Contributed by Sean-Paul Kelley

This really is an important story that deserves wider coverage. Microlending is very profitable. In the past those profits have always been plowed back into the local community to be used to lift even more people out of poverty. But that may be changing:

Scott Jagow: There's a big conference in Europe today on microfinancing. That's when you give people, usually women, in developing countries very small loans to help them run a business. It might be something as simple as selling crafts on the street. But some of the world's largest banks are attending this conference. They want to get into microfinancing. Michaela Walsh founded Women's World Banking back in 1975. I asked her why the big banks want a piece of this.

Michaela Walsh: It can be a very profitable business. It is more labor-intensive than say commercial credit. Our role is to make sure that microfinance doesn't become consumer credit.

Is there a possibility that big banks will come in a depersonalize what has been one of the world most successful ways of alleviating poverty and empowering women? Yes:

Michaela Walsh: Personally, I have always had a concern that small loans that are given in a local community, whether it's rural or urban, and when paid back there needs to be some kind of a guarantee that those profits and those benefits are reinvested in that local community and not just computerized and centralized in a capital city or in a global network. Recently Harvard University and two other universities did a study saying that because the large banking institutions have the capacity to get out more loans, that we ought to put more and more money into the big institutions. My concern about that is we need to make sure those loans are not consumer loans and that they are going to be shared with local women's institutions to ensure that woman are making the decisions about how to run microfinance in the most effective way to serve the largest number of clients.

The big banks will turn it into a credit issue and then have even more wage slaves, globally too!

Successive American administrations have had sometimes rocky, sometimes rosy relations with the UN, but one feature which all US governments have universally admired at the UN has been its peacekeeping missions. These undertakings have over the decades prevented the outbreak of conflict, disarmed combatants, overseen elections and trained police forces - all without involving US troops and saving Washington millions of dollars.

Today they number eighteen and involve over 100,000 UN soldiers. But now they may be in trouble. The US owes almost $500 million in back-dues to support these operations because several years ago Congress insisted that our nation should pay only 25% of the overall costs of these endeavors though we could afford more. Without these US outlays, these vital enterprises may now be crippled or forced to end.

And why are they so important? They are doing the Lord's work. They are monitoring war zones in some of the hottest spots on the planet – like the Congo, Darfur, Haiti, Iraq Lebanon and Kosovo - and assuring that battles, the kind of which could lead to larger and more serious world-wide conflagrations, don't break out.

If more proof of their value was ever needed, recent studies by the Rand Corporation, the University of British Columbia and the General Accounting Organization have shown that UN peacekeeping missions have over the years helped clamp down on disorder and mayhem around the globe significantly at a cheaper cost and with more legitimacy and effectiveness than if done by Washington or other major powers.

Today Congress is taking a second look at its arrears in America's peacekeeping account. Recently Democratic Senator Joe Biden and Republican Senator Richard Lugar introduced a bill that would temporarily lift the 25% cap on US contributions to the UN's peacekeeping forces. This is a good start. But Congress also needs to appropriate funds that would allow America to pay up its $500 million shortfall for the year 2008.

Surely this would be vital piece of legislation for our national security. I would urge anyone who cares about peace on earth to contact his or her representative and tell them why we need to lift the cap and fully fund peacekeeping. It would be a highest act of citizenship.

--Stephen Schlesinger is Director of the World Policy Institute at the New School University and Author of Act of Creation: The Founding of the United Nations

Josette Sheeran, the new chief of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) officially took up her duties yesterday by calling for a renewed commitment to combating hunger.

Executive Director Josette Sheeran said "despite enormous efforts by WFP and its donors and partners, we are losing ground on hunger with 4 million more people malnourished each year than the year before. Together, we can turn that tide."

More

The United Nations Foundation (UN Foundation) and Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Society, released today "Confronting Climate Change: Avoiding the Unmanageable and Managing the Unavoidable," the final report of the Scientific Expert Group on Climate Change and Sustainable Development. The report, prepared as input for the upcoming meeting of the UN's Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD), outlines a roadmap for preventing unmanageable climate changes and adapting to the degree of change that can no longer be avoided.

More

A new United Nations-backed study says that one third of today's Iraqi population lives in poverty with more than 5 per cent living in extreme poverty.

"Prepared by the Iraqi Central Organization for Statistics and Information Technology with the support of the UN Development Programme (UNDP), the statistics show that a high percentage of people in Iraq live under various levels of poverty and human deprivation despite the country's huge economic and natural resources." More

Right now, the House Foreign Affairs Committee is holding an open hearing on "The Future of the United Nations under Ban Ki-Moon" with Tim Wirth, former Senator and current President of the UN Foundation, John Bolton, the former U.S. Perm Rep to the UN, and George Mitchell, former Senator Majority Leader.

