Time (September 26)
“President Trump’s efforts to isolate Iran at the U.N. backfired.” “The fiery speeches against Iran,” instead, revealed the “divisions… between the U.S. and its closest allies.” Most “foreign nations have opted to defend the agreement” with Iran, “rather than join America’s outbursts against it.” In fact, Russia, China, Germany, Britain, and France agreed “to set up legal entity to circumvent U.S. sanctions.”
Tags: Allies, Backfired, Britain, China, Circumvent, France, Germany, Iran, Outburst, Russia, Sanctions, Trump, U.N., U.S.
Wall Street Journal (November 20)
“The United Nations rarely leads on human rights, so the General Assembly deserves credit for condemning North Korea on Tuesday. Its Human Rights Committee voted to endorse a report on the North’s abuses issued in February. That report uncovered stomach-turning evidence of atrocities, much of it based on eyewitness testimony.”
Tags: Abuses, Atrocities, Condemn, Eyewitnesses, General Assembly, Human rights, North Korea, U.N.
Wall Street Journal (March 17)
“Unlike most U.N. documents,” the report on human rights abuse in North Korea “demands action.” Much credit is due retired Australian judge Michael Kirby, who chaired the commission that wrote the report. By chronicling widespread abuse with “evidentiary rigor,” they created a report with “striking emotional power.”
Tags: Abuse, Australia, Human rights, Michael Kirby, North Korea, Report, U.N.
New York Times (January 15, 2014)
After three years without a case, India “can now be declared polio-free.” This “victory is an important milestone in the global effort to eliminate polio,” but much remains to be done to achieve the U.N. Millennium Development Goal of eradicating the disease by 2015, which would mean the world could be declared polio–free in 2018. Unfortunately, 2012 brought backtracking. There were 350 new cases of polio, up from 213 in 2012, and these occurred in 8 countries, up from 4.
Tags: 2012, 2015, 2018, Disease, India, Milestone, Millennium Development Goal, Polio, Polio-free, U.N., Victory
Businessweek (January 23)
Is North Korea’s cycle repeating itself? “It starts with a long-range rocket launch. The United Nations punishes the act with sanctions. And Pyongyang responds by conducting a nuclear test. It happened in 2006, and again in 2009.” Before deciding whether to complete the cycle that began with a December 2012 test, Kim Jong Un will probably wait to evaluate the emerging foreign policies of incoming South Korean President Park Geun-hye and President Obama’s second term. He may be inclined to break the cycle because ordering a nuclear test “would risk additional sanctions at a time when Kim wants to revive the economy.”
Tags: Kim Jong Un, North Korea, Nuclear test, Obama, Park Geun-hye, Rocket launch, Sanctions, South Korea, U.N.
Washington Post (December 2)
“The world’s oceans are rising 60 percent faster than the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change anticipated five years ago…. A five-foot rise would produce Sandy-like floods in New York every 15 years, on average.” The entire east coast “will have to wrestle with the question of which coastal areas are worth protecting — by raising land, lengthening beaches, heightening homes or building sea walls to keep the water out — and which aren’t.”
Tags: East coast, IPCC, Oceans, Sandy, Seal walls, U.N.
LA Times (May 21)
“The world’s war on polio” has been ambitious and has almost succeeded. Less than 100 people were paralyzed by polio, which is now found only in Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan. “But there is a looming danger.” In countries where polio is long forgotten, immunity is weak. Unless we wipe polio away from these final three countries, “a renewed outbreak could cripple as many as 1 million people within the decade, many of them children,” according to U.N. epidemiologists.
Time (July 18)
We’ve been catching about 90 million tons of fish, the last great wild food, since the mid-90s and that’s simply “not enough to keep up with global seafood consumption, which has risen from 22 lb. per person per year in the 1960s to nearly 38 lb. today.” Worse yet, the U.N. reports that already “32% of global fish stocks are overexploited” so catches may decrease. Aquaculture and fish farms “might represent the last, best chance for fish to have a future.” Aquaculture is growing “faster than any other form of food production,” and now provides over 50 million tons of fish annually. Time believes, “if we’re all going to survive and thrive in a crowded world, we’ll need to cultivate the seas just as we do the land.”
We’ve been catching about 90 million tons of fish, the last great wild food, since the mid-90s and that’s simply “not enough to keep up with global seafood consumption, which has risen from 22 lb. per person per year in the 1960s to nearly 38 lb. today.” Worse yet, the U.N. reports that already “32% of global fish stocks are overexploited” so catches may decrease. Aquaculture and fish farms “might represent the last, best chance for fish to have a future.” Aquaculture is growing “faster than any other form of food production,” and now provides over 50 million tons annually. Time believes, “if we’re all going to survive and thrive in a crowded world, we’ll need to cultivate the seas just as we do the land.”
Tags: Aquaculture, Diet, Fish, Global population, Sustainability, U.N.
New York Times (November 2)
U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon met with China’s President Hu Jintao to discuss several issues including climate change. The New York Time’s criticizes Mr. Ban for being “shamefully silent on one critical issue: China’s poor human rights record and its unjustified imprisonment of Liu Xiaobo,” who won a Nobel Peace Prize this year. Mr. Ban should hold China to its responsibilities as a signatory of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Tags: Ban Ki-moon, China, Hu Jintao, Human rights, Liu Xiaobo, U.N.
New York Times (August 29)
“If a country sinks beneath the sea, is it still a country?” No idle riddle, the Marshall Islands is consulting experts on this and other tricky questions. What nationality will their people have once the islands are under water? Who will retain the mineral and fishing rights? Will the islanders still be in the U.N.? The predicament points to the urgent need for a comprehensive energy and climate bill in the U.S.
“If a country sinks beneath the sea, is it still a country?” No idle riddle, the Marshall Islands is consulting experts on this and other tricky questions. What nationality will their people have once the islands are under water? Who will retain the mineral and fishing rights? Will the islanders still be in the U.N.? The predicament points to the urgent need for a comprehensive energy and climate bill in the U.S.
Tags: Global warming, Marshall Islands, U.N.
