Timeline League of Nations and United Nations
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Chronology: http://www.un.org/Overview/milesto4.htm
League of Nations timeline: http://worldatwar.net/timeline/other/league18-46.html
UN Calendar: http://www.un.org/partners/civil_society/calendar/c-hist.htm
UN: http://www.un.org/
1864 Sep 14,
Lord Robert Cecil, one of the founders of the League of Nations and
its president from 1923 to 1945, was born.
(HN, 9/14/98)
1876 Aug 17, Eric Drummond, 1st
Secretary-General of League of Nations (1919-33), was born.
(SC, 8/17/02)
1887 Feb 26, Sir Benegal
Narsing Rau, president of UN Security Council (1950), was born in
India.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1896 Jul 16, Trygve Lie, first
secretary-general of the United Nations, was born.
(HN, 7/16/98)
1905 Jul 29, Dag
Hammerarskjold, Nobel Peace Prize (1961) winning secretary-general
of the United Nations (1953-1961), was born in Sweden.
(HN, 7/29/98)
1919 Jan 25, The League of
Nations plan was adopted by the Allies.
(HN, 1/25/99)
1919 Feb 3, League of Nations
held its 1st meeting in Paris.
(MC, 2/3/02)
1920 Jan 10, Entry into
force of the Versailles Peace Treaty and of the Covenant of the
League of Nations.
(http://worldatwar.net/timeline/other/league18-46.html)
1920 Jan 16, The League of
Nations held its first meeting in Paris.
(HN, 1/16/99)
1920 Jan 19, US Senate voted
against membership in the League of Nations.
(MC, 1/19/02)
1920 Feb 13, The League of
Nations recognized the perpetual neutrality of Switzerland.
(AP, 2/13/98)
1920 Oct 15, The Paris
Conference on Passports & Customs Formalities and Through
Tickets opened. The week-long event ending on Oct 21 was hosted by
the League of Nations and set standards for passports.
(Econ, 3/3/12,
p.73)(www.indiana.edu/~league/1920.htm)
1920 Oct 27, League of Nations
moved headquarters in Geneva.
(MC, 10/27/01)
1920 Dec 8, President Wilson
declined to send a representative to the League of Nations in
Geneva.
(HN, 12/8/98)
1920 Dec 13, League of nations
established the Int’l. Court of Justice in The Hague.
(MC, 12/13/01)
1920 Dec 14, The League of
Nations created a credit system to aid Europe; U.S. export trade was
threatened.
(HN, 12/14/98)
1920 Dec 15, China won a place
on the League Council; Austria was admitted.
(HN, 12/15/98)
1921 Oct 4, League of Nations
refused to assist starving Russians.
(MC, 10/4/01)
1921 The League of Nations
granted Russia’s Aland Island group to the new Finnish Republic.
(WSJ, 12/5/97, p.A1)
1923 Mar 3, US Senate rejected
membership in International Court of Justice, The Hague.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1923 Sep 10, The Irish Free
state joined the League of Nations.
(MC, 9/10/01)
1923-1928 Gilbert Murray (b.1866), Australian born
scholar served as the chairman of the League of Nations.
(HN, 1/2/99)
1925 Sep 8, Germany was
admitted into the League of Nations. Joseph Avenol,
secretary-general of the League of Nations, sold out the
organization he had sworn to uphold.
(HN, 9/8/98)
1925 Dec 3, The League of
Nations ordered Greece to pay an indemnity for the October invasion
of Bulgaria.
(HN, 12/3/98)
1926 Jan 27, US Senate agreed
to join the World Court.
(MC, 1/27/02)
1926 Feb 25, Poland demanded a
permanent seat on the League Council.
(HN, 2/25/98)
1926 Sep 8, The League of
Nations Assembly voted unanimously to admit Germany.
(MC, 9/8/01)
1926 Sep 25, The Convention to
Suppress the Slave Trade and Slavery, an international treaty
created under the auspices of the League of Nations, was first
signed in Geneva to be effective March 9, 1927.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1926_Slavery_Convention)
1927 Dec 17, U.S. Secretary of
State Kellogg suggested a worldwide pact renouncing war.
(HN, 12/17/98)
1931 Jan 24, The League of
Nations rebuked Poland for the mistreatment of a German minority in
Upper Silesia.
(HN, 1/24/99)
1932 Dec 8, Japan told the
League of Nations that it had no control over her designs in China.
(HN, 12/8/98)
1933 Jan 21, The League of
Nations rejected Japanese terms for settlement with China.
(HN, 1/21/99)
1933 Feb 24, The League of
Nations told the Japanese to pull out of Manchuria.
(www.indiana.edu/~league/1933.htm)
1933 Mar 27, Japan left the
League of Nations.
(www.indiana.edu/~league/1933.htm)
1933 Oct 14, The Geneva
disarmament conference broke up as Germany proclaimed withdrawal
from the disarmament initiative, as well as from the League of
Nations, effective October 23.
(AP, 10/14/97)(HN, 10/14/98)
1933 Oct 23, Germany withdrew
from the League of Nations in light of the failure of the Germans to
gain military parity with the Western powers.
(www.indiana.edu/~league/1933.htm)
1934 Sep 18, The League of
Nations admitted the Soviet Union. Joseph Avenol, secretary-general
of the League of Nations, sold out the organization he had sworn to
uphold.
(WUD, 1994, p.424,1682)(HN, 9/18/98)
1935 Jan 27, The League of
Nations majority favored depriving Japan of mandates.
(HN, 1/27/99)
1935 Oct 11, The League of
Nations met and voted 50 to 4 (Austria, Hungary, Italy and Albania
opposed) to condemn Italy for the attack on Ethiopia.
(http://nazret.com/history/)
1935 The League of Nations
studied the khat plant, chewed and brewed as a legal stimulant in
many parts of the world. It was found to contain cathinone, a
natural amphetamine, that produces alertness and a kind of euphoria
along with side effects that cause users to become unstable.
(SFC, 9/11/98, p.A19)
1936 Jun 30, Haile Selassie
asked the League of Nations for sanctions against Italy.
(www.historychannel.com/speeches/archive/speech_400.html)
1936 Jul 4, The League Council
voted to end economic sanctions against Italy with the collapse of
Ethiopia. The cancellation of economic sanctions against an
aggressor state marked the failure of collective security under the
League and was a harbinger of conflict in the upcoming years.
(http://www.indiana.edu/~league/1936.htm)
1938 Sep 27, League of Nations
declared Japan the aggressor against China.
(MC, 9/27/01)
1939 Dec 14, The Soviet Union
was dropped from the League of Nations. [see Nov 30 attack on
Finland]
(AP, 12/14/97)(HN, 12/14/98)
1942 Oct 7, US and British
government announced the establishment of United Nations.
(MC, 10/7/01)
1943 Jun 3, United Nations
Relief and Rehabilitation Administration formed.
(MC, 6/3/02)
1943 Oct 30, The
Molotov-Eden-Cordell Hull accord over operations at UN.
(MC, 10/30/01)
1943 Oct, The United Nations
War Crimes Commission (UNWCC) was established with a secretariat in
London.
(Econ, 1/29/11, p.84)
1944 Aug 21, The Dumbarton Oaks
conference, which laid the foundation for the establishment of the
United Nations, was held in Washington, D.C.
(SFEC, 6/29/97, p.T10)(HN, 8/21/98)
1945 Jan 1, France was admitted
to the United Nations.
(AP, 1/1/98)
1945 Feb 12, Mayor Roger Lapham
of SF was informed by Washington that San Francisco was chosen as
the site of the Founding Conference of the UN.
(SFEC, 3/8/98, p.W39)
1945 Apr 25,
Delegates from some 50 countries met in San Francisco to organize
the United Nations. Charles Easton Rothwell (d.1987) headed the
500-member group that helped establish the UN Charter.
(AP, 4/25/97)(SFC, 8/14/04, p.B6)
1945 Apr 28, John F. Kennedy,
correspondent for the Hearst Newspapers, filed his 1st dispatch on
the founding of the UN in San Francisco.
(SSFC, 6/26/05, p.F1)
1945 May 4, John F. Kennedy,
correspondent for the Hearst Newspapers, filed a dispatch on the
founding of the UN in San Francisco in which he said: Any
organization drawn up here will be merely a skeleton. Its powers
will be limited… The hope is however, that this skeleton will put on
flesh as time goes by.
(SSFC, 6/26/05, p.F6)
1945 Jun 26, The United Nations
Conference on International Organization (UNCIO) was held in San
Francisco. Officials gathered to draft a UN Charter, and 50
countries signed the Charter on this date at what is now the Herbst
Theater. This signifies the birth of the UN. The Charter was drafted
in the Garden Room of the Fairmont Hotel.
(Park, Spring/95, p.2)(AP, 6/26/97)(SSFC, 2/4/07,
p.F1)
1945 Jul 6, Nicaragua became
the first nation to formally accept the United Nations Charter.
(AP, 7/6/05)
1946 The International Court of
Justice, the main judicial organ of the United Nations, was
established.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judges_of_the_international_court_of_justice)
2005 Jul 8, In Austria an
89-nation UN conference approved broadening a treaty meant to keep
nuclear material from the hands of terrorists, opening the way for
states to ratify the agreement. The Convention of the Physical
Protection of Nuclear Material originally obligated the 112
countries that have accepted it to protect nuclear material during
international transport. The amended version expands such protection
to materials at nuclear facilities, in domestic storage and during
domestic transport or use.
(AP, 7/8/05)
1945 Jul 28, US Senate ratified
UN charter 89-2.
(SC, 7/28/02)
1945 Oct 24, The United
Nations was born with the ratification of its charter by the first
29 nations at a San Francisco Conference chaired by the State
Department’s Alger Hiss.
(TMC, 1994, p.1945)(AP, 10/24/97)(HN,
10/24/98)(WSJ, 12/19/03, p.A1)
1945 Nov 12, Cordell Hull
(d.1955) was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in founding
the United Nations. Hull served as secretary of state in the
Franklin Roosevelt Administration (1933-1944) longer than any other
individual. Hull, born in Tennessee in 1871, had been a U.S. senator
prior to his appointment by Roosevelt.
