Selected summary of United Nations related news and events
Annan has taken quick steps in response to Oil-for-Food findings
UN Steps up Aid to US in Wake of Hurricane Katrina
High Stakes in New York - the Point of No Return
Virus Ravaging India's Poor Stirs Call for Counterattack
UN Agencies Team up to Promote Eco-friendly,
Development-oriented Tourism
Eight Ways to Change the World
A sampling of United Nations related blog commentary
El Canche: "By the time you have finished reading this sentence a child, somewhere in the world, will have died as a direct result of poverty. That frightening fact is just one of many contained in the 2005 Human Development Report , presented to world leaders today by the United Nations Development Program. The timing of the report is crucial as next week the heads of state of 175 countries will gather at the United Nations in NY to discuss the urgent and ambitious Millennium Development Goals."
Silent Nation: "Parts of America as poor as Third World - And now there is a UN report to back it up. Sure to be trounced by the US elites, but the findings ring very true for those that have actually studied the issue in detail."
Agonist: "The Independent - Parts of the United States are as poor as the Third World, according to a shocking United Nations report on global inequality. Claims that the New Orleans floods have laid bare a growing racial and economic divide in the US have, until now, been rejected by the American political establishment as emotional rhetoric. But yesterday's UN report provides statistical proof that for many - well beyond those affected by the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina - the great American Dream is an ongoing nightmare."
Political Animal: "The final report of the commission investigating the UN's Oil For Food program is over a thousand pages long, but Abu Aardvark has condensed it to eight bullets and a few hundred words. If you want to know enough to hold your own in cocktail party chatter, head over and check it out."
Chuck Currie: "World leaders will gather next week in New York City to mark the 60th anniversary of the United Nations. A joint statement will be issued at the event and many of the world's leaders are arguing that the statement should commit most nations to the goal of spending 0.7 percent of their gross national product on aid to developing nations and referencing the UN Millennium Development goals that include halving world poverty by 2015."
Democracy Arsenal: "Two weeks ago a senior US official reassured me that the UN reform talks would reach an agreement in time for next week's summit, but that there would be tough bargaining along the way. "It's going to get ugly," the official warned. And ugly it has gotten."
Washington-"Today marks a turning point from focusing on the problems of the Oil-for-Food Program (OFFP) to moving ahead with UN reform. The exhaustive Independent Inquiry Committee's (IIC) report tells us both what went right and wrong with the program. Clearly, the UN made mistakes in the operation of the OFFP. The organization will learn from these lessons and by implementing recommendations offered by the IIC, as it has already begun to do, help ensure that these problems are not repeated in the future." [Read More]
Just a reminder that you can get the latest on the Oil-for-Food inquiry at oilforfoodfacts.org
Selected summary of United Nations related news and events
Students ask about Iraq, United Nations and Katrina
Security Council receives inquiry report on Iraq oil-for-food programme
Katrina's Global Lessons
Life 'worse for world's poorest'
Time for a "Decisive Breakthrough", UN Urges
Blair calls for UN Terror Stand
UN News Service: "The United Nations has mobilized three inter-agency teams to aid the United States' recovery from Hurricane Katrina and further deployments may occur within the next few days, UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said today.
The teams span the whole gamut of UN humanitarian activities from food and health to refugees and children and have been assembled following the US acceptance of help from the world body in the face of the enormous devastation caused by the hurricane."
A sampling of United Nations related blog commentary
Opinio Juris: "U.S. Secretary of State Rice has made a point of publicly thanking foreign countries for their contributions to the Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. Here is an excerpt from her news conference: "The United Nations has mobilized their disaster experts. I want to thank Secretary General Kofi Annan for that. Their people are sitting with our people in Washington to plan out UN support."
Chez Nadezhda: "Brian Ulrich makes a very good point in a post at Liberals Against Terrorism about the urban myths that the rest of the world has given the US the cold shoulder. People who should know better are simply making stuff up! The rest of the world is in fact horrified, and offers of official assistance are coming from all over -- as well as charitable contributions. And then there's everybody's favorite whipping-boy, the UN, which has of course offered help -- and they actually know a lot about how to deliver humanitarian assistance in the wake of disasters."
Chrenkoff: Good News from Afghanistan, part 16 - Ahead of winter, the United Nations is starting food distribution: "The United Nations announced launching of food distribution among half a million poor Afghans ahead of the winter season."
Coalition for Darfur: "From Amnesty International and others: "Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Oxfam International call on a small number of "spoiler" countries to stop holding the UN World Summit hostage over crucial measures on human rights, security, genocide and poverty reduction. These governments have thrown negotiations on the final outcome text into crisis just days away from the biggest meeting of world leaders in history, September 14-16 in New York."
Democracy Arsenal (David Shorr): "I encourage readers to check out the Stanley Foundation's web pages on UN reform; we have been tracking these issues ever since Kofi Annan launched the current push for reform in late 2003."
GraBlog: "The coverage about Hurricane Katrina and the disastrous response - or to say better - initial lack of it and slow start stirred up even conservative politicians and media [...] According to many people involved, like New Orleans Major Ray Nagin, the US government is moving far too slow, but a long list of countries all over the world, even Cuba, which has not the best relations to the US, offered help, countries like Sri Lanka, Jamaica and Afghanistan(!), which are not among the well-off themselves, offered help, immediate neighbors like Canada and Mexico as well as the United Nations and Europe, OAS and WHO, China, Japan, India and South Korea are offering all kinds of help."
Alertnet: "The U.S.-led invasion of Iraq has turned the country into a new hub of terrorism worse than Afghanistan under Taliban, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said on Monday."
"The United Nations announced today that the United States Government has accepted the world body's offer of help in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
A small UN Coordination team is in Washington now consulting with government officials on how the UN can best complement the US's own emergency efforts." [Full story]