UNITED NATIONS - Nationwide elections in Iraq, scheduled to take place before the end of January 2005, are now jeopardized by two powerful UN staff unions demanding that no UN employees be sent to the violence-ridden country. "Just one staff member is one staff...
UNITED NATIONS - The UN's annual arms register, created about 12 years ago to ensure military transparency among member states, continues to be shunned by some of the world's biggest arms buyers in the Middle East and by key arms exporters such as China. Of the 191...
UNITED NATIONS - Having been cold-shouldered by the international community for more than a decade over its claims for a permanent seat on the 15-member UN Security Council, Japan is expected to launch an aggressive campaign to re-ignite its long-standing demand for...
UNITED NATIONS - The United Nations is reluctant to impose punitive economic sanctions on Sudan – accused of genocide in the politically troubled province of Darfur – because embargoes have a relatively poor track record, according to senior UN officials and...
UNITED NATIONS – The escalating violence in Iraq – with over 50 civilians killed in Tuesday's terrorist attacks in Baghdad – is dissuading the United Nations from going back to the war-ravaged country, according to a senior UN official. Briefing the...
UNITED NATIONS - The United Nations, which was forced to withdraw its international staff from Iraq last year because of growing violence, is weighing the possibility of downsizing its humanitarian operations in Afghanistan following the weekend destruction of four of...
UNITED NATIONS - As the United Nations gets ready for the opening of the 59th session of the General Assembly next week, Secretary-General Kofi Annan has asked the 191 member states to provide more than 30,000 troops for an anticipated surge in demand for peacekeeping...
UNITED NATIONS - As the 53-member African Union (AU) prepares to bolster its peacekeeping force in Sudan tenfold, UN chief Kofi Annan is appealing for funds, equipment and other support to sustain the body mandated to stem the rising number of atrocities and killings...
Fear of being linked to U.S.-backed regimes that lack authority has inhibited potential recruits in violence-prone Iraq and Afghanistan from heeding calls to join nascent or rebuilding national armies, say U.S. academics and political and military analysts. "The...
UNITED NATIONS - With battle-scarred Iraq in shambles, the United States is now trying to showcase war-ravaged Afghanistan as a potentially vibrant multi-party democracy on the road to political success, say UN diplomats and Afghan experts. "[U.S. President...
