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Geopolitics

GEOPOLITICS

Europe and Others Help Fund the UN Palestinian Agency, Filling US Void

September 27, 2018 
by Stéphanie Fillion
The European Union, Germany, Norway, Ireland and Kuwait stepped in this week to donate a total of $118 million in financing to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (Unrwa), after the United States cut $304 million of its annual support to the agency for this year. …

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GEOPOLITICS

In a First, Trump Chairs the UN Security Council, but Nothing Happened

September 26, 2018 
by Kacie Candela
  President Donald Trump chaired a United Nations Security Council meeting on stopping the spread of weapons of mass destruction and seized the occasion again to lambaste Iran, which he had earlier this month intended to make the sole focus of the Sept. 26 session. Pushback came from most of the other Council members, …

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GEOPOLITICS

At the UN, Trump Declares: America Embraces ‘Patriotism’

September 25, 2018 
by Laura E. Kirkpatrick
Donald Trump, the president of the United States, arrived late for the opening day of the 73rd United Nations General Assembly on Sept. 25. His speech began on an awkward note as he elicited laughter from the world audience for boasting about his accomplishments. During his speech, he also aggressively rejected the global approach …

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GEOPOLITICS

Why Isn’t Canada’s Trudeau Speaking at the Main UN Forum This Year?

September 23, 2018 
by Stéphanie Fillion
MONTREAL — When he took office in 2015, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised, among other things, to bring Canada back as a leader on the world’s stage. “Canada is back,” he said after signing the Paris accord on climate change, in 2016. He addressed the last two United Nations General Assembly since then, but …

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GEOPOLITICS

The UN Shudders as ‘Trump Week’ Closes In

September 19, 2018 
by Barbara Crossette
A year after his bombastic debut at the United Nations as president of the United States, Donald Trump returns on Monday, Sept. 24, to lead a US effort to spur global action to stem the narcotics and opioid plagues. Could the US be asking the UN for help this time? The morning meeting on …

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GEOPOLITICS

Kashmir’s Long Tragedy Rears Its Head in the News and at the UN

September 5, 2018 
by Barbara Crossette
In his final months in office as United Nations high commissioner for human rights, the outspoken Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein did what no former holder of that office would or could do: he issued a blistering report on Indian abuses in the disputed territory of Kashmir. It is a story that Indian governments have long …

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GEOPOLITICS

Atrocity Crimes Are Being Committed by All Warring Parties in Yemen: UN Experts

August 29, 2018 
by Dulcie Leimbach
The numerous parties to the war in Yemen, which began in 2015, have perpetrated and continue to commit violations of international law by indiscriminately murdering civilians, blocking humanitarian-aid deliveries, arbitrarily detaining people and possibly torturing those imprisoned, recruiting child soldiers and raping women and men, according to a new report by a United Nations …

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GEOPOLITICS

Kofi Annan’s Path to Humanitarian Intervention

August 22, 2018 
by David L. Phillips
Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who died on Aug. 18, in Switzerland, was deeply committed to peace and the UN Charter, as well as human rights and humanitarian action. He led a debate about harmonizing these principles and rebalancing the sovereignty of countries with the rights of people within them. During his 10 years as secretary-general, …

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GEOPOLITICS

Rohingya Refugees Look to Washington and Find a Vacuum

July 30, 2018 
by Tino Calabia
This August marks a year since a military crackdown forced at least 700,000 Rohingya to flee Myanmar for Bangladesh, joining hundreds of thousands of Rohingya who had already taken refuge there, totaling 1.1 million people encamped in Cox’s Bazar, according to a Bangladesh count done this July. But you would never know from the …

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GEOPOLITICS

Richard Falk on Palestine, Israel and the UN in the Trump Age

July 24, 2018 
by Dulcie Leimbach
Richard Falk is a well-known American academic and writer who from 2008 until 2014 was the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in Palestine since 1967, a post that invariably invites controversy. For Falk, who has never been shy of taking provocative stances, the work compelled him to declare, among other things, that …

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GEOPOLITICS

Pompeo’s Visit to the UN Caps a Week of Dizzying Global Politics

July 20, 2018 
by Dulcie Leimbach
Capping a week of neck-wrenching U-turns by the president of the United States after his pro-Russia speech in Helsinki on Monday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met with the 15-member United Nations Security Council in New York on July 20 — to discuss North Korea. Pompeo and Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the …

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GEOPOLITICS

Washington to UN Refugee Agency: If You Want Our Money, Put Our Name on It

July 10, 2018 
by Stéphanie Fillion
The United States is the biggest donor to the UN Refugee Agency, and the Trump administration wants the world to know it. A new framework, or agreement, signed by the State Department and the refugee agency (UNHCR) requires it to acknowledge US contributions in most — and eventually all — of its public-information materials. …

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GEOPOLITICS

Trump’s Nominee Lost the UN Migration Agency Vote. Is It a Signal?

July 2, 2018 
by Barbara Crossette
The unexpected, decisive rejection of the Trump administration’s candidate to head the premier United Nations agency for resettling refugees and other migrants appears to be a warning. Which is that other nations are not prepared to indefinitely defer to the power of the United States when human rights and democratic values are assaulted by …

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GEOPOLITICS

In Hodeidah, the Norwegian Refugee Council Hangs On to Save Yemenis

June 20, 2018 
by Dulcie Leimbach
As the attack on Hodeidah, a major port in western Yemen on the Red Sea, moves into its second week, led by the coalition of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, the rest of the world seems to be sitting and watching the destruction. The Norwegian Refugee Council, an independent nongovernmental organization, has …

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GEOPOLITICS

The Future of the French Language Resides in Francophone Africa

June 12, 2018 
by Joe Penney
BOBIGNY, France — On March 20, French President Emmanuel Macron stood before a crowd at the prestigious Académie Française in central Paris. With his trademark confidence and fastidious affect, he made his case for French as a global, 21st-century language unburdened by the oppression associated with colonialism. “By making the language of the colonizers their own …

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