This Week @UN: The “lies” of the Abraham Accords; Colombia spotlights the Mideast; 5 new Security Council members; reform without women won’t work.
Plus: Cindy McCain retires; China’s peacekeeping dues; peacekeeper killed in Lebanon; Bangladesh wins General Assembly presidency; protesters against the UN in Libya.
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• Our #1 story: The New UN-Backed Anti-Gang Force Is Finally Arriving in Haiti as Violence Surges, by Arshi Qureshi (with a video)
PassBlue reporting this week:
• The Abraham Accords: Obstacles to Peace in the Middle East, op-ed by Mona Ali Khalil
• Colombia Looks Past Regional Problems to Spotlight the Conflicts in the Mideast, by Damilola Banjo
• Five New Countries Elected to the UN Security Council’s 2027-28 Term, by Damilola Banjo
• UN Reform Without Women Is Not Reform at All, op-ed by Sanam Naraghi Anderlini
Top UN news:
Monday, June 1
• Spokesperson’s briefing: Secretary-General António Guterres expressed his “deep appreciation” for Cindy McCain, an American, who retired as executive director today at the World Food Program (WFP), which became “leaner, […] faster, […], and more agile in responding to global challenges” under her leadership, he said. Sweden’s Carl Skau, the WFP’s former executive director and chief operating officer, is stepping in as acting director at a “critical moment, when more than 360 million people worldwide face acute food insecurity.” PassBlue’s reporting on McCain; on US nominee for WFP Luke Lindberg.
• New details on the secretary-general selection process, per May 29 letter from China’s Fu Cong, Council president in May, to the president of the General Assembly, Annalena Baerbock, including when candidates can hold informal dialogues with the Council (“after the issuance of this letter”) and schedule of Council straw polls, July 24-30.
• US-UN Tracker: ILO pulls recent appointment of US deputy chief, Sheng Li, over unpaid US dues, Reuters reported. The Geneva-based UN agency is led by Gilbert Houngbo, a former prime minister of Togo.
• Dujarric’s office clarified information regarding China’s recent dues payment to the UN: A payment of $844 million was made for China’s peacekeeping dues for the fiscal year 2025/26, which ends June 30. Regarding the UN’s regular budget, China has paid $153 million for 2026 but still owes about $429 million. “We expect this amount to be paid in full before the end of the year,” the office said in an email to PassBlue. In comparison, the US has paid only $159 million of its assessed dues to the UN regular budget this year, leaving a gap of several billion dollars in arrears.
• Guterres’s three proposals, as requested by the Security Council, for continued support of UN Security Council Resolution 1701 after the withdrawal of the UNIFIL peacekeeping mission in South Lebanon in December 2026. The Lebanese government has asked for the UN to “keep a presence” of 300 unarmed military observers in the region (who will need military protection), Jean-Pierre Lacroix, UN peacekeeping chief, told reporters on June 5. “Lebanon will need a lot of international support” beyond a potential UN presence post-UNIFIL, he added, noting that it was too early to tell which peackeeping contingents will stay on in the future plan, once it is approved by the Council.
Tuesday, June 2
• Spokesperson’s briefing: Elaboring on the General Assembly’s election of Khalilur Rahman of Bangladesh as president of the 81st session by simple majority, winning 99 votes (Andreas Kakouris of Cyprus received 91 votes), Dujarric said that Guterres noted that Rahman’s campaign theme of “Restoring Trust, Managing Transformation: A United Nations that Delivers for All” is an “inspiring call to action for the multilateral system.” Guterres also praised Annalena Baerbock, the current Assembly president and a German, for her “outstanding leadership,” adding that she “pushed Member States forward on the implementation of the Pact for the Future and had organized interactive dialogues with the candidates for the next Secretary-General.” (Her term ends Sept. 7.)
• We asked Dujarric for more details on the joint process led by Guterres and Qu Dongyu, head of the Food and Agricultural Organization, to select the next World Food Program boss, now led by an acting executive. “So there’s consultations between the Secretary-General and the Director-General of the FAO,” Dujarric said. “Obviously, prior to them talking, there’s consultations done by their offices and it’s jointly named.” As for a timeline, the process is “getting underway.”
• These countries were elected as vice presidents for the 81st session: Afghanistan, Antigua and Barbuda, Cabo Verde, China, Dominican Republic, Egypt, Eritrea, Finland, France, Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Iraq, Ireland, Lebanon, Mongolia, Paraguay, Poland, Russia, UK, US and Zimbabwe. Of these, the following have NOT paid their annual dues in full to the UN regular budget: Afghanistan, China, Egypt, Eritrea, Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Iraq, Lebanon, Paraguay, US and Zimbabwe (which also was elected to the Security Council on June 3).
