Welcome to Morning Coffee, brought to you by Lindsay Beyerstein with additional links from the UN Dispatch team. Every morning we survey foreign affairs and foreign policy news so you don't have to. We begin with the "Starting Five" items of the day -- these may not always appear on A-1, but they *are* the kinds of stories that will be buzzing in foreign capitals, the UN and wherever foreign policy minds roam.
Starting Five
UN ENDORSES GAZA REPORT - The UN Human Rights Council voted to endorse the Goldstone Report on human rights abuses during last winter's Israeli invasion of Gaza. The report found that both Israelis and Palestinians committed atrocities but saved its harshest criticism for Israel. Palestinians lobbied the council to endorse the report while Israel lobbied against it.
Link ITALY DENIES BUYING OFF TALIBAN - Italy hotly denies allegations that it paid Taliban fighters to keep the peace. The government has even threatened to sue the UK newspaper that broke the story. The payments themselves shouldn't be a big deal. The U.S. did the same thing in Iraq during the vaunted Anbar Awakening. The issue is that, according to the paper, is that several French troops got killed because Italy failed to inform France about the plan.
Link A FOOD-FREE RECOVERY - Guatemalans continue to die of starvation. Aid workers say the recent rainy season helped refresh the soil after the recent drought, but people are still going hungry. The harvest is underway, but subsistence farmers are left out of the bounty. Nearly 500 Guatemalans have died of malnutrition this year, according to UN figures. The hardest-hit area is the so-called "dry corridor" in the south of the country.
Link SHE BLINDED ME WITH SCIENCE - The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) announced the names of five outstanding female scientists chosen to receive the L'Oreal/UNESCO Awards for excellence in the life sciences. Each winner will receive a $100,000 prize. Rashika El Ridi of Cairo University in Egypt won for her work on river blindness. American Elaine Fuchs was recognized for her work on skin stem cells.
Link SUCH A DEAL - The far-right, anti-immigration British National Party announced that it will allow non-white people to join for the first time. The BNP was forced to rewrite its constitution after losing a court battle brought by a government rights monitor. The point is largely symbolic, seeing as the party is committed to rolling back the rights of most non-white, non-"indigenous" Britons. The party leadership acquiesced because it wanted to save money to fight for more far-reaching kinds of racism and xenophobia.
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