Washington Post: "The U.N. Security Council Monday adopted a resolution demanding that Iran suspend its nuclear activities by the end of August or face possible sanctions.

The resolution, approved by a vote of 14-1, with Qatar opposing, is the first on Iran to set out legally binding demands and a threat to consider sanctions. The United States and its allies suspect Iran is developing nuclear bombs and accuse it of concealing research over 18 years."

"The United States must better protect poor people and African-Americans in natural disasters to avoid problems like those after Hurricane Katrina, a U.N. human rights panel said Friday.

The U.N. Human Rights Committee said poor and black Americans were "disadvantaged" after Katrina, and the U.S. should work harder to ensure that their rights "are fully taken into consideration in the reconstruction plans with regard to access to housing, education and health care." [More]

"The U.N. Security Council expressed "extreme shock and distress" on Sunday at Israel's attack on the southern Lebanese village of Qana in which more than 60 people were killed.

The statement adopted unanimously by the 15-nation council "strongly deplores this loss of innocent lives" in Qana but did not call for an immediate truce, as requested by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan but opposed by the United States." [More]

New York Times: In a report released in July, Unicef described the death toll in Congo as a "tsunami of death every six months."

"It is fair to say that the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo has been the deadliest for children in the past 60 years," said Richard Brennan, health director of the International Rescue Committee. "No other conflict has had the same levels of excess mortality, and children have borne a disproportionate degree of this burden."

About 30,000 children have been forced into militias, while untold thousands of girls have been raped, according to the Unicef report. Children labor under toxic conditions in gold and diamond mines. Orphans choke the streets of Kinshasa, the capital, bedraggled platoons in Congo's vast army of want."

BBC News: "The UN has warned the deaths of four of its personnel in southern Lebanon may deter countries from contributing to a future peacekeeping force in the area.

UN deputy chief Mark Malloch-Brown said they accepted Israel's apology for the losses to Israeli fire, but still had "serious concerns" about what happened."

"Senate Democrats unleashed a sharp volley of criticism of President Bush's foreign policy yesterday, arguing that John R. Bolton has done more harm than good as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and does not deserve an extended term. If Bolton's style were less divisive, they said, he might have achieved more reforms at the United Nations and tougher sanctions against Hezbollah and North Korea." [Full story]

Bloggers weigh in:

FDL
Washington Note
Think Progress

Reuters: "The U.N. Human Rights Committee on Friday told Washington it should immediately shut all "secret detention" facilities and give the International Committee of the Red Cross access to anybody held in armed conflict.

In findings on U.S. observance of the U.N.'s main political rights' convention, the committee said it had "credible and uncontested" information that the United States had detained people "secretly and in secret places for months and years."

"The state party should immediately abolish all secret detention and secret detention facilities," it said, echoing a similar demand in May by the United Nations' Committee on Torture.

The committee said it could not accept Washington's argument that the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which the United States has signed, does not apply to anyone held outside U.S. territory."

"British Prime Minister Tony Blair will seek a U.N. resolution to resolve the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas during talks with President Bush in Washington, his spokesman said Friday." [More]

Writing in Bloomberg News, Amity Shlaes argues that the opposition to Ambassador Bolton's re-nomination is born from a conviction that he does not possess the right temperament for the job. "Doesn't play well with others," writes Shlaes. "That's the charge against John Bolton.... Other UN diplomats don't like him. They complain about him the way preschool teachers complain about an irritating child -- too loud, too pushy."

With respect to Ms. Shlaes, Bolton's temperament is not the issue here. Among the many reasons to question the wisdom and utility of Bolton's re-nomination, the fact that he does not possess the social graces typical of other diplomats in Turtle Bay is beside the point. Rather, questions about Bolton's nomination are grounded in profoundly substantive critiques of his one year tenure as Ambassador.