(HNQ, 7/6/98)(MC, 11/12/01)
1945 Dec 4, The US Senate
approved participation in the United Nations.
(AP, 12/4/97)
1945 Dec 27, 28 nations signed
an agreement creating the World Bank. The International Monetary
Fund and the Bank for Reconstruction and Development was created.
Better known as the World Bank, the IMF was created to promote
healthy international trade and began transactions in 1947.
(AP, 12/27/97)(HN, 12/27/98)(HNQ, 12/27/00)
1945 Dec 31, The ratification
of the UN Charter was completed.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1946 Jan 10, The first General
Assembly of the United Nations convened in London.
(AP, 1/10/98)
1946 Jan 17, The United Nations
Security Council held its first meeting.
(AP, 1/17/98)
1946 Jan 19, The first
complaint heard by the United Nations Security Council was made by
Iran and directed against the Soviet Union. Iran alleged Soviet
interference in its internal affairs and the refusal to remove
Soviet troops from Iranian territory. The very first session of the
UN had begun just days earlier, on January 10, 1946, in
London. The issue was resolved without UN intervention.
(HNQ, 6/2/00)
1946 Jan 24, The UN established
the International Atomic Energy Commission.
(HN, 1/24/99)
1946 Mar 21, The United Nations
set up temporary headquarters at Hunter College in New York City.
(AP, 3/21/97)
1946 Apr 8,
The League of Nations assembled in Geneva for its last session.
(AP, 4/8/08)
1946 Apr 18, The League of
Nations was dissolved.
(AHD, 1971, p.744)(AP, 4/18/97)(HN, 4/18/98)
1946 Nov 4, The United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) was
established. Julian Huxley, biologist, was the first
secretary-general.
(HN, 11/4/98)(SFC, 10/8/99, p.A12)
1946 Dec 11, The United Nations
International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) was
established. The organization received a Nobel Prize in 1965.
(AP, 12/11/97)(MC, 12/11/01)
1946 Dec 11, Spain was
suspended from the UN.
(MC, 12/11/01)
1946 Dec 12, A United Nations
committee voted to accept a six-block tract of Manhattan real estate
offered as a gift by John D. Rockefeller Jr. to be the site of U.N.
headquarters.
(AP, 12/12/97)
1946 Dec 14, The United Nations
General Assembly voted to establish the U.N. headquarters in New
York City. The UN adopted a disarmament resolution prohibiting the
A-Bomb.
(AP, 12/14/97)(HN, 12/14/98)
1947 Mar 24, John D.
Rockefeller Jr. donated a NYC East River site to the UN.
(MC, 3/24/02)
1947 Nov 29, The U.N. General
Assembly passed a resolution calling for the partitioning of
Palestine [Jerusalem] between Arabs and Jews.
(SFC, 10/18/96, C8)(AP, 11/29/97)
1947 The UN produced the short
film "First Steps," a documentary about a disabled child who learns
to walk. The film won an Academy Award.
(SFC, 8/26/97, p.E4)
1948 Apr 7, The World Health
Organization was founded by the UN. [see Sep 1, 1948]
(AP, 4/7/97)(MC, 4/7/02)
1948 Jun 18, The United Nations
Commission on Human Rights adopted its Universal Declaration of
Human Rights. It stated in part that: "Everyone has the right to
leave any country including his own and to return to that country."
In 2001 Mary Ann glendon authored "A World Made New," a history of
the drafting of the declaration.
(AP, 6/18/97)(SFC, 5/30/98, p.E4)(WSJ, 3/1/00,
p.A20)
1948 Apr 7, The World Health
Organization was founded by the UN. [see Sep 1, 1948] In 1948, the
First World Health Assembly called for the creation of a "World
Health Day" to mark the founding of the World Health Organization.
Since 1950, World Health Day has been celebrated on the 7th of April
annually.
(AP,
4/7/97)(www.who.int/world-health-day/previous/en/index.html)
1948 Sep 14, A groundbreaking
ceremony took place in New York at the site of the United Nations'
world headquarters.
(AP, 9/14/99)
1948 Sep 17, Count Folke
Bernadotte (b.1895) of Sweden, the UN mediator for Palestine, was
assassinated in Jerusalem by members of the extreme Zionist Stern
Group. Yehoshua Zettler (d.2009 at 91), one of the founding members
of the group, masterminded the assassination.
(AP,
9/17/98)(www.us-israel.org/jsource/biography/Bernadotte.html)(AP,
5/25/09)
1948 Sep 18, Ralph J. Bunche
was confirmed as acting UN mediator in Palestine.
(MC, 9/18/01)
1948 Nov 22, Ho Chi Minh’s
Democratic Republic of Vietnam requested admittance to the UN.
(HN, 11/22/98)
1948 Dec 8, UN approved the
recognition of South Korea.
(HN, 12/8/98)
1948 Dec 9, The Int’l.
Convention Against Genocide was approved by the UN General Assembly.
(HFA, ‘96, p.44)(SFC, 9/3/98, p.A14)(MC, 12/9/01)
1948 Dec 10, The U.N. General
Assembly adopted its Universal Declaration on Human Rights.
(AP, 12/10/97)
1948 Dec 11, United Nations
General Assembly Resolution 194 was passed near the end of the 1948
Arab-Israeli War. The resolution expresses appreciation for the
efforts of UN Envoy Folke Bernadotte after his assassination by
members of the Stern Gang. It was later often quoted in support of
the Palestinian right of return.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_General_Assembly_Resolution_194)(Econ,
9/6/08, p.68)
1949 Jan, The UN ordered a
cease-fire in Kashmir.
(SSFC, 12/30/01, p.A22)
1949 Mar 4, Security Council of
UN recommended membership for Israel.
(SC, 3/4/02)
1949 May 11, Israel was
admitted to the United Nations as the world body's 59th member by a
vote of 37-12. The capital was moved to Tel Aviv.
(TOH, 1982, p.1949)(AP, 5/11/97)(MC, 5/11/02)
1949 Nov 21, The UN Assembly
decided for the eventual independence of Italy’s former colonies. In
the meantime they remained under UN supervision. United Nations
granted Libya its independence in the year 1952.
(EWH, 1968, p.1176)(HN, 11/21/98)
1949 Oct 4, United Nations'
permanent NYC headquarters was dedicated.
(MC, 10/4/01)
1949 Dec 9, UN took trusteeship
over Jerusalem.
(HN, 12/9/98)
1949 Dec, The UN Relief and
Works Agency (UNRWA) was established to serve Palestinian Arabs.
(SSFC, 5/19/02, p.A10)
1950 Mar 23, UN World
Meteorological Organization was established.
(SS, 3/23/02)
1950 Jun 27, North Koreans
troop reached Seoul. UN Security Council called on members for
troops to aid South Korea.
(HN, 6/27/98)(MC, 6/27/02)
1950 Sep 1, 13 North Korean
divisions opened an assault on UN lines.
(MC, 9/1/02)
1950 Sep 19, The UN rejected
membership of China's People Republic.
(MC, 9/19/01)
1950 Sep 26, United Nations
troops recaptured the South Korean capital of Seoul from the North
Koreans.
(AP, 9/26/97)
1950 Oct 7, The United Nations
General Assembly passed a resolution to establish a unified and
democratic Korea.
(HN, 10/7/98)
1950 Nov 24, UN troops began an
assault with the intent to end the Korean War by Christmas.
(HN, 11/24/98)
1950 Dec 2, The UN voted 46-10
for Eritrea to be federated with Ethiopia. Union was to be achieved
September 15, 1952.
(http://nazret.com/history/)
1950 Minerva Bernardino (d.1998
at 91) was appointed a representative of the Dominican Republic at
the United Nations. She was one of the only 4 women to sign the 1945
UN Charter in San Francisco. She had insisted that the document
include the phrase "to ensure respect for human rights and
fundamental freedoms without discrimination against race, sex,
condition or creed."
(SFC, 9/5/98, p.A23)
1950 The US put forward its
“uniting for peace” resolution to the UN to overcome the Soviet veto
on military intervention in Korea.
(Econ, 7/31/04, p.40)
1950-1953 The United Nations employed 39,000
ground forces that joined with the United States in the Korean War.
(HNQ, 4/14/00)
1951 Jan 4, During the Korean
conflict, North Korean and Communist Chinese forces captured the
city of Seoul. UN forces abandoned Seoul, Korea to the Communists.
(AP, 1/4/98)(HN, 1/4/99)
1951 Jan 10, UN headquarters
opened in Manhattan, NY.
(MC, 1/10/02)
1951 Feb 1, The UN condemned
the People's Republic of China as aggressor in Korea.
(MC, 2/1/02)
1951 Feb 16, Stalin contended
that the U.N. was becoming the weapon of aggressive war.
(HN, 2/16/98)
1951 Mar 7, U.N. forces in
Korea under General Matthew Ridgeway launched Operation Ripper, an
offensive to straighten out the U.N. front lines against the
Chinese.
(HN, 3/7/99)
1951 Apr 1, U.N. forces again
crossed the 38th Parallel in Korea.
(HN, 4/1/98)
1951 May 18, The United Nations
moved out of its temporary headquarters in Lake Success, N.Y., for
its permanent home in Manhattan.
(AP, 5/18/97)(HN, 5/18/98)
1951 May 19, UN began a counter
offensive in Korea.
(MC, 5/19/02)
1951 Jul 28, The UN members
adopted the Convention on Refugees. It was not signed by Indonesia.
This was the founding charter for the UN High Commissioner for
Refugees (UNHCR). It spelled out the entitlements of those who flee
their country for fear of being killed or persecuted.
(Econ, 4/22/06, p.43)(Econ, 9/6/08,
p.67)(www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/o_c_ref.htm)
1951 Sep 8, A formal Treaty of
Peace was signed by 48 nations of the United Nations and Japan at
the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco. On the same day the
US and Japan signed a Joint Security Pact at the Presidio. The
Soviet delegation refused to sign and said the deal provided for the
exclusive existence of American military bases in Japan.
