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September 2006

UN: Lebanon is Recovering Quickly

Peter Daou - September 29, 2006 - 11:16am

Lebanon Map.jpg "Lebanon is making speedy progress towards recovery after the destructive conflict between Israel and Hizbollah this summer and humanitarian agencies are preparing to close down or transfer their activities to relevant Government authorities or development agencies, the United Nations officials reported today.

The UN World Food Programme (WFP), which has taken the logistics lead in arranging cargo movements, will wind up those operations by 15 October. Since commercial traffic has resumed, WFP will support other agencies' transport needs and those of non-governmental organizations' (NGOs) through commercial means." More

UN Report: 2.6 Billion People Lack Basic Sanitation

Peter Daou - September 28, 2006 - 2:45pm

Reuters: "Some 2.6 billion people in the world, mainly in Africa and Asia, lack access to basic sanitation, increasing the risk of diarrhea and other diseases fatal to children, said a U.N. report released on Thursday.

UNICEF, the U.N. children's fund, in a study on water and sanitation in developing nations, concluded that U.N. goals could be met on clean water, especially in urban areas, but the same was not true for access to the crudest of toilets."

Bi-Partisan Group of American Foreign Policy Luminaries Call for the Qualified Abolition of the Security Council Veto

Mark Leon Goldberg - September 28, 2006 - 10:47am

The night before last I was privy to a sneak preview of an ambitious foreign policy manifesto that is being rolled out on Capitol Hill today. The plan, Forging a World of Liberty Under Law: U.S. National Security in the 21st Century, is the product of a two-year long series of meetings of a bi-partisan brain trust of foreign policy and national security experts convened at the Woodrow Wilson school. Under the steering of Anne-Marie Slaughter and G. John Ickenberry, the Princeton Project on National Security has attempted to comprehensively outline a sustainable 21st Century American foreign policy. As Dr. Slaughter put it last night, the group's inspiration was to create the intellectual equivalent to George Kennan's famous X Article in Foreign Affairs, but updated for our time.

They may have come close.

Girls' Education Vital for Developing World

Peter Daou - September 27, 2006 - 6:32pm

Unicef girls.jpg "More than half of all children who do not go to school are girls. Achieving universal primary education is a Millennium Development Goal and one of UNICEF's primary objectives.

At a panel discussion organized by the US Mission to the United Nations in New York, UNICEF Executive Director Ann M. Veneman gave a keynote address on the vital importance of educating girls in the developing world." More

UN Atomic Watchdog Calls for Support to Fight Nuclear Terrorism

Peter Daou - September 27, 2006 - 11:11am

IAEA.jpg "The United Nations atomic watchdog agency has called on all Member States to provide political, financial, and technical support to prevent nuclear and radiological terrorism.

The call, which also seeks necessary funds for the Nuclear Security Fund, came in a resolution passed by the UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) General Conference, which was attended by more than 100 Member States and ended last week." More

Miami Herald Op-Ed Seems to Confuse the General Assembly with the Security Council

Mark Leon Goldberg - September 26, 2006 - 4:14pm

In his op-ed lambasting the "ineffective" United Nations, the Miami Herald's Carlos Alberto Montaner seems to forget that the United Nations has a Security Council with five veto-wielding members. Throughout the editorial he repeatedly cites the large membership of the General Assembly as a sui generis barrier to solving international crises, but he fails to ever mention the smaller Security Council, which is the United Nations organ entrusted to take on global crises as they emerge.

How to Save Doha with Soybeans

Peter Daou - September 26, 2006 - 10:35am

From Salon: "I want to vote for Ted Turner for president ... of the world. Turner gave a speech at the World Trade Organization's Public Forum this morning in Geneva that is equal parts inspiring and enlightening, and cuts right to the core of what this blog cares about. It is, in short, a program for making the world work."

UN Agency to Produce New List of Banned Items

Peter Daou - September 25, 2006 - 5:00pm

icao.gif "In an effort to further thwart terrorist plots to blow up airliners, the United Nations aviation agency will this week move ahead on producing a new list of prohibited items that passengers cannot bring on board, such as liquid, gel and aerosol products capable of being used in improvised explosive devices.

On 27 and 28 September, the International Explosives Technical Commission of the UN International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO ) will take up the work of a panel that met earlier this month following the thwarted terrorist plot in August in the United Kingdom to blow up some 10 trans-Atlantic flights." More

Gunmen Kill Director of Women's Affairs in Afghanistan

Peter Daou - September 25, 2006 - 11:25am

"Two gunmen on a motorbike killed the provincial director of Afghanistan's Ministry of Women's Affairs outside her home Monday in apparent retribution for her efforts to help educate women, officials said.

Sudan Says to Impose Travel Ban on U.S. officials

Peter Daou - September 24, 2006 - 11:19pm

Reuters: "Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, under international pressure over wartorn Darfur, said on Sunday his government would impose a travel ban on U.S. officials that would confine them to the capital Khartoum.... Sudan is under heavy international pressure to allow 20,000 U.N. troops into the western region of Darfur to replace 7,000 poorly funded African Union troops tasked with monitoring a shaky ceasefire."