One of the most interesting developments in the Security Council’s work in the past decades is the increasing frequency and immediacy of “road trips” ambassadors are taking to the most problematic places on their agenda. Recent delegations have gone on missions to Afghanistan and numerous African nations, among other places. A year-old Russian proposal for [...]
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In the Polish ghetto of Lodz, residents were not allowed to own cameras, but at least two professional photographers there, commissioned by the local Department of Statistics for the Jewish Council, documented the area’s slide, from 1940 to 1944, into near obliteration. The images by Mendel Grossman and Henryk Ross record life for the [...]
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The General Assembly overwhelmingly supported a resolution condemning the relentless “widespread and systematic” human-rights violations committed by Syrian officials and demanded that the government stop all violence and protect its people. The resolution, though not enforceable, also called on Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, to cede office to a vice president and begin negotiations to form [...]
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DAKAR, Senegal — Senegal has always been praised as the most secure country in West Africa since its independence in 1960 from France. Its capital, Dakar, perched on the western edge of the Atlantic coastline, is a city of very rich and very poor, mosques and outdoor athletic fields, hawkers and cultural aficionados. A highway [...]
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The United Nations is the place to go for people who are oppressed or neglected to discuss their problems and try to find solutions. One of the most recent special-interest groups to meet at the UN highlighted the plight of older people, who, of course, have grievances and want to be heard. “No longer is [...]
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José Graziano da Silva took up his three-year post as the new director-general of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, based in Rome, in January. The agency, which was founded in 1945, is tasked with eradicating hunger worldwide, particularly in rural areas. Graziano da Silva was the agency’s assistant director-general and regional representative for [...]
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The International Criminal Court will swear in six new judges on March 9 and elect, by absolute majority, a new president of the court and two new vice presidents. The court’s 18 judges will vote in the election, with several most likely to run for the three-year presidency themselves, though the incumbent, Judge Sang-Hyun Song [...]
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Iran was the one country to stand up in support of Syria’s procedural challenge to the right of the UN General Assembly to debate the spiraling political violence back home, and with good reason: the aggressiveness with which the Arab states along the Persian Gulf are pressing for the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad from [...]
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