Ban Ki-moon on the tragic events in Mumbai:

"Such violence is totally unacceptable," Ban's spokeswoman said in a statement. "The Secretary-General reiterates his conviction that no cause or grievance can justify indiscriminate attacks against civilians."

"He calls for the perpetrators to be brought to justice swiftly," the statement said, expressing sympathy for the families of the victims and solidarity with the people and government of India.

Note that in addition to hotels, a train station and a popular cafe, the attackers targeted hospitals.

Resources/updates:

Wikipedia entry

Mumbai Metblogs

Twitter

Flickr

Video from MSNBC:

The big news today is out of Pakistan, where president Pervez Musharraf has announced his resignation just days after Pakistan's parliament moved to impeach him. Matthew Yglesias, Spencer Ackerman, and Steve Clemons have more.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the region, tens of thousands of Muslims took to the streets of Kashmir's main city to demand that the United Nations recognize Kashmir's right of self-determination. The demonstrations occur amid a recent spate of violence in which 34 people have been killed in the last six weeks. One protester held a sign saying "Ban Ki Moon, Where Are You?" From AFP

Security was tight as crowds marched towards a local UN office, in defiance of official warnings against holding the rally in revolt-hit Srinagar, which remained tense after deadly clashes last week.

The UN office in Srinagar houses personnel who monitor ceasefire violations along the heavily militarised Line of Control, the de facto border dividing Kashmir between India and Pakistan.

"I have never seen such a big rally in Srinagar," said Abdul Aziz, a 75-year-old shopkeeper who was taking part in the procession.

"I couldn't resist coming out to demand freedom from India," he said, as he marched towards the UN office carrying a placard reading "If freedom for Kosovo, why not for Kashmir?"

The first United Nations flight carrying humanitarian aid since fighting broke out in South Ossetia on Thursday arrived in Tiblisi, Georgia today. From the UN News Center:

The Boeing 707 cargo plane, chartered by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), is the first UN humanitarian flight to reach the country since heavy fighting erupted last Thursday between Georgian and South Ossetian forces, leading to a large number of casualties and the displacement of thousands. Russian forces have since become involved in South Ossetia, and in Abkhazia in the northwest.

The flight brought 34 tonnes of tents, jerry cans, blankets and kitchen sets from UNHCR's central emergency stockpile in Dubai. A second UNHCR flight is scheduled tomorrow from Copenhagen, another of its central logistical hubs.

"The two flights will provide more than 70 tonnes of aid supplies for up to 30,000 people and will augment other relief items already distributed by UNHCR from its warehouses in Georgia," the agency's spokesperson, Ron Redmond told reporters in Geneva.

According to the latest figures provided by Georgia and Russia, the total number of people uprooted in the conflict is approaching 100,000, UNHCR said. Officials in North Ossetia, Russia, say some 30,000 people from South Ossetia have fled to that Russia region.

According to news reports Russian and Georgian armed forces are in a pitched battle over South Ossetia, the majority ethnic-Russian breakaway province in Georgia. The Secretary General is urging restraint. And so far, over 1,000 civilians have fled South Ossetia to Russian territory. Global Voices Online offers a grounds eye view from bloggers in the region.

Also via Global Voices, this Russia Today clip (posted on Aid Worker Daily) gives an update from the front lines.

For the next seven days, UN Dispatch, The Washington Note and On Day One will host an online discussion about international terrorism and offer recommendations for how the next United States president can meet these challenges. Leading this discussion is an international panel of experts on terrorism, counter-terrorism, international law, and national security. We are honored to have Steve Clemons as a moderator and co-host on The Washington Note.

Our panel of experts (full bios here) include:

Peter Bergen, New America Foundation

Paul Cruickshank, NYU Center on Law and Security

Greg Djerejian, The Belgravia Dispatch

Stephanie Kaplan, Woodrow Wilson Center

Matthew Levitt, Washington Institute on Near East Policy

Alastair Millar, Center on Global Counter Terrorism Cooperation

Eric Rosand, Center on Global Counter Terrorism Cooperation

Yosri Fouda, Al Jazeera

These have been a rough couple of weeks for suspected war criminals. First, Sudanese President Omar el Bashir finds the International Criminal Court's sights set on him. Now, one of the world's most wanted men is arrested by Serbian authorities. Halleluja!

