I've often wondered how Claudia Rosett, the "Journalist in Residence" of the Foundation for Defense of Democracy, will cope with Kofi Annan's departure. After all, she has earned her name tarring and feathering a man who is about to abandon his pulpit. Once Annan leaves office, those who actually follow her attempts to stir controversy are sure to lose interest.

Nevertheless, as a parting gift to the person she built a career slandering, Rosett recently produced a lengthy - if confusing - New York Sun article purporting to "prove" that Kofi Annan's nephew now lives in the same rent-controlled apartment where Annan lived prior to becoming Secretary General. Of course, Rosett admits that there is nothing illegal about this arrangement-which, incidentally, Jules Crittenden of the Boston Herald calls "the usual Third-World immigrant pile-into-the-cheap-apartment thing." Still, that does not stop Rosett from fuming about the appearance of impropriety, which she feels stems from the fact that "Annan, whose wife comes from one of Sweden's wealthier families, has spent years lecturing Americans on how the well-heeled have obligations to those less fortunate."

In case you are wondering where to find the outrage, dear reader, let me summarize: Kofi Annan's nephew lives in a rent-controlled apartment that is leased to Kofi Annan's brother, who is Ghana's ambassador to Morocco. But at one time-as long ago as 1978-this apartment served as Annan's residence. And now, this all worthy of a lengthy expose in the New York Sun because the person who currently resides in this rent controlled apartment has a rich aunt.

If this is the kind of "dirt" that Rosett is now throwing Annan's direction, I think we can safely assume that Rosett is panicking. To be sure, Rosett can still hype her manufactured controversies after Annan leaves office in January, but fewer and fewer people will care.

"Attacks on Darfur aid workers' compounds in Gereida town have forced the evacuation of 71 staff and severely restricted humanitarian aid reaching the region's largest population of war victims, officials said on Wednesday...

U.N. humanitarian coordinator Manuel Aranda Da Silva said in a statement: "How can we be expected to carry out humanitarian work without vehicles to get to camps, phones to communicate and the constant threat to their own physical safety?" More

"In his farewell news conference as the world's top diplomat, United Secretary-General Kofi Annan today cited the failure to stop the Iraq war as the worst moment of his 10 years in office and made a fervent appeal that the Organization not be judged by the oil-for-food scandal but by its myriad humanitarian and development actions." More

Three separate events this week provide a good case study of the international community's struggling non-proliferation strategy.

In Washington today, President Bush signed into law the United States-India Peaceful Atomic Energy Act. The bill, passed by Congress before it adjourned for the year, rescinds American prohibitions against civilian nuclear technology exchanges with India. These sanctions had been in place since 1974, when India first detonated a nuclear weapons and officially became an atomic weapons wielding nation.

Meanwhile in Beijing, a North Korean delegation met with representatives of the United States, China, South Korea, Japan and Russia. The meeting was the first time that six parties met since North Korea detonated a nuclear device earlier this fall, which earned the North minimally deterrent Security Council sanctions.

Finally, at the United Nations, diplomats may be closer than ever to imposing long-threatened sanctions against Iran. According to the Security Council Report, final touches are being worked out on a resolution that will likely place a travel ban on Iranian officials and embargo of "proliferation sensitive" items. The Security Council Report hints that these sanctions may be imposed before Christmas.

The number of countries with nuclear ambitions seems to be ever-expanding. But instead of aggressively protecting international non-proliferation standards and building up tough multi-lateral mechanisms to deal with violators, the trend is quite clearly toward ad-hoc responses to proliferation crises as they arise. And so far, it seems that the world is worse off for it.

1968's Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty provides the international community with a reasonable framework to combat the spread of nuclear weapons. But the fact that a growing number of countries seem to calculate that their national interests would be better served by violating the treaty underscores NPT's vulnerability. (And to be sure, the NPT is further threatened each time a signatory carves out exemptions for itself or its allies.)

It is well past the time that the major powers entrusted with enforcing the treaty re-affirm their commitment to strong and consistent frameworks to deal with violations as they occur. Given his background as South Korea's Foreign Minister, Ban Ki-moon is well positioned to make a priority of strengthening multi-lateral non-proliferation standards. The UN, after all, is the most logical conduit through which to establish a new international bulwark against proliferation. The alternative--a haphazard, ad-hoc response to each new crisis--simply does not work.

"Today, Dec 18, marks International Migrants Day, a day to celebrate the contribution of migrants to our societies, and to promote their rights and fundamental freedoms across the world.

In 2006, there has been increasing attention on the phenomena of international migration. In September this year, the UN facilitated high-level dialogues amongst its member states to discuss the multi-dimensional aspects of international migration. Their focus was on how benefits could be maximised and negative impacts minimised as people continue to cross international borders." More

BBC News: "North Korea says it will not consider halting its nuclear program unless UN sanctions imposed after it tested a nuclear device in October are lifted.

