United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan vowed to continue working for the release of Myanmar democracy leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, whose house arrest the authorities have extended.

"Despite this setback, the international community cannot abandon the search for improvements in the difficult situation in Myanmar," Mr. Annan said in a statement issued by his spokesman, just four days after he appealed directly to the head of State, Senior General Than Shwe, to release Ms. Suu Kyi, who has been under house arrest for 10 of the past 16 years. [Link]

To Ed Lasky, the Secretary General's decision to evacuate non-essential U.N. personnel from East Timor is proof positive of the U.N.'s inherent fecklessness: "Meant to protect civilians, UN staff have run away from the capital of East Timor after an outbreak of violence... If someone says "boo" to them, they turn tail." Lasky, however, does not bother to mention that those workers who were evacuated from East Timor last week were civil servants who perform important (but in a conflict zone, non-essential) tasks such as HIV/Aids education, civil society training, legal work, and more.

There is, in fact, no UN peacekeeping force per-se in East Timor. Rather, last week the Security Council quickly and unanimously authorized the deployment of a multinational force led by Australia, and augmented by New Zealand, Malaysia, and Portugal. Today, there are some 1,300 troops in East Timor with more on the way. Evacuating non-essential U.N. staff from the region effectively frees these troops from the job of guarding the internationals, thereby allowing them to perform pacifying missions like disarming the machete wielding rioters. If one's goal is to restore order to East Timor, then temporarily evacuating non-essential U.N. staff was the responsible thing to do, both for the Timorese and the international civil servants working there.

AP: "The world continues to lose an ugly battle to HIV/AIDS that shows no sign of letting up after 25 million people have died a quarter-century into the epidemic, the head of the U.N.'s HIV/AIDS joint program said.

"I think we will see a further globalization of the epidemic spreading to every single corner of the planet," UNAIDS head Peter Piot told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from Geneva.

UNAIDS on Tuesday was scheduled to launch a 630-page report that takes stock of where the world currently stands with nearly 40 million people living with HIV/AIDS. It documents countries' progress and failures, and projects what must happen to keep some regions from experiencing disaster. The report was set to be released a day ahead of a High Level Meeting on AIDS in New York, a week prior to the 25th anniversary of the first documented AIDS cases on June 5, 1981."

Memorial Day (May 29) was also the International Day of UN Peacekeepers. Here's an excerpt of a message by the President of the General Assembly: "The General Assembly first designated 29 May as the International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers four years ago. On this day, we pay tribute to the professionalism, dedication and courage of all the men and women serving in United Nations peacekeeping operations, and honour the memory of those who have lost their lives in the cause of peace."

"The United Nations has warned that the task of helping survivors of Saturday's earthquake on the Indonesian island of Java is "a race against the clock".

Emergency workers and supplies are arriving at the scene, but the UN's top relief co-ordinator Jan Egeland told the BBC the task was "enormous".

Driving rain has made conditions worse for survivors of the quake, which killed at least 4,900 and hurt 20,000.

And activity at nearby erupting volcano Mount Merapi is said to have increased.

United Nations aid agencies are holding talks in Geneva to plan humanitarian relief.

The agencies, including Unicef, the World Food Programme, the World Health Organization and the International Red Cross, have already begun distributing some relief supplies but say much more will be needed." [Read more]

See also:

What the UN is Doing

"A frantic search for survivors is continuing after a strong earthquake struck the Indonesian island of Java, killing more than 4,200 people.... Unicef said it was sending emergency supplies including 2,000 tents, 9,000 tarpaulins and hygiene kits." [More]

"The United Nations must become more effective in tackling global terrorism, Tony Blair has said. He said that new worldwide threats mean that the international community must act "earlier and more effectively", and that a UN debate is needed on how that can happen.

"The whole point about the international community today is that these problems are urgent, they need to be tackled. If they're not tackled, the consequences are very quickly felt around the world. And you have got to have institutions that are capable of taking them on and tackling them and getting action taken."