Radovan Karadzic, indicted war criminal, was arrested yesterday outside Belgrade. He is awaiting extradition to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in the Hague.

Karadzic was the political mastermind behind the ethnic cleansing in the Balkans in the 1990s. He is also alleged to have orchestrated the Srebrenica massacre, in which 8,000 Bosnian men and boys were killed in a few short hours after Dutch UN peacekeepers were over run by the Bosnian-Serb militia. Karadzic's partner in crime, General Radko Mladic directed the Srebrenica killings. He remains at large.

Karadzic has been on the run for thirteen years--and it was always suspected that Serbian authorities were protecting him. So why was he nabbed yesterday? It seems that a combination of international pressure and internal politics made the arrest possible. In June the coalition backing the moderate and pro-west Serbian President Boris Tadic won a decisive victory in parliamentary elections over hard line nationalist elements. Tadic quickly moved against the hardliners, purging them from positions of influence in the government. The move against Karadzic can be seen as a kneecapping of Tadic's political opposition and shows just how politically marginalized the hardliners really are.

Second, the international community--chiefly the European Union and the United States--have made Serbian cooperation with the ICTY the sin qua non of relations with Serbia. The pull of the European Union--and the recognition that unless Serbia cooperate with the ICTY it will never enjoy benefits of membership--was the larger force reason behind Karadzic's arrest. With yesterday's arrest, Boris Tadic showed the international community he can deliver. (To be sure, Mladic still remains at large. But with the veil of government protection now firmly cast off, one wonders for how long.) The international community should respond in kind -- and I suspect they will.

Rich Byrne has more.

Blake Hounshell asks: "Did [Russian President] Medvedev get punk'd?"

A funny thing happened on the way home from the G-8 summit. Somebody seems to have changed Russia's position on U.N. sanctions on Zimbabwe.

Last Tuesday, President Dmitry Medvedev signed on to a statement expressing "grave concern" about the situation in Zimbabwe. But on Friday, Russia vetoed a proposed U.N. sanctions resolution, citing the need to protect the principle of sovereignty.

Column Lynch and Nora Boustany have the blockbuster scoop that the ICC prosecutor plans to charge the President of Sudan Omar al Bahsir with genocide. This is the first time the ICC prosecutor has brought up charges of gencoide and the first time he has targeted a head of state.

Let me echo Kevin Jon Heller: To say this is a bold move -- and one fraught with danger -- is an understatement. There is serious concern that this accusation might undercut an already fragile peace process and make peacekeepers the target of government reprisal. In fact, the deadly attack on UNAMID this week may be considered something of a pre-reprisal; UN officials believe the Sudanese government was behind the ambush that killed seven peacekeepers on Tuesday

The attack on UNAMID was just one indication that the peace process has been dead for a long time now in large part due to Sudanese intransigence. This is the right time to ratchet up the pressure.

"Bashir will certainly use the indictment to justify some awful reactions, such as humanitarian aid restrictions and further barriers" to the joint U.N.-African Union peacekeeping mission in Darfur, said John Prendergast, co-chairman of the Enough Project, an initiative to end crimes against humanity. "But if the international community stands firm and makes it clear that these kinds of responses will only make matters worse for Bashir...then he will relent."

ICC advocates contend that such court actions contribute to peace efforts. Previous indictments of world leaders -- such as former Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic and former Liberian president Charles Taylor -- by other U.N. tribunals have ultimately contributed to stability in those countries, said Richard Dicker, director of the international justice office at Human Rights Watch.

We will certainly follow this story very closely.

The International Criminal Court just announced that on July 14, the prosecutor will present his second case on crimes committed in Darfur. Last year, the prosecutor secured the indictment of two Sudanese; a government minister and a janjaweed commander were accused of colluding to commit crimes against humanity in Darfur.