In issue after issue, Ambassador Bolton has undermined many of the interests he purports to serve. And in no subject is this clearer than UN reform. Ambassador Bolton is arguably among the most vocal proponents of reform in Turtle Bay. But as Barbara Crossette pointed out in Foreign Policy, Bolton too often stakes maximalist positions on relatively minor issues, thereby sacrificing larger reform to his own idiosyncrasies. For example, by opposing the mere mention of Millennium Development Goals in the 2005 World Summit outcome document, Bolton sent months of negotiation in a tailspin just weeks before the summit in September. (Bolton only dropped the issue once Secretary Rice smoothed things over in a conference call with Kofi Annan and an irate UK foreign minister Jack Straw.) In the end, the final document was a watered down version of many of the goals the United States-and other proponents of reform-hoped to achieve.

Similarly, Bolton often fails to signal America's bottom line at critical points of negotiation. During discussions over the structure and mandate of the new Human Rights Council, our best allies at the UN were bending over backwards to accommodate the administration's concerns. However, Bolton failed to articulate America's red lines during crucial meetings prior to the vote on the council. As a result, Bolton failed to achieve a proposal that the United States could support.

Bolton's preference for brinksmanship is also damaging to America's long term interests at the United Nations. There was a near crisis stemming from a budget stand-off in June, and this became a diplomatic disaster for the United States. For one, this tactic backfired and strengthened the hand of the opponents to reform who successfully stalled much progress on reform in a General Assembly vote in May. Further, it isolated the United States, contributing to the steady erosion of American influence in Turtle Bay.

Bolton has been unable to achieve many of his stated goals on reform. But he has contributed to an atmosphere at the United Nations is becoming increasingly contentious and polarized. It is these substantive critiques, not questions about his temperament, which Senators must consider as they vote on his nomination.

"The United Nations has very limited access to deliver aid to Lebanon, and a halt to fighting is crucial to tackling a dramatic humanitarian problem, UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said on Thursday.

"Humanitarian action is based on access, and access is always very limited when a conflict is still going on," Guterres told reporters on a visit to war-scarred Sri Lanka. "For our action, to have an end of the hostilities is of extreme importance."

"It is still a very limited access," he added. "This is a very dramatic humanitarian problem if you compare with other situations, especially taking into consideration the speed of this displacement process."

An estimated 750,000 people have fled their homes in Lebanon in the face of Israeli bombing raids. Guterres said around 200,000 people have left the country." [Full story]

"More than 250,000 child soldiers are still participating in armed conflicts around the world and tens of thousands of girls are being sexually exploited by combatants, a senior UN official said.

Radhika Coomaraswamy, the UN special representative for children and armed conflict, told the UN Security Council: "Since 2003, over 14 million children have been forcibly displaced ... and between 8,000 and 10,000 children are killed or maimed each year by land mines." [More]

Alertnet: "U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan called on Israel on Tuesday to investigate what he termed the "apparently deliberate targeting" by Israeli defense forces of a U.N. observer post in Lebanon. The Israeli air strike killed four U.N. military observers who were part of the U.N. peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon, U.N. and Lebanese officials said."

More coverage:

UN: Observers made many calls before strike

Israeli Airstrike Hits U.N. Outpost

Bloggers on the story:

Washington Note

Democratic Daily

Updated 7/26/06

As I survey the commentary on the current crisis in Israel and Lebanon from traditionally anti-UN media outlets like Front Page Magazine and the New York Sun, it has become clear that UN critics have a decidedly polarized view of the United Nations' role in armed conflict. According to these critics, anything less than the full support of the military objectives of one party to a conflict is evidence that the United Nations supports the opposing side. So if the Secretary General and his staff do not lend support to the Israeli bombardment of southern Lebanon, then they must be Hezbollah sympathizers.

But choosing sides during a conflict of this nature is simply not something the United Nations does. Rather, the duty of the General Secretariat in a crisis like this is to reduce the suffering of civilians caught in the conflict. So when Jan Egeland says that both sides have violated international humanitarian law, it does not mean, as the anti-UN hordes would have it, that the UN is a tool of Hezbollah. Rather, as the United Nations top humanitarian official, he is foremost concerned about the well being of civillian non-combatants.

In this case, the Secretary General has concluded that an appeal to end the violence through a cease-fire is the best way to reduce suffering of the civilian population of northern Israel and Lebanon. And to that end, the United Nations is opening lines of dialogue like no other entity can. A three member UN team has met with top officials from both sides, and there is talk of envoys being sent to Iran and Syria--countries that do not have diplomatic relations with Israel. By not taking sides, the United Nations is playing an indispensible role in this crisis.