(Park, Spring/95, p.2)(AP, 9/8/97)(Ind, 9/8/01,
5A)
1951 Oct 7, Dr. Eduardo Anze
Matienzo of Bolivia, UN commissioner for Eritrea, announced that
Eritrea had accepted the UN Federation plan.
(http://nazret.com/history/)
1952 Nov 10, Trygve Halvdan Lie
resigned as 1st secretary-general of UN.
(MC, 11/10/01)
1953 Mar 31, UN Security
Council nominated Dag Hammarskjold secretary-general.
(MC, 3/31/02)
1953 Jun 4, North Koreans
accepted U.N. proposals in all major respects.
(HN, 6/4/98)
1953 Jul 27,
An armistice ending fighting in the three-year Korean War was signed
by representatives of the United Nations, Korea and China in
Panmunjom. Lt. Gen. William K. Harrison represented the UN and Gen.
Nam Il represented North Korea. General Mark Clark, commander of the
UN forces, added his signature to the armistice agreement. Armistice
negotiations had begun in July 1951, when the outlook for reunifying
North and South Korea became bleak, and fighting continued. The
cease-fire provided for an exchange of prisoners of war and
established a 2 ½ mile wide demilitarized zone and a
demarcation line at the 38th parallel. Not all aspects of the
agreement, however, were finalized—the UN Commission for the
Unification and Rehabilitation of Korea was not suspended until
1977. N. Korea measures 46,540 sq. miles, its population in 1974 was
~15 million people. 33,651 Americans had died and 8,000 were still
missing in 2000.
(NG, 8/74, p.255)(TMC, 1994, p.1953)(WSJ,
6/24/96, C1)(WUD, 1994, p.1685)(HNPD, 7/27/98)(HN, 7/27/98)(SFEC,
5/9/99, p.T10)(SFEC, 6/25/00, Par p.5)(SFC, 7/25/03, p.E6)
1953 Oct, Universal Children’s
Day was first observed in India. It was adopted by the UN General
Assembly in 1954. It became observed on different days in different
ways in more than 120 nations. In India, Children’s Day is
celebrated on 14th November, the birth anniversary of PM Jawaharlal
Nehru.
(www.indianchild.com/childrens_day_india.htm)
1953 Dec 8, Pres. Eisenhower
delivered his "Atoms for Peace" address to the UN. He called on both
the US and Soviet Union to abandon their nuclear arsenals. The
"Atoms for Peace" program spread nuclear technology to nations that
agreed not to use it for military purposes.
(SFC, 5/28/98, p.A9)(SFC, 12/9/03, p.A10)
1954 Aug 19, Ralph J. Bunche
was named undersecretary of UN.
(MC, 8/19/02)
1954 Sep 30, NATO nations
agreed to arm and admit West Germany.
(HN, 9/30/98)
1955 Jun 20, The 10th
commemorative session of the UN opened in SF with delegates from 60
nations. Pres. Eisenhower pledged a US policy of “peaceful and
reasonable negotiations” with all other powers.
(SFC, 6/17/05, p.F3)
1956 Apr 18, An
Israeli-Egyptian cease fire, arranged by UN Gen’l. Sec. Dag
Hammarskjold, went into effect.
(EWH, 1968, p.1241)
1956 Nov 2, The UN passed an
American resolution, 64 to 5, for a ceasefire at the Suez Canal in
Egypt. The General Assembly took up a Canadian suggestion for an
emergency force to monitor the ceasefire. The UN Emergency Force
(UNEF) became the first “blue hat” UN peacekeepers.
(Econ, 7/29/06,
p.24)(www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/missions/past/unefi.htm)
1956 Nov 8, UN demanded USSR
leave Hungary.
(MC, 11/8/01)
1957 Mar 9, Egyptian leader
Nasser barred U.N. plans to share the tolls for the use of the Suez
Canal.
(HN, 3/9/98)
1957 Sep 26, Dag Hammarskjold
was re-elected secretary-general of UN.
(MC, 9/26/01)
1957 The UN produced the film
"Out." It was about Hungarian refugees with a script by John Hersey.
(SFC, 8/26/97, p.E4)
1958 Jan 13, 9,000 scientists
of 43 nations petitioned the UN for a nuclear test ban.
(MC, 1/13/02)
1958 The UN produced the film
"Overture." It was directed by Thorold Dickinson and featured
Beethoven’s Egmont Overture against a background of war, hunger and
poverty.
(SFC, 8/26/97, p.E4)
1959 Nov 20, The United Nations
issued its "Declaration of the Rights of the Child."
(AP, 11/20/99)
1960 Jul 16, The 1st UN troops
reached Congo to replace Belgian troops.
(www.un.org/Depts/DPKO/Missions/onucB.htm)
1960 Sep 26, Fidel Castro made
the longest speech in UN history, 4 hrs, 29 mins.
(MC, 9/26/01)
1960 Sep 30, Fifteen African
nations were admitted to the United Nations.
(HN, 9/30/98)
1960 Oct 12, Soviet Premier
Nikita Khrushchev disrupted a UN General Assembly session by
pounding his desk with a shoe when a speaker criticized his country.
(AP, 10/12/07)
1960 In this year 17 former
African colonies became independent members of the UN.
(SSFC, 2/11/07, p.C1)
1961 Mar 30, The UN adopted its
Single Convention on Narcotics Drugs. It included language that
prohibited the chewing of coca leaves. It became effective on Dec
13, 1964.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Convention_on_Narcotic_Drugs)(SFC,
1/19/11, p.A2)
1961 Apr 13, The U.N. General
Assembly condemned South Africa for apartheid.
(HN, 4/13/98)
1961 Aug 30, A UN Convention on
the Reduction of Statelessness opened for signatures. It entered
into force on Dec 13, 1975. By 2007 only 34 countries had signed it.
(http://tinyurl.com/2tdgb6)(Econ, 12/1/07, p.75)
1961 Sep 13, Battles took place
between UN and Katanga troops in Congo.
(MC, 9/13/01)
1961 Sep 18, Dag Hammarskjold,
Secretary-General of the UN, was killed in a plane crash in Northern
Rhodesia (now Zambia). He was flying to negotiate a cease-fire in
the Congo. Hammarskjold was the son of a former Swedish prime
minister. In 1953, he was elected to the top UN post and in 1957 was
reelected. During his second term, he initiated and directed the
United Nation's vigorous role in the Belgian Congo. Hammarskjold had
sent Conor O’Brien (1919-2008), an Irish diplomat, to the Congo
where a rebellion was openly being backed by Belgium and secretly by
Britain and France. O’Brien ordered in UN troops, but the mission
ended in disarray and the UN repudiated the mission. O’Brien
recounted his version of the events in his book “To Katanga and
Back” (1962).
(TMC, 1994, p.1961)(WUD, 1994, p.1684)(AP,
9/18/97)(SSFC, 12/21/08, p.B6)
1961 Oct 27, Outer Mongolia and
Mauritania become the 102nd and 103rd members of UN.
(MC, 10/27/01)
1961 Oct 30, UN unanimously
elected U Thant acting UN Secretary General.
(MC, 10/30/01)
1961 Nov 11, Congolese soldiers
murdered 13 Italian UN pilots.
(MC, 11/11/01)
1961 Nov 24, The UN adopted
bans on nuclear arms over American protest.
(HN, 11/24/98)
1961 Nov 30, Soviets vetoed a
UN seat for Kuwait, pleasing Iraq.
(HN, 11/30/98)
1961 Dec 19, The UN General
Assembly adopted Resolutions 1714 (XVI) for the formation of its
World Food Program (WFP).
(www.fao.org/docrep/46140E/46140e06.htm)
1961-1971 U Thant of Burma served as the
Secretary-General of the UN.
(SFC, 12/14/96, p.A1)
1962 Feb, The UN’s
Intergovernmental Committee, the governing body of the World Food
Program (WFP), held its first session. Addeke Boerma was appointed
as WFP's first Executive Director in April.
(Econ, 3/20/10,
p.52)(www.wfp.org/about/corporate-information/history)
1962 Sep 1, UN announced
Earth’s that human population has hit 3 billion.
(MC, 9/1/02)
1962 Oct 25, U.S. ambassador
Adlai E. Stevenson presented photographic evidence of Soviet missile
bases in Cuba to the U.N. Security Council. Ambassador Adlai E.
Stevenson demanded USSR and Zorin answer regarding Cuban missile
bases saying "I am prepared to wait for my answer until hell freezes
over."
(AP, 10/25/97)(MC, 10/25/01)
1962 Nov 30, U Thant of Burma,
who had been acting secretary-general of the United Nations
following the death of Dag Hammarskjold the year before, was elected
to a four-year term.
(AP, 11/30/08)
1963 The "Decolonization
Committee" was set up to oversee the carrying out of a General
Assembly resolution that declared that "the subjection of peoples to
alien subjugation… is contrary to the Charter of the United
Nations," and that "all peoples have the right to
self-determination."
(WSJ, 11/29/99, p.A29)
1964 Mar 23, The UNCTAD 1 world
conference opened in Geneva.
(SS, 3/23/02)
1964 Jun 15, The Group of 77
(G-77) was established by 77 developing countries signatories of the
"Joint Declaration of the Seventy-Seven Countries" issued at the end
of the first session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and
Development (UNCTAD) in Geneva.
(www.g77.org/main/main.htm)
1965 Feb 19, Fourteen Vietnam
War protesters were arrested for blocking U.N. doors in New York.
(HN, 2/19/98)
1965 Nov 9, Roger Allen LaPorte
a 22 year old former seminarian and a member of the Catholic worker
movement, immolated himself at the United Nations in New York City
in protest of the Vietnam War.
(HN, 11/9/98)
1965 Nov 17, General Meeting of
UN refused admittance of China.
(MC, 11/17/01)
1965 Nov 20, UN Security
council called for a boycott of Rhodesia (later Zimbabwe).
(MC, 11/20/01)
1965 Indonesia became the
first nation ever to withdraw from the United Nations. Indonesia
withdrew in protest of the seating of Malaysia on the UN Security
Council. The former Dutch colony bitterly opposed the formation of
its neighbor Malaysia in 1963, refusing to recognize it and waging a
guerilla war against it. In 1966 a peace agreement with Malaysia was
reached and shortly thereafter Indonesia resumed its membership in
the UN.