In recent weeks the prosecutor has been dropping some serious hints that the next round of indictments will target top government officials. (And as the BBC's UN reporter speculates below, this week's stunning janjaweed attack on UNAMID may have been orchestrated to punish the international community over these forthcoming indictments.) Rather than backing down in the face of Sudanese pressure, it seems to me that the international community ought to stand united behind the ICC prosecutor and use these indictments as points of possible leverage over the government--which so far has not been cooperating with the deployment of UNAMID.

The BBC's UN Correspondent is interviewed about the deadly janjaweed attack on the UN-AU peacekeeping force in Darfur. Ban's statement is here.

Now is the time for member states to double-down their commitment to UNAMID and provide the mission with the equipment and support it needs to succeed.

New from the Stanley Foundation is a fantastic new interactive (and aesthetically pleasing) website, Rising Powers, which chronicles how emerging powers like Brazil, China, and the European Union are changing the global landscape. The site also includes some key data on how non-state actors are responding to the rise of alternate power centers to the United States. It's fascinating stuff...but wait, there's more! To accompany this new project, the Stanley Foundation has teamed up with a number of journalistic enterprises to sponsor a new audio documentary series for public radio.

TSF's new project immediately conjures to mind this On Day One video cut by Parag Khanna, author of Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order which chronicles how international relations is changing as new global power centers emerge. In the clip below, Khanna argues that the United States must completely overhaul its public diplomacy apparatus to make the most from these changes.

At a press stakeout yesterday, Zalmay Khalilzad told reporters that he has "nine votes" lined up behind a United States sponsored Security Council resolution imposing an arms embargo on Zimbabwe and sanctioning a number of Zanu-PF leaders.

What's the significance of "nine votes?" For one, it means that Russia may be softening its opposition to Security Council sanctions. Yesterday's stern G-8 statement condemning Zimbabwe's political leadership (signed off by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev) may have presaged a Russian shift at the Council in support of French, American, and British efforts to sanction Zimbabwe. A vote could come at the end of the week, but the threat of a Chinese veto could still disrupt the Council's schedule. The Financial Times has more.

The New York Times picks up this exchange between Matthew Lee and I from our last UN Plaza segment.

The idea that there is a one-sized fits all approach to rogue states I think is wrong-headed. Just because a particular policy worked for North Korea it does not necessarily follow that such an approach will work for, say, Sudan. I think, however, there is a tendency among hardliners to think that only a hard line approach will work in any given situation. Perhaps the apotheosis of this approach--which I reference in the segment above -- is John Bolton's dictate in Surrender is not an Option that he "doesn't do carrots." Full stop.

I would argue, however, that in some specific cases carrots work and in some they do not. American concessions clearly helped convince North Korea to destroy its nuclear reactor at Yongbyon two weeks ago. Yet, at the same time I do not think that the international community has done enough to pressure Khartoum into lifting its obstruction of the joint AU-UN peacekeeping mission in Darfur. Different situations call for different approaches.

Emily Ross, an intern at the New York office of the United Nations Foundation, sent us the following summary of the United States presidency of the Security Council during the month of June.

As President, the United States had the ability to chart the Council's course, determining which issues to highlight and shaping policy formulation. Perhaps most significant was its decision to bring peripheral security issues to the forefront. The highlight of the month was undoubtedly the open debate on "Women and peace and security," chaired by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, which drew international attention to the plight of women in conflict. Several Foreign Ministers spoke out against sexual abuse and explicitly drew the link between gender-based violence and international security. This landmark affirmation was bolstered by substantial legal weight with the passage of Resolution 1820 declaring rape a war crime.

Consistent with a mostly African-facing agenda, the Council issued a Presidential Statement on Sudan. Following a briefing by the Chief Prosecutor of the ICC, Louis Moreno-Ocampo, the Council presented a document requesting the Government of Sudan "cooperate fully with the Court...in order to put an end to impunity for the crimes committed in Darfur." Although watered down due to apprehension from Libya, this statement put into question the United States government's traditional anti-ICC stance, possibly indicating a warming toward the court.

