Kofi Annan

• July 25, 2016

BERLIN — From the beginning, the member states of the United Nations understood the great significance of efficient communication: in resolution 13(I) of Feb. 13, 1946, the General Assembly established the Department of Public Information in the Secretariat and emphasized: “The United Nations cannot achieve the purposes for which it has been created unless …

WORLDVIEWS

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A New Plan to Recruit Candidates for UN Secretary-General Emerges

Dulcie Leimbach

• March 3, 2016

For the first time in United Nations history, officially announced candidates for the secretary-general race, underway this year, will be interviewed publicly in the General Assembly along the lines of a standard democratic election. Mogens Lykketoft, the Assembly president and a Dane, is pushing the “unprecedented transparent process,” as he put it, in selecting …

General Assembly, Secretary-General, Security Council, Women

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Understanding Burundi as It Implodes Again

Barbara Crossette

• December 19, 2015

Carolyn McAskie is a Canadian expert in international development who was awarded the Order of Canada, one of the country’s highest honors, in 2007. She headed the United Nations peacekeeping mission in the Central African country of Burundi from 2004 to 2006, when a new political system was created and hopes were high. Later, …

Africa, Governance

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WORLDVIEWS

The UN’s Global Compact: Ending ‘Business as Usual’?

Tom Woodcock

• July 28, 2015

Imagine a world in which promoting women’s empowerment in the workplace were as important to companies as ensuring high profit margins or preventing the degradation of water supplies. Such was the imaginative thrust of Kofi Annan’s 1999 speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos. In its wake, the United Nations Global Compact, the …

WORLDVIEWS

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BOOKS

The Surprising Confessions of a Peacemaker

Irwin Arieff

• July 18, 2015

When war breaks out, you would think the easy answer would be to send in a United Nations peacekeeping mission, right? In fact, it is fairly rare and extraordinarily challenging to pull such a mission together. Even then, the mission can end up a flop, making little or no difference as the years crawl …

BOOKS

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WORLDVIEWS

Ban Ki-moon’s Travels: Escape Hatch or Act of Diplomacy?

Helmut Volger

• July 1, 2015

BERLIN — If you take a close look at the public schedule of United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, it becomes evident that he travels a lot to member states, even more than his charismatic and most active predecessor Kofi Annan. Why does Ban travel so often? Some critics suggest that Ban wants to distract …

WORLDVIEWS

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No Room for LGBT Rights in the New UN Development Goals

Barbara Crossette

• May 17, 2015

Before this year ends, the United Nations will have committed itself and its 193 member governments to a new 15-year development strategy to be hailed as a blueprint for ending poverty, expanding social justice and strengthening equality. Equality for whom is the question. Missing by deliberate design from the new plan, called the Sustainable …

Development, LGBT, SDGs

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Now Is the Time for a Female Secretary-General, Says a New Campaign [Video]

Dulcie Leimbach

• February 23, 2015

Convinced that after 70 years it is time to choose a woman for the United Nations’ top job of secretary-general, a new movement led by an academic spcialist on the organization has been assembled to formally support the election of a woman for the job. The current secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, a Korean, finishes his …

Secretary-General, Security Council, US-UN Relations, Women

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What Matters Most in Choosing the Next UN Chief? Politics, Geography and Maybe Gender

Lucia Mouat

• January 21, 2015

The post of United Nations secretary-general may or may not be “the world’s most impossible job,” as its first occupant, Trygve Lie, a Norwegian, once described it. In any case, UN members must choose a successor to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon well before the close of 2016. Some potential candidates are already campaigning for the …

Secretary-General, Security Council, US-UN Relations

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WORLDVIEWS

Next Best in 2016? The UN Secretary-General Must Be a Reformer

Stephen Browne and Thomas G. Weiss

• December 9, 2014

GENEVA — For only the second time — the first was in 1996 — the electoral campaigns for the American president and the United Nations secretary-general are running in parallel. Both promise to be long and protracted. Each already has a growing slate of presumptive candidates pounding flesh and employing lobbyists. But the next …

SDGs, WORLDVIEWS

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Israeli Settlements: A Timeline From 1967 to Now

Irwin Arieff

• July 11, 2014

Here is a comprehensive, up-to-date timeline charting the nearly 47-year campaign of Israeli settlement development in territories occupied by Israel after the Six-Day War, along with a graph tracking the years and population. This timeline accompanies “The Limits of Diplomacy: Israeli Settlements” by Irwin Arieff. 1967 June 5-10: The settlements have their origins in …

Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Middle East

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GOINGS-ON

Another Veteran UN Diplomat, Staffan de Mistura, Is Named Syrian Envoy

PassBlue

• July 10, 2014

Staffan de Mistura is the new United Nations special envoy for Syria, replacing Lakhdar Brahimi, a veteran Algerian diplomat who resigned in May after nearly two years of rising frustration trying to broker a peace deal between the Syrian government and the main opposition group in the country. Despite formal negotiations that were convened by …

GOINGS-ON

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GOINGS-ON

Lakhdar Brahimi, UN Special Envoy for Syria, Quits in Despair

PassBlue

• May 13, 2014

Lakhdar Brahimi, the United Nations-Arab League special envoy on the Syrian crisis, has resigned as of May 31, ending many months of speculation on his leaving, particularly after the peace talks held this winter in Geneva between the Syrian government and the opposition failed. At that point, Brahimi blamed the collapse on the Syrian …

GOINGS-ON

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To Educate Girls in Burkina Faso, a Fund-Raiser Is Held in New York

PassBlue

• April 20, 2014

Fred Eckhard was beloved in the United Nations as the spokesman for Secretary-General Kofi Annan, a position Eckhard left in 2005. An American, he absconded for the Brittany coast in France, where enjoys fruits de mer and his seaside home with his wife, Kathryn, a Scot, who is also a UN veteran. Though Eckhard …

GOINGS-ON

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Lonely at the Top: What It’s Like to Be the UN Secretary-General

Barbara Crossette

• April 17, 2014

There have been eight secretaries-general of the United Nations in the 68 years since the first of them, Trygve Lie of Norway, took on this unique global position. All eight — all men — have been very different in character and personality, in their cultural and political backgrounds and in their views of how …