Last week, we brought you news that Megadeth's next album will be titled United Abominations. Apparently, front man Dave Mustaine came up with that catchy phrase when he was "watching TV and saw the trucks that said 'UN' on them and said, 'Man, you are so un-cool, ineffective, anything...I thought, wow I got to run with this!'"

It seems that a similar amount of thought went into the album art. Without the flags, this could just as well be another historic New York City landmark.

A couple of weeks ago, many bloggers expressed concern that Ambassador John Bolton decided to sit down for an hour-long interview with Pamela Oshry, whose Atlas Shrugs blog is far outside the mainstream. In the past weeks, attention to Oshry has subsided. Her outrages have not.

In a post titled "How much is that Dhimmi Doggie in the Window" a picture of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is photo-shopped to include a leashed dog at Khamenei's feet. Superimposed on the dog's head is Kofi Annan's face.

For those not familiar with the term, a "dhimmi" is a person of the "dhimma," which is a term in Islamic jurisprudence that refers to the rights afforded non-Muslims living in a territory ruled under Islamic law. In some circles, this has taken on a pejorative connotation and refers to an individual who is subservient to his or her Muslim masters. In the Pamela Oshry lexicon, this apparently includes the Ghanian Secretary General of the United Nations.

There is plenty of space for legitimate criticism of the United Nations and the Secretary General. Pamela Oshry's ad hominem and racist attacks do not inhabit this space. Thinking liberals, conservatives, and anyone in between ought to disassociate themselves with Ms. Oshry and publicly repudiate her. The fact that she has been granted special access to the United States Ambassador to the United Nations should be an embarrassment to all.

Join us in repudiating Oshry's post and advancing a more constructive debate about the United Nations.

"The UN post at Naqoura is barely a kilometre from the Israeli border. Beside it is a sleepy fishing harbour used to bring in supplies and reinforcements.

The multinational peacekeepers stationed here since 1978 have witnessed a violent succession of conflicts, from the Lebanese civil war to the recent month of intense fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.

A total of 248 peacekeepers have died in that time. Most recently, four were killed when the Israelis shelled their base at Khiam on 25 July. Today their photographs were on display, together with two UN civilian workers who died in Tyre.

At the simple memorial inside the well-kept base, the UN secretary general laid a wreath and inspected a guard of honour mounted by the peacekeepers.

Mr Annan praised members of the peacekeeping force for remaining at their posts throughout the recent fighting, sometimes surviving on just half a bottle of water a day.

They had refused any suggestion that they evacuate their positions, he said, even when the battles were continuing all around them." Link

Since the outbreak of violence in Lebanon last month, the anti-UN crowd has worked overtime tarring the General Secretariat with accusations that it is pro-Hezbollah (and ergo, pro-terrorist). Writing in The Weekly Standard , Lori Lowenthal Marcus mines UNIFIL's press-releases to prove this point.

"[T]hroughout the recent war, [UNIFIL] posted on its website for all to see precise information about the movements of Israeli Defense Forces soldiers and the nature of their weaponry and materiel... Meanwhile, UNIFIL posted not a single item of specific intelligence regarding Hezbollah forces. Statements on the order of Hezbollah 'fired rockets in large numbers from various locations' and Hezbollah's rockets 'were fired in significantly larger numbers from various locations' are as precise as its coverage of the other side ever got."

The statement is simply not true. When UNIFIL could, it reported on location of Hezbollah forces. Take this release from August third, when UNIFIL took fire from Hezbollah:

"One rocket from the Hezbollah side impacted directly on a UNIFIL position in the general area of Hula yesterday evening, causing extensive material damage, but no casualties. Half an hour later, another rocket from the Hezbollah side impacted directly on the same UNIFIL position, causing additional material damage, but no casualties. Hezbollah also fired rockets from the vicinity of four UN positions in the areas of Alma Ash Shab, Marwahin, Tibnin, and At Tiri."