His comments at a White House press conference come ahead of a speech in which the Prime Minister will urge the reform of international institutions such as the UN and the International Monetary Fund to take account of the new politics of globalization.

At a joint press conference, Mr Blair told reporters: "What we want to do is make sure that the UN is an effective instrument to multi-lateral action." [Read more]

FT: "Zimbabwe on Thursday rejected a fledgling initiative by Kofi Annan, UN secretary general, to broker a solution to the country's economic and political crisis.

George Charamba, spokesman for president Robert Mugabe, told the state-owned Herald newspaper that Zimbabwe was "not a UN issue", and described a previous invitation to Mr Annan, issued during its controversial slum clearance operation, as "stale". He said the Harare government was "unaware of any UN intervention on Zimbabwe", and that the UN should instead be challenging "illegal sanctions imposed on it".

"Some 90 experts in early warning systems and natural disaster risk management met at a United Nations symposium in Geneva today to strengthen global mechanisms, especially for less developed countries, that have already helped to reduce the number of fatalities by nearly two-thirds at a time when such catastrophes have increased four-fold.

"From 1980 to 2005, over 7,000 natural disasters worldwide have taken the lives of nearly 2 million people and produced economic losses of over $1 trillion," UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Secretary-General Michel Jarraud told the Symposium on Multi-hazard Early Warning Systems for Integrated Disaster Risk Management, convened by his agency.

The Symposium, bringing together of 18 agencies involved in the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UN/ISDR), is co-sponsored by The UN Development Programme (UNDP), the ISDR, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the World Bank." [Read more]

"Human rights in Iraq are being "severely undermined" by growing insecurity, violence and a "breakdown of law and order" caused by militias and criminal gangs, the U.N. mission here said Tuesday.

The human rights update, issued every two months by the U.N. Assistance Mission in Iraq, cited soaring numbers of execution-style killings in Baghdad. Such slayings have increased during a surge of sectarian violence that followed the bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra on Feb. 22.

Baghdad's main morgue -- which handles only the remains of victims of violent or suspicious deaths, not including bombing victims -- issued 1,155 death certificates in April, the U.N. agency reported." [Read more]

"An Indonesian who died of bird flu after nursing his sick son might have caught the virus in a case of direct human-to-human transmission, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said today.

WHO gave its first details of the case of a family cluster of H5N1 avian influenza infections in which six people have now died, and today said it was still looking for the source of the outbreak.

If it was a case of human-to-human transmission, the virus had not spread very far, it emphasised.

It would not be the first case of human-to-human transmission.

WHO said some limited human-to-human transmission occurred before in other countries, but as in the Indonesian case, it did not last long." [More]

"Dr. Lee Jong-wook, who led the U.N. health agency's battles against SARS and bird flu, died Monday following surgery for a blood clot in the brain. He was 61.

Tributes praised Lee for his effectiveness in spurring the world to build its defenses against a potentially deadly flu pandemic during his tenure as director-general of the World Health Organization.

"Dr. Lee worked tirelessly to improve the health of millions of people, from combating tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS to his aggressive efforts to eradicate polio," President Bush said in a statement.

"The world has lost a great man today," said U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan. "He tackled the most difficult problems head on, while upholding the highest principles."

Lee fell ill Saturday while attending a function in Geneva and underwent surgery later that day, the agency said. Anders Nordstrom of Sweden will take over as WHO's acting director-general.

The opening session of the World Health Assembly, the annual meeting of the 192 members of WHO, observed two minutes of silence Monday, and flags flew at half-staff outside the U.N. European headquarters building, where the meeting took place." [Full story]

A sampling of United Nations related blog commentary

Coalition for Darfur on Darfur's "fleeting moment"

Daily Kos's Navy Vet Terp on John Bolton at the Baltimore Council on Foreign Affairs

Paper Chase on the UN Committee Against Torture report

Peter Levine on political participation and economic success

PSD Blog on UNSG Kofi Annan and the announcement of the launch of new UN Principles of Responsible Investment

"United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan and his senior envoy to Iraq today welcomed the announcement of the formation of the new Iraqi Government, and urged that the process be completed in order to consolidate stability.