(HNQ, 5/14/98)
1965 The United Nations added 4
non-permanent seats to the Security Council, bringing the
non-permanent total to 10 and the whole to 15.
(http://tinyurl.com/yyxchl)
1965-1967 Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan (d.2003), a
wealthy philanthropist who held a string of top UN humanitarian
posts and was the uncle of the spiritual leader of the Ismaili sect
of Shiite Islam, served as the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.
(AP, 5/13/03)(SFC, 5/15/03, p.A21)
1966 Oct 27, The UN deprived
South Africa of Namibia.
(MC, 10/27/01)
1966 Dec 30, Trygve Halvdan Lie
(72), 1st UN sect-general (1946-53), died.
(MC, 12/30/01)
1966 The UN endorsed the
International Covenants on Civil and Political Rights and Economic,
Social and Cultural Rights. It took effect in 1976. The US ratified
the treaty but exempted itself from a provision that banned the
execution of those under 18.
(MT, Dec. '95, p.16)(SFC, 10/6/98, p.A10)(SFEC,
10/8/00, Z1 p.4)
1966 The UN set up an
Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) to promote industrial
development in the Third World.
(SFC, 2/17/96, p.A14)
1966 The UN applied
international sanctions intended to cut off Rhodesia from the rest
of the world due to Rhodesia’s (later Zimbabwe) opposition to
majority rule.
(SFC, 11/23/07, p.B14)
1967 Mar 27, A North Vietnamese
spokesman unequivocally rejected a new peace plan proposed by UN
Sec. General U Thant (1907-1974) on March 14.
(http://www.nybooks.com/articles/12091)
1967 Nov 22, The U.N. Security
Council approved Resolution 242, which called for Israel to withdraw
from territories it captured in 1967, and implicitly called on
adversaries to recognize Israel's right to exist.
(AP, 11/22/97)
1967 Dec 14, Israel submitted
to the United Nations a five-year plan to solve the Arab refugee
problem conditioned on a general peace settlement between Israel and
the Arab states.
(AP, 12/14/02)
1967 UN members adopted a
protocol on refugees.
(Econ, 11/27/04, p.44)
1968 May 29, UN resolved
sanctions on white-minority-ruled Rhodesia.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1968 Jun, The United Nations
General Assembly approved a Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of
Nuclear Weapons.
(WSJ, 12/19/03, p.A8)
1968 World leaders proclaimed
that individuals have a basic human right to determine freely and
responsibly the number and timing of their children. This led to the
annual UN celebration of World Population Day.
(www.unfpa.org/wpd/)
1969 Jul 14-1969 Aug 2, In West
Papua the "Act of Free Choice" was conducted by the Indonesian
military forces. A UN approved referendum, involving 1,026
handpicked pro-Jakarta tribal chiefs, ratified Indonesia’s 1963
annexation of West Papua. Many voted at gunpoint in the unanimous
decision. In papers released in 2004, it has been revealed that US
Ambassador, Marshall Green in 1969 had fore knowledge that Indonesia
had no intention of allowing a Papuan vote that might prevent
Indonesia from annexing West Papua as a Indonesian province; he
further pointed out that any UN member would unwise to expect free
or direct elections.
(WSJ, 6/6/00, p.A23)(SSFC, 9/1/02,
p.A15)(http://tinyurl.com/7cxq3)
1970 Mar 17, The United States
cast its first veto in the UN Security Council. The US killed a
resolution that would have condemned Britain for failure to use
force to overthrow the white-ruled government of Rhodesia.
(AP, 3/17/00)
1970 Nov 20, UN General
Assembly accepted membership of the People’s Republic of China.
(www.un.org/documents/ga/res/25/ares25.htm)
1970 The UNESCO Convention on
the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export
and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property was set up to protect
cultural heritage.
(AM, 5/01, p.20)
1971 Oct 25, The UN General
Assembly voted to admit the People’s Republic of China and expel
Nationalist China (Taiwan).
(WUD, 1994, p. 1688)(AP, 10/25/97)
1971 Nov 23, The People's
Republic of China was seated in the UN Security Council. The UN vote
to admit was Oct 25.
(WUD, 1994, p. 1688)(AP, 11/23/97)
1971 Dec 22, The UN General
Assembly voted to ratify the election of Kurt Waldheim (1918-2007)
of Austria to succeed U Thant as the 4th Secretary-General.
(AP, 12/22/99)
1971-1973 George H.W. Bush served as the US
ambassador to the United Nations.
(SSFC, 8/15/04, p.D11)
1972 Jan 1, Kurt Waldheim
(1918-2007) of Austria began serving as the UN Secretary-General. He
continued until Jan 1, 1982.
(SFC, 12/14/96, p.A1)
1972 Nov 16, The Convention
Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage
(the World Heritage Convention) was adopted by the General
Conference of UNESCO. As of 2009 it was ratified by 186 states and
had placed some 890 sites under its purview.
(http://whc.unesco.org/en/conventiontext/)(Econ,
9/12/09, p.65)
1973 Oct 22, Israeli troops
reconquered Mount Hermon from Syria. The UN Security Council
Resolution 338 called for a cease fire to the Yom Kippur War. The UN
Security Council issued Resolution 338 calling for a ceasefire and
the start of negotiations aimed at implementation of
Resolution 242.
(http://tinyurl.com/5m3oom)(http://tinyurl.com/4s8kua)
1973 Oct 23, In the Yom Kippur
War Syria announced it had accepted a UN sanctioned cease-fire, and
the Iraqi government ordered its forces home.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yom_Kippur_War)
1973 Oct 24, The UNSC passed
Resolution 339, serving as a renewed call for all parties to adhere
to the cease fire terms established in Resolution 338. Organized
fighting on all fronts ended by October 26.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yom_Kippur_War)
1973 Dec 21, Israel, Egypt,
Syria, Jordan, US and USSR leaders met in Geneva. The Geneva
Conference of 1973 was an attempt to negotiate a solution to the
Arab-Israeli conflict as called for in UN Security Council
Resolution 338 which was passed after the 1973 Arab-Israeli War.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva_Conference_(1973))
1973-1976 Sir Robert Rhodes James (d.1999 at 66)
served as the principal officer in the executive office of Kurt
Waldheim.
(SFC, 5/25/99, p.B2)
1974 Nov 1, The UN General
Assembly unanimously passed the first of countless resolutions
calling all states to respect the sovereignty, independence,
territorial integrity and non-alignment of the Republic of Cyprus.
(www.cyprus-conflict.net/Greek%20v%20Turk%20narr%20-%201974.htm)
1974 Nov 12, South Africa was
suspended from UN General Assembly over racial policies.
(www.anc.org.za/un/un-chron.html)
1974 Nov 13, Yasser Arafat
addressed the UN General Assembly on behalf of Palestine.
(SFC, 11/11/04, p.A18)
1974 Nov 16, In Rome the first
UN World Food Conference ended. At the conference, which had opened
on Nov. 5, governments examined the global problem of food
production and consumption, and solemnly proclaimed that "every man,
woman and child has the inalienable right to be free from hunger and
malnutrition in order to develop their physical and mental
faculties."
(SFC, 11/18/96,
p.A10)(www.un.org/esa/devagenda/food.html)
1974 Nov 22, UN General
Assembly recognized Palestine's right to sovereignty and national
independence.
(SFC, 2/8/99, p.A6)(http://tinyurl.com/52x3eg)
1974 Nov 25, Former U.N.
Secretary-General U Thant died in New York at age 65.
(AP, 11/25/97)
1974 The UN recognized the
right of Palestinians to sovereignty and national independence.
(SFC, 2/8/99, p.A6)
1975 Feb 14, Julian S. Huxley
(b.1887), English biologist, died. He served as the first
Director-General of UNESCO (1946-1948).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Huxley)
1975 Mar 8, The United Nations
began observing International Women's Day.
(www.un.org/womenwatch/feature/iwd/)
1975 Oct 17, A UN committee
passed a resolution saying "Zionism is a form of racism." The
resolution was reversed in 1991.
(www.heritage.org/Research/InternationalOrganizations/bg851.cfm)(Econ,
4/25/09, p.62)
1975 Nov 10, The UN General
Assembly approved a resolution equating Zionism with racism.
However, the world body repealed the resolution in December 1991.
(AP,
11/10/97)(www.heritage.org/Research/InternationalOrganizations/bg851.cfm)
1975 Pres. Gerald Ford
appointed Daniel Patrick Moynihan as ambassador to the United
Nations.
(SFC, 11/7/98, p.A2)
1976 Mar 23, International Bill
of Rights went into effect (35 nations ratify).
(SS, 3/23/02)
1976 Jul 9, Uganda asked UN to
condemn Israeli hostage rescue raid on Entebbe.
(http://openweb.tvnews.vanderbilt.edu/1976-7/1976-07-09-NBC-18.html)
1976 Nov 9, The UN General
Assembly approved ten resolutions condemning apartheid in South
Africa, including one characterizing the white-ruled government as
"illegitimate."
(AP, 11/9/00)
1976 Dec 7, The UN Security
Council endorsed Kurt Waldheim (1918-2007) of Austria for a 2nd
5-year term as UN Secretary-General.
(www.worldofquotes.com/history/12_7/6/index.html)
1976 The 1966 UN endorsed the
International Covenants on Civil and Political Rights and Economic,
Social and Cultural Rights took effect.
(MT, Dec. '95, p.16)(SFC, 10/6/98, p.A10)
1977 Jul 20, The UN Security
Council voted to admit Vietnam to the world body.
(AP, 7/20/07)
1977 The United Nations imposed
an arms embargo against South Africa to pressure it to end
apartheid.
(WSJ, 12/19/03, p.A8)
1977-1986 Oleg Troyanovsky (1919-2003) served as
the Soviet Ambassador to the United Nations.
(AP, 12/23/03)
1978 Mar 19, The UN Security
Council adopted Resolution 425 demanding that Israel withdraw from
Lebanon.
(SFC, 5/24/00, p.A15)
1978 UNESCO named Ecuador’s 19
Galapagos Islands a World Heritage Site.
