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

Dag Hammarskjold

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres started out wobbly on the Ukrainian crisis. In the days leading up to the Feb. 24 Russian attack on Ukraine, he remained on the sidelines. He was apparently unconvinced that the Russians would invade…
 
This week, the focus stays glued to Ukraine while a flicker of hope emerges in Ghana, Kenya and Malawi, where children are getting new malaria vaccines.  You are reading This Week @UN, summarizing the most pressing issues before the…
 
Six decades after the unexplained death of United Nations Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold and 15 other people in a plane crash in Central Africa, a new discovery in French government archives may bring researchers closer to the truth and answer…
 
The job of United Nations secretary-general is the “most impossible on earth,” as the first postholder, Trygve Lie, famously told his successor, Dag Hammarskjold. Though Lie spoke partly in jest to amuse the assembled reporters, the remark has stuck…
 
Brian Urquhart, who spent most of his adult life in service to the United Nations, died on Saturday, Jan. 2, at his home in Tyringham, Mass., in the Berkshires, where he retired after serving as one of the most notable…
 
Ever since the day in 1946 when the first secretary-general of the United Nations, Trygve Lie of Norway, took office, big powers have meddled in how the job is done. Most often, the United States has been the most…
 
Seventy-five years ago this month, delegates in San Francisco signed the United Nations Charter. Anniversary events were supposed to culminate in the commemoration of the entry into force of the world organization’s constitution on Oct. 24. That, of course,…
 
Although much of the world is closing temporarily due to the rapid spread of Covid-19, the United Nations Security Council must stay open — meeting physically if possible and virtually if not — in order to fulfill its Charter…
 
António Guterres, the United Nations secretary-general, continues to go into the UN headquarters building in New York City to work — even as Covid-19 races throughout the region. “Right now, Guterres is probably the safest man on the planet,”…
 
Fifty-eight years ago, Dag Hammarskjold, the United Nations secretary-general at the time, set off on a perilous journey across the African heartland. Taking off at 4:51 P.M. from Léopoldville, in the capital of the newly independent Congo, he was…
 
Sir Brian Urquhart has celebrated his 100th birthday this year. This is an eventful moment. Sir Brian is one of the most notable figures in the history of the United Nations. Urquhart has spent most of his entire life…
 
My clock radio clicked on. The morning news bulletin announced that United Nations Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld’s plane was missing. It was Sept. 18, 1961. I was 16. Over the next hours, my mother and sisters and I learned that…
 
Was it only two years ago that so many people were elated by the appointment of António Guterres as secretary-general of the United Nations? After public debates organized by the president of the General Assembly and informal ones by…
 
The United Nations Security Council, perhaps needing a change of scenery from its chamber overlooking the East River in New York, is traveling to the southern Swedish coast in April for an annual retreat whose theme this year is…
 
Secretary-General António Guterres has set about modernizing some sectors of the United Nations and made impassioned statements about the need to protect human rights. But beyond rhetoric, so far there has been no indication of his modernizing the human-rights…
 
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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