The condition was part of the North's tough opening statement as six-nation talks on the issue resumed in Beijing after a one-year suspension."

Yesterday, the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) told the Security Council that by February, his office will hand over evidence of war crimes in Darfur to a set of ICC pre-trial judges. This will set in motion a series of events that will likely lead to indictments of Sudanese government officials for crimes against humanity in Darfur.

Following a January 2005 groundbreaking report on the systematized nature of the government sponsored attacks on civilian enclaves in Darfur, the Security Council considered granting the ICC jurisdiction to prosecute war crimes in Darfur. Initially, the United States responded coolly to this idea. At the time, the U.S. Ambassador at Large for War Crimes Issues Pierre-Richard Prosper argued against this approach, saying that the United States "does not want to be party to legitimizing the ICC." But when the proposal eventually came to a vote, the United States abstained and the measure passed. Now, some eighteen months later, the results of this investigation may soon become apparent as the first indictments are handed down.

Of course, paper indictments alone will not stop the killing in Darfur. But a Security Council that is united in support of the Court's work can help convey to the Sudanese government that the international community is dedicated to ensuring accountability in Darfur. Further, the indictments could give the international community additional leverage over the Sudanese government, which has thus far resisted international calls for a UN peacekeeping force in Darfur.

Though it's still a young institution, the ICC's Darfur investigation may help the Court prove itself to skeptics. For one, it has apparantly been able to gather evidence in as tough a place as Darfur. Of equal importance the impending Darfur indictments may prove, once and for all, that the Court can serve a useful political function when confronting the world's most difficult humanitarian crises.

"Sudan, including the strife-torn region of Darfur, will require over $1.8 billion dollars to fund humanitarian, recovery and development projects next year, the United Nations said today while launching a joint appeal in Geneva, an amount representing roughly half the UN's global funding requirements for aid operations in 2007....

Most of the funds from the UN Work Plan for Sudan, around $1.26 billion, will go to fund humanitarian activities for large numbers of the population still in need, mostly in conflict-wracked Darfur, while around $563 million is needed to fund recovery and development efforts, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a press release." More

The grassroots anti-malaria campaign to raise money for insecticide treated bed nets traveled to the White House yesterday. The NBA and United Methodist Church represented the Nothing But Nets Campaign at a White House Summit on malaria, the number one killer of children in Africa. So far, the campaign has raised over $1.6 million to send life-saving bed nets to Africa. Learn more about the summit and Nothing But Nets.

Washington Post: "South Korea's Ban Ki-moon formally takes the reins of the United Nations Thursday as the institution grapples with internal reforms, volatility in the Middle East and international standoffs over the nuclear ambitions of North Korea and Iran.

Ban, who is being sworn-in before the General Assembly in a ceremony also honoring outgoing Secretary-General Kofi Annan, will not officially start his new job until Jan. 1, when he will become the eighth secretary-general of the 192-nation world body."

One has to question the moral compass of the editors of the National Review Online. In back to back "symposiums" NRO contributors take turns exculpating one of South America's most brutal dictators, then in the next breath brand Kofi Annan the leader of a terrorist organization.

On Monday, the National Review ran a series of articles on the legacy of Augusto Pinochet, which as Spencer Ackerman notes, includes a choice contribution from Mario Loyola who argues that the former Chilean dictator "worked hard to protect the bases of a modern progressive democracy." Then, on Tuesday, The National Review uses the outgoing Secretary General's valedictory speech at the Truman Presidential Library to launch a series of attacks on Kofi Annan, culminating in accusations that he is a terrorists' stooge.

Contributors to the Annan-hate-a-thon range the ideological gamut from fellows of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies to the Heritage Foundation. But it is the Hudson Institute's Anne Bayefsky who hurls the most over-the-top criticism:

"Kofi Annan will forever be remembered as the secretary-general who presided over the biggest and most insidious hijacking of the global agenda which has ever occurred. ... over a decade with Kofi Annan at the helm, the U.N. has become an instrument of terror. A place which has no definition of terrorism because the terrorists and their allies run it, while democracies pay the bill." (Emphasis added)

One has to wonder what part of the terrorist agenda is served by eradicating polio, running war crimes tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, administering elections in Iraq and Afghanistan, and keeping the peace in Haiti and the Congo?

More to the point, for the past four years right wing critics like Bayefsky have used Annan as a whipping boy to vent their innate hostility to multilateral platforms like the United Nations. My only question is how long it will take the Bayefsky crowd to turn Ban Ki-moon, who takes over from Annan in January, into a boogeyman of the right. I don't imagine it takes much time. For all along, it was not Annan they hated, but the very idea of the United Nations.

