After proclaiming a cease-fire, Colonel Muammar Qadhafi’s regime cynically ordered its troops to attack Benghazi, the leading rebel stronghold, in defiance of the U.N. Security Council resolution prohibiting attacks on civilians. The regime hopes to consolidate control in Libya’s second-largest city before the U.N.-backed military forces can begin counter-attacks. Once …
Multiple news outlets are reporting that Libya has declared an immediate cease-fire in response to the United Nations resolution authorizing “all necessary measures” to stop the violence. This means only one thing: the whack a mole game has officially begun. Qadhafi will now pose as the victim of foreign intervention …
The United States is the largest contributor to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). According the Congressional Research Service, “Since UNRWA’s inception in 1950, the United States has provided the agency with nearly $4 billion in contributions. U.S. contributions to UNRWA …
The United Nations has responded in several ways to the Libyan regime’s terrible acts over the past few weeks. None of those actions, including the premature referral of Libyan to the International Criminal Court, have seemingly given Muammar Qadhafi much concern. Attacks continue, people are dying, and Qadhafi remains intent …
In the midst of Congress’s roaring debate over budget cuts, Assistant Secretary of State Eric Schwartz weighed in last week to decry any talk of cutting foreign aid in a letter he titled “Human Security Is National Security.” Civilian and humanitarian foreign aid, he argued, supports our national security interests …
The Obama Administration has declared its support for the U.N.’s efforts to negotiate an arms trade treaty (ATT) that would regulate the transfer of conventional arms. This is unwise for many reasons. The following stories show just how an ATT, far from saving civilians, would actually tie the hands of democracies …
On March 18, the United Nations Human Rights Council is scheduled to consider its final report of Libya’s human rights record that was conducted under the body’s Universal Periodic Review. The first part of the human rights review of the “Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya”, conducted on November 9, …
February marks the beginning of the season of commission meetings at the United Nations in New York, where the Commission for Social Development wrapped up last week and the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) is just beginning. Delegates to the Commission for Social Development discussed the lofty goal …
As Middle Eastern and North African governments totter and fall, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has his sights set on the real crisis: getting Hollywood to produce more films on global warming. As reported in the Guardian: Ban has been on the phone to Gaddafi and other leaders in the …
Ambassador Susan Rice, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, gave the first of a series of scheduled speeches last week in Portland, Oregon. The focus of the speeches is “Why America Needs the UN” and was inspired, apparently, by congressional efforts to include U.S. payments to the U.N. among …