All in all, UNIFIL did report on IDF positions more routinely, and with more precision than they did on Hezbollah positions. But the IDF, unlike Hezbollah, is a conventional army that operates in plain sight. Its movements are much easier to track than those of the guerrilla fighters who operate among civilian populations and in a complex network of underground bunkers. In fact, the locations of Hezbollah combatants were so difficult to pin down that even one of the most sophisticated militaries in the world could not identify or immobilize Hezbollah positions with much success.

In the midst of the conflict, UNIFIL's mission was to provide the international community with timely and accurate updates on the status of the fighting. As it happens, it is easier to spot a column of tanks than paramilitaries hiding in bunkers 40 meters below the ground. This is not anti-Israel bias, but the reflection on the nature of the conflict.

AP: "A new study finds that very few survivors of Hurricane Katrina contemplated suicide despite the extreme conditions they faced.

While the survivors suffered twice as much mental illness as the pre-storm population, they contemplated suicide far less often than mentally ill people surveyed before Katrina.

The study, led by Ronald Kessler of Harvard University, found only one percent of these troubled survivors either thought about or planned for suicide. Before Katrina, eight percent of mentally ill people from the same region had such thoughts and four percent made plans to carry out suicide. Researchers credit a surprisingly powerful inner strength.

The study results are reported in the online Bulletin of the World Health Organization and in a paper to the National Institute of Mental Health, which funded the study."

View WHO report (pdf)

BBC: "The UN's most senior humanitarian official has warned that Sudan's Darfur region faces a new humanitarian disaster owing to lack of security.

Jan Egeland spoke as the Security Council considered a US and UK plan to send 22,000 UN troops to Darfur."

NYT: "U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan arrived in Beirut Monday at the start of a Mideast tour to strengthen the cease-fire in Lebanon, saying it was "a very critical time" for the country. During his two-day stay, Annan will meet with Lebanese leaders and visit with U.N. peacekeepers deployed in southern Lebanon. He also was expected to visit Israel, Syria and Iran."

"I think it's important that I come here myself to discuss with the Lebanese authorities the aftermath of the war and the measures we need to take to implement U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701 and to underscore international solidarity," Annan told reporters after being met at the airport by Foreign Minister Fawzi Salloukh."

"U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said on Friday European nations would provide the backbone of a 15,000-strong United Nations peace force for Lebanon and he had asked France to lead it." More

Ever the thinking person's heavy metal front man, Dave Mustaine articulates to Billboard Magazine precisely how he came up with the name of Megadeth's next studio release.

"I was watching TV and saw the trucks that said 'UN' on them and said, 'Man, you are so uncool, ineffective, anything," the singer/guitarist said in a recent Billboard interview. "I thought, 'Wow, I've got to run with this. I got it -- United Abominations, 'cause it's an abomination what they're doing!"

Much like realizing "11 is one louder than 10," Mustaine experiences a moment of clarity. I just wonder which abomination he considers worse: Eradicating polio or ending obstetric fistula?

Or is it the campaign to reduce childhood mortality rates by two-thirds that gets the ageing rocker's blood boiling? I suppose he can take his pick. But for his sake, I think he should think twice before he starts railing against the UN's effort to secure fresh water supplies for a growing planet. For then he'll have Jay-Z to contend with.

Reuters: "France will greatly increase the size of the contingent it is promising for a peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon, possibly making it easier to recruit other nations, officials and diplomats said on Thursday.... The United Nations says a strengthened U.N. force in south Lebanon is urgently needed to preserve the fragile truce which came into effect on August 14 after a month of fighting which killed more than 1,300 people, mostly Lebanese civilians."

NYT: "By the United Nations' latest estimate, more than 49 million sub-Saharan children age 14 and younger worked in 2004, 1.3 million more than at the turn of the century just four years earlier.

Their tasks are not merely the housework and garden-tending common to most developing societies. They are prostitutes, miners, construction workers, pesticide sprayers, haulers, street vendors, full-time servants, and they are not necessarily even paid for their labor.

Some are as young as 5 and 6 years old."