From Media Matters: "During his July 20 interview with U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John R. Bolton, Fox News host Bill O'Reilly repeatedly lashed out at the U.N., putting Bolton in the position of defending the U.N. and its Security Council. O'Reilly called Security Council actions "a joke," accused the U.N. of not being "able to do anything," and declared that "I just think the whole place [the U.N.] is a rat's nest." In response, Bolton -- who, before being appointed ambassador to the U.N., had made comments that were harshly critical of the organization -- criticized some U.N. actions but defended many others, attempting to explain what was "worthwhile" about U.S. involvement with the U.N."

"Every day 1,200 people, half of them children, are killed in the conflict-hit Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) because of violence, disease and malnutrition, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said in a report issued today.

The report, Child Alert: DRC, also states that more children under age five die each year in the African country than in China -- a country with 23 times the population. It draws attention to the appalling fact that the total countrywide death toll every six months is similar to that for the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, which killed more than 230,000 people in 12 countries." [More]

"With Kofi Annan's term due to expire at year's end, the U.N. Security Council is starting the search for a new secretary general. Asian nations insist it's time for someone from their region to hold the post." [Audio link from NPR]

"The United Nations is considering dispatching envoys to Syria and Iran as part of a diplomatic push to end fighting between Israel and Hizbollah, Western diplomats said on Monday.

"Consideration is being given to going to Damascus and Tehran," a Western diplomat said of the U.N. delegation, led by Vijay Nambiar. "The key to unlocking this is Syria and Iran. You have to talk to the powers behind the throne."

Diplomats said U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan would decide in the coming days whether to dispatch the team, which has already held talks with Lebanese and Israeli leaders." [More]

"Jan Egeland, the UN's Emergency Relief Coordinator, is in Lebanon pushing for a safe humanitarian corridor for aid workers to deliver urgently needed supplies.... UN relief agencies say Lebanon faces a humanitarian crisis of catastrophic proportions." [Full story]

Photo Copyright Haitham Moussawi/IRIN

BBC: "The 50 least developed countries, most of which are in Africa, lack the means to compete in a rapidly globalising world, says the UN's Unctad agency. Unctad's latest report says aid should be used to make poorer economies more productive and boost wealth creation.

"We need to go back to the basics," said co-author Zeljka Kozul-Wright. "If countries do not invest in infrastructure, they are not going to sow the seeds for growth and development in future," she told the BBC News website."

CNN: U.N. chief Kofi Annan called on Thursday for an immediate end to the fighting between Israeli and Hezbollah forces. The secretary-general blamed Hezbollah for triggering the crisis and accused it of holding Lebanon hostage with its campaign against Israel.

"While Hezbollah's actions are deplorable and, as I've said, Israel has a right to defend itself, the excessive use of force is to be condemned," Annan told the U.N. Security Council."

"The UN's top human rights official issued a strong warning yesterday that killings of innocent civilians in Lebanon and Israel could amount to war crimes.

"International humanitarian law is clear on the supreme obligation to protect civilians during hostilities," said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour. "This obligation is also expressed in international criminal law, which defines war crimes and crimes against humanity." [More]

Watching the President's comments this week complaining "about [UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's] approach to the crisis, and for holding the view of many leaders [at the G-8 summit] that Israel and Hamas and Hezbollah should ceasefire and hash out their differences," one might think that the President is upset about the role that the UN is playing in the current crisis in the Middle East. Nothing could be further from the truth. Monday afternoon White House Press Secretary Tony Snow clarified the President's position saying that he "has been supportive from the very start of the U.N. mission to the region."

That three-person UN mission, which includes Vijay Nambiar, the Secretary-General's Special Political Adviser, has arrived in Israel, after "discussing concrete ideas" in meetings with the Speaker of the Lebanese Parliament and Prime Minister Fuad Siniora in an effort to diffuse the crisis in the region. Over the next few days, they may return to Lebanon and, perhaps, travel to Syria, Jordan, and the occupied Palestinian territories before returning to brief the UN Security Council. This team's itinerary and access, along with the level of international support, has once again clearly shown both the ability of the United Nations to perform tasks that no one nation could on its own and its indispensability as the primary instrument for international cooperation, peace, and prosperity.

