Free Republic

STORY HIGHLIGHTS - The violence spiked after Syria agreed to an Arab League plan to calm the situation - The United Nations estimates that about 5,000 people have died in Syrian violence this year - The Syrian National Council wants U.N. and Arab League action - It says nearly 250 civilians died over a two-day period

UNITED NATIONS - The U.N. Security Council expressed "grave concern" Friday at reports of arms smuggling to Lebanon, but dropped a direct call to Syria and Iran to enforce a U.N. arms embargo. Instead, the presidential statement agreed by all 15 members and read at an open council meeting underscored the obligation of all countries, "in particular in the region," to ensure that the arms embargo is not violated. The council also expressed concern at allegations that Lebanese and other groups and militias are rearming, and voiced "deep concern" about recent statements by Hezbollah "that it retains the military capacity...

Washington -- The United States has no intention of sending military forces to Somalia to remove al-Qaida-backed militants from power, a senior U.S. diplomat told reporters December 14. Jendayi Frazer, assistant secretary of state for African affairs, called on Somalia’s competing factions to open talks aimed at achieving a stable government. She also urged international follow-through on a December 6 U.N. Security Council resolution that authorizes an African peacekeeping force to protect Somalia's Transitional Federal Government. (See related article.) “That’s not a plan that we have on the table, for the U.S. government and our U.S. military to deploy to...

9 June 2006 – Employing examples drawn from the headlines and from popular culture, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan today urged a group of high school graduates in New York to use their education for the good of others, aware that their actions can reverberate across the globe. “In an interconnected world, none of us can be indifferent to, or immune from suffering,” Mr. Annan told graduates of the UN International School (UNIS) at a ceremony held in the General Assembly Hall. He emphasized that what the students undertake can profoundly impact the lives of others. “You are not in...

Iran has pumped out about seven tons of the gas it needs for uranium enrichment since it restarted the process last month, the International Atomic Energy Agency reported Friday. A former UN inspector said that would be enough for an atomic weapon. In unusually strong language, an IAEA report also said despite its investigation, questions remain about key aspects of Iran's 18 years of clandestine nuclear activity and that it still was unable "to conclude that there are no undeclared nuclear materials or activities in Iran." "Iran's full transparency is indispensable and overdue," said the confidential document obtained by The...

All of this, in short, is political smoke designed to disguise what is really a policy dispute. Mr. Bolton's opponents don't want to promote a blunt-spoken supporter of Mr. Bush's foreign policy to help reform an obviously dysfunctional United Nations. They prefer someone who'll subjugate U.S. interests to the "multilateralism" that is their, and the U.N.'s, dominant ethic. Democrats who vote against Mr. Bolton will be saying they want an Ambassador to the U.N. who represents Kofi Annan, not America.

GENEVA (Reuters) - The United Nations has warned of epidemics within days unless health systems in south and southeast Asia can cope after some 12,000 people were killed and tens of thousands left homeless by giant tsunami waves. Aid agencies round the world rushed staff, equipment and money to southern Asia after the tsunamis, triggered by a massive underwater earthquake, pummelled coastal communities in at least six countries on Sunday. "This may be the worst national disaster in recent history because it is affecting so many heavily populated coastal areas ... so many vulnerable communities," the U.N.'s Emergency Relief Coordinator...

"As Shoshana Bryen of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs noted recently, the Arabs and Iranians instead cynically insist that Israel must first find — and pay — a price acceptable to the Palestinians. They do so knowing full well that none among the latter could make peace with the Jewish state, even if they wanted to, so long as the region's principal nations refuse to do so. These nations' totalitarian regimes offer the same excuse to justify staving off domestic and foreign calls to engage in long-overdue political and economic liberalization. ..."Then there is the United Nations. The...

Genocide out of control yet still the UN refuses to act GETHIN CHAMBERLAIN Key points • 35,000 die since UN first warned Sudanese government over its genocidal policy • Situation in Darfur 'spiralling out of control' • Critics say UN has failed to grasp urgency of situation in Darfur Key quote "Unless the Security Council backs up its earlier ultimatums with strong action, ethnic cleansing in Darfur will be consolidated. And hundreds of UN personnel will be on the ground helplessly watching as it happens." - Peter Takirambudde of Human Rights Watch’s Africa division Story in full THE price of...