"Repeating his earlier calls for an end to the fighting that erupted in the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) following Sunday's provisional election results, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has also called for all opposing forces to withdraw from the streets of Kinshasa.

In a statement issued by his spokesman, Mr. Annan underlined the "responsibility of President Joseph Kabila and Vice-President Jean-Pierre Bemba to resolve the situation through dialogue and peaceful means, and urges them to meet as quickly as possible to ease tensions." More

Reuters: "New rules of engagement for U.N. troops in Lebanon permit soldiers to shoot in self-defense, use force to protect civilians and resist armed attempts to interfere with their duties, a U.N. document says.

The 21 pages of rules, obtained by Reuters on Tuesday, adhere to the mandate laid down by the U.N. Security Council in an August 11 resolution and drafted by France and the United States. That did not call on the U.N. force, known as UNIFIL, to carry out large-scale disarmament of Hizbollah guerrillas in a southern Lebanon buffer zone.

The rules, given to potential troop contributors last week for approval, have been generally accepted, said Vijay Nambiar, a special adviser to Secretary-General Kofi Annan."

NYT: "More than two billion people already live in regions facing a scarcity of water, and unless the world changes its ways over the next 50 years, the amount of water needed for a rapidly growing population will double, scientists warned in a study released yesterday.

At the worst, a deepening water crisis would fuel violent conflicts, dry up rivers and increase groundwater pollution, their report says. It would also force the rural poor to clear ever more grasslands and forests to grow food and leave many more people hungry.

The report, which draws on the research of more than 400 hydrologists, agronomists and other scientists, was sponsored by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, the world's premier network of agricultural research centers, among others."

Reuters: "Iran, set to reply on Tuesday to an offer by world powers aimed at defusing a nuclear standoff, has insisted it would not stop enriching uranium as they demand by an August 31 deadline to avoid possible sanctions. But a rebuff would not yet trigger immediate action by the U.N. Security Council, which passed a resolution on July 31 giving Iran a month to halt enrichment or risk sanctions."

In May, the Security Council authorized the deployment of peacekeepers to Darfur. Three months later, blue helmets are nowhere in sight. Meanwhile, the UN's top humanitarian official recently warned that a peace accord signed in Abuja, Nigeria between some of the rebel factions and Khartoum is "doomed to failure" and that the situation was going from "really bad to catastrophic."

So who or what is to blame for this appalling inaction in Darfur?

Martin Peretz of The New Republic views the continuing violence in Darfur as a failure of the United Nations to enforce its own resolutions. In a sense, he is correct: The Security Council resolution passed in conjunction with May's peace accords called for the paltry African Union monitoring force in Darfur to be replaced with a robust United Nations peacekeeping force.

But Kofi Annan cannot wave a magic wand and summon a peacekeeping force for Darfur. He has to rely on member states to pony up. So far, key member states have been reluctant to commit troops without first securing Khartoum's blessing. And to say the least, Khartoum has not responded enthusiastically to this idea; at various moments, Khartoum has called such a force "neocolonialist" and has unsubtly threatened it with violence.

The situation seems hopelessly stuck. Or at least it was until late last week when the United States and the United Kingdom seemed poised to endorse an ambitious plan of action for Darfur spelled out by Kofi Annan.

With the Security Council otherwise consumed by back-to-back crises in North Korea and Lebanon, Darfur received scant attention this summer. In the midst of the chaos in Turtle Bay in late July, Kofi Annan issued a little noticed but hugely important thirty page report on Darfur. This report (pdf), which was delivered to the Security Council on July 29th, could be the last chance to save Darfur.

Annan outlines a broad mandate for a United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) to take over from the African Union, which currently fields only 7,000 troops that operate under a limited mandate. By contrast, UNMIS would include some 17,300 peacekeepers, and many thousands of civilians experts to secure, rehabilitate, rebuild and enforce a ceasefire in Darfur. However, Annan acknowledges the hurdles to assembling a peacekeeping force for Darfur. So, as something of a stop-gap measure, Annan proposes that the UN appropriate resources including communications, logistics, and command and control assets, as well as military equipment such as aircraft and armored personnel carriers, to the African Union.