Wisely, as Tony Snow said on Monday, the Bush Administration has supported the UN mission from the beginning. Statements to that effect have been made by several members of the Administration over the last few days. Secretary Rice, during a press briefing in Germany on July 13, called the Secretary-General's mission "the best opportunity now for de-escalation of this crisis." During the same briefing, she spoke to the UN's central role in formulating a practical solution for the Middle East, noting Security Council resolution 1559 that oversaw "the withdrawal of Syrian forces, and that has tried to bring together an international consensus ... about a road ahead for Lebanon ... including the disarmament of militias." Referring to the discussions among the G8, she said:

"Everybody is now very focused on trying to help the U.N. Secretary General's mission work. And I think we don't want to send confusing signals. The kind of 'too many cooks in the kitchen' problem is one that we want to avoid, because the Secretary General has all the right mandates to deal with this issue. I might note, too, that as to the Gaza situation, of course, the U.N. is a member of the Quartet. And so the U.N. Secretary General I think has all the right mandates. Let's put all of our efforts behind making his effort work."

National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley echoed Secretary Rice's statements at the same briefing:

"We hope that the U.N. mission the Secretary talked about can be a framework for going forward, can do a number of things -- can increase the pressure on Hezbollah and Syria, who are going to be key in winding this down and getting these hostages back to Israel; can be a vehicle for strengthening the [Lebanese] government and help them ride out this very difficult path; and finally, to be a framework for avoiding further escalation."

At later press briefings in Russia and on the morning show circuit over the weekend, Secretary Rice and President Bush remained committed to supporting the Secretary-General's mission to the Middle East. In Russia, Secretary Rice said:

"This is really a time for diplomacy, but it's not just diplomacy of talking and talking and talking. It's diplomacy of moving toward a goal of using the diplomatic vehicles -- in fact, in the case of the road map, the international vehicle; in the case of the 1559, the Security Council vehicle -- that we have established over the last couple of years, and using that now. This is the time to use those vehicles to get results, because those vehicles are going to give us the best outcome for a permanent peace."

"United Nations officials said they had based their figures on tallies provided by two Iraqi agencies: the Ministry of Health, which tracks violent deaths recorded at hospitals around the country; and Baghdad's central morgue, where unidentified bodies are delivered, a vast majority of which met violent deaths.

Each agency issues death warrants for the bodies it receives, government officials say, and there is no overlap between the two populations of victims." [Full story]

"U.N. diplomat Terje Roed-Larson says a U.N. delegation has presented Israel with "concrete ideas" on ways to end the violence between Israel and Hezbollah.

Roed-Larson met with Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni in Jerusalem, Tuesday. Roed-Larson said a political framework is necessary to end hostilities." [More]

Washington Post: "The United States defended its record on prisoner treatment, racial profiling, immigration and the death penalty on Monday in its first appearance before a top United Nations human rights panel in 11 years."

From CNN's Christiane Amanpour: "According to the United Nations, there are 12 million AIDS orphans in sub-Saharan Africa alone, and in four short years that number will skyrocket to 18.4 million. That means AIDS orphans will make up 15 to 20 percent of the population in some African countries.

In Africa, less than 5 percent of HIV-positive children who need treatment have access to it. And every day, another 1,800 children are infected with HIV, mostly at birth or from their mother's milk.

In Europe or America, this is almost unheard of because there is effective treatment to stop pregnant mothers from passing on the virus to their newborns. But in Africa, there is little access to this life-saving prenatal therapy. Furthermore, only 10 percent of pregnant women in Africa have access to basic treatment that could half the rate of transmission of HIV to their newborns.

"It's another grotesque double standard," said Stephen Lewis, the U.N. AIDS envoy to Africa."

A sampling of United Nations related blog commentary

FP Passport: "Afghan and U.N. officials fear that a persistent drought could soon add 2.4 million more people to the 6.5 million Afghans already suffering from hunger. And that development, in turn, could add to the ranks of the Taliban, magnifying the problems faced by the shaky government and the Western troops helping to hold it together."