Thursday, June 4
• Spokesperson’s briefing: In South Lebanon, a peacekeeper was killed, totaling seven deaths this year: Sgt. Milovan Jovanovic from Serbia’s mechanized battalion died today from injuries sustained in a mortar shell attack that also injured two peacekeepers near the town of Marjayoun. (They are being treated at a UNIFIL medical center.) The Serbian leaves behind a wife and two children as he was “fulfilling his duty in the service of peace” in his first deployment for the UN. He is the seventh UNIFIL peacekeeper killed since March 2, when fighting was renewed between Israel and Hezbollah, despite a ceasefire. Although the UN mission will “thoroughly” investigate Jovanovic’s death, his position is believed to have been struck by “indirect fire coming from north of the Litani River.”
[Update, June 5]: Dujarric said that UNIFIL peacekeepers “continue to observe intensive Israel Defense Forces (IDF) activity across UNIFIL’s area of operations, including sustained airstrikes and helicopter fire in both sectors, that is East and West.” On June 4, peacekeepers reported a total of 773 firing incidents originating from IDF positions south of the Blue Line within the area of operations. In addition, 15 trajectories of projectiles were detected from north to south, and one crossing the Blue Line, while ground forces observed 29 projectile interceptions by Israel in that area. Peacekeepers also observed IDF personnel and vehicles establishing two roadblocks near a UNIFIL position in Sector West.
• New members of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), the UN’s main body coordinating the organization’s work on sustainable development and economic issues.
Friday, June 5
• Spokesperson’s briefing: Dujarric said the UN is “deeply concerned” by protests against undocumented refugees and immigrants outside the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) headquarters in Tripoli, Libya, on June 4. He said the protests were rooted in “the spread of misinformation and disinformation” regarding the UN’s work in the country and “strongly condemns any attack or threat against its personnel or premises.” He added that the UNHCR “works closely” with Libyan authorities to aid people “fleeing war and persecution, and in need of international protection,” including “solutions with third countries,” such as resettlement and voluntary returns.
ICYMI:
West Bank: This Isn’t About a Few ‘Bad Apples.’ Israel Is Annexing the West Bank, essay
Labor rights: ILO Closes In on Setting Global Ground Rules for Gig Economy, news article
Strait of Hormuz: Strait of Hormuz Disruptions Burden Oil Price Shocks, Vulnerable Economies, UN report
US: UN Member States Briefing on Cuba, UN video
US: DOGE Planned to Falsely Mark 27 Million People Dead, Whistleblower Says, news article
US: Everyone Is Waiting for Trump’s Gaza Plan to Die, news article
Ebola: The Ebola Outbreak Is Outpacing the Response Because We Are Fighting the Wrong Battle, op-ed
UN: The Next Secretary-General’s First Decision: Who Runs the 38th Floor?, analysis; Secretary-General Candidates Come to London, NGO event
UN: Thriving and Surviving in the UN System, Substack post
Russia: Russia Intensifies Lawfare Against the West to Justify More Aggressive Activities, Latvian government report
Women: Advancing Women’s Rights and Gender Equality: The Fifteenth Anniversary of the Working Group on Discrimination against Women and Girls, OHCHR publication/video
Dulcie Leimbach is a co-founder, with Barbara Crossette, of PassBlue. For PassBlue and other publications, Leimbach has reported from New York and overseas from West Africa (Burkina Faso and Mali) and from Europe (Scotland, Sicily, Vienna, Budapest, Kyiv, Armenia, Iceland, The Hague and Cyprus). She has provided commentary on the UN for BBC World Radio, ARD German TV and Radio, NHK’s English channel, Background Briefing with Ian Masters/KPFK Radio in Los Angeles and the Foreign Press Association.
Previously, she was an editor for the Coalition for the UN Convention Against Corruption; from 2008 to 2011, she was the publications director of the United Nations Association of the USA. Before UNA, Leimbach was an editor at The New York Times for more than 20 years. She began her reporting career in small-town papers in San Diego, Calif., and graduating to the Rocky Mountain News in Denver. Leimbach has been a fellow at the CUNY Graduate Center’s Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies as well as at Yaddo, the artists’ colony in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.; taught news reporting at Hofstra University; and guest-lectured at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and the CUNY Journalism School. She graduated from the University of Colorado and has an M.F.A. in writing from Warren Wilson College in North Carolina. She lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.
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What is the point of US being on the ECOSOC when in Jan 2026 it withdraw from 4 reg coms and is not paying its dues?