This is a novel idea. And if the Security Council approves it would create what the informative Security Council Report calls "a hybrid force, never before tried by the UN, with UN assets and personnel placed under the command of another institution [the AU]." As envisioned by Annan, the hybridization would commence immediately and continue until the United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) is able to deploy a robust peacekeeping force in Darfur.

At least for the moment, Annan's proposal seems to have inspired some members of the Security Council to refocus on Darfur. In the Council's first meeting on Darfur in over six weeks, representatives from the United States and United Kingdom explicitly endorsed Annan's plan in a draft resolution they circulated. Further, the US-UK draft resolution would place eventual peacekeepers under Chapter VII, which seems to heed Annan's call that UNMIS be mandated to protect civilians and keep open lines of humanitarian access, even if this means dealing "proactively with spoilers, including in a pre-emptive manner."

Per Annan's recommendation the US-UK draft proposes 17,300 UNMIS troops for Darfur, with two additional battalions on the ready. And to be sure, the same obstacles that have prevented the deployment of blue helmets to Darfur since May exist to this day; the countries with the most influence over Khartoum continue to refuse to make Sudan's acquiescing to a peacekeeping force a priority in their bilateral relations. This is despite Annan's plea:

"No effort should be spared to send [Khartoum] the simple, powerful message: international involvement will increase the chances of peace taking root in Darfur, will strengthen the credibility of the peace process and the protection of the suffering populations of Darfur. Transition to a United Nations operation should happen as soon as possible, and the international community's message should make clear that the costs of rejecting the transition could be serious and lasting."

Unfortunately for the people of Darfur, Annan alone cannot pressure Khartoum into accepting peacekeepers. For that, he needs the support of his most influential member states which alone have the ability to lean on Khartoum.

Darfur is on the verge of total collapse. Unless this new movement for Darfur turns into real momentum for progress in the region, death and misery will remain the norm in Darfur for the foreseeable future.

"U.S. President George W. Bush says Lebanon needs an international force "as quickly as possible" to safeguard the ceasefire ... The UN-brokered ceasefire resolution, which kicked in on Aug. 14, ended 34 days of cross-border attacks by Israel and Lebanon-based Hezbollah militants that left more than 1,000 dead." [Full story]

"The Secretary-General stressed that in a time of acute crisis in the Middle East, progress on the nuclear issue was essential for the stability not only of the region, but the international system itself. "It is time to take steps in the right direction," Mr. Annan said. "I am convinced that a way is now open for setting a milestone for international non-proliferation efforts."

Noting that the EU3 plus 3 had reaffirmed Iran's right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, the Secretary-General said it was important for Iran to assure the world that its intentions are peaceful, and that it re-builds confidence in its nuclear programme, as both the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the Security Council had called for." [More]

Bloomberg: "Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia and Nepal were among nations that offered thousands of troops to a United Nations peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon as Israel's military transferred control of 50 percent of the region to the UN. "I think we're in business," UN Deputy Secretary-General Mark Malloch Brown said after envoys of almost 50 nations attended a closed meeting of potential troop contributors. The UN wants to deploy about 3,500 troops within two weeks and eventually increase to 15,000 the current force of 2,000."

"The Sudanese Government seems to be determined to pursue a major military offensive in strife-torn Darfur, building up its armed forces in the region as the situation there deteriorates ... In a closed-door briefing, Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Hedi Annabi also warned the Security Council that Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has reiterated his opposition to a United Nations peacekeeping force in Darfur and vowed that the Sudanese armed forces would fight any UN force dispatched to the region." [More]

NYT: "Efforts to greatly expand antiretroviral treatment for AIDS in poor countries are not reaching a vast majority of children who need it, a World Health Organization official said [in Toronto] on Wednesday.