"The Secretary-General wishes the new Government every success in confronting the enormous challenges facing Iraq," a spokesman for Mr. Annan said in a statement released in New York. "He hopes that the process of forming a broad-based and inclusive government will be completed as soon as possible, so that it will be able to quickly address the crucial issues of national reconciliation, security, the rule of law, respect for human rights, reconstruction and development." [More]

AP: "The United States should close its prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and avoid using secret detention facilities in the war on terror, the U.N. panel that monitors compliance with the world's anti-torture treaty said Friday.

The Committee Against Torture also said detainees should not be returned to any country where they could face a "real risk" of being tortured.

The criticism, contained in an 11-page report, followed a hearing in Geneva this month on U.S. adherence to the 1984 U.N. Convention Against Torture. The criticism carries no penalties beyond international scrutiny, but human rights observers say it could influence U.S. public opinion and hence the government."

©UNICEF/2006/Shima Islam

"U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres has issued an urgent plea to the international community to increase support for the desperately under-funded emergency in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

In his first official visit to Germany since becoming High Commissioner last June, Guterres said that the human cost of the conflict in some parts of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) - a country the size of Western Europe - continued to be much higher than in other emergencies.

"This conflict is taking more human lives than the tsunami; we have a tsunami in the Congo every six months," Guterres said at a press conference Tuesday with the German Minister for Development Cooperation, Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul." [Read more]

See also:

"The war the world forgot", Democratic Republic of Congo Photo Gallery

"From on-line banking to the benefits of telemedicine, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan today called on the world community to enhance global security in cyberspace so as to realize the full potential of information and communication technologies (ICT) and accelerate the pace of development." [Full story]

WaPo: "The U.N. Security Council unanimously adopted a legally binding resolution Tuesday that instructs the United Nations to replace an underfinanced African Union peacekeeping mission that is struggling to halt the killing of civilians in the Darfur region of western Sudan. The council threatened sanctions against anyone who impedes peace efforts there.

The U.S.-sponsored resolution, which passed 15 to 0, is aimed at speeding the transition from an African force of about 7,000 troops to a much larger U.N. mission of as many as 20,000 international peacekeepers. The council demanded that Khartoum supply visas for U.N. and African Union military planners within a week to travel to Darfur and prepare for the transition."

"U.N. human rights investigators called on Myanmar's junta on Tuesday to stop targeting members of the country's ethnic Karen minority and cited allegations of killings, rape and torture by soldiers." [Read more]

By Kofi Annan

"The agreement signed between the government of Sudan and the largest rebel movement in Darfur on May 5 gives the world one more chance to bring peace to that unhappy region. The Peace and Security Council of the African Union is meeting on Monday in Addis Ababa to see how best to take the agreement forward. The rest of the world must also engage rapidly and without reservation if the opportunity the agreement offers is not to be lost.

The talks that led to the agreement were long and very hard. Many people share the credit for bringing them to an at least partly successful conclusion. But this is not a moment for anyone to bask in congratulations. Darfur is still far from being at peace. Last Monday, while the United Nation's top humanitarian envoy was visiting a camp for displaced people, rioting broke out and an interpreter for the African Union Mission (Amis) was hacked to death." [Link: subscription req.]

More here

United Nations officials mobilized today to press for a robust peacekeeping force and a speedy disbursement of humanitarian funds to back up a peace accord signed 10 days ago between the Sudanese Government and a major rebel group in the western Darfur region of Africa's largest country.