Watch it live.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon named four new top officials to his cabinet last week.

"Mr. Ban named a United States diplomat as chief political officer, a Chinese veteran of international organizations to head economic and social affairs, a Japanese international civil servant to manage public information and an Egyptian diplomat to oversee General Assembly management." More

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has announced that approximately $85 million will be used to fund programs in 15 countries for under-funded emergencies.

"While each of these allocations represents but a fraction of the overall requirements in the individual emergencies, as a whole they help us pursue principled humanitarian action in which those who require aid the most are identified based strictly on need and assisted accordingly," said Margareta Wahlstrom, Acting United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator. More

Lee Feinstein is senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and the author of a new report published by the Council on Foreign Relations, titled, Darfur and Beyond: What Is Needed to Prevent Atrocities.

Ban Ki-moon won Washington's support for the job of Secretary General on the strength of his campaign pledge to "reform" the United Nations.

More than a year ago the United Nations adopted the "responsibility to protect." The General Assembly's endorsement of this revolutionary principle removes blind reverence for national sovereignty as an excuse to look the other way when innocents are being wiped out. In elevating this principle, the nations of the world said that they prioritize the right of people to live over the right of states to do as they please. The question now is whether this pledge was humanitarian hypocrisy, or did they have something serious in mind?

The most important "reform" Ban can undertake is to convert these three inspiring words into a program of action. The goal, as Ban himself said, should be to "operationalize" the responsibility to protect by building up the UN's capacity to respond early and effectively at the first sign of concern.

The place to start is by building a more nimble and capable peacekeeping capacity at the United Nations. Despite steady improvement since the 1990s, the Department of Peacekeeping Operations still lacks the capacity to deploy troops when it counts.

The absence of a rapid response capability is a problem that dates back to the UN's founding. But the time may be right to address this deficiency head on. Building on President Bush's proposal in the State of the Union for a voluntary international reserve of civilians, Ban should push for the establishment of an international strategic reserve of troops that could be designated by states to be available for peacekeeping missions authorized by the Security Council. Nations would train troops to international standards. Earmarked troops would exercise with one another. States would be compensated for their efforts, and would receive a premium if they gave formal approval for their forces, which would remain under each state's national command, to be deployed to a UN mission.

In adopting the responsibility to protect last year, the United Nations accepted the principle that mass atrocities which take place in one state are the concern of all states. The new secretary-general should begin to bridge the gap between these words and the institution's deeds by taking the General Assembly's endorsement of the responsibility to protect as a mandate and a mission statement.

The long-term goal is to avoid the stark options of "Doing Nothing" and "Sending in the Marines." That requires establishing a pattern of international response at the first signs of concern. The place to start is with concrete steps to build capacity -- diplomatic, economic, legal, and military -- in support of the principle of humanitarian protection. Adoption of the responsibility to protect has begun to remove the classical excuses for doing nothing in the face of mass atrocities. What is needed now is the capacity and political will to back it up.

The Secretary-General's Special Envoy for Darfur, along with an African Union (AU) envoy, will travel to Sudan next week in an attempt to revive the stalled peace process.

"Jan Eliasson and the AU's Salim Ahmed Salim will travel on Monday to the capital, Khartoum, and to Darfur itself for talks with the Government and with representatives of those rebel groups that did not sign the Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA) in May last year." More

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon visited the United Nations war crimes court in The Hague yesterday, calling for action by Security Council members to bring Bosnian Serb fugitives to trial.

"I know that there is a sense of frustration for not being able to complete what they are mandated to do because of non-cooperation, non-availability of those people indicted...I take this opportunity to urge again to those responsible perpetrators...to appear before the court for trial, for the interest and the benefit for themselves as well as for the benefit of international peace and security." More

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki met in Nairobi this week; their conversation focused on the conflict in Sudan and problems involving Somali refugees.

"Mr. Ban and Mr. Kibaki also discussed the partnership between the UN and Kenya, which is home to one of the Organization's larger duty stations, during their morning meeting, UN spokesperson Michele Montas told reporters in New York." More

BBC News has a short rundown of the history of the conflict in Darfur, Q&A: Sudan's Darfur conflict.

For in-depth coverage from the BBC, click here.

After a two day visit to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the country's problems can only be solved by lasting peace and stability.

"By creating such an environment on the political, economic and social levels, the United Nations and the international community will be encouraged to continue working for prosperity and development with the Congolese government," Ban said. More

"The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has completed construction of the first of the 227 mother-and-child health centres it is building in Indonesia's tsunami-devastated Aceh province and earthquake-hit Nias Island." More

Yesterday Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon kicked off his first overseas trip since becoming UN chief, meeting in Brussels with European Union (EU) leaders.

