Author Archives: Mark Leon Goldberg 
Steve Jobs Stumbles Into the Congo Conflict Minerals Debate
Kyrgyzstan: On The Move
The UN Refugee Agency posts this harrowing video of people fleeing violence in southern Kyrgyzstan.
Gaza UN Summer Camp Attacked….Again
It seems that once again, UN run summer camps for Gaza children are being targeted by extremists:
Judging the Millennium Villages Project
I attended a presentation on Capitol Hill yesterday on the Millennium Villages Project, which is an experiment in international development championed by the economist Jeffrey Sachs. The idea was basically this: provide across the board health, education, economic development, and infrastructure support to 14 rural villages in Africa and see if that holistic approach can improve the villages’ progress on the eight Millennium Development Goals. If it works, the plan is to scale up this kind of approach–possibly on a natio
How Heroin Travels
About 85% of the world’s heroin comes from poppy cultivated in Afghanistan–a near global monopoly. In turn, about 80% of Afghan-poppy derived heroin travels along a similar route to western Europe.
The UN Office on Drugs and Crime calls this the “Balkan Route.” It flows from Afghanistan to Iran to Turkey to the Balkans, where it gets slit up to various destinations in Western Europe. (Lower set of purple arrows, below).
Introducing the MDG Super Group
As I mentioned earlier, this is the summer of the MDGs. In the latest of such develepments, Ban Ki Moon appointed an outside panel of government officials and civic leaders as part of an advocacy group in support of the Millennium Development Goals. The panel is co-chaired by Rwandan President Paul Kagame and Spainish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero. Nobel laureates Mohammad Yunus and Wangari Maathai, former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, (Nelson Mandela’s wife) Graca Machel, Bill Gates and Ted Turner will also serve on the panel. Not a bad collect
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The SC; HRC; DPRK; South Sudan
The SC: The Security Council today held its last consultations under the Council Presidency of ROK. Tomorrow, Russia will take over the rotating Presidency of the Security Council for March under Ambassador Vitaly Churkin.
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The SG; Mali; Middle East; Palestine
The SG: At the Fifth Global Forum of the UN Alliance of Civilizations in Vienna, Austria today, the SG emphasized the role of youth in ensuring a “prosperous, equitable and peaceful future.”
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The SG; DRC; HRC; Palestinian Prisoner
The SG: In Ethiopia over the weekend, the SG is now in the United Arab Emirates. Today he met with Sheikh Mohammad bin Rashed Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE, where the two discussed developments in the region, including Syria, Iran, Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan, and in the Middle East Peace Process.
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