Secretary-General Kofi Annan's Special Representative for Sudan Jan Pronk took part in a ministerial-level meeting of the African Union (AU) Peace and Security Council in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to examine the current mandate and the future of the AU protection force currently deployed in Darfur. [More]

A sampling of United Nations related blog commentary

Coalition for Darfur on Darfur's children

Daily Kos's Hunter on Iran and US isolationism

Treehugger on the "Little Green Data Book 2006"

The Washington Note: on The Quartet New York meeting

Wizbang on Ahmadinejad's letter to Bush

World Changing on public diplomacy in virtual worlds

ABC News: "Disease spread by global warming could kill an extra 185 million people in sub-Saharan Africa by the end of the century and turn millions more into refugees unless rich nations take action now, a report said on Monday.

Christian Aid said rich developed countries had to end their dependence on fossil fuels and set aside large sums of aid to help poorer nations ride out the worst impacts of global warming and switch to energy sources like wind, solar and waves.

"Rich countries must take responsibility for having largely created this problem -- and cut CO2 emissions radically," the non-governmental organization said in a report "The Climate of Poverty: facts, fears and hopes."

"Climate change is taking place and will inevitably continue. Poor people will take the brunt, so we are calling on rich countries to help them adjust as the seas rise, the deserts expand, and floods and hurricanes become more frequent and intense."

Most scientists agree that global warming is due to burning fossil fuels for transport and power, and new calculations suggest that having risen by 0.6 degrees Celsius in the 20th century, global temperatures could surge three degrees by 2100.

Christian Aid said it based its estimate of 185 million deaths due to disease on figures from the United Nations and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Global warming should allow carriers like mosquitoes to expand their ranges."

"U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan urged the United States again on Friday to enter direct talks with Iran to ease a crisis over Iranian nuclear work after Washington vowed not to be drawn into "endless" dialogue." [More]

"Ethiopia is holding opposition figures under laws that may violate its constitution, Somalia urgently needs international attention, and despite assertions by Sudan's Government, displaced women in that country's Darfur region are still being raped on a large scale, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour said today.

Just back from a two-week mission to the Horn of Africa, she told reporters at the UN complex in Geneva that in Ethiopia, thousands of people were imprisoned after events following last year's elections year. Of these just over 100 remained, comprising elected officials, journalists and other members of civil society charged with genocide and treason." [Full story]

A sampling of United Nations related blog commentary

Democracy Arsenal's Suzanne Nossel on China and the UN

Bradford Plumer on the "water wars"

Coalition for Darfur on setting up UN forces in Darfur

Mark Leon Goldberg on the new Human Rights Council

News Hounds on Fox News' UN coverage

"When Toshiko Kitahara arrived in Ragh district in Badakhshan province, north-east Afghanistan, two things struck her: its natural beauty and the fact that girls did not attend school.

As a UN Volunteer with the World Food Programme (WFP), Toshiko decided to make girls' education a priority. [She first arrived in Afghanistan in 2002 and started as a UN Volunteer in 2003.] A programme officer with WFP's Food for Education unit in the province, the Japanese national took up her concern directly with department of education officials - and just about anyone else who would listen.

In meetings with the department, she learned that they did not have the resources to accommodate the 700 or so girls in the district and definitely no funds to construct a school. The majority of girls who were receiving an education were doing so in classrooms at boys' schools, mosques and private homes - all scattered throughout as many as 16 different communities within the district.

With that information in hand, Toshiko started her self-driven campaign to build the first girls' school in Ragh. Her quest for funds started in Afghanistan and crossed the globe before she arrived at enough money to have the project put in motion." LINK

WaPo: "Cuba, Saudi Arabia, China and Russia won seats on the new U.N. Human Rights Council on Tuesday despite their poor human rights records, but two rights abusers - Iran and Venezuela - were defeated.

Human rights groups said they were generally pleased with the 47 members elected to the council, which will replace the highly politicized Human Rights Commission. It was discredited in recent years because some countries with terrible rights records used their membership to protect one another from condemnation.