"The European Union and the United Nations have maintained a very strong partnership and I regard the European Union's contribution as vitally important for the work of the United Nations," said Ban. More

According to a UN report released yesterday, over 34,000 civilians were killed in Iraq last year, with over 36,000 injured.

"In virtually every sphere, and building on earlier reports, the latest study amounts to a litany of abuses ranging from attacks on women, minorities and professional groups to forced displacements, to the activities of the police and security forces and the United States-led Multi-National Force (MNF-I)." More

Also see The New York Times, BBC News.

Newly-inaugurated Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced his first two appointments yesterday: Indian diplomat Vijay Nambiar--who was a special adviser to Kofi Annan--as his chief of staff, and Haitian journalist Michele Montas as his spokeswoman.

More appointments are expected in the coming days. More.

Ban Ki-moon, a South Korean diplomat, became the United Nations' eighth secretary-general yesterday.

At his swearing-in ceremony last month, Ban said, "I will do everything in my power to ensure that our United Nations can live up to its name, and be truly united; so that we can live up to the hopes that so many people around the world place in this institution, which is unique in the annals of human history." More

"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

"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."

"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

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."

"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."

READ FULL TRANSCRIPT

"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."

"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'

"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

"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

"Mr. Annan said it is crucial that the Council preserves and strengthens what he called its "crown jewel" - the system of Special Procedures, or rapporteurs, independent experts and working groups tasked with examining a specific area of human rights.

"It has long since been recognized in theory, and increasingly also in practice, that the rule of law cannot be left to the discretion of governments, no matter how democratically elected they may be." The Secretary-General said the area most in need of innovation is the organization of the universal periodic review, a peer review mechanism. More

"Ban Ki-moon, who will fill Kofi Annan's shoes at the helm of the United Nations, has been described in the media as "uncharismatic" and a "career diplomat". But a former colleague believes such criticism could not be further from the truth." More

"United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Tuesday during a speech at Princeton University that there is an urgent need to confront the danger of nuclear weapons, and both disarmament and nonproliferation must be pursued simultaneously to achieve progress on either front.

"We are asleep at the controls of a fast-moving aircraft. Unless we wake up and take control, the outcome is all too predictable," Annan said. "We cannot choose between nonproliferation and disarmament. We must tackle both tasks with the urgency they demand." More

"New research says if the world acts now to decisively contain the AIDS pandemic, 28 million lives could be saved by 2030.... AIDS accounts for about 2.8 (m) million deaths every year.

But in a paper, two researchers with the World Health Organization estimate at least 117 (m) million people will die from AIDS by 2030.

Global mortality projections were last calculated a decade ago. At the time, researchers assumed the AIDS outbreak would start declining around the year 2000. One of the researchers, Dr. Colin Mathers, says what happens in the future depends very much on what the international community does now." More

"United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan welcomed the mutual ceasefire reached in the Gaza Strip at the weekend, but expressed deep concern that Palestinian militants have continued to fire rockets towards civilian targets inside Israel.

In a statement released by his spokesman, Mr. Annan said "such attacks underscore the destructive power that militants have to derail the crucial efforts under way to de-escalate tensions." More

"U.N. peacekeepers in Congo on Monday blocked an advance against an eastern city by soldiers loyal to a renegade general as the Supreme Court prepared to deliver its verdict on a contested presidential election result.

Indian troops, part of the world's biggest U.N. peacekeeping force deployed in Democratic Republic of Congo, went into action against soldiers loyal to dissident General Laurent Nkunda who moved towards the provincial capital Goma, an officer said." More

BBC: "UN investigators in the Democratic Republic of Congo say they have found mass graves with about 30 bodies in an army camp in the east of the country.

The dead included women and children who appeared to have been murdered, a UN spokesman said. He believed they had disappeared in the last few months."

"The number of Iraqi civilians killed in October reached a new high of 3,709, the influence of armed militias is growing, and torture continues to be rampant despite the Government's commitment to address human rights abuses, according to the latest United Nations rights report on the strife-torn country." More

"The global HIV epidemic is growing, leaving an estimated 39.5 million people worldwide infected with the deadly virus, the United Nations said Tuesday. AIDS has claimed 2.9 million lives this year and another 4.3 million people became infected with HIV, according to the U.N.'s AIDS epidemic update report, published on Tuesday. Spread of the disease was most noticeable in East Asia, Eastern Europe and Central Asia." More

"Stressing that "the horror of biological weapons is shared by all," United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan today called for a comprehensive strategy that will tackle the possibility of such arms falling into the hands of terrorists....

Mr. Annan noted that he had already proposed the convening of a forum that would bring together the various stakeholders - industry, science, public health, governments, and the public - to ensure that biotechnology's advances continue to be used for the benefit of humanity while the risks are managed." More