In addition to the month's highlights, the United States led the Council as it discussed Iraq, condemned the political violence in Zimbabwe, was briefed on the peace process in Darfur and extended the mandate of the UN Peacekeeping Mission in Cyprus, among other activities. It used its position to put less publicized security matters in the spotlight; The passage of Resolution 1820 and statement to Sudan on the ICC chief among them.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime released its annual report (pdf) on global trends in the production, trafficking and consumption of controlled substances yesterday. Most notably, the report gave us some disturbing new figures on the Afghan opium cultivation, which grew by 17% since 2007. Today, some 92% of the opium in the world comes from Afghanistan. Column Lynch has more

The Taliban earned $200 million to $400 million last year through a 10 percent tax on poppy growers and drug traffickers in areas under its control, Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the U.N. Office of Drugs and Crime, said in an interview. He estimates that Afghan poppy farmers and drug traffickers last year earned about $4 billion, half of the country's national income.

Early yesterday morning the press caught glimpse of a new video in which a known al Qaeda associate calls for attacks on the United Nations in Somalia. In a separate incident, the local Somali head of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, Hassan Mohamed Ali, was abducted from his home Saturday evening by masked gunmen.

It would be pure speculation to say the two incidents are related. That said, it would not be unreasonable conjecture. Al Qaeda has targeted the United Nations before. In December 2007, suicide bombers detonated twin bombs outside two UN offices in Algiers, killing 17 UN workers. And of course there was the bombing of the United Nations compound in Iraq in August 2003, which killed the diplomat Sergio Vieira de Mello and 21 others.

Regardless of whether or not these incidents are linked they are very disturbing developments, and timed to undermine a recently brokered ceasefire between Somalia's warring factions. We will stay on this story.

Imagine that a crowded building is on fire, that people are dying inside, and that a guy with a gun is standing outside the door to prevent firefighters from entering. Now multiply that by a couple million times or so and you can get a feel for what is happening in Burma right now.

The junta has never had a reputation for caring much about its own citizens, but the fact that they are erecting all sorts of bureaucratic hurdles to prevent life saving relief from reaching their own citizens is downright criminal. Given this behavior, I wonder if the Security Council should invoke the "Responsibility to Protect" and authorize the violation of Myanmar's sovereignty by other member states? (This is the principal, agreed upon by UN member states in 2005, that the international community is permitted to violate the sovereignty of a country when that country is unwilling or unable to prevent mass atrocities from being visited upon its own citizens.)

It seems that at least one P-5 member, France , thinks so. The proposal was aired by Bernard Kouchner, French foreign minister and founder of Doctors Without Borders, but quickly shot down by China and Russia. The UN's Top Humanitarian Official, John Holmes, also derided the proposal, saying "I'm not sure that invading Myanmar would be a very sensible option at this particular moment. I'm not sure it would be helpful to the people we're actually trying to help."

True, the immediate goal is to get relief to Burmese citizens as fast as possible. Right now, this means working with the military junta. But if this kind of obstructionism on the part of the Burmese government is not overcome soon, invoking Responsibility to Protect should not be too far outside the realm of possibility.

It's obviously a disturbing sign of the times when a blog like FP Passport feels the need to run a recurring "food riot watch" in response to unrest in Haiti, Kenya, and Egypt. Hopefully, the good folks at Passport are ready to stay on the story for the long haul because according to Lennart Bage, president of the UN's International Fund, prices are not coming down any time soon. Says Bage

"Most experts do think higher prices are here for a longer term... We will see a supply response, so hopefully the prices will come down somewhat," he said before adding a word of caution.

"According to experts in the field, prices will remain higher than in the past and what we see is most likely a structural shift to higher prices."

Sameer Lalwani, live blogging from the NATO summit in Bucharest, sets the scene for a meeting today with Afghan President Hamid Kharzai:

Afghanistan is perhaps the centerpiece of the NATO summit (though expansion rates a close second) as it is the first intensive out-of-theater deployment for NATO in its 59 year history. And it has not been easy. One of the reasons for regress and a resurgent Taliban that has been cited by many during this NATO summit in Bucharest is the lack of a coordinating mechanism or actor to harmonize tactical operations with civilian efforts at reconstruction through the [provincial reconstruction teams] and the morass of development aid that is tethered to different national objectives and time lines.

