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.”