partial summary). The gist is an argument over whether, as David Rieff claims, after Iraq, humanitarian intervention can no longer be distinguished from self-interested, imperialistic interventions done under the guise of promoting human rights and ousting despots. ... Iraq has taught us key lessons that can and must guide future thinking on humanitarian intervention, mostly raising the bar for when we should intervene and how we need to do it. I list 10 of them: 2. While it Need Not Necessarily Derive from Any Single Source, Legitimacy is Essential - Anne-Marie Slaughter and Ivo Daalder illuminate how the US operation in Kosovo, though without UN imprimatur, had the effect of "pushing" international law to provide broader license for similar interventions, culminating in this Fall's adoption of a UN "responsibility to protect" (a duty that, unaccountably, has not been invoked in Darfur)."

Selected summary of United Nations related news and events

Iran to Propose Peace Solution to UN

Attack Shows Boldness of Somali Pirates

Experts Meet to Draw up Bird Flu Battle Plan

Bird Flu Pandemic May Have Worldwide Cost of $800 Billion

CONGO: Food Shortage Looming, FAO Official Says

Cocaine Smugglers Using High-Tech Boats

World Tourism Faces Growing Climate-Change Risk, UN Agency Says

From Reuters: "Syrian Foreign Minister Farouq al-Shara said on Monday that Damascus was keen to cooperate with a United Nations probe into the killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri."

An auditing board sponsored by the United Nations recommended yesterday that the United States repay as much as $208 million to the Iraqi government for contracting work in 2003 and 2004 assigned to Kellogg, Brown & Root, the Halliburton subsidiary. The work was paid for with Iraqi oil proceeds, but the board said it was either carried out at inflated prices or done poorly. [Full Story]

"Confronting the possibility of a potentially devastating human bird flu pandemic, the United Nations system - from Secretary-General Kofi Annan to the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) to the UN health and agricultural agencies - laid out a blueprint for immediate preventive and mitigating action.

At the same time, a senior UN health expert said no one can predict the risk of a possible mutation of the virus into a pandemic, nor its potential death toll, which some estimates have put in the scores of millions. "The risk is there, it's a true risk, but it can't be quantified," UN World Health Organization (WHO) official David Heymann said in New York. Declaring that merely stockpiling antiviral medicines does not constitute a strategy, Mr. Annan highlighted seven priorities to combat the threat of the H5N1 virus." [Read more]

A sampling of United Nations related blog commentary

Kinshasa on the Potomac: "The details on the measures taken to halt the latest outbreak of H5 in China are, in the words of Noureddin Mona, representative for the UN Food and Agriculture Organization in China, "not a good signal." Almost 370,000 birds were culled in the affected area, a 3km zone in Liaoning province. Similar massive cullings have been carried out in other countries. Even if H5N1 never makes it into the human population in a strain that can sustain human-to-human transmission, the amount of economic damage being done is considerable and will only grow."

Paper Chase: "The US has circulated a draft UN Security Council resolution that would extend the UN mandate of 180,000 multinational force currently in Iraq for another year. The US-led multinational force was originally authorized in May 2004 under UN Security Council resolution 1546. The latest draft, which the US proposed on Wednesday, is expected to draw opposition from Russia and others on the Security Council, and it represents a departure from previous mandates, which have required renewal every six months. The current UN mandate expires following parliamentary elections on Dec. 15, but it would be extended under the US draft resolution to Dec. 31, 2006."

Think Progress: "Earler this year, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said the United States was adhering to both U.S. law and treaty obligations outlawing torture. But the Washington Post reports today that the U.S. is keeping prisoners in a system of secret, "black-site" prisons around the world, where they can be treated to punishment which the U.N. Convention on torture and U.S. military law does not allow."

Coalition for Darfur: "From the BBC: "Ethiopia and Eritrea have moved more troops and tanks towards their common border, a United Nations official says. The UN has revised its assessment of the border situation between the two countries from "stable" to "tense". Ethiopia has not withdrawn its troops from land awarded to Eritrea by an international demarcation commission. The demarcation followed a border war in which 70,000 people died. Eritrea has recently restricted the operations of UN troops patrolling the border. A source at the UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (Unmee) told journalists on Wednesday that both countries have moved more troops and tanks towards the border in the past two or three weeks."

Disinformation: "The declaration last week by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that "Israel must be wiped off the map" has triggered diplomatic shifts about Iran's nuclear weapons program. Ahmadinejad's comments have angered the United Nations, Russia, and others who had given Iran tacit support. James Forsyth also examines UK Prime Minister Tony Blair's reaction, and his use of 'reframing' tactics to influence the subsequent debate."

Informed Comment: "Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari asked the UN to extend the mandate for coalition troops in Iraq for up to another year. But the Iraqi government wants the UN to review the resolution 8 months from now, and at any time that the Iraqi government requests a review."