(SSFC, 12/22/02, p.M6)(Econ, 8/28/10, p.49)
1978 The UN Interim Force in
Lebanon (UNIFIL) was created to confirm Israel's withdrawal from
Lebanon.
(SFC, 5/24/00, p.A15)(AP, 7/28/06)
1979 Jan 1, UN Secretary
General Kurt Waldheim signed a proclamation declaring 1979 as
the International Year of the Child.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Year_of_the_Child)
1979 Jan 9, ABBA performed
"Chiquitita" at the Music for UNICEF Concert held at the United
Nations General Assembly to celebrate UNICEF's Year of the Child.
ABBA donated the copyright of this worldwide hit to the UNICEF; see
Music for UNICEF Concert. The single was released the following
week, and reached #1 in ten countries.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABBA)
1979 Jan 15, The Soviet Union
vetoed a United Nations resolution and called for the withdrawal of
all Vietnamese troops from Cambodia.
(HN, 1/15/99)
1979 Dec 18, The UN Convention
on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW)
was adopted with 10 abstentions. It entered into force on Sep 3,
1981. By 2005 the treaty was endorsed by more than 170 nations, but
still opposed by the US.
(www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/cedaw/text/econvention.htm)(SFEC,
10/8/00, Z1 p.4)
1979 The UN produced the
animated film "Broom." It won the Cannes Festival Palme D’Or.
(SFC, 8/26/97, p.E4)
1979 The UN produced the film
"People: A Matter of Balance." It included film footage shot by
director Roberto Rossellini in the Amazon and Africa.
(SFC, 8/26/97, p.E4)
1979 The UN opened a major
branch in Vienna, Austria, as a third world center.
(SFC, 2/17/96, p.A14)
1980 Jan 14, UN voted 104-18 to
deplore the Soviet Afghan acts.
(HN, 1/14/99)
1980 Aug 20, UN Security
Council condemned (14-0, US abstains) Israeli declaration that all
of Jerusalem is it's capital.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Council_Resolution_478)
1980 Oct 10, The UN Convention
on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) was concluded in Geneva and
entered into force in December 1983. It seeks to prohibit or
restrict the use of certain conventional weapons which are
considered excessively injurious or that have indiscriminate
effects. It was updated to cover land mines in May, 1996. The
process continued into 2007 to include cluster bombs.
(www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/FULL/500?OpenDocument)(Econ, 6/23/07,
p.67)(SFC, 5/4/96, p.A-9)(WSJ, 5/31/96, p.A13)
1981 Sep 21, Belize under
leader George Price (1919-2011) gained independence from Britain and
joined the UN under protests from Guatemala. As head of the centrist
People's United Party, Price served two terms as prime minister,
1981-84 and 1989-1993.
(www.belizenet.com/bzeguat/chap10.html)(AP,
9/19/11)
1981 Sep 28, US Pres. Ronald
Reagan designated, October 24, 1981, as United Nations Day. In 2002,
September 21 was declared the annual date for "commemorating and
strengthening the ideals of peace both within and among all nations
and peoples."
(AFP,
9/20/09)(www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1981/92881d.htm)
1981 Dec 11, The UN Security
Council chose Javier Perez de Cuellar of Peru to be the fifth
secretary-general of the world body. He served to 1992.
(SFC, 12/14/96, p.A1)(AP, 12/11/97)
1982 Apr 3, Britain dispatched
a naval task force to the south Atlantic to reclaim the disputed
Falkland Islands from Argentina. The UN Security Council demanded
Argentina withdraw from Falkland Islands.
(AP, 4/3/02)
1982 Jun 17, Pres. Reagan
addressed the UN General Assembly in NYC.
(www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1982/61782a.htm)
1982 Dec 10, The UN Law of the
Sea (UNCLOS) treaty opened for signature. It extended
internationally recognized territorial waters to 200 miles offshore.
The convention came into force on November 16, 1994, one year after
the sixtieth state, Guyana, signed it. The treaty gave countries the
power to restrict fishing within 231 miles of their coasts. The
convention created the International Seabed authority and the
International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea.
(http://tinyurl.com/2wsq9p)(WSJ, 1/18/07,
p.A13)(Econ, 8/18/07, p.51)
1982 A UN treaty allowed
land-locked countries to use sea routes including providing paid
services such as ship registry.
(AFP, 4/3/12)
1983 Dec 29, US announced its
withdrawal from UNESCO.
(http://preview.tinyurl.com/33usdl)
1983 The "Man and the
Biosphere" Reserve system included the Big Sur coastal area by
Limekiln State Park (est. 1995).
(SFEC, 3/30/97, p.T3)
1984 US Sec. of State George
Shultz, on behalf of the Reagan administration, signed a letter that
resigned the US from UNESCO, the UN Educational, Scientific and
Cultural Organization. In 2001 efforts were made to rejoin.
(SFC, 12/6/01, p.E1)
1984 VP George H.W. Bush
nominated Pedro A. Sanjuan to be director of political affairs in
the UN Secretariat. His real job was to spy on the Soviet spies
working for the secretary-general. Sanjuan left the Secretariat in
1992. In 2005 he authored “The UN Gang,” an account of UN operations
from 1984-1992.
(WSJ, 9/13/05, p.D8)
1985 Nov 17, Olaf Palme stopped
an illegal shipment of 80 HAWK missiles through Sweden from Israel
to Teheran, as he mediated an end of the Iran-Iraq war for the UN.
(http://www.skog.de/writers/e040831.htm)
1985 Dec 18, The UN Security
Council unanimously condemned "acts of hostage-taking."
(www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-4118333.html)
1985-1986 Jeffrey Sachs, UN special advisor,
helped stop the hyperinflation in Bolivia.
(Econ, 7/7/07, p.27)
1986 Nov 20, UN's WHO announced
1st global effort to combat AIDS.
(http://tinyurl.com/ycyxmk)
1987 Jul 20, The UN Security
Council voted unanimously to approve a U.S.-sponsored resolution
demanding an end to the Persian Gulf war between Iraq and Iran, a
move supported by Iraq and dismissed by Iran.
(AP, 7/20/97)
1987 A Convention Against
Torture was established.
(SSFC, 5/19/02, p.A18)
1988 Jan 5, The U.N. Security
Council voted unanimously to ask Israel not to deport Palestinians
from the occupied territories in the first council vote against
Israel since 1981.
(AP, 1/5/98)
1988 Jan 14, With the United
States abstaining, the U.N. Security Council voted 14-0 to call on
Israel to stop deporting Palestinians and to allow those already
expelled to return.
(AP, 1/14/98)
1988 Mar 2, The U.N. General
Assembly voted overwhelmingly to order the United States to submit
to binding arbitration its plan to close the observer mission of the
Palestine Liberation Organization. A federal court later stopped the
U.S.
(AP, 3/2/98)
1988 Jul 26, U.N. Secretary
General Javier Perez de Cuellar met twice with Iran's foreign
minister in the first formal talks about a cease-fire for the
eight-year war between Iran and Iraq.
(AP, 7/26/98)
1988 Jul 27, U.N. Secretary
General Javier Perez de Cuellar held separate peace talks with the
foreign ministers of Iraq and Iran on a cease-fire in the
eight-year-old Persian Gulf war.
(AP, 7/27/98)
1988 Aug 8, U.N.
Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar announced a cease-fire
between Iran and Iraq. This became a Iraqi national holiday until it
was abolished in 2003.
(SFC, 2/24/9, p.A9)(AP, 8/8/98)(AP, 7/13/03)
1988 Sep 20, The 43rd General
Assembly opened at the United Nations.
(AP, 9/20/98)
1988 Sep 26, In a farewell
speech to the U.N. General Assembly, President Reagan saw "a moment
for hope" for peace in the world, citing a new U.S.-Soviet treaty to
sharply reduce nuclear arms due during the following year.
(AP, 9/26/98)
1988 Oct 13, Absa Claude
Diallo, Chairman of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable
Rights of the Palestinian People, addressed a letter to the UN
Sec.-Gen. concerning profound concern at the “continued grave
situation in the occupied Palestinian territories and the
intensification of the policy of repression pursued by Israel
against the Palestinian people.”
(http://tinyurl.com/zks7q)
1988 Nov 30, UN General
Assembly (151-2) censured US for refusing PLO's Arafat a visa.
(MC, 11/30/01)
1988 The UN and World
Meteorological Organization established the Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change (IPCC). The authority issued ist first assessment
on global warming in 1990 and continued with reports every 5 years.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intergovernmental_Panel_on_Climate_Change)(SFC,
11/4/99, p.A5)
1989 Sep 25, President Bush,
addressing the UN General Assembly, offered to slash American stocks
of chemical weapons by more than 80%, provided the Soviets did the
same.
(AP, 9/25/99)
1989 Sep 26, In a speech to the
UN General Assembly, Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze
accepted President Bush's call for deep cuts in US and Soviet
chemical weapon stockpiles. Shevardnadze called for the total
destruction of Soviet and US chemical weapons.
(AP,
9/26/99)(www.fas.org/nuke/control/bwc/chron.htm)
1989 Nov 20, The Int’l.
Convention on the Rights of the Child was established to protect the
economic, social and civil rights of children. The US and Somalia
did not ratify the Convention.
(SFEC, 10/8/00, Z1 p.4)(AP, 11/20/09)
1989 The UN produced the film
"Breaking Barriers." It was about the disabled.
(SFC, 8/26/97, p.E4)
1989 The UN Convention on
Int’l. Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) imposed a total ban on
the trade of ivory and elephant hide. In 2007 the ban was extended
for another 9 years.
(WSJ, 1/7/97, p.A1)(SFC, 6/20/97, p.A20)(SFC,
4/18/00, p.A9)(Econ, 3/8/08, p.85)
1990 Jun 11, UN appoints Olivia
Newton-John as environmental ambassador.
(SC, 6/11/02)
1990 Aug 2, By a vote of 14-0,
the United Nations Security Council condemned the invasion and
annexation of Kuwait by Iraq and demanded in Resolution 660 the
unconditional withdrawal of Iraqi troops from Kuwait.