A couple weeks ago, U.S. Ambasador to the UN Zalmay Khalilzad wrote an op-ed throwing strong U.S. support behind the United Nations to take on that role of coordination in Afghanistan.

There is only one way to end the confusion: the United Nations must take on the primary coordination role, and donors must show a willingness to be coordinated. The new resolution allows this to happen in a number of ways.

First, Mr. Eide will need to oversee the coordination of civilian assistance with military efforts of the two military organizations operating in Afghanistan, NATO and the International Security Assistance Force. While it's promising that those two organizations are meeting in Bucharest, Romania, next month to discuss better integrating their efforts, success against the insurgency will require efforts to ensure that military actions to secure areas from the enemy are coordinated with civilian efforts to establish good governance and economic development.

Second, Mr. Eide must coordinate the efforts of the international community to support the Afghanistan Compact, a five-year plan agreed upon in 2006 by the government of Afghanistan, the United Nations and the international community that requires Afghan leaders to take steps in reform and institution-building in exchange for commitments of sustained support. The United Nations must have a stronger role in overseeing the increasing capacity of Afghan ministries and their anti-corruption efforts.

Third, the new United Nations special representative should help the leaders and people of key donor countries understand achievements and challenges. This is the only way that the friends of Afghanistan can fully appreciate the return on their investments.

Last, Mr. Eide will have a mandate to engage Afghanistan's neighbors to help stabilize the country. In the aftermath of 9/11, regional powers came together to support the so-called Bonn agreement, which enabled Afghans to freely choose their own government. Reclaiming the spirit of Bonn must be a priority.

The United States is fully behind the United Nations in the mission. Afghanistan is important not only because it was the origin of the attacks of 9/11 but also because it is the keystone of the geopolitical stability of Central and South Asia. Moreover, success in Afghanistan will be a major step in helping to create security, stability and progress in the broader Middle East, which is the defining challenge of our time.

The International Atomic Energy Agency released a report (pdf) yesterday on Iran's nuclear program. Nearly all reports about the report called it "mixed," which I tend to think is more of a comment about how various constituencies reacted to the report, than descriptive of the content of the report itself. The big question on everyone's mind at the United Nations is whether or not this report provides justification for pursuing a third round of Security Council sanctions against Iran. And as you can see, the reactions to the "mixed" report are, in fact, mixed.

Chinese UN Ambassador Wang Guangya: "I don't like to see this issue being discussed here [in the Security Council]. We already have two resolutions on the sanctions, and what do we have?"

American UN Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad: "For diplomacy to succeed, it needs widely supported, broad and biting sanctions to affect the calculations of the regime in Iran. I don't believe the Chinese would want to take responsibility for the failure of diplomacy by not cooperating with the effort at additional sanctions."

UK UN Ambassador John Sawyers: "The IAEA showed that they can't even resolve questions about Iran's past, that knowledge of present activities is diminishing, and they cannot clarify Iran's future intentions because of the lack of cooperation. That is really worrying."

Iranian chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili: "All the claims that Iran's nuclear activities have a military agenda and are deviant are not true. The report says clearly that most of the ambiguities...have been removed.”

Former UN weapons inspector David Albright: "The main issue is that Iran now has 3,000 centrifuges. The report doesn't even judge the quality of the information being offered, but it's clear it is giving minimal answers."

Meanwhile, hot off the presses, the Washington Post is reporting that Beijing canceled a Security Council meeting on Iran scheduled for the week after Thanksgiving. So at least for the time being, it looks like there will be no third round of sanctions.

Texas Fred and Rob from Say Anything are up in arms about Libya's new seat on the Security Council. Says Texas Fred: "Classic case of the UN once again allowing the foxes to guard the hen-house. This sort of thing happens over and over again within the UN and the Us [sic] does nothing to prevent it. It's as though the US approves of this sort of insane behavior."

