When the White House sent its proposed 2018 budget to the United States Congress on May 23, it was apparent that not only would a hawkish, nationalistic focus on military expenditures come at the cost of international aid and support for the United Nations. Worse, the Trump plan would also sideline discussions on global issues, … Read more
Amid the predominantly Francophone region in West Africa is tiny Spanish-speaking Equatorial Guinea, a country blessed — or cursed — with vast oil reserves. For most of its independent life, the country has been ruled by President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, who has the distinction of being the longest-serving nonroyal head of state in the … Read more
A board of inquiry looking into major gaps or flaws in United Nations security policies that might have contributed to the murders of two UN experts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo was set up May 1, according to documents not released to the public yet. The board is to travel to the Congo … Read more
Who is Paolo Zampolli and what does he want from the United Nations? A friend of Donald Trump’s for decades, Zampolli is an ambassador of Dominica to the UN. He has a busy Twitter page, Facebook page and Instagram account, where he posts photos of himself and his wife, Amanda Ungaro, a model from Brazil who … Read more
Speaking to the United Nations Security Council at a meeting on North Korea held at the foreign-minister level, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson asked member countries to join the United States in a strong campaign to enhance pressures on the Kim Jong Un regime, whose rapidly developing nuclear and missile programs have reached dangerous levels. The … Read more
Although Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pledged in a splashy way right after his 2015 election to “renew Canada’s commitment to United Nations peace operations,” the country’s contribution to peacekeeping remains at an all-time low. Since Trudeau’s seemingly impetuous campaign promise a year and a half ago, allies and UN member states have anticipated a Canadian … Read more
When António Guterres was chosen by the United Nations Security Council in October to become the next leader of the UN, neither he nor anyone else could have predicted precisely who would be commanding the Oval Office of the White House in January 2017, just as Guterres’s term opened. Now that Donald Trump has assumed … Read more
Russia called for an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council on Friday, a day after the United States launched a missile attack in Syria. But Russia’s deputy ambassador to the UN, Vladimir Safronkov, faced a tough response from the US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, who castigated the Russians for supporting Syria’s … Read more
As the Trump administration threatens to turn its back on international organizations unwilling to rubber-stamp Washington’s policies and meet its demands, an early inevitable target is expected to be the United Nations Human Rights Council, which is based in Geneva. In both the White House and Congress, opposition to the Council hangs on two basic … Read more
Four days after Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin’s sudden death in New York City last month, the United States Mission to the United Nations wrote to the New York City Mayor’s Office for International Affairs and requested a communications blackout on Churkin’s autopsy findings and cause of death. The result of this request means that the … Read more
The long-simmering dispute over the fate of Jerusalem stands at the center of the Middle East conflict. Israelis and Palestinians, divided on many points, become most emotional when discussing the future of the walled, ancient crossroads city that is holy to three world religions. So international diplomats took notice when foreign policy neophyte Donald Trump … Read more
Here is a brief political history of Jerusalem, in timeline format, dating from the earliest human settlement to the present. The chronology is selective, focusing primarily on the development of competing visions over the years of the ancient city’s past and future. The timeline accompanies a separate article, “Jerusalem’s Fate: Myth Versus Reality,” by Irwin … Read more
The intense civil conflict in South Sudan that broke out in December 2013 and has brought the world’s youngest nation to the edge of genocide has not subsided, with no solution in sight. Once more, the United Nations Security Council will meet to discuss the newest status report from the UN Secretariat, as President Salva … Read more
BROOKLYN, N.Y. — Thousands of Yemeni-Americans in New York City turned out to peacefully — if not passionately — protest the White House ban on immigrants entering the United States from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen. The protesters waved American and Yemeni flags, shouting slogans like “United we stand against the Muslim ban.” Held at … Read more
The public furor and enormous protests by many thousands of Americans nationwide have led experts to try to explain where the decisions made by Donald Trump fall short of legality in both national and international law. From Hollywood to the world of sports to the corridors of the United States Congress, people are saying that … Read more
As Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots have returned this month to try to settle their 42-year conflict once and for all, a powerful new economic incentive — a significant natural gas discovery — could provide the decisive chance for success to the peace talks on Cyprus. The background to the natural gas discovery and its … Read more
A responsibility to promote worldwide cooperation toward peace and security is not the only role that the permanent-five veto-wielding powers in the United Nations Security Council have in common. Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States are also the world’s largest exporters of conventional weapons to developing countries. The export of weapons by the … Read more