(HNQ, 5/27/99)
1990 Aug 6, The UN Security
Council (Resolution 651) ordered a worldwide embargo on trade with
Iraq to punish the Baghdad regime for invading Kuwait.
(SFC, 9/4/96, p.A8)(NH, 9/96, p.14)(AP,
8/6/00)(SFC, 9/24/02, p.A12)
1990 Sep 2, The UN Convention
on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) entered into force. As of 2008
only the United States and Somalia had failed to ratify the
document.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_the_Rights_of_the_Child)(Econ,
5/31/08, p.62)
1990 Sep 13, The UN Security
Council at its 2939th meeting adopted Resolution 666, regarding
foodstuffs to be supplied to the civilian population in Iraq or
Kuwait in order to relieve human suffering.
(www.caabu.org/press/documents/unscr-resolution-666.html)
1990 Oct 12, The UN Security
Council voted unanimously to condemn Israel’s security forces for
killing 17 Palestinian demonstrators on the Temple Mount.
(AP, 10/12/00)
1990 Nov 26, Five permanent
members of U.N. Security Council agreed on peace plan for Cambodia.
(AP, 11/26/02)
1990 Nov 29, The UN Security
Council, led by the United States, voted 12-to-two to authorize
military action if Iraq did not withdraw its troops from Kuwait and
release all foreign hostages by January 15th, 1991.
(AP, 11/29/00)
1990 The United Nations
Association awarded Sally Lilienthal the Eleanor Roosevelt
Humanitarian Award.
(SFEC, 9/29/96, Z1 p.3)
1991 Jan 10, Five days before a
UN deadline for Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait, peace efforts
intensified, with UN Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar
setting off on a mission aimed at averting war.
(AP, 1/10/01)
1991 Jan 13, UN
Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar met with Iraqi President
Saddam Hussein in a bid to avoid war in the Persian Gulf.
(AP, 1/13/01)
1991 Jan 15, With hours
remaining before a United Nations deadline for Iraq to withdraw from
Kuwait, UN Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar made a final
appeal to Saddam Hussein to remove his troops.
(AP, 1/15/01)
1991 Mar 2, The UN Security
Council adopted a resolution dictating allied demands that Iraq had
to meet before a formal-cease fire was declared in the Persian Gulf
War.
(AP, 3/2/01)
1991 Mar 21, A UN Security
Council panel decided to lift the food embargo on Iraq.
(AP, 3/21/01)
1991 Apr 3, The UN Security
Council (Resolution 687) adopted a Gulf War truce resolution
demanding that Iraq abolish weapons of mass destruction, renounce
terrorism and pay reparations.
(AP, 4/3/01)(SFC, 9/24/02, p.A12)
1991 Apr 11, U.N. Security
Council issued a formal cease fire with Iraq to end the Gulf War.
(SFC, 2/24/98, p.A9)(HN, 4/11/98)
1991 Aug 7, The five permanent
members of the UN Security Council agreed to authorize Iraq to sell
as much as $1.6 billion in oil over six months to pay for food,
humanitarian supplies and war reparations; however, Baghdad rejected
the resolution.
(AP, 8/7/01)
1991 Aug 15, The UN Security
Council, by a vote of 13-to-one, authorized Iraq to export
one-point-six billion dollars’ worth of oil in a tightly controlled
sale to pay for desperately needed food and medicine.
(AP, 8/15/01)
1991 Sep 19, UN Resolution 712
allowed a partial lifting of the embargo against Iraq for
humanitarian purposes.
(SFC, 9/24/02, p.A12)
1991 Sep 25, The U.N. Security
Council unanimously passed Resolution 713 that imposed a worldwide
arms embargo against Yugoslavia and all its warring factions.
(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A14)(AP, 9/20/01)
1991 Nov 21, The U.N. Security
Council chose Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt to succeed Javier Perez
de Cuellar of Peru as Secretary-General of the UN.
(SFC, 6/22/96, p.A13)(AP, 11/21/97)
1991 Nov 27, The U.N. Security
Council unanimously adopted a resolution paving the way for the
establishment of a U.N. peacekeeping operation in war-ravaged
Yugoslavia.
(AP, 11/27/01)
1991 Nov 26, UNICEF said
fighting and crop failures in southern Sudan had forced
unprecedented exodus of 200,000 people.
(AP, 11/26/02)
1991 Dec 16, The U.N. General
Assembly rescinded its 1975 resolution equating Zionism with racism
by a vote of 111-25.
(AP, 12/16/97)
1991 The United Nations
Compensation Commission was established after the allies’ victory in
the Gulf War to settle claims filed by individuals, corporations and
governments who suffered due to the war.
(WSJ, 8/18/97, p.A1)
1991 The UN began its Change
for Good operation to help support the Children’s Fund. The program
recruited flight attendants to collect left over change in foreign
currencies from passengers returning to the US. By 2002 the program
raised some $31 million.
(SSFC, 1/6/02, p.C3)
1991 The UN’s health agency
destroyed nearly 200 million doses of smallpox vaccine because it
lacked the $25,000 a year for storage.
(WSJ, 11/30/01, p.A1)
1992 Jan 31, Leaders of the
U.N. Security Council's member states held an unprecedented summit,
after which they issued a declaration on collective security, arms
control and nuclear non-proliferation.
(AP, 1/31/02)
1992 Mar 2, The 47th session of
the UN General Assembly welcomed eight former Soviet republics and
San Marino as its newest members. Kazakhstan’s Pres. Nursultan
Nazarbayev proposed to the UN General Assembly an annual reduction
of military budgets by 1% and using the money to fund and strengthen
UN peace projects.
(AP, 3/2/02)(Econ, 12/16/06, p.81)
1992 Mar 11, Members of the
U.N. Security Council accused Iraq of playing a game of "cheat and
retreat" from its promises to disarm and respect its people's human
rights; Iraqi deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz lashed back, saying
his country was complying with Gulf War cease-fire resolutions.
(AP, 3/11/02)
1992 Mar 13, The U.N. Security
Council stood firm in its demand that Iraq comply totally with Gulf
War cease-fire resolutions, rebuffing an appeal for leniency from
Saddam Hussein's special envoy, deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz.
(AP, 3/13/97)
1992 Mar 15, The United Nations
officially embarked on its largest peacekeeping operation with the
arrival of a diplomat in Cambodia.
(AP, 3/15/97)
1992 Oct 6, The U.N. Security
Council voted unanimously to establish a war crimes commission for
Bosnia-Herzegovina.
(AP, 10/6/97)
1992 Oct 9, The U.N. Security
Council voted to ban all military flights over Bosnia-Herzegovina.
(AP, 10/9/97)
1992 Dec 3, The U.N. Security
Council unanimously approved a U.S.-led military mission to help
starving Somalia.
(AP, 12/3/97)
1992 Dec 18, The U.N. Security
Council unanimously denounced Israel's deportation of more than 400
Palestinians and demanded their immediate return.
(AP, 12/18/97)
1992 Dec 22, The UN General
Assembly adopted resolution A/RES/47/193 by which 22 March of each
year was declared World Day for Water, to be observed starting in
1993.
(www.unesco.org/water/water_celebrations/index.shtml)
1993
Feb 22, The UN passed Resolution 808 that established the Hague
Int'l. War Crimes Tribunal for the Prosecution of Persons
Responsible for Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law
committed in the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia since 1 January
1991.
(www.helsinki.org.yu/pubs_text.php?lang=en&idteksta=417)
1993 May 25, The International
Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was established
by Resolution 827 of the UN Security Council. Judges were elected on
15 September 1993 and on 15 August 1994 the Prosecutor was
appointed.
(SFC, 5/8/96,
p.A-11)(www.un.org/icty/glance-e/index.htm)
1993 Mar 31, The U.N. Security
Council increased international pressure on Bosnian Serbs,
authorizing NATO warplanes to shoot down aircraft that violated a
ban on flights over Bosnia.
(AP, 3/31/98)
1993 Jun 16, The UN authorized
an arms and oil embargo against Haiti.
(www.un.org/News/ossg/haiti.htm)
1993 Aug 27, The U.N. Security
Council suspended 2 1/2-month-old economic sanctions against Haiti
to spur the country's return to democracy. They were reimposed the
following October.
(AP, 8/27/98)
1993 Oct 8, UN lifted remaining
economic sanctions against South Africa.
(MC, 10/8/01)
1993 Oct 13, The U.N. Security
Council voted to reimpose sanctions on Haiti unless military leaders
there stopped violating a U.N.-brokered accord.
(AP, 10/13/98)
1993 Oct 16, The U.N. Security
Council endorsed the deployment of U.S. warships to block arms and
oil shipments to Haiti in an attempt to increase pressure on Haiti's
military leaders.
(HN, 10/16/98)
1993 UN members made a
declaration that the promotion and protection of human rights is a
legitimate concern of the int’l. community.
(SFC,10/15/97, p.C2)
1993 The UN International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) began a database to count incidents of
nuclear trafficking.
(Econ, 10/04/08, p.65)
1994 Jan 1, Botswana, Germany,
Italy, Honduras, and Indonesia joined the Security Council.
(SFC, 1/1/97, p.C1)
1994 Apr 8, About this time the
commander of UN forces in Rwanda warned Kofi Annan, head of the UN
Peacekeeping operations, that the Kigali government was planning to
slaughter Tutsis. Annan’s office ordered Gen’l. Romeo Dallaire of
Canada not to protect the informant or to confiscate arms
stockpiles. Annan later claimed that he lacked the military might
and political backing to stop the slaughter of more than 500,000
people.
(USAT, 5/4/98, p.9A)(USAT, 5/5/98, p.11A)
1994 May 17, The U.N. Security
Council approved a peacekeeping force and an arms embargo for
violence-racked Rwanda. By June, 1994, 800,000 died there despite
the presence of a small UN mission.
(AP, 5/17/99)
1994 May 25, The UN Security
Council lifted a 10-year-old ban on weapons exports from South
Africa, scrapping the last of its apartheid-era embargoes.
(AP, 5/25/99)
1994 Jul 31, The U.N. Security
Council voted 12-0 with 2 abstentions to authorize member states to
use "all necessary means" to oust the military leadership in Haiti.