Suzanne Nossel: "Getting Security Council agreement to bulk up UNIFIL, the existing UN operation in Lebanon, may be tough, but it will be easier than it would be to establish an entirely new operation and mandate."

Mahablog: "[President Bush] told Blair he felt like telling U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who visited the gathered leaders, to get on the phone with Syrian President Bashar Assad to "make something happen." In other words, Bush is whining that Kofi Annan should do something. The righties ought to love that."

Security Watchtower: "On Saturday the United Nations Security Council voted unanimously to impose weapons-related sanctions against North Korea in response to a series of recent missile launches by the reclusive communist nation. The consensus within the council was reached when Russia and China agreed to support a resolution that wasn't binding (chapter seven). The resolution calls on North Korea to suspend "all activities" related to its ballistic missile programs, and requires UN member nations to prevent import and export of missiles and materials related to weapons of mass destruction."

ODPI: "Reuters has this article, entitled "US defends rights record to United Nations panel," on today's first appearance by the US before a high-level UN human rights panel in eleven years."

Ten days ago, the typical right wing UN critics and reputable news outlets alike were predicting a feckless Security Council response to the North Korean missile tests. These critics were proven wrong.

"We have a strong and unequivocal resolution," Ambassador Bolton beamed prior to the unanimous Security Council vote condemning North Korea's missile tests. "We expect full, unconditional and immediate compliance by North Korea."

Even the most ardent conservative critics of the United Nations (ambassador Bolton included) feel compelled to turn to it in times of crisis. And it should be noted that they do so not out of an ideological proclivity for multilateralism. Far from it.

Rather, they turn to the United Nations because it can be a practical and pragmatic tool for diffusing international crises.

"United Nations Security Council members will on Monday start hammering out a detailed agreement on deploying a multilateral security force to Lebanon, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said.

World leaders at a Group of Eight summit in St. Petersburg had raised the possibility of a force at the weekend. But Annan, after talks with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, said he would push ahead with the plan as a matter of urgency." [Read more]

New York Times: "The Security Council condemned North Korea's missile launchings on Saturday and demanded that the country suspend its ballistic missile program, in a resolution that was weakened at the 11th hour to forestall a veto by China. All 15 members voted for the measure, which requires all countries to prevent North Korea from receiving or transferring missile-related items and "strongly urges" North Korea to abandon its nuclear program and return to the six-party talks on that program."

AP: "In an emotional televised speech, Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora called on the United Nations to broker an immediate cease-fire to end Israel's land, sea and air offensive against Lebanon.

He also pledged to reassert government authority all over Lebanese territory - suggesting the possibility of deploying the Lebanese army in the south, which Hezbollah effectively controls. That would meet a repeated U.N. and U.S. demand."

"A few weeks ago I attended a film fest with my oldest daughter Tonya Sargent. One of the films we watched was a documentary called "Love, Labor, Loss" that told the story of women with fistulas, or holes, caused by obstructed labour.... Fistulas mainly affect women who live in poverty in the developing world and can't obtain quality health care, mostly in Africa, Asia and some Arab states. As a result of this condition, they are often shunned and ostracized by society. According to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), obstetric fistula affects an estimated 50,000 to 100,000 women around the world every year." [More]

"World powers will next week press Sudan to accept a United Nations peacekeeping mission in Darfur amid reports of increasing violence in the province.

Tens of thousands have been killed and 2.5 million people forced into camps during three years of rape, murder and pillage in Darfur, in lawless western Sudan." [Read more]

Reuters: "U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan is sending a three-person team to the Middle East to urge all parties to exercise restraint and help defuse the major crisis in the region, a spokesman said on Thursday.... Vijay Nambiar, Annan's political adviser, is to head the team. The other members are U.N. Middle East envoys Terje Roed Larsen and Alvaro de Soto."

"World powers agreed Wednesday to send Iran back to the United Nations Security Council for possible punishment, saying the clerical regime has given no sign it means to negotiate seriously over its disputed nuclear program.

