Asean

• June 24, 2022

This week, we focus on two crises in Africa: never-ending deadly setbacks of peacekeeping and the humanitarian needs on the continent. You are reading This Week @UN, summarizing the most pressing issues before the organization. The information is gathered from UN press briefings, PassBlue reporting and other sources. This week, we look at the …

Africa, Asia, Development, General Assembly, Governance, Humanitarian Aid, Secretary-General, Security Council, This Week @UN

Leave a Comment

Noeleen Heyzer of Singapore Is Named the UN’s New Envoy for Myanmar

Barbara Crossette

• October 26, 2021

Noeleen Heyzer, an expert in conflict resolution, economic development and women’s rights, has been named the next United Nations special envoy for Myanmar/Burma. Heyzer, from Singapore, was the first women to head the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, from 2007 to 2014. Under her leadership, the Bangkok-based Commission focused …

Asia, Myanmar, Secretary-General, UN Diplomats

2 Comments

BOOKS

Overcoming Childhood Poverty and UN Bureaucracy, Noeleen Heyzer Tells Her Story

Barbara Crossette

• August 7, 2021

Noeleen Heyzer not only saved Unifem, the precursor of UN Women, from financial collapse but also turned the small grant-making agency into a powerful policy tool for boldly addressing the crushing economic and social disadvantages that silence women worldwide. She understood women in distress; echoes of her own early life resonated in what she …

Asia, BOOKS, Gender Violence

5 Comments

Attacks on Burmese Military Intensify Nationwide, Signaling a Possible Revolt

Barbara Crossette

• June 13, 2021

From small villages to city offices, an open rebellion is steadily spreading in Burma, drawing together citizens outraged by the Feb. 1 coup that overturned a national election and crushed a popular democracy. Pro-democracy advocates inside Burma and abroad describe how defectors from the disgraced army — the hated Tatmadaw — as well as …

Myanmar, Security Council

Leave a Comment

WORLDVIEWS

Who Is Behind the High Civilian Death Toll Since Myanmar’s Coup? Its Own Security Forces

Damian Lilly

• May 19, 2021

Since the military coup in Myanmar on Feb. 1, 802 civilians have been killed. The majority of the people who have been killed were peaceful protesters shot by state security forces — the very people that are meant to protect them. According to civilian casualty monitors, the number of recorded civilian fatalities in Myanmar, …

Asia, Humanitarian Aid, Myanmar, Security Council, WORLDVIEWS

One Comment

WORLDVIEWS

For Myanmar, Why Not Send an Asean/UN Civilian Monitoring Mission?

Ian Martin and Charles Petrie

• April 24, 2021

This weekend, Asean will be deliberating on possible courses of action regarding Myanmar. Across the country, brave people, many of them children, are being murdered daily; health services are ceasing to function in the middle of a pandemic; the economy is collapsing; and every well-informed analyst predicts only a future of deepening civil war, …

Asia, Myanmar, WORLDVIEWS

2 Comments

SECURITY COUNCIL PRESIDENCY

Can Vietnam Rally the Big UN Powers to Stop More Bloodshed in Myanmar?

Stéphanie Fillion

• April 5, 2021

When Vietnam started its term as an elected member of the United Nations Security Council in January 2020, it also had to take on the role of the monthly rotating president. Back then, it sold itself as a bridge builder among the Council’s major powers. Vietnam’s second presidency, which started on April 1, is …

Asia, Gender Violence, Myanmar, Security Council Presidency

2 Comments

WORLDVIEWS

Regional Nations Should Mediate the Crisis in Myanmar, a Leading Analyst Says

Noeleen Heyzer

• March 9, 2021

SINGAPORE — The situation in Myanmar is growing more violent and polarized. If the situation continues without urgent intervention, the safety and security of civilians will deteriorate rapidly and a window for dialogue between the military and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy and its supporters will close further. If this …

Myanmar, Responsibility to Protect, US Foreign Relations, WORLDVIEWS

One Comment

THIS WEEK @UN

Still No Aid Into Tigray; Linda Thomas-Greenfield and Africa; Western Sahara Left Hanging by US

Ivana Ramirez

• December 11, 2020

A United Nations convoy was shot at in Ethiopia’s Tigray region; Southeast Asia’s progress on the women, peace and security agenda; the United States brokers a deal with Morocco in exchange for loss of Western Sahara’s sovereignty. You’re reading This Week @UN, a summary of the most-pressing issues facing the international organization. The information …

Africa, Asia, Climate Change, Governance, Health and Population, This Week @UN

Leave a Comment

WORLDVIEWS

Southeast Asia, Forging Ahead on Women, Peace and Security

Noeleen Heyzer

• December 8, 2020

SINGAPORE — With two Asean members, Vietnam and Indonesia, currently sitting in the United Nations Security Council, the region has advanced Resolution 1325 on women, peace and security. This is the first global framework that addresses the changing nature of conflicts, the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war, the issues of …

Asia, Gender Violence, Security Council, WORLDVIEWS

One Comment

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

Leave a Comment

Vijay Nambiar, UN Envoy, Untangles the Problems Plaguing Myanmar

Barbara Crossette

• May 19, 2014

The surprising move in 2010 by a repressive Burmese military regime to begin ceding power to the nation’s people was just the beginning of a tangled story. The new democracy held its first credible election less than two years later — an election that catapulted Aung San Suu Kyi, barely 18 months free of …

Asia, Development, Myanmar

Leave a Comment

The Quest for Peace and Calm in the Pacific

Jayantha Dhanapala

• January 17, 2013

KANDY, Sri Lanka — As the focus of global political and economic power shifts to the Asia-Pacific region and the United States feels compelled to pivot its strategic forces from the Atlantic to the Pacific, the relationship among major East Asian countries acquires critical importance. Residual cold war disputes across the Atlantic are likely …

Asia, International Justice, Peace and Security, WORLDVIEWS

Leave a Comment

Philippines Defies Church, Giving Contraception to the Poor

Barbara Crossette

• January 2, 2013

It took a committed president of the Philippines, Benigno Aquino III, and a Filipino Congress concerned about rising maternal mortality and continuing population growth amid widespread poverty, to overcome strong opposition from the Roman Catholic church and make contraception freely accessible to millions of poor women beginning in 2013. The adoption in mid-December of …

Asia, Health and Population, Women

4 Comments

Regional Partners Lighten the UN’s Burdens

Barbara Crossette

• November 26, 2011

Since the founding of the United Nations more than 65 years ago, groups of regional nations – in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas – have become the organization’s political, peacekeeping and development partners. While some of these groups have kept a low profile, several now find themselves in the international spotlight as crucial …