The official, Dr. Kevin M. De Cock, who directs the organization's AIDS program, said that an estimated 2.3 million children 15 and under around the world are infected with H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS, and that 800,000 of them needed antiretroviral drugs to stay alive. Of the 800,000, only 60,000 to 100,000 are receiving therapy. While the children account for 14 percent of AIDS deaths, they make up only 6 percent of recipients of antiretroviral drug therapy. Many of the children are orphans.

"We must conclude that scale-up has so far left children behind," Dr. De Cock said in a featured talk at the 16th International Conference on AIDS, which has attracted 24,000 participants. His comments drew on an extensive review of progress in efforts to step up antiretroviral treatment.

At the same time, Dr. De Cock said, fewer than 10 percent of pregnant women with H.I.V. in poor and middle-income countries are receiving the simple regimen of pills that can prevent the transmission of the AIDS virus to their newborns. By contrast, rich countries have virtually eliminated pediatric AIDS."

Bolton Watch: "Public officials cannot be responsible for the opinions of the people who interview them. But they can be judicious with whom they choose to grant interviews. It is therefore a wonder why Ambassador John Bolton would grant an interview to Pamela Oshry, proprietor of the anti-Muslim hate website "Atlas Shrugs."

Glenn Greenwald: "U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, on Saturday, in the middle of the most pressing crisis the U.N. has faced since he was appointed to that position, decided to sit for an hour-long, one-on-one "interview" and chose as his journalistic interrogator . . . LGF commenter Pamela "Atlas" Oshry of the blog AtlasShrugs, whose views are so far outside of what is mainstream, in equal parts inane and despicable, that it would be impossible to describe fully."

Think Progress: "'Violence against women in Afghanistan is widespread and mainly happens inside victims' homes,' according to a report from the U.N. Development Fund for Women. 'Acts of violence (against women) are happening with impunity,' the report said."

Coalition for Darfur: "From WFP - WFP has urged the international community to help end the misery in the western Sudanese region of Darfur, where almost half a million people are now cut off from emergency food aid because of fighting and attacks."

Liberty and Justice: "It seems that Rice is becoming less of a hawk every single day or so. According to USA Today, Rice said that it's not up to the UN forces to disarm Hizbullah -- that must be done by the Lebanese government, so she says."

Alertnet: "The international community may have funded historic post-war elections in Democratic Republic of Congo but it must do more to counter a humanitarian crisis that kills thousands every week, the U.N. said on Tuesday.

Food aid has been cut in half and entire families are dying from preventable diseases as aid workers struggle to tackle an emergency that continues despite the official end to the 1998-2003 war and the elections on July 30."

"The UN is trying to get an advance force of peacekeepers into Lebanon in 10-15 days, a senior official has said. The force would be up to 3,500-strong, to be boosted later to the full 15,000 agreed in the UN ceasefire resolution." [Full story]

"We're concerned because diarrhoeal diseases are a major killer of children," Edward Carwardine, UNICEF senior communications officer, said. "Forty percent of the collected stool specimens tested positive for cholera - all the more reason to accelerate our response.

"South Darfur has been a particular cause of concern, with five new suspected cases reported on 10 August and 13 on 11 August," he added. Since April, 701 cases had been reported in South Darfur alone." [More]

On the Dianne Rehm show, a frequent UN critic, the American Enterprise Institute's Joshua Muravchik, admitted that if the Israeli-Hezbollah cease fire holds, the United Nations will have played a useful role in resolving this conflict. At this point, however, the success of the ceasefire is largely beyond the United Nations' control.

The linchpin that will determine the outcome of this weekend's frantic diplomacy is the deployment of the 15,000 strong international force that the Security Council summoned to beef up Unifil. But as Suzanne Nossel writes in Democracy Arsenal there is reason to believe that these troops might not arrive in the region anytime soon.

Says Nossel, "There is no agreement on when the 15,000-strong international force will be deployed, nor who will lead it. France, Italy, Turkey and others have said they'll contribute troops. The UN, largely for reasons outside the organization's direct control, is notoriously slow in getting peacekeepers out into the field. Having witnessed the US's experience in Lebanon in 1982 and in Iraq, other governments will naturally hesitate."