"The spoiler governments, the governments that have a history of trying to undermine the protection of human rights through their membership on the old commission are now a significantly reduced minority when it comes to the council," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. "That doesn't guarantee that the council will be a success, but it is a step in the right direction."

"The United States is proposing a Security Council resolution that would give the United Nations control over Darfur peacekeeping operations, which are now being handled by the African Union. The Council will take up the matter at a special ministerial level meeting." [More]

"Pursuing the United Nations policy of zero tolerance of sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) by its staff, the UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) has reported eight cases for investigation since the beginning of the year, one of which has been substantiated with the person involved immediately suspended. The other investigations are continuing.

"The United Nations in Liberia is committed to prevent, identify and sanction the abhorrent practice of sexual abuse and exploitation in full compliance with the Secretary-General's Bulletin 'Special measures for protection from sexual exploitation and sexual abuse' and its policy of zero tolerance," the mission said in a statement. [Read more]

See also:

UNMIL: Statement of the United Nations in Liberia
on the issue of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse

"Iran has vowed that it would refuse to comply with any UN Security Council demand to halt its disputed nuclear programme and warned the crisis was leading the two sides towards a "confrontation".

Asked how Iran would respond if the Council adopted a tough resolution drafted by Britain and France, foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said Sunday that Iran "will certainly reject it and cannot carry it out."

Iran's hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also signalled Iran could quit the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) if the pressure mounted.

"If the signature of a treaty threatens the rights of a nation, it has no validity for that nation," the ISNA news agency quoted him as telling a gathering of members of Iran's Basij militia.

Iranian leaders have already signalled Iran could quit the NPT -- the cornerstone of the global effort against the spread of nuclear weapons -- if the country comes under more pressure to halt sensitive nuclear fuel work." [Read more]

"With renewed carnage in Sudan's Darfur region spilling into Chad and displacing hundreds thousands more in the past few months, the United Nations top relief official today warned that humanitarian disaster there was imminent if the world did not take quick strong action to get aid in, protect the population and secure a political settlement that stopped the violence once and for all.

"If we are to avoid an imminent, massive loss of life, we need immediate action - from the government of Sudan, the rebels, U.N. Security Council members and donor governments," Jan Egeland the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator wrote in an editorial published in The Wall Street Journal on the eve of his first visit to the strife-torn region since being blocked from visiting by the Government during his trip to Africa last month." [Read more]

UPDATE: The largest rebel group in Sudan's Darfur region has agreed to sign a peace deal with the government. BBC

"Poor nutrition contributes to the deaths of some 5.6 million children every year, and the world has fallen far short in efforts to reduce hunger by half before 2015, the U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF) said Tuesday. In its report, UNICEF said one of every four children under age 5, including 146 million children in the developing world, is underweight.

The most troublesome area in the world is South Asia, where 46 percent of children are underweight. India, Bangladesh and Pakistan account for half of the world's underweight children even though they have only 30 percent of the world's population of children under 5." [Read more]

Kofi Annan

"United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan unveiled his recommendations for the world's first comprehensive counter-terrorism strategy to the 191 members of the General Assembly.

In his address launching the 32-page report, entitled Uniting Against Terrorism: Recommendations for a Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy, Mr. Annan highlighted that the report stemmed from a fundamental conviction shared by all that "terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, committed by whomever, wherever and for whatever purposes, is unacceptable and can never be justified." [Read more]

See also:

Annan Unveils Counter-Terrorism Strategy

OHCHR: Terrorism

A sampling of United Nations related blog commentary

Americablog: "Sudan peace deal closer, but not quite there - All parties have agreed to the peace deal except for the rebels who are pressing for more time. What is especially significant here and what should be recognized as an extremely positive move is that the African Union has been the key player during these negotiations. For too many years, the AU stood by and did nothing while Africa drifted into chaos and genocide. It would be nice to see the AU take a stand against thugs like Mugabe but like they say, Rome wasn't built in a day. With oil money in play, pulling together a serious consensus in the UN is going to be difficult so the AU's role here is critical."

