Seton Hall Graduate Degree in International Affairs
Seton Hall Graduate Degree in International Affairs

BLUE SMOKE: A new monthly newsletter, from PassBlue and UNA–UK, which shines a spotlight on senior appointments at the UN

UN Agencies

For decades the United States, the primary architect of international drug control policy, led the global fight against illicit drugs, exercising its influence through the Vienna-based Commission on Narcotic Drugs, a governing body that provides guidance to the United…
 
My grandmother raised seven children as a housewife. After she died in 2011, my mother inherited a bag full of cassette tapes. That’s when I remembered what I had heard before: my grandmother volunteered as a radio host on…
 
Ask anyone if they will expose a crime if they know their careers might be hurt, and they will most likely give an emphatic no. Yet this happens for many whistleblowers around the world, including at the United Nations….
 
First came the bid this year for the International Telecommunication Union director-general position. Now the United States has set its sights on clinching the top job at the International Organization for Migration (IOM) after its candidate, Amy Pope, officially…
 
VIENNA — Poland and Canada have circulated a draft resolution among members of the board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency, criticizing Russia’s “violent actions against nuclear facilities in Ukraine, including the ongoing presence of Russian forces…
 
Unesco daringly announced this summer the “urgent need of safeguarding” borscht. Or as Ukrainians spell it, borsch. When the Ukrainian government asked the UN cultural and education agency to save the soup’s historical place as a national dish amid…
 
Dozens of planes and helicopters leased from Russia by United Nations peacekeeping missions and humanitarian operations have been grounded as war-driven sanctions against Russia begin to bite, leaving UN officials scrambling to figure out how to keep critical air…
 
With the world facing an unprecedented food crisis, the smallest of the three Rome-based agencies of the United Nations — the International Fund for Agricultural Development — has a new president. Álvaro Lario, its chief financial officer and a…
 
In the waning days of 2021, roughly two months before its invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, Russia agreed to contribute $14 million to the United Nations Development Program for climate-related projects in Europe and Central Asia to begin…
 
Mukesh Kapila has been shining a spotlight on a low-profile United Nations agency that was recently exposed by several media for possible corruption, based on Kapila’s explosive blog posts that began in early March on the UN entity. Kapila,…
 
On the seafloor, anemones with eight-foot-long tentacles live alongside blind crabs that cultivate food in their arm hair, sharks with glow-in-the-dark bellies and glass sponges that have been thriving since before the invention of the wheel. “Because of the…
 
COP26 opens with a foreboding announcement from the UN secretary-general; peacekeepers shot by the presidential guard in the Central African Republic; Mexico’s agenda on the Security Council. You are reading This Week @UN, summarizing the most pressing issues facing…
 
The UN boss points to rising global military spending as a source of gendered violence; the UN’s tech envoy, mired in controversy, may be exiting; the Human Rights Council rolls out a multimillion-dollar project with the Philippines. You are…
 
More than 50 former staff members of UN Women sent a pointed open letter to the new executive director of the agency, Sima Sami Bahous, an ex-Jordanian diplomat, on Sept. 28. They suggest a comprehensive agenda for her, undertaking…
 
Calling all world leaders to the General Assembly; the Taliban shun women; Biden’s confounding foreign policy. You are reading This Week @UN, summarizing the most pressing issues facing the organization. The information is gathered from UN press briefings, PassBlue reporting…
 
The Women's History Month Quiz from PassBlue: A quiz about women and the UN
Seton Hall Graduate Degree in International Affairs

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