The United States and other permanent members of the powerful U.N. body said Iran has had long enough to say whether it will meet the world's terms to open bargaining that would give Tehran economic and energy incentives in exchange for giving up suspicious activities." [Full story]

There have been some misstatements recently about the membership of the new UN Human Rights Council by members of Congress who wish to starve it of US funding. Let's correct the record.

Senator Norm Coleman issued a statement condemning the Council because its members "include many of the worst human rights violators who had made a mockery of the previous commission -- Cuba, Iran and Syria." But Syria and Iran are not on the new Council. In fact, Iran stood for membership, but was not approved by a vote of the General Assembly.

Congressman Michael McCaul, during debate on the Science, State, Justice and Commerce appropriations bill, made a similar statement:

"It is amazing to me that anybody could agree that state sponsors of terrorism, that it is somehow acceptable that they serve on the Human Rights Council, and specifically countries like China, when we look at their human rights record in Tiananmen Square and the oppression that they have put on their people, countries like Iran, which is a state sponsor of terrorism, which has oppressed women in their society, oppressed their own people to a great extent.

Also Libya and Syria. I think this is a commonsense amendment, and I urge my colleagues to support it."

For the record, only one state sponsor of terrorism - Cuba - is on the Council. All other countries listed as State Sponsors of Terrorism were effectively dissuaded from seeking membership to the new Council because of the stricter membership criteria.

As these members of Congress would have it, the US would turn its back on the Council. And in doing so, they will have condemned the principal international human rights forum to failure and allow the handful of bad apples that remain on the Council to dominate its activities. Rather than isolating itself from the new Council, the US should work with the 37 democracies elected to the 47-member Council to isolate Cuba, strengthen the body's mechanisms, depoliticize the Council's activities and ensure future elections exclude countries that commit gross or systematic abuses.

From Media Matters: "Continuing a pattern of attacks on the United Nations by Fox News, Big Story Weekend guest host Julie Banderas asked: "[W]hen it comes to issues like North Korea and Iran, our supposed allies Russia and China always seem to be all talk, so why bother having a U.N. at all?" During the segment, on-screen text read: "What's the point of the U.N. if allies are all talk?"

The New York Times' Monday editorial page leads with an item dismissive of the Security Council's role in resolving the North Korea missile crisis. The editorial board, however, may have spoken too soon.

For one, Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns gave public assurances that the Security Council has the votes to go forward with a Chapter Seven resolution sanctioning North Korea. Meanwhile, Ambassador Bolton explained the delay in Security Council action today as part of a strategy to give the Chinese maximum room and leverage to coax North Korea back into the six party talks. And according to Bloomberg News, Ambassador Bolton even held out the possibility that the Security Council resolution could be tabled should North Korea rejoin the Six Party talks.

All this is to say that contrary to the Times, the Security Council has not been a sideshow. Rather, it is playing the central role of providing leverage to China and the United States as they work to resolve this crisis.

Reuters: "Iraq will ask the United Nations to end immunity from local law for U.S. troops, the government said on Monday, as the U.S. military named five soldiers charged in a rape-murder case that has outraged Iraqis.

In an interview a week after Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki demanded a review of foreign troops' immunity, Human Rights Minister Wigdan Michael said work on it was now under way and a request could be ready by next month to go to the U.N. Security Council, under whose mandate U.S.-led forces operate in Iraq.

"We're very serious about this," she said, adding a lack of enforcement of U.S. military law in the past had encouraged soldiers to commit crimes against Iraqi civilians."

For all the flack that critics hurl at the United Nations, the crisis sparked by North Korea's missile tests shows just how indispensable the United Nations can be during times of global emergency. As David E Sanger of the New York Times reports, there are few good policy options available to President Bush as he approaches North Korea's nuclear saber-rattling. However, at the Security Council, Ambassador Bolton told reporters that Pyongyang was isolated, and that there is "broad and deep support" for a Japanese resolution to sanction North Korea over the tests.

It's clear that North Korea is under intense pressure right now. Indeed, whether it is intended or not, the Security Council affords the Permanent Five with the opportunity to play out a good cop/bad cop routine. And as Chief U.S. nuclear negotiator Christopher Hill visits Beijing to coordinate a strategy to revive the six party talks, this routine can no doubt add to the Council's leverage over North Korea.