"Like Mr. Annan, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour deplored the impunity with which human rights abusers are still able to act in the Darfur conflict between Government troops, allied militias and rebel forces, who took up arms in 2003 in pursuit of greater autonomy and economic development.... Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland also underscored the continuing deterioration in Darfur, with violence and direct attacks against relief workers in the past few weeks forcing the relocation of by far the largest number of humanitarian workers since the conflict began." More

New York Times: "In a speech delivered at the Truman Presidential Museum and Library in Independence, Mo., billed as his last address to an American audience as secretary general, Mr. Annan said, "You Americans did so much, in the last century, to build an effective multilateral system, with the United Nations at its heart. Do you need it less today, and does it need you less than 60 years ago?"

EXCERPT:

"Although increasingly interdependent, our world continues to be divided - not only by economic differences, but also by religion and culture. That is not in itself a problem. Throughout history human life has been enriched by diversity, and different communities have learnt from each other. But if our different communities are to live together in peace we must stress also what unites us: our common humanity, and our shared belief that human dignity and rights should be protected by law."

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With this year's Nobel Peace Prize bestowed on micro-lending pioneer Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel Committee affirmed the principle that we cannot have peace while billions live in abject poverty. Since 1976, his Grameen Bank has been fighting poverty in the developing world, one small loan at a time. To celebrate Dr. Yunus' honor, join the Grameen Foundation for a week of activities to help raise awareness of the power of micro lending. And once again, congratulations to Dr. Yunus.

"On 10 December 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which has become a universal standard for defending and promoting human rights. Every year on 10 December, Human Rights Day marks the adoption of the Universal Declaration. On Human Rights Day it is celebrated around the globe that "All human beings are born with equal and inalienable rights and fundamental freedoms". This year Human Rights Day focuses on fighting poverty as a matter of obligation, not of charity." More

Washington Post: "Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, a conservative political scientist who became the first woman to serve as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, died at her home outside Washington late Thursday, colleagues announced today. She was 80."

BBC: "Discrimination against women is holding back economic and social development across the Arab World, a report by the UN's development agency says.

Arab women must be given greater access to education, employment, health care and public life, the report says.

The Arab Human Development Report is an annual overview compiled by Arab academics and experts in the field.

Islam is not to blame for the problem, the report says, but rather political inflexibility, male domination and war."

CNN: "The U.N. Security Council on Wednesday authorized an African force to protect Somalia's government against an increasingly powerful Islamic militia, hoping to restore peace and avert a broader conflict in the region.

The U.S. resolution, co-sponsored by the council's African members, also partially lifts an arms embargo on Somalia so the regional force can be supplied with weapons and military equipment and train the government's security forces."

The recommendations of the just released Iraq Study Group report are a sober reminder of the limitations of current strategies for stabilizing Iraq and pursuing peace in the region.

The situation in Iraq has deteriorated far beyond a point where there is a reasonable military solution to the sectarian violence. The violence has also made other strategies for stabilizing Iraq, like a singular focus on standing up the Iraqi army, less likely to succeed.

Recognizing these strategic limitations, the Iraq Study Group has suggested that the time has since passed when one country alone could work alongside the Iraqi leadership to steer Iraq's future. Rather, as the report says, "the United States should immediately launch a New Diplomatic Offensive to build an international consensus for stability in Iraq and the region." This recommendation is perhaps the last best hope for war weary Iraqis and Americans alike.

This conclusion, which sits atop a list of 79 other recommendations, has set the stage for a return to diplomacy and international engagement as first-order solutions to the most vexing challenges facing the United States in Iraq and the Middle East. The group's specific proposal that the United States and concerned parties form an "Iraq International Support Group" -- consisting of all of Iraq's neighbors, permanent members of the Security Council, a representative of the Secretary General and others -- demands nothing less. After years of pursuing alternative foreign policy choices, Iraq has proved there is an urgent need for a grand commitment to effective multilateralism.

The Iraq Study Group report makes clear the consequences of rejecting this approach. "Circumstances in Iraq are 'grave and deteriorating,' with a potential government collapse and a 'humanitarian catastrophe' if the U.S. does not change course and seek a broader diplomatic solution to the problems that have wracked the country since the U.S. invaded," says the Washington Post's opening paragraph of today's article about the report. Indeed, as other news items have recently made clear, Iraq has the potential to morph into a wider conflict as its neighbors begin to support opposing sides of a sectarian conflict.

A renewed committment to regional diplomatic solutions for Iraq is therefore critical. But it is fair to say that the United States may not have the ability to embark on this kind of initiative all on its own. To support this ambitious proposal, the Secretary General suggested that his offices can help take on this task. Speaking to reporters following his interview with the Study Group last week, the Secretary General suggested that an international conference -- akin to the 2001 Bonn Conference that brought together various stakeholders in Afghanistan -- could be the forum for such diplomacy.

