A leading German news magazine says the U.S. National Security Agency, NSA, has eavesdropped on the United Nations, penetrating the world body's internal video conference system to decode data. Der Spiegel, in a report Sunday, linked its latest U.S. spy claim to secret files released by fugitive former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden. The report did not say when the magazine acquired the information, or whether it came directly from Snowden. It alleges the spying took place in mid-2012.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today welcomed the agreement between the two Koreas on the re-opening of the Kaesong Industrial Complex, adding that he hopes this will lead to other constructive steps to promote trust and improve relations between the East Asian neighbours...The complex is located in the border town of Kaesong just across the Demilitarized Zone. It employs more than 53,000 citizens of the DPRK at 123 companies of the Republic of Korea (ROK), according to media reports.

This past weekend, Ambassador Samantha Power gave her first speech as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations to more than 1,500 young activists at Invisible Children's Fourth Estate Leadership Summit in Los Angeles.

I was a 20-year-old smart ass when I first picked up Samantha Power’s book, A Problem From Hell, in the fall of 2004. My international politics professor had assigned her thick chapter on Rwanda, so on the night before class, still smarting from a botched date in Philadelphia and hurtling toward Swarthmore College in a rickety SEPTA train, I opened to page 329. There I read about the inept American response to the massacre of 800,000 human beings in 100 days in 1994. And just like that, Samantha Power’s words changed my mind, and my life.

The office has the look and feel of an Internet start-up. The workers are young, the dress is casual and the computer of choice is an Apple notebook. They inhabit a single open room. The walls have whiteboards for scribbling ideas when inspiration strikes. But the office in Manhattan is not dedicated to the latest app. It is the base camp of the United Nations Global Pulse team — a tiny unit inside an institution known for its sprawling bureaucracy, not its entrepreneurial hustle.

Argentina will have the opportunity to represent Latin America at the UN Security Council, said Foreign Minister Hector Timerman in reference to the presidency his country will play in that organ this month. Timerman made these statements after two meetings President Cristina Fernandez held last night with Brazil's Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota, and the president of the Inter-American Development Bank, Luis Alberto Moreno, Telam news agency reported here.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on Friday launched Free & Equal, an unprecedented global public education campaign for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) equality. At a press conference held in Cape Town, South Africa, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay was joined by Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu and Justice Edwin Cameron of the South African Constitutional Court to announce the year-long project.

The U.N. Charter advises that “the Security Council shall, where appropriate, utilize such regional arrangements or agencies for enforcement action under its authority.” The degree to which regional cooperation represents a sine qua non for international action was made abundantly clear in the recent uprising against Muammar al-Qaddafi, as the Arab League sanctioned a no-fly zone over Libya, followed promptly by U.N. Security Council Resolution 1973. But are regional organizations the future of humanitarian intervention?