UN’s overall financial situation ‘mixed,’ top official reports

The current financial picture of the United Nations is mixed, a top official reported today, as she urged Member States to ensure that the Organization remains on solid footing.

UN’s Ivorian operation takes steps to resolve status of millions of voters missing from list

The United Nations top envoy to the Côte d’Ivoire is slated to hold a series of meetings next week in a bid to jump-start a critical step threatening to disrupt the nation’s much-delayed presidential elections, scheduled for late next month.

A new NIE on Iran? It’s about time….

“It’s about time.” I chose those words carefully. For years now, Iran has been playing the world for time, and playing it very well. Iran’s foreign policy has focused on delaying the imposition of effective sanctions over its nuclear research and development program, which most analysts (me included) believe is nothing but a cover for a nuclear weapons development effort.

The Iranians have been remarkably successful in blunting and avoiding the type of sanctions that might actually work. They have done this by agreeing to talk, attending preliminary meetings and promising cooperation, combined with deeper ties with UN Security Council permanent members Russia and China. Since either of these countries can veto any Security Council action, close ties to one of the other makes the chances of the adoption of any meaningful sanctions protocol remote at best. (See an article I wrote in July, Iran’s Foreign Policy Success.

A review of today’s AIPAC Daily News Digest, published by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee - not Political Action Committee as some have charged - is illustrative of that successful Iranian foreign policy. Five of the six lead stories deal with this issue:

• 1. U.S. Considers a New Assessment of Iran Threat
• 2. U.S. Congress sends Obama Iran sanctions bill
• 4. Iranian go-slow dims deal chances at Vienna atom talks
• 5. China’s links to Iran a snag for sanctions
• 6. A Hitch in Iran’s Nuclear Plans?

Now the Obama Administration is considering a “re-do” of the ludicrous 2007 National Intelligence Estimate - Iran: Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities. That document assessed that Iran halted its nuclear weapons effort in 2003 and had not re-started it by mid-2007. The idea is so preposterous that not only have the intelligence services of our allies - Britain, France, Germany and Israel - publicly criticized it, so too did both candidates in the 2008 U.S. Presidential race.

Please re-do the NIE - it’s about time. However, we need to make sure that the NIE is in fact a real estimate of the intelligence community, not a politically-inspired tool to boost the Administration’s fantasy that diplomacy - that means a sanctions protocol - is going to be effective.

UN aid officials voice concern about Angolan refugees in DR Congo

United Nations humanitarian officials today voiced concerns for the health and living conditions of tens of thousands of Angolan refugees in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) as the two countries engage in retaliatory expulsions of each other’s citizens.

Stricken by drought, the Horn of Africa readies for expected flooding - UN

Already in the midst of one of the worst droughts in a decade, countries in the Horn of Africa are bracing for potentially devastating flooding triggered by El Niño weather patterns, the top United Nations humanitarian official warned today.

UN helps southern Sudan clean up disease-causing waste

Some 16,000 volunteers will take to the streets of Juba, the capital of southern Sudan, next month in a United Nations programme to tackle health hazards caused by public dumping of waste in a rapidly growing metropolitan area that has endured repeated fatal outbreaks of cholera, water-borne diseases and malaria.

Thousands of Iraqi refugees still waiting for resettlement, UN agency says

The United Nations refugee agency has referred more than 80,000 Iraqis to resettlement countries worldwide, with the vast majority of them going to the United States, but so far fewer than half have left for their new homes, a spokesman said today.

Real prospect of ending fighting in eastern DR Congo, says top UN envoy

The top United Nations envoy to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) today voiced optimism that calm could soon return to the country’s volatile eastern region, while noting that a number of challenges still remain.

UN reveals five winners of its ‘Citizen Ambassador’ video contest

“Every day I want you to wake up and know that you work for 6.7 billion real people, one person at a time. People with children, and dreams, and stories.”

Ban unveils plan for international inquiry into violent crackdown in Guinea

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced today that he will set up an international commission of inquiry to probe last month’s violent crackdown on unarmed demonstrators in Guinea that led to the deaths of at least 150 people and the rape of many others.