Austin Bay: Disbanding the Militias: Iraq's Next Tough Job - Iraq's successes noted, defanging sectarian and tribal militias is a very tough trick. UN peacekeepers in the eastern Congo understand that. Iraq the Model has the details. As the post notes, the militias argue they provide security where the government cannot."

Carpetbagger: "It shouldn't come as much of a surprise that Iran continues to defy anyone and everyone with respect to its nuclear program. Only within the last month, Iran has announced, with much nationalist fanfare, that it has succeeded in enriching its own uranium (if only to 3.5 percent, well below the 80 percent necessary to build a bomb, but still) and that it may just share its nuclear technology with other would-be nuclear states (like the Sudan). The rhetoric has been ratcheted up on all sides, but most noticeably by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has referred to Israel, the most obvious target of a nuclear Iran (in speech, if not necessarily in deed), as "a rotten, dried tree that will be eliminated by one storm". Well, Iran's defiance is currently being directed at the U.N..."

Counterterrorism Blog: "Just two open terrorism-related hearings in the U.S. Congress this week: The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee will hold an oversight hearing this Tuesday on the FBI. Topics are likely to include the extent of information sharing with other agencies (or lack thereof) and the status of troubled FBI computer systems. The U.S. House Government Reform Committee's national security subcommittee will review the viability of future U.N. sanctions in light of the Oil-for-Food scandal and proposed U.N. management reforms."

Democracy Arsenal (Suzanne Nossel): "After last Friday's report by the International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed that Tehran has successfully enriched uranium and defied the UN Security Council's Friday deadline to halt the process, we find ourselves in a frightening stand-off with an uncontrollable Islamic demagogue bent getting nukes. I am not an expert on the region, but here's my take on some things the U.S. ought and ought not do..."

Informed Comment: "IAEA Finds no Proof of Iranian Nuclear Weapons Program - In its April 28 report, the International Atomic Energy Agency mentioned the UNSC mandate to Iran of last February... Despite not being fully in compliance with these demands, Iran maintains that it is in fact fulfilling its obligations under the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty. The IAEA found no smoking gun."

Jurist: "UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour headed to Darfur Monday as she continued a five-day visit to Sudan to press the government to end the violence and address rights abuses in the region. UN spokesman Jose Diaz says reports indicate that the situation there has remained the same or even worsened in some cases since Arbour visited the troubled area a year and a half ago."

" Iran asked the United Nations on Monday to take a stand against American threats that it said included possible nuclear strikes on its territory and that were "in total contempt of international law."

In a letter to Secretary General Kofi Annan, Javad Zarif, Iran's ambassador to the United Nations, pointed to recent comments by President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on ways to halt Iran's nuclear program and to news reports of Pentagon planning for possible nuclear attacks on nuclear facilities in Iran." [Full story]

"The real issue is absenteeism, which the World Health Organization (WHO) predicts could climb above 40% and last for weeks. Boeing is trying to determine if it can operate with 30% of its 160,000 employees out.

"We usually don't share specifics, because it's a security issue," says Boeing spokeswoman Kelly Donaghy. "Can you plan for everything? Absolutely not. We're going to be prepared the best we can. Shame on us if we don't at least think about it ahead of time." [Read more]

See also:

WHO: Avian Influenza

Study: U.S. Couldn't Slow Flu Pandemic

UN News: "Arriving today in Kenya, where 3.5 million people need emergency assistance, a United Nations Special Humanitarian Envoy warned that the crisis could deepen as families exhaust their remaining resources.

Kjell Magne Bondevik made his comments in Nairobi as he continued his tour of drought-affected countries in the Horn of Africa.

Food insecurity in Kenya remains severe in pastoral areas where the majority of those most affected are living, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). In Mandera district in the north, acute malnutrition in children has been recorded and high losses of livestock reported."