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

Donald Trump

Early and often during his 2016 run for the presidency, Donald Trump vowed to pull Washington out of the Iran nuclear agreement the moment he arrived at the White House. The pact, brokered the year before by Barack Obama,…
 
This week, our focus is on rising food crises worldwide as a result of several converging factors, including Russia’s war on Ukraine. You are reading This Week @UN, summarizing the most pressing issues before the organization. The information is…
 
When it comes to fighting for democracy and climate change — two of Rep. Jamie Raskin’s top priorities — the whole thing feels a bit like a game of chicken and egg to the United States Democratic congressman. “On…
 
President Vladimir Putin is now 69 years old and he has been in office for almost 22 years, so he is starting to face his mortality: witness his two-year effort to isolate himself from Covid and holding meetings at…
 
Just as we were looking forward to the new year with hope in our hearts, things have already grown dicey. The chaotic images of the Biden administration’s withdrawal from Afghanistan still reverberate around the world, continuing to raise big…
 
President Joe Biden has brought back an era of diplomatic normalcy to the United Nations in his first year in office. After the often-raucous and unpredictable four years of the Trump administration’s relations with the UN, Biden and his…
 
President Joe Biden has nominated Geeta Rao Gupta as the next ambassador at large for global women’s issues at the United States State Department. Gupta is a senior fellow at the United Nations Foundation, a nonprofit group based in…
 
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…
 
It is not news that morale in the American State Department hit new lows during the Trump administration, under a president who despised and insulted the institutions and people engaged in international affairs. On Oct. 27, however, Secretary of…
 
Mexico has only one chance in its two-year term to shine as president of the Security Council, and it’s this month. While all eyes are now focusing on Glasgow, Scotland, and the United Nations-led COP26 meeting on climate change,…
 
A coup in Khartoum; global carbon emissions revert to pre-Covid levels; a new UN envoy is named for Myanmar. You are reading This Week @UN, summarizing the most pressing issues facing the organization. The information is gathered from UN…
 
The chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan has weakened the Biden administration’s campaign to restore multilateralism as the touchstone of United States foreign policy, eroding international support for US global leadership. Incidentally, Biden also came out sounding at times a lot more…
 
When Guatemala’s Attorney General Consuelo Porras recently removed the anticorruption leader Juan Francisco Sandoval from his post as the special prosecutor against impunity, her action ended the last semblance of prosecutorial independence generated by one of the most successful…
 
The Biden administration’s budget proposals for 2022 could erase many of the constrictions on global health aid imposed during the Trump years or earlier Republican administrations. But the sweeping developments depend on what happens in the Congressional debate on federal…
 
Jockeying for Unicef’s next executive director is well underway, after the July 13 announcement by its current head, Henrietta Fore, that she is leaving before the year’s end. She is going because of a family health emergency and well…
 
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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