With US foreign policy in a bind over the missile tests, the United Nations Security Council is an attractive venue to provide a way for American policy makers to mitigate this crisis.

"The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) issued an urgent appeal Monday for 7.7 million dollars to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of the 'most vulnerable' children in Ethiopia during the second half of 2006.

UNICEF said in a statement that unless it secured the funding, it would have to cancel the second half of a programme which reaches 7 million children twice a year with vitamin A supplements, measles vaccination and anti-malaria nets." [More]

UN News Service: "Concerned at the situation facing civilians in strife-torn Gaza, Secretary-General Kofi Annan today issued a strong appeal for urgent action to alleviate their plight, calling on Israel to lift restrictions hampering the work of UN agencies there.

"As I have repeatedly stated, I am extremely concerned about the dangerous situation in the occupied Palestinian Territory," Mr. Annan said in a statement released in Berlin, Germany.

"I am appealing for urgent action to alleviate the desperate humanitarian situation of the civilian population."

New York Times: "President Bush said Friday that he believed the nation's nascent missile defense system would have had a "reasonable chance" of shooting down a long-range missile launched by North Korea had it come close to the United States, and he said he was determined to use the United Nations to set "some red lines" for future behavior by the North Koreans."

"The No. 2 United Nations official met with top Iraqi leaders in Baghdad on Thursday to promote a new partnership meant to help muster political and economic support for Iraq's government, the U.N. said.

Mark Malloch Brown, the deputy U.N. secretary-general, discussed setting up a preparatory group that will have the backing of the World Bank and include representatives of international donors, the U.N. said in a news release from its headquarters in New York." [More]

"Organizers of the soccer World Cup in Germany are earning praise for the event's execution -- and its environmental friendliness." Link

The 'Green Goal' project--the inspiration of the Local Organizing Committee for the 2006 FFIA World Cup and the German Ministry of the Environment-aims to cut greenhouse gas emissions from transport and electricity generation during the month long tournament.

A preliminary snapshot indicates that the 'Green Goal', which is supported by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and private business, is meeting if not exceeding expectations. Link

Alertnet: "Nepal's Maoists are unhappy with the government's invitation to the United Nations to monitor weapons held by the guerrillas and the army ahead of elections, a rebel leader said on Thursday. The comments came three days after Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala wrote to ask Secretary-General Kofi Annan for U.N. monitoring in the run-up the polls for an assembly to map the nation's political future."

Over at National Review Online, Claudia Rosett offers running commentary on the trial of Tongsun Park, a shadowy influence peddler who is accused of being an unregistered agent of Saddam Hussein during the Oil for Food program's formative years.

To Rosett, Oil for Food is not only the biggest scandal to hit the United Nations, but "arguably, the biggest scam in history."

The problem for Rosett is that this is something of a non-story by now. Many of the oversight and accountability recommendations from the no-nonsense Volcker Indepedent Inquiry Committee are already in place. And the major players in the scandal (like Park) are either facing trial or have faced disciplinary action one way or another.

In her zeal to expose the United Nations, I'm afraid that Rosett seems to have lost her sense of proportionality. The biggest scams in history are the ones that never went to trial, let alone generate robust oversight and accountability mechanisms to avoid even the appearance of impropriety in the future.

"North Korea test-fired a seventh missile Wednesday, intensifying the furor that began when the reclusive regime defied international protests by launching a long-range missile and at least five shorter-range rockets earlier in the day.... The missiles, all of which apparently fell harmlessly into the Sea of Japan, provoked international condemnation, the convening of an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council and calls in Tokyo for economic sanctions against the impoverished communist regime." [More]

UPDATE: Bloggers weigh in...

QandO
FP Passport
Outside the Beltway
Defense Tech
Daily Kos

"North Korea launched at least six missiles on Wednesday, including a long-range Taepodong-2, a move the United States called provocative and in defiance of the international community.

The United States said it was urgently consulting other U.N. Security Council members after the launches, which came despite repeated warnings from the reclusive Stalinist country's neighbors and from Washington." [Full story]