(AP, 7/31/99)(MC, 7/31/02)
1994 Sep 5, A U.N.-sponsored
population conference opened in Cairo, Egypt, where Norwegian Prime
Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland lashed out at the Vatican and at
Muslim fundamentalists by defending abortion rights and sex
education. 179 nations signed a statement to ensure every woman’s
right to education and health care and to make choices about
childbearing. In 2004 world leaders of 85 nations endorsed the plan
but the US refused because the statement mentioned “sexual
rights.”
(AP, 9/5/99)(SFC, 10/14/04, p.A9)
1994 Nov 16, The UN Law of the
Sea, ratified in 1993, took effect. Arvid Pardo (d.1999 at 85),
Maltese delegate to the UN, proposed in 1967 that the bounty of the
sea should be considered "the common heritage of mankind" and asked
that some of the sea's wealth be used to bankroll a fund to help
close the gap between rich and poor nations. The International
Seabed Authority came into existence as the law took effect. The
first Secretary-General of the Authority, Satya Nandan (Fiji) was
elected in March 1996, and the Authority became fully operational as
an autonomous international organization in June 1996, when it took
over the premises and facilities in Kingston, Jamaica. The UN Law of
the Sea treaty, which extended internationally recognized
territorial waters to 200 miles offshore, came into force one year
after the sixtieth state, Guyana, signed it.
(http://tinyurl.com/2wsq9p)(SFC, 7/19/99, p.A22)
1994 Nov 8, The UN Security
Council established the Int’l. Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR)
to prosecute those responsible for the Rwanda genocide. By 2004 18
people were convicted. In 2004 Sylvestre Gacumbitsi, a former
Rwandan mayor, was convicted for his role in the slaughter and
sentenced to 30 years in prison.
(SSFC, 4/7/02,
p.A19)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Criminal_Tribunal_for_Rwanda)
(SFC, 6/18/04, p.A3)
1994 Manfred Nowak was assigned
the job of envoy of the UN for missing persons in the former
Yugoslavia. He resigned in 1997 and said that he failed to receive
support to account for the 20,000 missing people of the Bosnian war.
(SFC, 3/27/97, p.A18)
1994 The El Vizcaino Biosphere
Region in Baja California was declared a UN World Heritage Site.
(SFC, 3/13/99, p.A14)
1995 Jan 1, Chile, Egypt,
Guinea-Bissau, Poland and South Korea joined the non-permanent
sector of the Security Council.
(SFC, 1/1/97, p.C1)
1995 Apr 14, The UN Security
Council (Resolution 986) gave permission to Iraq, still under
sanctions for its invasion of Kuwait, to sell $2 billion dollars'
worth of oil to buy food, medicine and other supplies. Iraq later
rejected the offer.
(AP, 4/14/00)(SFC, 9/24/02, p.A12)
1995 May 11, A United Nations
conference indefinitely extended the Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty, which was originally set to expire after 25 years.
(AP, 5/11/00)
1995 May 25, NATO warplanes
struck Bosnian Serb headquarters. Serbs answered with swift
defiance, storming UN weapons depots, attacking safe areas and
taking peacekeepers as hostages.
(AP, 5/25/00)
1995 May 26, Serbs bombarded
Serajevo. On Jun 6 NATO launched 2 air raids against an ammunition
dump in Serb-held central Bosnia.
(SFC, 6/7/96, p.A10)(SFC,10/16/97, p.A12)
1995 Jun 6, NATO launched 2 air
raids against an ammunition dump in Serb-held central Bosnia.
The air strikes touched off a crises in which [270] 350 UN
peacekeepers were taken hostage by Bosnian Serbs. Serb forces seized
270 UN peacekeepers, shackled them to potential targets, and ordered
them to plead on camera for the NATO air attacks to stop. Serbia
improved its relations with the West by helping to arrange the
release of the hostages.
(SFC, 6/7/96, p.A10)(SFC,10/16/97, p.A12)
1995 Jul 23, The United Nations
ordered the first combat unit from its rapid reaction force to
Sarajevo to take out any rebel Serb guns that fire at U.N.
peacekeepers.
(AP, 7/23/97)
1995 Oct 22, The largest
gathering of world leaders in history marked the 50th anniversary of
the United Nations.
(AP, 10/22/05)
1995 Sep 15, The UN Fourth
World Conference on Women adjourned in Beijing after approving a
wide-ranging platform running the gamut from promoting inheritance
rights to condemning rape in wartime. The Beijing Platform, signed
by 189 states, urged a review of all laws that punish women for
having abortions.
(AP, 9/15/00)(Econ, 5/19/07, p.65)
1995-2000 Sergei Tretyakov, served as deputy head
of intelligence at Russia's UN mission. In 2000 he defected to the
US and in 2008 said "Inside the UN, we were fishing for
knowledgeable diplomats who could give us first of all anti-American
information."
(AP, 1/27/08)
1996 Mar 27, The UN Security
Council (Resolution 1051) established an export-import monitoring
system for Iraq and demanded full cooperation.
(SFC, 9/24/02, p.A12)
1996 May 16, UN and Iraqi
officials reached a tentative agreement to resume oil sales of $4
billion a year to buy food and medicine. The oil for food program
mandated that 13% of the UN resources go to northern Kurdish areas.
In 2004 it was reported that illicit trade agreements with neighbors
netted Iraq nearly $11 billion between 1990 and 2003. In 2004 the
estimate for illicit trade was raised to $21.3 billion.
(SFC, 5/16/96, p.A-9)(SFC, 9/3/01, p.A9)(SFC,
10/9/04, p.A15)(SFC, 11/16/04, p.A9)
1996 Jun 12, The UN passed
Resolution 1060, the 1st of many condemnations of Iraq’s denial of
access to UN weapons’ inspectors.
(SFC, 9/24/02, p.A12)
1996 Sep 10, The UN General
Assembly voted to endorse a nuclear test ban treaty. India refused
to sign and prevented the treaty from taking effect. India, Bhutan
and Libya voted against the treaty. Cuba, Lebanon, Syria, Tanzania
and Mauritius abstained.
(SFC, 9/11/96, p.A8)
1996 Oct 21, Security Council
elections for the 1997 5 non-permanent seats were won by Japan,
Kenya, Sweden, Costa Rica and Portugal for a 2-year period. Ten of
the seats are temporary and five are chosen annually.
(SFC, 10/22/96, p.B1)
1996 Nov 1, Norway announced a
$24 million donation to educate girls in 19 African countries. The
gift went to UNICEF’s African Education for All program.
(SFC, 11/2/96, p.C1)
1996 Dec 9, UN chief
Boutros-Ghali gave Iraq the go-ahead to resume oil exports for the
first time since 1990 to buy food and medicine. Two billion of oil
sales will be allowed every 6 months to buy food, medicine and other
necessities. In 1999 Ghali published "Unvanquished: A US-UN Saga.
(WSJ, 12/9/96, p.A1)(AP, 12/9/97)(SFEC, 8/8/99,
BR p.5)
1996 Dec 17, Kofi Annan of
Ghana was elected by acclamation as the 7th Secretary-General of the
UN. His 5-year term will start Jan 1.
(SFC, 12/18/96, p.C2)(AP, 12/17/97)
1996 The US was ousted from its
seat on the budget committee because of unpaid dues.
(SFC, 11/7/98, p.A14)
1996 UNAIDS, a joint United
Nations Program on HIV/AIDS, was created to deal with the new
HIV/AIDS disease.
(www.un.org/ga/aids/ungassfactsheets/html/fsunaids_en.htm)
1997 Jan 1, The new members of
the UN security council, Japan, Kenya, Sweden, Costa Rica and
Portugal, took their seats.
(SFC, 1/1/97, p.C1)
1997 Jan 1, Kofi Annan assumed
the title of United Nations secretary-general.
(AP, 1/1/98)
1997 Jan 1, As of this date the
US withdrew completely from the UN Industrial Development
Organization.
(SFC, 2/17/97, p.A14)
1997 Jan 16, Maurice Strong,
Canadian millionaire businessman and environmentalist, was appointed
by Kofi Annan to coordinated UN reform for a salary of $1 per year.
(SFC, 1/17/96, p.A14)
1997 Feb 18, The UN endorsed a
5-point peace plan for Zaire.
(SFC, 2/19/96, p.A10)
1997 Mar 13, The UN General
Assembly voted 130 to 2 for Israel to abandon its plan to build new
Jewish housing on Arab land.
(SFC, 3/14/97, p.A12)
1997 Mar 26, Manfred Nowak
resigned the job of envoy of the UN for missing persons in the
former Yugoslavia and said that he failed to receive support to
account for the 20,000 missing people of the Bosnian war. He had
begun the job in 1994.
(SFC, 3/27/97, p.A18)
1997 Mar 28, The Security
Council agreed to send a multinational force to Albania to protect
the delivery of humanitarian aid.
(SFC, 3/29/97, p.A10)
1997 May 21, The UN approved an
agreement for equitable use of waters that flow through more than
one country. Only China and Turkey refused to sign the key UN
convention on transnational rivers.
(SFC, 5/22/97, p.C2)(AP, 4/16/11)
1997 Jun 12, Mary Robinson,
Pres. of Ireland, was named the top human rights official for the
United Nations.
(SFC, 6/12/97, p.A16)
1997 Aug, The UN produced film
"Secrets in the Sand" was shown at the Venice Film Festival. it was
about Iraq’s stockpile of biological weapons.
(SFC, 8/26/97, p.E4)
1997 Aug, The UN produced film
"A Cyber-Tale of Three Cities" was shown at the Venice Film
Festival. It featured three teenagers talking over the internet
about urban problems. The UN had more than 100 films and videos in
active distribution.
(SFC, 8/26/97, p.E4)
1997 Sep 2, The US demanded
exemptions to a proposed global ban on land mines at an int'l.
meeting in Oslo, Norway. The exemptions were for mines on the Korean
peninsula and for certain types of mines.
