united nations

The United States says all members of the U.N. Security Council support a proposal to send 5,500 peacekeepers to South Sudan in order to protect civilians from worsening violence. The Security Council is due to vote Tuesday afternoon on a resolution to transfer troops from other U.N. missions in Africa following the proposal from U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon.

Nelson Mandela and Mother Teresa will be the key figures in a UN campaign to promote peace in Colombia. The United Nations representative in Colombia, Fabrizio Hochschild, announced on Thursday that that the “Peace is Mine” initiative aims to promote peace in the country through the iconic use of these “two huge global figures.”

Patterns of global migration and remittances have shifted in recent decades, even as both the number of immigrants and the amount of money they send home have grown, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of data from the United Nations and the World Bank. A rising share of international migrants now lives in today’s high-income countries such as the United States and Germany, while a growing share was born in today’s middle-income nations such as India and Mexico, the analysis finds.

Surveillance and spying on world leaders and the general public across the globe have crushed people’s trust in the Internet and other high-tech equipment. More importantly, these actions have infringed on human rights. There was skepticism last week when the UN General Assembly’s Human Rights Committee issued a resolution to protect the people’s right to privacy against massive and unlawful surveillance.

Ever since little Kosovo proclaimed itself an independent state five years ago, it has failed to win all the recognition it so craves. Neither the United Nations, which confers legitimacy, nor all the European Union, whose members are divided on the question, much less Serbia, from which Kosovo broke away, recognize the birth of a new European nation. But after a campaign waged by an army of devoted Kosovars and strategically placed allies, Kosovo is hailing a grant of legitimacy by a new arbiter of national identity: Facebook.

December 4, 2013

After the recent deal on Iran's nuclear program was concluded, Catherine Ashton, who is in charge of EU's foreign policy, was commended for her constructive role as coordinator and moderator of the tough negotiations between Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany. According to many observers, Ashton's performance had kept Brussels in the game and that is quite an achievement for someone who has to conduct policy on behalf of 28 EU member states with often fundamentally different objectives.

Finland loves saunas. Luckily for me, my mom’s best friend married a Finn and I have a Finnish boyfriend, so I’ve been able to sweat it out on my visits to the Nordic nation. However, it wasn’t until my boyfriend’s mom, Finland’s ambassador to Mexico, let me use the sauna at Finland’s ambassadorial residence in Mexico City that I realized Finland uses saunas as a form of diplomacy.

The Democratic Republic of Congo and defeated M23 rebels failed to sign a hoped-for peace deal Monday, after Kinshasa demanded the agreement be revised, a Ugandan government official said. The "DRC delegation has aborted the signing of agreement with M23," Ugandan government spokesman Ofwono Opondo said, adding that the meeting was "adjourned sine die (without date)."

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