From VOA, an aspect of the repression in Myanmar that has not attracted the same level of attention as did the government's blocking of foreign aid after Cyclone Nargis:

Cheery Zahau, a member of Burma's Chin minority, says members of the Burmese army rape women in ethnic minority areas all over the country. She says in Burma's western Chin State alone, at least 38 cases of sexual violence were committed by soldiers in 2006. The youngest victim was only 12.

...

"The soldiers are raping women to punish the populations who they suspect of supporting insurgency groups," she said. "And also they rape the women to disturb the faith and psychological welfare of these ethnic women. For example in 2003, a woman was raped by four soldiers on her way back home from the market. Until now she is mentally disturbed."

In light of the UN Security Council's recent -- if long-overdue -- resolution officially condemning rape as a weapon of war, this testimony reveals yet another example of a conflict zone marred by rampant, targeted sexual violence against women.

The situation in Myanmar following Nargis may have slipped off the radar of the mainstream press, but the same ruling military junta remains, using the same reprehensible tactics to terrorize its people. Humanitarian support is still desperately needed to aid those suffering from the cyclone's destruction, and such a systematized, state-organized campaign of rape will require a sustained effort from the UN and its Member States.

The United Nations Development Program just released a potentially groundbreaking new report on how businesses may include the global poor as potential customers--and how the global poor might benefit from collaborating more closely with businesses. Creating Value for All: Strategies for Doing Business with the Poor is part of UNDP's Growing Inclusive Markets Initiative and explores 50 case studies of local and international companies successfully integrating the poor into their business models to "create wealth, spur growth and spark social change." Here are a few highlights from the report:

* In Colombia, the Juan Valdez company is offering higher, more stable incomes to over 500,000 smallscale coffee growers.

* In China, Tsinghua Tongfang markets computers loaded with distance education software to the rural population both for primary and middle school education and for minority language education.

* In the Russia Federation, over 80 percent of Forus Bank's clients are women, most of them in retail businesses; in 2006 the bank helped create 4,250 direct
and 19,950 indirect jobs.

* In Senegal, healthcare organization Pésinet provided an early warning method for monitoring the health conditions of children under age five from low-income
families--the infant mortality rate fell by more than 90 percent between 2002 and 2005--from 120 per 1,000 live births to 8.

* In Cabo Delgado, Mozambique, the liquefied petroleum gas supplied by VidaGas improves the sterility of medical instruments used to deliver babies.

* In the Philippines, Smart, whose network covers over 99 percent of the population, offers low-cost, prepaid mobile phone airtime cards and eases financial transactions through the option to send remittances using short messaging service (SMS) technology.

Today is the 40th anniversary of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The New Republic summons its better half as J. Peter Scoblic explains why this treaty is such a boon to American interests.

Today marks the fortieth birthday of the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, one of the most important pieces of paper the United States has signed in the last half century--and one of the most popular. Even Bush officials, who went on a treaty-killing spree during their first year in office, made an exception for the NPT.

Why wouldn't they? The NPT is one of the best deals the United States has ever made: It allowed five countries (including the United States) to possess nuclear weapons, but banned the rest from ever developing them. Today, every country on the planet except for India, Israel, North Korea, and Pakistan is a member. While pressuring the nuclear states to disarm, the NPT's most significant accomplishment has been to reassure non-nuclear states that they don't need the bomb, and in the past four decades more countries have given up nuclear weapons programs than have started them. In hindsight, the NPT seems like a diplomatic no-brainer.

The treaty was based on three pillars of non-proliferation, disarmament, and legitimate civilian use. The disarmament pillar, for one, has taken a hit in recent years. Some NPT signatories have shied away from reducing their nuclear arsenal and are even developing so-called tactical nuclear weapons. For the other pillars to remain on strong footing, member states need to recommit to disarmament.

In an On Day One video, Matthew Yglesias explains why this is such a critical national security imperative for the next United States president.

Yet another way the NPT could be strengthened is through IAEA chief Mohammed elBaradei's call for a civilian nuclear fuel bank. This is an idea that the (United Nations Foundation sister organization) the Nuclear Threat Initiative has been pushing for a long time--and for which Warren Buffet has provided a seed grant to support. The idea, in short, is for the IAEA to have a standing reserve of low-enriched uranium as an insurance policy for countries that seek to develop civilian nuclear power, but must import their enriched uranium rather than enrich it themselves. This way, countries with civilian nuclear programs can ensure that their supply of low-enriched uranium (the kind not used in bombs) will remain stable. So far, a number of governments--including the United States government--has pledged funds to develop the fuel bank.

Both these ideas underscore that the NPT, while a proven counter-proliferation tool, needs all the help it can get to remain the foundation of the global non-proliferation regime.

