• Africa

     

    Ban Ki-moon Backs Emergency Steps for Women Raped in Conflict

    by  • April 19, 2013 • Africa, Secretary-General, Uncategorized, Women's Issues • 2 Comments

    Congo women exhibition

    With the issues of emergency contraception — the “morning after” pill — and abortion still topics of tremendous controversy among United Nations members, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has recommended that both should be offered as part of an international response to the rape of women in conflict situations. Writing in his first report on the subject [...]

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    The UN Approves a New Peacekeeping Force to Fix Mali

    by  • April 25, 2013 • Africa, Peace and Security, Security Council • 

    Displaced Malians

    The United Nations Security Council has authorized a new, ambitious stabilization mission to be deployed in Mali, consisting of nearly 13,000 military and police personnel who will begin operating on July 1 with a mandate of one year to provide security to “key population centers.” The mission, called Minusma (for Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in [...]

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    A Traditional Chief Slashes Maternal Deaths in Malawi

    by  • April 18, 2013 • Africa, Health and Population, Women's Issues • 1 Comment

    Joyce Banda and Chief Kwataine of Malawi

    The heroes of safe motherhood campaigns around the world are not always women or large global aid organizations working for their interests. In a district of central Malawi, a small, very poor southern African country, Kwataine, a hereditary chief in a rural area who goes by one name, has almost single-handedly made deaths in pregnancy [...]

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    Western Sahara: A Chance for Change or to Stay Stuck in Time

    by  • April 10, 2013 • Africa, Human Rights, Peace and Security, Refugees, Security Council • 

    MINURSO Monitors Ceasefire in Western Sahara

    The saga of Western Sahara, a disputed territory that has been stuck in limbo in North Africa for decades, will receive its annual nod this month by the United Nations Security Council, but this time actual changes may be afoot if the council acts more decisively, particularly on human-rights matters. Christopher Ross, the UN secretary-general’s [...]

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    A New UN Brigade Will Make Combat Moves in Congo

    by  • April 11, 2013 • Africa, Peace and Security, Security Council • 

    Nyanzale refugee camp children

      For the first time, the United Nations Security Council has passed a resolution allowing UN troops to go on the offensive in a mission against armed rebels. The combat intervention brigade will operate as part of the UN Organization Stabilization Mission in the northeastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Monusco). The [...]

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    Notorious African Rebel Lands in International Court Hands

    by  • March 22, 2013 • Africa, Child soldiers, ICC • 2 Comments

    Bosco Ntaganda

    Bosco Ntaganda, whom the United States calls “one of the most notorious and brutal rebels in the Democratic Republic of the Congo,” has arrived at the International Criminal Court in The Hague after being transported by court officials from Rwanda. Ntaganda is a Congolese warlord who has been operating with impunity in eastern Congo on [...]

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    Signals of Greater Times Buoy Developing Nations

    by  • March 13, 2013 • Africa, Asia, Development, Health and Population, Millennium Goals, Special Report • 6 Comments

    A displaced person in Mali.

    For the developing world, the news in the 2013 United Nations Human Development Report is almost all good. (More on that “almost” later.) The title of the report, The Rise of the South: Human Progress in a Diverse World, sets the tone. New players with global clout, increased South-South trade and investment, strengthening regional institutions [...]

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    The Masterminds Behind Security Council Resolutions

    by  • March 14, 2013 • Africa, Peace and Security, Security Council, US-UN Relations • 6 Comments

    Security Council Meeting on the situation in Cyprus

    The United Nations Security Council bases its resolutions on agenda items as varied as the renewal of a peacekeeping force mandate in Haiti to responding to a missile launching in North Korea. With resolutions’ language often dense legalese that recalls, recognizes, emphasizes, demands and, at times, condemns and deplores the issue at hand, the style [...]

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