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SECURITY COUNCIL PRESIDENCY

Security Council Presidency: Two Old Friends, France and Germany, Now Share an Office

As a united front in the fight to preserve the European Union, France and Germany are about to gain a global audience. During March and April, their top United Nations ambassadors, François Delattre and Christoph Heusgen, will take turns — in alphabetical order — presiding over the Security Council, marking the first time for twin Council … Read more

WORLDVIEWS

How Will Britain’s Role Change in the UN as Brexit Brews?

Vassily Nebenzia, Russia's ambassador to the UN, and Karen Pierce, the British ambassador, right, in the Security Council

LONDON — The looming departure of Britain from the European Union will have a significant effect on the country’s influence as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. Even with a possible delay in the final Brexit move, Britain will have to navigate the 15-member Council in a new way that could increasingly … Read more

TOPIC: WOMEN

Three Ex-UN Leaders Form a Women’s Group to Save the World

As multilateralism takes a beating from President Trump amid the “new world disorder,” as one European diplomat put it, three women who know the United Nations inside and out through previous top leadership jobs have originated a Group of Women Leaders for Change and Inclusion. The goal is to bring together former UN female colleagues … Read more

WORLDVIEWS

10 Ways to Push the Climate Change and Conflict Agenda, Despite the Deniers

THE HAGUE — It is now well documented that global warming is a multiplier of insecurity and conflict, but holding debates on the topic presents ever-more complex challenges as multilateralism and climate change are increasingly questioned if not dismissed by some of the world’s top leaders and biggest polluting nations. In that light, here are … Read more

GOINGS-ON

Heather Nauert, Trump’s Pick for UN Ambassador, Drops Out

Heather Nauert

Heather Nauert, who was nominated by President Trump in early December to succeed Nikki Haley as the United States ambassador to the United Nations, has withdrawn from consideration as of Feb. 16, 2018. Nauert was the chief spokesperson for the State Department from mid-2017 until her nomination in early December. Bloomberg News reported the withdrawal … Read more

SECURITY COUNCIL PRESIDENCY

Equatorial Guinea’s Priority in the UN Security Council: Stability in West Africa

A trip by the United Nations Security Council to the Ivory Coast and Guinea-Bissau in West Africa to promote state sovereignty; a visit to the UN from one of Africa’s longest-serving head of state, President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo; and discussions on arms and piracy: these are the big items on Equatorial Guinea’s menu this … Read more

GOINGS-ON

Ambassador Kelley Currie Is Leaving the US Mission to the UN

Kelley Currie, an ambassador who represents the United States on the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations and is the alternate representative of the US to the General Assembly, is leaving her post at the US mission to the UN in New York, she told people at a reception on Jan. 31, 2019. … Read more

UN Reminds Pompeo That It’s Sometimes Hard to ‘Pick a Side’

When Secretary of State Michael Pompeo talks about global challenges, he insists that Donald Trump is doing a bang-up job steering the international community down the right path. He sees Trump’s America First mantra not as a retreat from the international stage or a slur on other nations’ ideas of leadership but as a frank … Read more

WORLDVIEWS

Can Germany Mediate the Big-Power Divide in the UN Security Council?

BERLIN — At the start of Germany’s sixth two-year term in the United Nations Security Council, the media attention in Germany is unusually high: numerous journalists on TV and radio are asking diplomats, politicians and foreign policy experts about their views on Germany’s role in the Council, as well as its goals and prospects for … Read more

Senate Hearing for Heather Nauert as US Envoy to UN Could Happen in February

President Trump announced that he was nominating Heather Nauert, the chief State Department spokesperson, to succeed Nikki Haley as the United States ambassador to the United Nations on Dec. 7, 2018, after Haley resigned the job in October. Since Trump’s announcement, by tweet, much has been reported on the nomination and bare-bones experience of Nauert … Read more

NIKKI HALEY WATCH

Now That She’s Gone: Nikki Haley’s Legacy at the UN

Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the UN, in the Security Council chamber, Oct. 18, 2018.

After two years as the American ambassador at the United Nations, Nikki Haley left the job in December 2018 as much an enigma as the day she arrived. Haley, a career politician, came to the UN with little foreign policy experience but national recognition for her handling of a domestic terror attack while governor of … Read more

For These Muslim-Americans, the ‘Siege’ Has Not Lifted

CLEVELAND, Ohio — In this city of immigrants, as one Moroccan-American called his hometown, the Muslim community keeps a low profile amid the Islamophobia that has reared its head in the United States in recent times. As one of the largest Muslim communities in the country, including a large Palestinian component, the repercussions against Muslims … Read more

SECURITY COUNCIL PRESIDENCY

Dominican Republic’s Priority in the UN Security Council: Climate Change

Although the Dominican Republic has been a member of the United Nations since 1945, the country is making its debut on the Security Council this month — starting big, as the president in the rotating seat. It is the country’s first strike out of two presidencies as an elected member with a two-year term, representing … Read more

WORLDVIEWS

The G5 Sahel Force, Failing the Region and Failing Itself

BAMAKO, Mali — The G5 Sahel Force was conceived to enable greater coordination among five countries in the Sahel region of West Africa in fighting jihadist groups and to strengthen regional administration and development while relieving the United Nations mission in Mali of those burdens. Yet ever since the group — Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, … Read more

TOPIC: WOMEN

Heather Nauert, Trump’s Nominee for UN Envoy, Faces Heated Opposition

The nomination of Heather Nauert to succeed Nikki Haley as United States ambassador to the United Nations has quickly enraged some international women’s rights groups and a major Islamic advocacy organization based in the United States, portending a tense confirmation hearing in the US Senate for Nauert. The announcement of her nomination last week by … Read more

WORLDVIEWS

The Role of the Private Sector in Building Peace: It’s Essential

Another year of Secretary-General António Guterres’s reform of the peace and security pillar of the United Nations is ending without fully addressing a main obstacle to peacebuilding in conflict-torn countries under UN intervention: sustainable economic recovery. The key question facing the UN is how to support economic reconstruction amid the political, security and social reforms that … Read more

NIKKI HALEY WATCH

‘Welcome to Turtle Bay’: Nikki Haley’s (Imagined) Letter to Heather Nauert

Dear Heather, I was moved to learn of that sweet letter that George H.W. Bush left for Bill Clinton in an Oval Office desk drawer as he left the White House in January 1993. Poppy wished him “great happiness” in the new job and advised him not to “let the critics discourage you or push … Read more

SECURITY COUNCIL PRESIDENCY

Ivory Coast’s Priorities in the UN Security Council: Postwar Peace

The Ivory Coast holds the rotating presidency in December in the United Nations Security Council at a pivotal point in its membership in the world body. The West African country was elected to its current term in the Council just as the last peacekeeping troops left in 2017, ending the UN’s presence there after a … Read more

GEOPOLITICS

The US Is Driving the New Talks on Western Sahara, Involving Morocco and Algeria

Horst Koehler, a former German president who has been the United Nations special envoy for Western Sahara since last year, is bringing the parties to the longstanding conflict over that region to a roundtable meeting in Geneva soon. Koehler expressed his intent last summer to bring all the relevant players together by the end of … Read more

WORLDVIEWS

When Is an Attack on UN Peacekeepers a War Crime and When Is It Not?

The recent attack by a militia on the United Nations mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in which seven peacekeepers were killed, highlighted a question that the Security Council has hesitated to confront for years. What are the consequences when UN peacekeeping missions become parties to the conflict? The Security Council responded to the latest attacks on Monusco, as the … Read more

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