Israel has said it will remain in southern Lebanon until international troops arrive. Meanwhile, Hezbollah has pledged to stop its rocket attacks on Israel, but still considers IDF soldiers in Lebanon to be legitimate targets.

This is a recipe for a very tenuous cease-fire. The rapidity with which 15,000 international troops can be deployed to southern Lebanon will likely determine whether or not it holds. And as there is no such thing as a stand-by UN peacekeeping force, this is something that only national governments, not the United Nations as a whole, can make happen.

"Lebanese, Israeli and U.N. officers met on the border to discuss the withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon and the deployment of the Lebanese army in the region, U.N. spokesman Milos Strugar said.

The meeting, the first involving a Lebanese army officer and a counterpart from the Israeli army since Israeli forces withdrew from Lebanon in 2000, marks the first step in the process of military disengagement as demanded by a U.N. Security Council resolution." [Full story]

Washington Post: "The Israeli cabinet voted Sunday to accept a U.N.-declared cease-fire, even as Israeli military forces and Hezbollah fighters in southern Lebanon launched some of their most intense barrages of the war in anticipation of the Monday morning deadline. The Lebanese government and Hezbollah agreed to the cease-fire Saturday."

AP: "The U.N. Security Council adopted a resolution Friday that calls for an end to the war between Israel and Hezbollah, and authorizes 15,000 U.N. peacekeepers to help Lebanese troops take control of south Lebanon as Israel withdraws.... Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert endorsed the resolution late Friday, after a day of brinksmanship including a threat to expand the ground war."

"Most young people are unaware" of the world's water crisis, but if they knew about the "staggering numbers" of people affected by lack of clean water, they would be moved to act, Def Jam President and CEO Jay-Z said at United Nations Headquarters in New York on Wednesday.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan welcomed the help of the internationally known recording star and MTV President Christina Norman in raising public awareness of water scarcity through a new global initiative. LINK

"United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan is working "very intensely" with Security Council members and key leaders to push for a resolution concerning the situation along the Blue Line separating Israel from Lebanon." [More]

From the UN Foundation:

Our post-tsunami water and sanitation reconstruction partnership with The Coca-Cola Company has been selected as a finalist for the US Chamber of Commerce's "Partnership Award." After the tsunami, the UN Foundation partnered with The Coca-Cola Company to find ways to contribute to longer-term recovery efforts, with a focus on community-based water and sanitation needs. Working in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme UNDP), the partnership is responding to long-term water and sanitation needs in remote, tsunami-hit areas of Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Maldives and Thailand. To learn more about the partnership and to vote click here: http://www.unfoundation.org/features/tsunami_partnership.asp

"With a quarter of Lebanon's population forced to flee their homes and violence claiming lives daily in the conflict between Hizbollah and Israel, the United Nations Human Rights Council will hold a special session on Friday to discuss the worsening situation in the war-ravaged country." [More]

"With almost one in four of Lebanon's 3.8 million population homeless and hostilities continuing, WFP has launched a three-month US$8.9 million emergency operation to feed over 300,000 people, including 50,000 in Syria.

The Agency is also the lead UN agency for the logistics of transporting humanitarian aid to and within Lebanon. The value of the special logistics operation alone is US$38 million."

In the midst of defending Ambassador John Bolton's performance on the job, Thomas P. Kilgannon, author of Diplomatic Divorce: Why America Should End its Love Affair with the United Nations, claims that the Millennium Development Goals amount to "nothing more than UN-imposed tax on the American economy."

This is a common canard offered by the rabidly anti-UN crowd. It's time, once and for all, to dispel the myth that the Millennium Development Goals (MGDs) are some sort of "global tax."

The MDGs grew out of a year 2000 commitment by UN member states to promote development in the poorest countries on earth. There are eight "goals" in total, to be reached by 2015. These range from reducing by half the number of people who live on less than a dollar a day to reducing by three-quarters the maternal mortality ratio. The United Nations does not force any member state to pay a dime towards seeing these goals succeed. Rather, the MDGs provide an important framework for promoting international development. It is up to each member state to fund its own commitments.

