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

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This week, the United Nations restated it commitment to remain in Afghanistan despite reports to the contrary. You are reading This Week @UN, summarizing the most pressing issues before the organization. The information is gathered from UN press briefings,…

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This week, we report on Russia getting its first hint that it might someday be held accountable for its territorial assault on Ukraine. You are reading This Week @UN, summarizing the most pressing issues before the organization. The information…

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This week, we are excited about Cuba’s historic moment as it legalizes same-sex marriage and protects other vulnerable groups. You are reading This Week @UN, summarizing the most pressing issues before the organization. The information is gathered from UN…

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For Natalia Kanem, the executive director of the United Nations Population Fund since 2017, the last couple of years have been a wild ride. In 2020, women the world over were getting ready to celebrate important anniversaries: 25 years…

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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…

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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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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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After four years of wandering lost in the desert, diplomacy is finding its way back to Washington. With Joe Biden in the Oval Office, “America First” is out and “multilateralism,” “cooperation” and “alliance” are no longer dirty words. Washington…

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Girls at a gated UN school in Gaza being used as a shelter amid the bombing by Israel in its fight against Hamas’s rocket fire. Thousands of families in Gaza have fled their homes since the conflict began on…

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As President-elect Joe Biden finds his footing in foreign affairs, one of his foremost challenges will be re-engaging with the United Nations. So far, he has said little about the organization, but he has just appointed a new UN…

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Advice is pouring into President-elect Joe Biden from around the United States and across the world on how to turn around the damage the Trump administration has inflicted in key policy areas. Advocates for public health, women’s rights and…

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President-elect Joe Biden’s first message to fellow world leaders was clear: America is back. But there’s a glaring omission in his foreign policy plan: the United Nations. After four years of the Trump administration’s defunding and leaving UN organizations…

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For once, two pieces of good news from the United Nations: The World Food Program receives the Nobel Peace Prize and the Security Council begins meeting physically again in its chamber. But some reality-checking: 25 years after the Beijing…

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The annual debate of world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly ended on Sept. 29, after a weeklong screening of prerecorded video speeches by 190 member states. The numbers were impressive: videos by 102 heads of state, 1…

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In the rubble of what’s left of American commitments to international organizations, one survivor is doing well. The United Nations Population Fund, or UNFPA, the perennial target of Republican politicians and presidents since the 1980s, is thriving. Arthur Erken,…

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

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