Asia

• December 23, 2019

This year was a big one for China, and 2020 is likely to be much the same — if not more intense, given the range of issues involving the United States and far beyond. For our last episode of the year, UN-Scripted looks at how China’s rise internationally is reflected at the United Nations. …

Africa, Asia, Geopolitics, Security Council, UN Special Envoys

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WORLDVIEWS

Myanmar’s Neighbors Must Build Trust Among Rohingya Refugees

Noeleen Heyzer

• November 10, 2019

At the 33d summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Singapore last year, the issue of Myanmar’s Rakhine/Rohingya crisis was high on the agenda. The chairman’s closing statement expressed the group’s readiness to support Myanmar in repatriating refugees by conducting a needs-assessment overview in Rakhine State. The Muslim Rohingya had fled ethnic …

Asia, Refugees, WORLDVIEWS

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Hillary Clinton on Trump’s Foreign Policy: It’s All About Waiting for His Next Tweet

Dulcie Leimbach

• October 16, 2019

Hillary Clinton glided onto a stage in Manhattan with the luxury of now being a cool-eyed outsider who can sharply question foreign policy decisions being made by the Trump administration on such controversial places as China, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan. Clinton was the keynote speaker at the Carnegie Corporation of New York’s daylong …

Asia, Human Rights, US Foreign Relations

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Kashmir May Be an Old Crisis at the UN, but the World Is Now Riveted

Barbara Crossette

• August 19, 2019

A familiar refrain often heard when the burgeoning crisis in Kashmir rises to the top of the news is that this is an old story from long ago; we have moved on. The United Nations is discovering, however, that there is less tolerance for indifference since India’s decrees on Aug. 5-6 to singlehandedly remake …

Asia, Secretary-General, Security Council

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Kashmiri Muslims in Danger as Hindu Politicians Cancel Their Rights

Barbara Crossette

• August 9, 2019

It has always been relatively easy for Indian governments from both the political left and right to keep Kashmir from the eyes of the world. At no time has this been more obvious than now. Landlocked, under the guns of half a million Indian troops and paramilitaries, cut off sporadically from all modern communications …

Asia, Secretary-General, Security Council

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Pompeo Retreats on Universal Human Rights as US Looks More Inward

Barbara Crossette

• June 4, 2019

In an audacious move that could be the capstone of the Trump administration’s campaign to reverse decades of American support for human rights globally, the State Department is creating a separate new commission to advise Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on redefining United States policies, aligned with “natural law and natural rights.” For many …

Africa, Asia, Gender Violence, Human Rights, US Foreign Relations

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TOPIC: WOMEN

Wazhma Frogh Wants Women in the Afghan Peace Talks Now

Maria Luisa Gambale

• May 13, 2019

Wazhma Frogh is a lifetime campaigner for Afghan women and girls. She co-founded the Women and Peace Studies Organization in Afghanistan in 2011 and is a member of the Afghan Women’s Network. In 2009, the United States State Department granted her the International Women of Courage Award. Frogh recently spoke with PassBlue through a …

Asia, Gender Violence, US Foreign Relations, Women

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A New OPCW Team Is Ready to Find the Culprits Behind Chemical Attacks in Syria

Johannes Visser

• May 6, 2019

THE HAGUE — The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons is inching closer in trying to determine who instigated the various chemical attacks in Syria last year. In April 2018, gas cylinders filled with chlorine were dropped from a helicopter in the residential areas of Douma, outside the capital of Damascus. At least …

Asia, Disarmament, Security Council

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SECURITY COUNCIL PRESIDENCY

The UN Security Council’s New President: An Indonesian Economist and ‘Peace Broker’

Stéphanie Fillion

• May 2, 2019

Indonesia, the world’s fourth-most populous country, just held what its top United Nations ambassador, Dian Triansyah Djani, calls the “world’s largest election ever held” for a presidency in such a short period of time. While ballots are still being counted and the next government prepares to take shape in May, Indonesia’s work at the …

Asia, Security Council Presidency

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TAKE A LOOK

Indians Ask Why 21 Million Women Are Not on Voter Rolls

Barbara Crossette

• March 20, 2019

Every national election in India is numerically mind-boggling, and this year is no exception. More than 800 million registered voters are expected to participate in an election spanning 39 days from April 11 to May 19. In this huge exercise in democracy, simultaneously organized at national and state levels, the government’s election commission has …

Asia, Gender Violence, Take a Look

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GEOPOLITICS

Afghan Migrants Flee Iran as US Sanctions Damage Iran’s Economy

Sonah Lee-Lassiter

• February 18, 2019

After fleeing violence and unemployment in their home country for the relative stability of neighboring Iran, hundreds of thousands of undocumented Afghans are now returning home. The mass reverse migration is taking place just as the United States, eager to withdraw from Afghanistan, holds its most concerted peace talks with the Taliban in years. …

Asia, Geopolitics, Migration, Terrorism, US Foreign Relations

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Where Is the Worst Place for a Child to Be Born?

Kacie Candela

• December 24, 2018

By one measure — the chances of surviving to young adulthood — sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia have the highest rates of child deaths at every stage of childhood. By contrast, the best place to be born this year was Australia or New Zealand, where only two of every 1,000 babies die in their …

Africa, Asia, Health and Population, Poverty

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Climate Talks Bypass the Poorest, Who Endure Polluted Homes

Barbara Crossette

• December 18, 2018

Today and every day around the world, in bleak rural villages and the poorest urban neighborhoods, millions of people are igniting small fires to cook their meager meals, brighten dark homes or scare away intruders at night. The number of people using small fires is not small. Climate scientists estimate that three billion people …

Africa, Asia, Climate Change

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WORLDVIEWS

With US Leadership Gone, Japan and Europe Can Seize the Day

Yasuhiro Ueki

• November 15, 2018

We live in an age of uncertainty caused by the shifting structure and dynamics of international politics, economics and social change. United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said in his address to the General Assembly in September that this uncertainty was “a bad case of trust deficit disorder” at three levels. First, within countries, he …

Asia, Disarmament, Security Council, WORLDVIEWS

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TOPIC: WOMEN

In Cambodia’s Single-Party Politics, Women Are Barely Seen

Johanna Higgs

• October 23, 2018

KAMPOT, Cambodia — Chan Kanha is the deputy mayor for the Cambodian People’s Party in this small port town, which sits along Cambodia’s southern coast and still retains much of its French colonial architecture. The Cambodian People’s Party, or CCP, is led by Prime Minister Hun Sen, who has run the country for the …