For its part, the Bush administration responded to the Millennium Development Goals by establishing a new government agency, the Millennium Challenge Corporation. In no way does this amount to a UN tax on American citizens. Rather, American citizens are taxed by their government, which in turn appropriates some of that revenue (approximately $3 billion) to fund a federal agency charged with promoting development.

Kilgannon should know that this is standard operating procedure in a democracy.

"Eight humanitarian workers died in the line of duty during the month of July. In one incident in the Zalinge area of West Darfur, a mob beat three water workers to death, forcing international organizations to suspend activities in camps for the internally displaced. There has also been an increase in ambushes and hijackings of vehicles belonging to non-governmental organizations (NGOs). These include vehicles stolen during food distributions, theft from NGO compounds and even an attack on an ambulance." [More]

"The Unified Mission Analysis Centre (UMAC) in UNMIS produces regular reports on the situation in different regions of Sudan regarding human rights, security, humanitarian affairs, development, etc."

Washington Post: "Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice pressed Sunday for approval of a draft U.N. resolution calling for a "cessation of hostilities" between Israel and Hezbollah, saying it is a crucial "first step" toward resolving the conflict.

Acknowledging that passage of the resolution would not immediately end the fighting that has raged for most of the past month, Rice said that it nonetheless offers a framework that would not only eventually end the hostilities but also stabilize the area going forward."

"The United States and France agreed Saturday on a draft U.N. Security Council resolution that calls for a "full cessation" of fighting between Israel and Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas, but would allow Israel to defend itself if attacked.

The draft, obtained by The Associated Press, "calls for a full cessation of hostilities based upon, in particular, the immediate cessation by Hezbollah of all attacks and the immediate cessation by Israel of all offensive military operations." [Full story]

"WHO and health partners are supporting the national authorities in meeting the urgent needs of the rapidly increasing number of displaced people, including access to safe drinking water, health care, vaccines and life saving medications. Collaboration with other health agencies such as UNICEF, UNFPA, the Lebanese Red Cross and others is instituted through the Health Cluster mechanism, and the UN Flash Appeal launched on 24 July. Eighteen health projects are listed under the Flash Appeal, for a total requirement of US$ 32 428 200. Pledges thus far include US$ 1 million from the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF), US$ 381 000 from Australia, 200 000 Euros from Italy, 100 000 Euros from Ireland, US$ 600 000 from Sweden, US$ 660 000 from Canada, 1 000 000 Euros from Norway and 500 000 Euros from ECHO."

"Britain and the US say a deal is close to being reached on the resolution which would set the stage for an international force for south Lebanon. But France says there must be a halt to the clashes before UN forces can be sent in." Link

In a deeply misleading paragraph, the Conservative Voice claims, "The United Nations' second in command Malloch Brown [sic] said Wednesday that Hezbollah is not a terrorist organization. As Brown reports directly to UN Sec. Gen. Kofi Annan, this statement is believed to reflect the position of the entire UN body."

The brief article includes no direct quotes from the Deputy Secretary General. In fact, it does not even get his name right. (His first name is "Mark", not "Malloch," which is part of his surname.) Presumably, their article is based on Malloch Brown's recent and widely discussed interview with the Financial Times. A quick review of the transcript reveals that it would be quite a stretch to interpret Malloch Brown's comments as anyway supportive of Hezbollah.

What he does tell journalist Mark Turner about the nexus between Hezbollah and terrorism is precisely this: "It's not helpful to couch this war in the language of international terrorism. Hezbollah employs terrorist tactics, it is an organization however whose roots historically are completely separate and different from Al Qaeda ... Over time there's got to be a similar future as there have been for other terrorist fighters; a settlement which addresses the political issues of their cause as well as the military ones. Which secures disarmament and reintegration into a non violent political process."

This is a far cry from insinuating that the United Nations refuses to call Hezbollah "terrorists."