Convening the Iraq International Support Group would be a Herculean effort. It would require the support of Iraq's sectarian leaders (which have not been receptive to this idea thus far) and it would require good faith engagement by relevant international actors. Most importantly, it would require a platform with enough credibility to bring all the parties to the table. And at this moment in history, the United Nations is one of the few -- perhaps the only -- institution in the region with enough standing to pull this off.

To be sure, renewed regional diplomacy is not guaranteed to succeed. But the alternative -- a stubborn rejection of good-faith engagement with certain governments in the region -- is sure to maintain the calamitous path down which the Iraq and much of the Middle East is descending.

"A ceasefire and political talks must take place in Sudan's Darfur region before an international military force there could guarantee security, the head of U.N. peacekeeping said on Tuesday.

Jean-Marie Guehenno said the international community must demand assurances an African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur would be effective before it offered funding and equipment." More

Plus: Darfur is in 'free fall'

With a new Secretary General comes new opportunities for the United States to strengthen its commitment to the United Nations. The next UNF Insights column outlines some of the openings that this transitional period presents and argues that American foreign policy would be best served by seizing this new multilateralist moment. Click here for the PDF.

"The United Nations plans to become more deeply involved in efforts to end the Lord's Resistance Army's reign of terror in northern Uganda, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said on Monday.

The LRA, which says it wants to rule Uganda according to the biblical Ten Commandments, has become notorious for massacring civilians, mutilating survivors and abducting thousands of children as fighters, porters and sex slaves.

About 100,000 people have been killed and nearly 2 million more driven from their homes and into camps in 20 years of brutal war waged by the group in northern Uganda, the U.N. Security Council said two weeks ago." More

"President Bush has accepted the resignation of U.N. Ambassador John Bolton when his recess appointment expires." LINK

"Marking the International Day for the Abolition of Slavery, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan called for stepped-up measures to end the practice and to address the entrenched poverty which leaves people vulnerable to enslavement. "Contemporary forms of slavery - from bonded labour to human trafficking - are flourishing as a result of discrimination, social exclusion, and vulnerability exacerbated by poverty," the Secretary-General said in a message on the observance." More

In the New Republic online, Peter Beinart has written a not-to-be missed essay touting the successful nation building strategies the United Nations has been quietly developing without much fanfare here in the United States.

For the record, what Beinart calls "nation building" the United Nations would likely call "peace building." But the intent is the same: to help restore national institutions in a country torn apart by conflict. To that end, Beinart uses the UN's recent logistical accomplishments in the Congolese elections as an entry into a discussion of the future of nation building in the face of America's experience in Iraq.

He hits all the main points. As a result of Iraq, says Beinart, Americans may have a declining appetite for ambitious nation building projects. However, the United Nations is poised to fill that gap. As Beinart notes, the UN has a capacity to oversee complex nation/peace building operations that is unparalleled by any government on its own; long serving expert staff in areas as diverse as justice sector development and election management makes the UN uniquely suited to take on these tasks in societies emerging from conflict.

Peacekeepers are the core of these kinds of operations. And perhaps the one point that Beinart could have emphasized more forcefully is the gap between the demand for peacekeepers worldwide and the financial resources available to the United Nations to oversee their deployment. The Department of Peace Keeping Operations is forced to maintain the current level of peacekeepers around the world and prepare for new missions without ever experiencing an increase in its budget commensurate to the new operations the Security Council authorizes.

Complicating matters is that the single largest financial donor to peacekeeping operations, the United States, is constantly in arrears. The United States has agreed to pay 27% of the costs of peacekeepers around the globe, but it never makes that amount in full. For FY 2007, it is estimated that the United States will be close to $400 million in arrears.

These backlogs come at a time when the United States is increasingly looking to peacekeeping operations for world conflict zones. For example, just yesterday Ambassador Bolton raised the prospect of a UN peacekeeping mission in Somalia. People can debate the merits of sending blue helmets to Somalia (for the record, the prominent NGO The International Crisis Group cautions against this approach) but if peacekeepers for Somalia are approved, this would be the fourth mission the Security Council will have authorized since August. The Security Council already approved missions for Lebanon, Darfur, and East Timor, which if implemented in full would increase the number of blue helmets across the globe by 50%.

Financially supporting in full peacekeeping operations is critical. It is the only way that major powers, the United States included, can maximize the UN's share of the burden of maintaining peace and security throughout the globe.

"Surveillance for the HIV virus is weak in most of the world and prevention and treatment programmes often fail to reach high-risk drug users, homosexuals and sex workers, the World Health Organisation said on Friday.

In a message marking World AIDS Day, being celebrated under the theme of Accountability, the WHO's acting director-general Anders Nordstrom said that tackling the AIDS epidemic remained one of the world's most pressing public health challenges." More