TNR's Marty Peretz has never been the most avid supporter of the United Nations, to say the least. Now, however, contemplating the international response to the crisis in Zimbabwe, he reaches perhaps a new low:

And let's face facts: the most aggressive response to the calamity of Mugabe's rule has been that of the United States. Which is to say, the response of George Bush. See the New York Times article headlined, "Zimbabwe Faces Wider Sanctions Under Bush Plan." The problem is that the U.S. is taking the plan to the Security Council where it will surely fail.

Which raises the fundamental question about the United Nations: is it worth anything? My answer is "no."

Even without discussing what the UN can in fact do in Zimbabwe -- see, for example, The Economist's sober but cautiously optimistic take on that question -- Peretz's claim that the UN is worth nothing, based solely on insufficient action on one issue, is exceedingly myopic. Even if the UN were to roll out the red carpet for Mugabe in New York -- something that Secretary-General Ban, who has condemned Zimbabwe's election as "illegitimate," is far from doing -- that would not invalidate the myriad benefits the UN brings to the hundreds of millions of others in the scope of its work: people all over the world whom the UN and UN agencies feed and vaccinate from diseases, protect from violence, help out of poverty, and bring into democracies, just to name a few.

If the United States is poised to take strong action on Zimbabwe -- and here too, as in the Security Council, words will have to be backed up with concrete follow-through -- then this is a reason to commend and support the U.S., not excoriate the body through which it intends to work.

Peretz would be wise to consider how effective unilateral American action on Zimbabwe could possibly be. As with Sudan, the U.S. wields much less significant influence on Zimbabwe's junta than do other significant players like South Africa and China. The weight of Security Council action will surely create greater obstacles for Zimbabwe's "sham government" than would a quixotic American attempt to isolate Mugabe on its own.

Pressure from African countries, particularly, can have a greater impact than rhetoric from the West, as one Mugabe spokesman unwittingly revealed when he collectively told the West to "go hang a thousand times." The U.S. should not comply, of course, but neither should it deprive itself of using all possible channels of influence -- and hopefully exposing such strident defiance as the desperate words of a regime backed into a corner, not those of one confident that the world will not even attempt to mount a unified response.

Spencer Ackerman has a thoughtful post on the UN's role in mediating the dispute over the status of Kirkuk, Mosul, and other territories contested by rival ethnic groups. A referendum on the status of some of these territories -- namely the oil-rich, majority Kurd city of Kirkuk -- has been delayed every year since 2003 because it is feared that the group which looses the referendum may resort to violence.

So, to forestall this violent shoe from dropping, the United Nations Mission in Iraq (UNAMI) has been quietly mediating talks between rival factions that would obviate the need for a referendum by finding some mutually agreed upon apportionment of territory. As Spencer notes, this is far from a perfect solution, but in a situation where all options are bad, this seems to be the least-worst.

this is exactly the sort of hard-case test for the U.N. that demonstrates its value. UNAMI's solution is bad one, but everyone else's is worse. The U.N. doesn't have much credibility in Iraq, but every other actor has less, when seen through the eyes of one-or-another stakeholder. Legitimacy is an extremely precious commodity. The virtue of an international body that can be really [...] annoying to this-or-that power at any given time is that it's the legitimacy-depository of last resort.

Why the United Nations? A recent report from the Brookings Institution concludes that the organization is uniquely situated to broker a political compromise in Iraq because "it is the only body that approximates neutrality and can claim all the relevant state actors within its membership." Only the United Nations can offer itself as a neutral convening ground for the contending factions and the neighbors, with their conflicting interests. But recent history provides good reason to worry that the United Nations will be drawn into the inferno of Iraq for all the wrong reasons, whether it be the American wish to transfer responsibility, and blame, for a hopeless cause or the ambition of a new secretary-general to prove his mettle, and that of his organization.

[snip]

The prospects are so daunting, and the likelihood of success so low, that one would never contemplate this act of diplomatic legerdemain were there any meaningful alternative. But there isn't. The American military presence is not, itself, changing the key political facts; and an American withdrawal, by itself, will not suddenly bring the parties to their sense.

The New York Times takes a peek at Lakdhar Brahimi's report on the security of UN personnel and property in the wake of last years bombing in Algiers.

United Nations personnel around the world are increasingly likely to be targets for attack because the organization is perceived by some as a tool of powerful members, rather than an unbiased advocate for all nations, Lakhdar Brahimi, a veteran diplomat who headed a global study on the security of United Nations staff members, said Monday.

The study, conducted by a seven-member panel that was organized after 17 United Nations workers were killed in a bombing in Algiers last December, concluded that neither individual staff members nor the organization had fully grasped the change in perceptions, Mr. Brahimi said.

"All of us who work for the U.N., we continue to think of ourselves as good guys, and just because you have the flag, wherever you go you will be all right," he said. "We need to realize that our flag is not enough protection."