Thing is, the United States did approve of -- or at least not oppose -- Libya's run for a Security Council seat. (In contrast, recall the debate over Venezuela's run last year.) This, in part, can be considered a reward for Libya's good behavior. After having renounced terrorism and abandoning its nuclear program Libya is no longer the international pariah it once was. Furthermore, Tripoli is starting to play a more constructive regional role than it has in the past. Later this month, it will host a major Darfur peace conference, where it is hoped Tripoli will exert pressure on certain rebel groups to bring them to the table. Lockerbie families are understandably upset. But if the point of international relations is to change the behavior of a regime, and not necessarily who runs it, then policy vis-a vis Libya is making great strides.

Finally, from the perspective of Security Council dynamics, there is no reason to think that Libya will be anymore or anyless accommodating to American interests than Qatar, the country it replaced. (Last summer, the United States vetoed and anti-Israeli resolution sponsored by Qatar, and Qatar routinely voted opposite the United States in measures relating to Sudan.) Frankly, having Libya on the Security Council at a time when Tripoli is assuming the role of regional arbitrator of the Darfur conflict can provide a needed boon to diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict.

Prompted by a presidential candidate's speech, the blogosphere is suddenly buzzing about nuclear abolition. Greg Sargent, Matthew Yglesias, and Joe Klein, among others, weigh in.

This seems like an appropriate time to revisit a UNF Insights on strengthening multilateral non-proliferation efforts we ran three months ago. In the essay, we write that affirming American commitments to disarmament would help re-invigorate a flailing Non-proliferation Treaty. So too would supporting other non-proliferation instruments, like the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and the Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention.

The 2005 world summit outcome document, signed by virtually every head of state, detailed a number of important reforms for the world body. However, on proliferation issues, the document was shamefully silent. This occurred, in part, because certain key nuclear states would not back language on disarmament. In turn, nuclear states not party to the NPT banded together to block non-proliferation goals from entering the text.

This was a great disservice to the cause of arms control. Before it was stricken from the final draft of the outcome document, the section on non-proliferation and disarmament provided a useful blueprint for a long term strategy to reduce the nuclear threat. This included firm commitments to both nuclear arms reduction and a reaffirmation of non-proliferation instruments, including the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and the Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention...

The setbacks at the 2005 world summit...occurred, in part, because a small number of states could not make the mutual concessions necessary to move the debate forward. To help counter this disturbing trend, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has sought to incorporate the UN's disarmament portfolio into the office of the Secretary General. Citing the need to "revitalize the disarmament and non-proliferation agenda through a more focused effort," Ban proposed that the Department of Disarmament Affairs be augmented with a new Office of Disarmament Affairs that answers directly to the Secretary General. In March, the General Assembly approved this move and created a new High Representative for Disarmament Affairs to act as the voice of the Secretary General in disarmament and nonproliferation debates.

Of course, non-proliferation and disarmament are only two of the three pillars underpinning the NPT. The third is access to civilian nuclear power. And here, the Nuclear Threat Initiative, founded by Sam Nunn and Ted Turner, is promoting a cutting-edge proposal that would obviate the need for countries to develop their own uranium enrichment facilities by setting up a "nuclear fuel bank."

In September 2006, The Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), founded by former senator Sam Nunn and Ted Turner, took a key first step toward creating a reserve stockpile of low-enriched uranium, to be administered by the International Atomic Energy Agency. As proposed by NTI, the bank would provide an insurance policy for countries that want to develop nuclear power, but lack domestic enrichment facilities and therefore must depend on importing enriched uranium. With a guaranteed source of low-enriched uranium, countries will feel less compelled to develop indigenous enrichment facilities, which in turn can be used in the manufacture of nuclear weapons. IAEA Chief Mohammed elBaradei has endorsed this proposal, which includes a grant of $50 million in seed money, pledged by NTI with the backing of investor Warren Buffet.

There is, however, a limit to what philanthropies can accomplish on their own. For the fuel bank to work, it needs financial and political support by a government or governments. To that end, Congressman Tom Lantos, Chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, has introduced legislation that affirms this approach and provides another $50 million for the bank. Congress would be wise to act on this legislation. And other countries should follow suit with their own financial and political commitments to the bank.

Read the whole thing.