Today’s map comes from the US State Department.
What this map does not show is how horribly under-funded the humanitarian response has been. Humanitarian agencies need $1.5 billion through June to care for the basic needs of people affected by this conflict. To date, they have received $527 million, or only one third of the requirement.
The needs are immense–and getting greater by the day — but the funding is running dry.
Top stories from DAWNS Digest
Many Children Reportedly Killed in US Airstrike in Afghanistan
Ten Afghan children died as the result of an airstrike intended to hit a Taliban commander. “The attack occurred Saturday during a joint mission of Afghan and American Special Operations forces that were targeting a high-profile Taliban commander in Kunar Province, Afghan officials said. After several hours of fierce fighting with insurgents, the American forces called in an airstrike to level the home of the commander, Ali Khan, officials said. In addition to killing Mr. Khan and about four other Taliban fighters, at least 10 children died in the strike, and at least 5 women were wounded.” (NYTmes http://nyti.ms/ZgM40E)
Dengue Fever: Much Worse than WHO Thought
A new global estimate of dengue cases finds three times as many as WHO estimates.“The new finding, based on several years of analysis, underscores the growing burden of the mosquito-borne viral disease, which is also called ‘breakbone fever’ because of the severe pain it can cause. There is as yet no approved vaccine or specific drug to treat dengue, which is not normally fatal but lands many victims in hospital. Researchers from the University of Oxford and the Wellcome Trust presented their results, along with a detailed map of dengue distribution, in the journal Nature.” (AlertNet href=”http://dawnsdigest.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=c7684b3c158b2913a3b143158&id=9889714552&e=66e2f45cbf” target=”_blank”>http://bit.ly/16GFgjb
Today marks the official 1,000 day countdown to the due date of the Millennium Development Goals. Several MDG enthusiasts and supporters around the world are marking today’s final sprint to the finish with a day of social media action to mobilize for one final push to acheieve the MGDs, which are due to expire in 2015.
I caught up with the economist Jeffrey Sachs of the Earth Institute at Columbia University who was one of the intellectual forefathers of the MDGs and a key UN adviser on development issues. We spoke about why some goals have been achieved and some not; why China is a key force for development in many of the places most farthest from reaching the goals; and what set of international development targets should take the place of the MDGs once it expires?
We get a little wonky, but I think you will appreciate the conversation. It’s a good one.
Top stories from DAWNS Digest.
War on Hunger Still Marches On
We are beginning to see a lot more dialogue and rhetoric from major organizations as the deadline for the Millenium Development Goals draws near and the international community considers future directions. “National leadership and action are crucial and governments have the primary responsibility for assuring the food security of their citizens, FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva today told a high-level meeting on the UN’s vision for a post-2015 strategy against world hunger.” (FAO)
UN Food Aid Finally Enters Sudan’s Blue Nile State
After over a year of shamefully preventing humanitarian assistance from reaching an area populated by an ethnic group hostile to the regime in Khartoum, Sudanese authorities have finally relented. “The United Nations World Food Programme has started providing urgently-needed food assistance to the conflict-affected people in Blue Nile state. This is the first time that the agency has distributed food assistance since the conflict broke out in September 2011, forcing thousands to flee their homes, many of them crossing into neighbouring Ethiopia and South Sudan.” (WFP http://bit.ly/YW0Huc)
North Korea has grabbed the media’s attention this week with a series of increasingly hostile statements and maneuvers. This is not exactly new behavior from Pyongyang, but I caught up with Ambassador Chris Hill, formerly the lead US negotiator on North Korea and currently dean of the Korbell School of International Studies at the University of Denver, to get a better sense of why these new provocations seem to be a bit more, well, provocative than usual.
So why is North Korea engaging in this behavior? What animates decision making in Pyongyang? And is this latest round of provocations anything to be particularly worried about? He answers these questions and more.
Have a listen
Programming note: Check back tomorrow for a podcast with Jeffrey Sachs to coincide with a day of social media action on the Millennium Development Goals.
Jesse Helms must be turning over in his grave.
As ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda looked on, the US Ambassador at Large for War Crimes Stephen Rapp announced yesterday a new American initiative to offer up to $5 million of US taxpayer money for information leading to the arrest of four individuals wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes. One of those four includes the notorious Joseph Kony.
Helms was a US Senator and longtime leader of the Senate Foriegn Relations committee who stridently opposed the ICC in late 1990s and early 2000s as the court came into being. He crafted anti-ICC legislation in 2002 called the American Service Members Protection Act, which prevented the US government with cooperating with the ICC in any way. The legislation was so intense in its hostility to the ICC it contained a clause authorizing the president to use “all means necessary and appropriate to bring about the release of any US or allied personnel being detained or imprisoned by, on behalf of, or at the request of the International Criminal Court”. That provision earned it the moniker of the “Hague Invasion Act.”
It was a piece of legislation that reflected Helms’ spiteful regard for international institutions. For the next 3 years, Helms acolyte John Bolton made it his solemn duty as under secretary of state for arms control and international security to use American power and prestige to undermine the young court at every turn. Bolton lead the Bush administration’s efforts to secure so-called bi-lateral immunity agreements with American allies who were members of the ICC. If the US ally refused to sign these agreements with the USA, the Bush administration would withhold military or economic aid to the county. This forced governments to chose between their moral and political committments to the ICC and their ally, the USA.
This lead to some terribly absurd scenarios. For example, as I reported at the time Latvia–a card carrying member of Bush’s coalition of the willing — had its US military aid suspended for a time because it refused to sign one of these agreements.
It was stupid policy, but the ICC clearly survived this onslaught and eventually began to prove its worth. In 2005, the Bush administration made a fateful decision not to veto a Security Council resolution authorizing the ICC to investigate war crimes in Darfur. That signaled a big shift away from a policy of actively undermining the ICC to learning how to live with it.
The USA under president Obama is now deep in a new phase of its relationship with the ICC. Two years ago, the USA pressed for the ICC to investigate Muammar Ghaddafi and secured the necessary Security Council votes to make it happen; just last week a fugitive wanted by the ICC turned himself in to the US Embassy in Kigali, Rwanda, and was promptly handed over to the Hague; and now we have the US Rewards for Justice Program being used to send war criminals to prison in the Hague.
The USA is finally using taxpayer dollars to put people in the Hague, not keep them out.
It will probably be many, many years before the US Senate ratifies the ICC treaty and makes the USA a full fledged member. But the Obama administration seems to have figured out how to advance interests shared between the ICC and the US State Department. That’s progress.
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.