Writing in Democracy Arsenal, David Shorr asks how long it will take commentators to start talking about the crisis in Lebanon and Israel as a "failure" of the United Nations.

"I have written elsewhere that the chief political function of the UN is often to serve as a scapegoat ... Ironically, the UN was a significant contributor to Lebanon's Cedar Revolution last year. After the Hariri assassination, the Security Council displayed remarkable unity in putting pressure on Syria. And that's the point, international organizations can be quite effective when governments come together and agree on a course of action."

This point should be repeated ad nauseam each time a conservative editorial condemns the United Nations' 'impotence' in the current crisis. As I write, the French are circulating a draft resolution that calls for an immediate cease fire. The impediments to action are America's reservations about the timing and order of a cease fire resolution, for better or worse. Until those are resolved, the Council will have its hands tied. And this is no fault of the United Nations.

"United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan met Tuesday with the five permanent members of the Security Council in informal talks focused on the crisis in the Middle East and how best to stop the bloodshed in a conflict that has killed hundreds of people and forced almost a million others to flee their homes across the region.

Mr. Annan discussed with the ambassadors from China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States the cessation of hostilities, a ceasefire and political framework for a settlement, as well as the composition and deployment of a stabilization force for Lebanon and the humanitarian situation, a UN spokesman told reporters." [More]

"An oil slick, caused by the destruction of the Jiyyeh power utility 30km south of Beirut after being struck by Israeli bombs, is now reported to be affecting up to 80 km of the Lebanese coastline and threatening the Syrian one too.

Achim Steiner, a UN Under-Secretary General and UNEP's Executive Director, said requests of assistance from the government of Lebanon were being responded to by the Regional Marine Pollution Emergency Response Center for the Mediterranean Sea (REMPEC).

REMPEC, administered by the UN International Maritime Organization and part UNEP's Regional Seas Network, is giving advice to the Lebanese Ministry of the Environment on how to tackle the heavy fuel oil slick."

"President Bush acknowledged growing international pressure for an immediate Middle East cease-fire Monday but dismissed any idea of simply "stopping for the sake of stopping" without a plan for lasting peace. Bush said the United States was working with allies for a United Nations Security Council resolution to get a "sustainable cease-fire, a cease-fire which will last" - but not necessarily anything immediate." [More]

Though it will probably not make it onto the network news programs, the Democratic Republic of Congo began polling for its first multiparty elections in nearly 50 years. This was no small feat: Congo is considered among the most hellish places on earth, where the pathologies of sub-Saharan Africa have combined with a uniquely bloody history to claim millions of lives.

In 1999, the United Nations brokered a ceasefire, and since then the United Nations Organizing Mission to the Democratic Republic of Congo (Monuc) has evolved to become the largest and most complex peacekeeping operations in the world, with the provision of logistical support (pdf) for today's election among its most complicated tasks.

There are some 25 million registered voters, 33 presidential candidates and 9,647 contesting for a 500 seat assembly. And throughout a country the size of Western Europe, there are only 2,500 kilometers of paved roads; among its other responsibilities, Monuc will transport election materials and personnel to and from some 53,000 polling stations.

Monuc is an excellent example of how a multifaceted peacekeeping operation can help stabilize a fragile country. In preparation for these elections, Monuc trained some 37,000 police officers. The mission also has a vanguard program aimed at disarming militias and reintegrating them into civilian life. Still, it is battling foreign militias who continue to ravage Congo's eastern provinces. Of course, this has been costly: Monuc's annual budget is over $1 billion. And since 1999, 92 blue helmets have lost their lives in Congo. But without the support of Monuc, these historic elections would not be taking place today.

Peace and stability in sub-Saharan Africa cannot be achieved without leading Congo away from the precipice it faces. The fact that these elections are taking place at all is a cause for celebration, and a reflection on the professionalism and competence of the United Nations mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo. If these elections continue without major incident, the world will have witnessed a transformative moment in sub-Saharan Africa, all thanks to the United Nations.