Online Program Enrolling Now - Seton Hall - United Nations Institute for Training and Research
Online Program Enrolling Now - Seton Hall - United Nations Institute for Training and Research

BLUE SMOKE: A monthly column, from PassBlue and UNA–UK, spotlighting senior appointments at the UN

Kofi Annan

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Hans Corell knows how to establish war crime tribunals. The Swede is a former top legal expert for the United Nations who served under Secretaries-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali and Kofi Annan and, on behalf of the institution, was instrumental in…

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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…

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As the final round of the Generation Equality Forum was about to open in Paris in late June, some reporters, including from PassBlue, were directed by a few United Nations agencies most involved in the event, to ask their…

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One of America’s greatest supporters of the United Nations, Ambassador William vanden Heuvel, died on June 15 in New York City at age 91. A son of European immigrants, vanden Heuvel grew up in the upstate city of Rochester,…

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António Guterres soon will be recrowned Secretary-General after Manhattan’s five-member Electoral College, the permanent members of the Security Council, send its recommendation to the General Assembly for a ceremonial vote. In 2016, his election was an unusually transparent process…

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The proposed selection of Rebeca Grynspan, a Costa Rican economist and former vice president of her country, to head the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development was made without consulting the core of the agency — the Group…

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It was all over in one crucial week. Barring an unforeseen hitch, António Guterres is the clear winner of a second, five-year term as secretary-general of the United Nations, beginning on Jan.1, 2022. This was not a surprise: he…

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For more than a decade, from 2004 to 2017, Vijay Nambiar was a special adviser to United Nations secretaries-general Kofi Annan and Ban Ki-moon, charged with following events in Burma, which the military generals renamed Myanmar in 1989. A…

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Unless a strong candidate backed by an influential member state comes forward soon, it looks unlikely that Secretary-General António Guterres will be denied a second term and that a woman could be elected to succeed him, starting in 2022….

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GENEVA — One of the quiet pleasures of life is an early-morning cappuccino in the company of a good newspaper. That was before Covid-19 came along. The pandemic and resulting disruption of newspaper deliveries and shuttering of cafes has…

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The US returns to the Human Rights Council; atrocities documented in the Mali conflict; a woman declares her candidacy for UN secretary-general. You are reading This Week @UN, a summary of the most pressing issues facing the organization. The…

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Arora Akanksha, a 34-year-old staff member who works as an audit coordinator for the United Nations Development Program, has announced her candidacy for the job of UN secretary-general, so far the only person to challenge António Guterres, the incumbent….

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GENEVA — In May 2016, Kofi Annan, the former United Nations secretary-general, received an unexpected request from a fellow Nobel peace laureate, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s civilian leader and state counselor. She asked him to lead a…

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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…

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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…

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UNGA78: A quiz from PassBlue
Online Program Enrolling Now - Seton Hall - United Nations Institute for Training and Research

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