Simon World: "Bates Gill is not just a spoonerism of the world's richest man. He is a noted expert on China and amongst other things, the HIV/AIDS problem in China. Meanwhile China has a well-known penchant for fiddling statistics, especially as many public servants are measured by these statistics. But sometimes this can hide positive trends for fear of ridicule. The SCMP reports on Bates Gill's observations: "Beijing may be keeping new estimates of the number of HIV infections on the mainland secret because they are lower than previously published figures and could undermine the government's credibility... This could be the reason why the official HIV figure had remained at 840,000 for the past two years, said Bates Gill, a China expert at the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies. The estimate of 840,000 HIV-positive cases was arrived at using modeling techniques, and was the result of a co-operative effort between China, the World Health Organisation and the United Nations Programme on HIV/Aids."

Thoughts From Kansas: "Dana Priest has a stunning article in today's Post, CIA Holds Terror Suspects in Secret Prisons: "The CIA has been hiding and interrogating some of its most important al Qaeda captives at a Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe, according to U.S. and foreign officials familiar with the arrangement. The secret facility is part of a covert prison system set up by the CIA nearly four years ago ... CIA interrogators in the overseas sites are permitted to use the CIA's approved "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques," some of which are prohibited by the U.N. convention and by U.S. military law."

Selected summary of United Nations related news and events

Bird flu pandemic may force countries to shut down, says UN official

United Nations Launches Children's AIDS Campaign

General Assembly designates International
Holocaust Remembrance Day

U.N. Agencies Say Quake Donations Lagging

Syria 'will let Hariri death inquiry see Assad relatives'

Bolton on U.N. Demands for Syrian Cooperation

Escalating Climate Change Impacting Human Health

Drying Lakes 'will soon be swamps'

JORDAN: The Fight Against Drug Addiction Reaches Women

A sampling of United Nations related blog commentary

Heretik: "The Joint Task Force at Guantanamo admits there have been at least thirty six suicide attempts by twenty two detainees.... UN REPRESENTATIVES ON HUMAN RIGHTS have finally been invited to the prison. However, the United States says no detainees will be allowed to be interiewed alone."

Democracy Arsenal: "I wrote about this last week, but the reports now are that the second wave of post-earthquake deaths from disease and exposure are already beginning. UN agencies will have to scale back their aid this week unless more donor money flows fast. If tens of thousands of Pakistanis die this winter because not enough help reached them, Pakistan's number one international "partner" - the US - is the most likely target for blame."

Agonist: "Big oil groups implicated in oil-for-food scandal - Financial Times - Well known international oil companies used traders to distance themselves from the illegal surcharges being paid under the United Nations oil-for-food deal in Iraq, the final Volcker report has concluded. But only one major oil company was shamed by the 623-page report: Texaco, part of Chevron, the US's second largest energy group. The report states: "A more nefarious purpose for an oil trader, or oil company, to purchase oil from a contractor, rather than directly from Somo [Iraq's oil company] was to maintain an apparent distance from the payment of illicit oil surcharges."

Eccentric Star: "Pentagon Invites UN Torture Investigator to Guantanamo - (Reuters) "The United States on Friday invited three UN human rights investigators, including the one who examines torture allegations, to visit the Guantanamo Bay prison camp in a bid to show "we have nothing to hide." The Pentagon said the invitations were extended to Austria's Manfred Nowak, special investigator for the United Nations on torture, Pakistan's Asma Jahangir, who focuses on religious freedom, and Algeria's Leila Zerrougui, who looks into arbitrary detention."

Friends of Ethiopia: "Economist: "It is a reasonable question: if Eritrea and Ethiopia are intent on fighting and the UN cannot stop them, the blue helmets might as well leave. Yet to blame the UN for the crisis is to miss the point. The peacekeepers were never intended to enforce peace. Rather, they were charged with deterring cross-border scuffles and reporting them when they occurred-and this they have admirably done."

This Modern World: "I'm really sick of hearing the liberal-hawks-turned-peaceniks claim that they supported the war only because of Colin Powell's breathtaking performance before the UN, and are shocked and saddened to learn they were lied to. You supported the war because you didn't have the courage to buck what you perceived as mainstream opinion, didn't want to align yourselves with all those dirty hippies marching in the streets. As it turns out, of course, the dirty hippies, i.e. citizens from all walks of life, turned out to be a lot more on the mark than you were."

Red State: "Iran finds the U.N. Security Council statement condemning President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad over his Hitler-like call for Israel to be "wiped off the map" unacceptable... Secretary-General Annan's 27 October statement expressed dismay over Ahmadinejad's call for Israel to be wiped off the map. Coming after Israel's call to expel Iran from the United Nations, the diplomatic pressure may be "unacceptable" to Iran. Combined, Annan's "intention" to adjust his agenda and the Security Council's "condemnation" constitute only a good first step in the right direction."