“We’re concerned because diarrhoeal diseases are a major killer of children,” Edward Carwardine, UNICEF senior communications officer, said. “Forty percent of the collected stool specimens tested positive for cholera – all the more reason to accelerate our response.
“South Darfur has been a particular cause of concern, with five new suspected cases reported on 10 August and 13 on 11 August,” he added. Since April, 701 cases had been reported in South Darfur alone.” [More]
On the Dianne Rehm show, a frequent UN critic, the American Enterprise Institute’s Joshua Muravchik, admitted that if the Israeli-Hezbollah cease fire holds, the United Nations will have played a useful role in resolving this conflict. At this point, however, the success of the ceasefire is largely beyond the United Nations’ control.The linchpin that will determine the outcome of this weekend’s frantic diplomacy is the deployment of the 15,000 strong international force that the Security Council summoned to beef up Unifil. But as Suzanne Nossel writes in Democracy Arsenal there is reason to believe that these troops might not arrive in the region anytime soon.
Says Nossel, “There is no agreement on when the 15,000-strong international force will be deployed, nor who will lead it. France, Italy, Turkey and others have said they’ll contribute troops. The UN, largely for reasons outside the organization’s direct control, is notoriously slow in getting peacekeepers out into the field. Having witnessed the US’s experience in Lebanon in 1982 and in Iraq, other governments will naturally hesitate.”
Israel has said it will remain in southern Lebanon until international troops arrive. Meanwhile, Hezbollah has pledged to stop its rocket attacks on Israel, but still considers IDF soldiers in Lebanon to be legitimate targets.
This is a recipe for a very tenuous cease-fire. The rapidity with which 15,000 international troops can be deployed to southern Lebanon will likely determine whether or not it holds. And as there is no such thing as a stand-by UN peacekeeping force, this is something that only national governments, not the United Nations as a whole, can make happen.
“Lebanese, Israeli and U.N. officers met on the border to discuss the withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon and the deployment of the Lebanese army in the region, U.N. spokesman Milos Strugar said.
The meeting, the first involving a Lebanese army officer and a counterpart from the Israeli army since Israeli forces withdrew from Lebanon in 2000, marks the first step in the process of military disengagement as demanded by a U.N. Security Council resolution.” [Full story]
Washington Post: “The Israeli cabinet voted Sunday to accept a U.N.-declared cease-fire, even as Israeli military forces and Hezbollah fighters in southern Lebanon launched some of their most intense barrages of the war in anticipation of the Monday morning deadline. The Lebanese government and Hezbollah agreed to the cease-fire Saturday.”
AP: “The U.N. Security Council adopted a resolution Friday that calls for an end to the war between Israel and Hezbollah, and authorizes 15,000 U.N. peacekeepers to help Lebanese troops take control of south Lebanon as Israel withdraws…. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert endorsed the resolution late Friday, after a day of brinksmanship including a threat to expand the ground war.”
“Most young people are unaware” of the world’s water crisis, but if they knew about the “staggering numbers” of people affected by lack of clean water, they would be moved to act, Def Jam President and CEO Jay-Z said at United Nations Headquarters in New York on Wednesday.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan welcomed the help of the internationally known recording star and MTV President Christina Norman in raising public awareness of water scarcity through a new global initiative. LINK
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.
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.”
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.
