Middle East
- Dali ten Hove
- • April 21, 2021

A high-powered cast of former senior United Nations mediators from the Middle East and North Africa have founded a conflict-resolution organization, the International Center for Dialogue Initiatives, or ICDI, to mitigate the failures of foreign peace brokers and enable…
- Categories: Libya, Middle East
- Mouna Ghanem
- • March 8, 2021

COPENHAGEN — In her book, “The Second Sex,” Simone de Beauvoir argued that one is not born but rather becomes a woman. De Beauvoir emphasized that destiny is not a cosmic force but a human choice, a result of…
- Categories: Gender Violence, Middle East, Security Council, US Foreign Relations, WORLDVIEWS
- Stephanie Liechtenstein
- • February 25, 2021

VIENNA — The International Atomic Energy Agency reported in a confidential document, seen by PassBlue, that Iran has added 17.6 kilograms of uranium, enriched up to 20 percent, to its total stockpile. The enrichment process, which had been announced…
- Categories: Middle East, Nuclear Disarmament
- Stephanie Liechtenstein
- • February 21, 2021

VIENNA — Iran has told the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations nuclear watchdog, that it will significantly limit inspections of its nuclear facilities as of Feb. 23. Rafael Mariano Grossi, the director-general of the Vienna-based agency, traveled…
- Categories: Middle East, Nuclear Disarmament, Security Council, US Foreign Relations
- Ivana Ramirez
- • February 19, 2021

The United States jumps back into the Paris Agreement; the Security Council tackles climate-security risks (for now); a new UN envoy’s letter from the past returns to haunt him. You are reading This Week @UN, a summary of the most…
- Categories: Africa, Climate Change, General Assembly, Middle East, Secretary-General, Security Council, This Week @UN
- Stéphanie Fillion
- • October 4, 2020

From the very moment that the United Nations decided to work online, after the pandemic hit, Russia has been the strongest and loudest opponent of going virtual at the world body. For its Security Council presidency, in October, Russia…
- Categories: Africa, Middle East, Security Council Presidency
- Stephanie Liechtenstein
- • September 7, 2020

VIENNA — The International Atomic Energy Agency has just reported that Iran’s stockpile of low-enriched uranium continues to grow. The stockpile now exceeds the limit set in the 2015 nuclear deal tenfold. According to the confidential quarterly IAEA report,…
- Categories: Middle East, Nuclear Disarmament, Security Council
- Dulcie Leimbach
- • September 5, 2020

The 25th anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing; the United States sanctions the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court; dissecting the failed ambitions of the US effort to force the UN mission in Lebanon to be…
- Categories: Middle East, SDGs, Secretary-General, Security Council, This Week @UN, US-UN Relations
- Karim Makdisi
- • September 3, 2020

On Aug. 28, the United Nations Security Council unanimously voted to renew its peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon, called Unifil, for another year. This unanimity, however, masked what had been a series of heated informal discussions on the nature…
- Categories: Middle East, Security Council, UN Peacekeeping, WORLDVIEWS
- Allison Lecce
- • August 29, 2020

US asylum seekers pushed back into Mexico in unprecedented numbers amid Covid-19; an investigation into the mysterious work of the richly financed UN counterterrorism operations; chastising India for its support of fossil fuels; and a UN envoy’s assessment of…
- Categories: Climate Change, Middle East, Refugees, SDGs, Terrorism, This Week @UN, US Foreign Relations
- Stéphanie Fillion
- • August 24, 2020

For years, Saudi Arabia has been playing a heavy-handed role in the work of United Nations counterterrorism through its financial contributions, even as the country’s own history of funding of terrorism is problematic. Some officials who work or have…
- Categories: Middle East, Terrorism
- Allison Lecce
- • August 22, 2020

A military coup in Mali; massive protests in Belarus over the re-election of President Alexander Lukashenko; more than a million people displaced in Burkina Faso; and the United States takes its next step to extend the Iran arms embargo through…
- Categories: Africa, Middle East, This Week @UN, US Foreign Relations, US-UN Relations
- Irwin Arieff
- • August 18, 2020

Talking heads are showering Donald Trump with praise over his surprise unveiling of an agreement that he said would alter the Middle East landscape by building a diplomatic bridge between Israel and the United Arab Emirates. If completed as…
- Categories: Middle East, US Foreign Relations, US-UN Relations, WORLDVIEWS
- Stéphanie Fillion  and Kacie Candela
- • August 17, 2020

The devastating series of explosions that rocked Beirut, the capital of Lebanon, on Aug. 4, killed nearly 200 people, injured thousands of others, destroyed most of the city’s port, flattened surrounding neighborhoods, damaged six hospitals and more than 20…
- Categories: Covid-19, Middle East, Security Council, UN Peacekeeping
- Evelyn Leopold
- • August 14, 2020

Doomed from the start, the United States asked the 14 other United Nations Security Council members to approve a resolution to extend an arms embargo on Iran that expires on Oct. 18. The embargo is part of the Security…
- Categories: Middle East, Nuclear Disarmament, US-UN Relations