(SFC, 9/3/97, p.C2)
1997 Sep 17, Pres. Clinton
announced that the US would not sign the int’l. treaty banning
anti-personnel land mines after 89 nations rejected US demands to
water down the accord. 89 nations endorsed the pact.
(SFC, 9/18/97, p.A1)(AP, 9/17/98)
1997 Sep 17, A UN helicopter
crashed in Bosnia and 12 officials were killed.
(SFC, 9/18/97, p.A12)
1997 Sep 18, Ted Turner pledged
to give the United Nations $1 billion over the next ten years.
(SFC, 9/19/97, p.A1)
1997 Oct 8, The UN imposed
sanctions on Sierra Leone to pressure for the restoration of
civilian government.
(SFC, 10/9/97, p.C3)
1997 Oct, China signed the UN
Int’l. Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights during pres.
Zemin’s visit to the US.
(SFC, 10/6/98, p.A10)
1997 Nov 12, The UN resolution
1137 imposed mild new sanctions on Iraq. A travel ban on Iraqi
officials who interfere with weapons inspections was set by a
unanimous Security Council vote.
(WSJ, 11/13/97, p.A1)(SFC, 9/24/02, p.A12)
1997 Dec 4, UNESCO designated
additional places as World Heritage sites at a conference in Naples.
Prior to the addition there were 506 sites designated over the last
25 years.
(SFC,12/5/97, p.B7)
1997 Dec 8, At the UN
conference on global warming in Kyoto, Japan, US Vice President Al
Gore signaled a willingness on the part of the US to compromise and
perhaps raise the amount of greenhouse gases it is willing to cut.
(SFC,12/897, p.A1)
1998 The UN and the US Congress
designated this year as "the year of the Ocean."
(SFC, 3/31/98, p.C10)
1998 Jan 27, The UN named Gro
Harlem Brundtland, the former prime minister of Norway as the head
of the World Health Organization (WTO).
(SFC, 1/28/98, p.A6)
1998 Feb 2, UN Sec-Gen Kofi
Annan recommended that the Security Council more than double the
amount of oil Iraq is allowed to sell.
(SFC, 2/3/98, p.A6)
1998 Feb 20, The UN Security
Council voted to more than double the amount of oil Iraq may sell to
buy food and medicine. The increase was from $2 bil to $5.256 bil,
although Iraq has said it was only capable of producing $4 billion
worth of oil over six months. With the US military poised to attack
Iraq, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan began a final campaign to end
the crisis over weapons inspections without bloodshed.
(SFC, 2/21/98, p.A8)(AP, 2/21/08)
1998 Mar 2, U.N. Security
Council unanimously endorsed Secretary-General Kofi Annan's deal to
open Iraq's presidential palaces to arms inspectors.
(AP, 3/299)
1998 Mar 31, The UN Security
Council imposed a new arms embargo on Yugoslavia to press Milosevic
to grant ethnic Albanians concessions in Kosovo.
(SFC, 4/1/98, p.A8)(AP, 3/31/99)
1998 Apr 22, The UN Commission
on Human Rights called on Iran to halt torture, amputations and
stonings.
(SFC, 4/23/98, p.A13)
1998 Jul 17, In Rome UN
delegates from more than 100 countries overwhelmingly approved
(120-7) a historic treaty, the Statute of Rome, creating the world's
first permanent war crimes tribunal, with jurisdiction over
individuals, ignoring strenuous U.S. objections over certain
provisions. It was to be located in the Hague with 18 judges from 18
countries serving 9 year terms. It still required ratification
by 60 countries to become effective. The vote passed 120 to 7 with
21 abstentions. The US, China, Iraq, Israel, Libya, Qatar and Yemen
voted against the International Criminal Court Treaty (ICC). In 2002
the US moved to withdraw its signature.
(SFC, 7/18/98, p.A10)(WSJ, 7/20/98, p.A1)(WSJ,
5/6/02, p.A1,4)(Econ, 11/22/03, p.27)
1998 Sep 9, The UN General
Assembly elected Uruguay’s foreign minister as president for its
53rd session. Didier Opertiti replaced Hennadiy Udovenko of Ukraine.
(SFC, 9/10/98, p.C2)
1998 Sep 9, The UN Security
Council voted to suspend periodic reviews of the economic sanctions
on Iraq.
(SFC, 9/10/98, p.A12)
1998 Sep 16, The UN announced
that the treaty to eliminate anti-personnel land mines will take
effect in 6 months. Burkino Faso became the 40th country to ratify
the pact.
(SFC, 9/17/98, p.C4)
1998 Sep 23, The UN adopted a
resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire in Kosovo.
(SFC, 9/24/98, p.A12)
1998 Sep 24, NATO instructed
its generals to begin preparing for air strikes on Yugoslavia unless
Pres. Milosevic ends his attacks on ethnic Albanians.
(SFC, 9/25/98, p.A12)
1998 Oct 14, The UN for a 7th
year called for an end to the US economic embargo against Cuba. Only
the US and Israel cast negative votes.
(SFC, 10/15/98, p.C4)
1998 Oct 16, Serbian Pres.
Milosevic was given an additional 10 days to withdraw forces from
Kosovo and comply with UN demands.
(SFC, 10/17/98, p.A1)
1998 Oct 30, The UN extended
its 460-member peacekeeping force in the Western Sahara over land
contested between Morocco and the Algerian-based Polisario Front.
(SFC, 10/31/98, p.A15)
1998 Nov 5, The UN Security
Council unanimously demanded that Iraq resume cooperation with UN
weapons inspectors.
(SFC, 11/6/98, p.A14)
1998 Nov 24, The UN Security
Council voted to allow Iraq an additional $5.2 billion in oil sales
over the next 6 months to cover humanitarian aid.
(SFC, 11/25/98, p.A14)
1999 Jan 6, It was reported
that UN Sec. Gen'l. Kofi Annan had evidence that UN arms inspectors
helped collect intelligence used in American efforts to undermine
the Iraqi regime.
(SFC, 1/6/99, p.A6)
1999 Jan 18, UN leader Kofi
Annan recommended that UN military observers leave Angola due to
their targeting by the warring sides.
(SFC, 1/19/99, p.A6)
1999 Jan 20, The UN announced
that it would release over $81 million to Iraq to buy electricity
generating equipment. This included $6.5 million for oil industry
spare parts.
(SFC, 1/21/99, p.A14)
1999 Jan 21, The UN voted to
maintain at least a token presence in Angola.
(SFC, 1/22/99, p.A12)
1999 Jan 30, The UN Security
Council agreed to establish panels to assess Iraqi disarmament and
adherence to other UN resolutions.
(SFEC, 1/31/99, p.A17)
1999 Feb 26, The UN Security
Council voted to close its peacekeeping mission in Angola due to the
renewed civil war.
(SFC, 2/27/99, p.A16)
1999 Mar 26, The UN Security
Council defeated a Russian resolution demanding an immediate end to
NATO attacks on Yugoslavia.
(SFC, 3/27/99, p.A11)
1999 Apr, The UN Human Rights
Commission voted in favor of a worldwide moratorium on executions
over the objections of fewer than a dozen countries that included
the US, China, Rwanda and Sudan.
(SFC, 4/28/99, p.C16)
1999 Jul, Bernard Kouchner
arrived in Kosovo as the UN official in charge. He served as the
virtual czar until Jan 2001 and was succeeded by Hans Haekkerup, a
former Danish defense minister.
(SSFC, 1/14/01, p.D2)
1999 Jul 2, A 3-day UN
conference on population closed after 170 nations agreed on sex
education, access to abortion and parental rights.
(SFC, 7/3/99, p.C1)
1999 Oct 12, The world
population was projected to reach 6 billion. This day was declared
by the UN as the Day of 6 Billion.
(SFC, 6/30/99, p.A12)(SFEC, 7/11/99, p.A19)
1999 Sep 15, The UN authorized
an int'l. peacekeeping force in East Timor led by Australia with
some 8,000 troops from a number of nations.
(SFC, 9/15/99, p.A15)(WSJ, 9/16/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 5, Kofi Annan
presented a UN plan to take full control of East Timor and guide the
territory to nationhood over 2-3 years.
(SFC, 10/6/99, p.A10)
1999 cNov 6, The General
Assembly approved for the 8th time in 8 years a resolution
condemning the US embargo of Cuba.
(SFC, 11/27/99, p.A14)
1999 Nov 13, Jacque Diouf of
Senegal won a 2nd 6-year term as director-general for the UN Food
and Agricultural Organization.
(SFEC, 11/14/99, p.A27)
1999 Dec 10, The UN extended
Iraq's "oil-for-food" program for 6 months and set the stage for the
suspension of sanctions if UN weapon's inspectors are allowed back
into the country.
(SFC, 12/11/99, p.C1)
1999 Dec 17, The UN Security
Council (Resolution 1284) ended a yearlong deadlock and voted to
create a new inspection team (UNMOVIC) to complete the disarmament
of Iraq.
(SFC, 12/18/99, p.A1)(AP, 12/17/00)(SFC, 9/24/02,
p.A12)
1999 The UN Security Council
set up a terrorist watch list. It was greatly expanded after the
September 2001 terrorist attacks.
(Econ, 2/2/08,
p.66)(www.un.org/sc/committees/1267/consolist.shtml)
1999 A UN peacekeeping force
(MONUC) was deployed to Congo, but failed to keep anyone safe. In
2004 the UN Security Council ordered an expansion of forces from
10,000 to 16,000.
(Econ, 12/4/04, p.45)
1999 Koichiro Matsuura of Japan
became the director general of UNESCO.
(SFC, 12/6/01, p.E1)
2000 Jan 20, Jesse Helms
addressed the UN Security Council and argued that the US Congress
has the right to dictate conditions for payment of American debt to
the organization.
(SFC, 1/21/00, p.A1)
2000 Jan 26, The UN appointed
Hans Blix of Sweden to be the new weapons inspector for Iraq.
(SFC, 1/27/00, p.A12)
2000 Feb 7, The UN Security
Council voted to expand the peacekeeping force in Sierra Leone from
6,000 to 11,100.
(SFC, 2/8/00, p.A14)
2000 Mar 31, The UN Security
Council decided to let Iraq spend more money to repair its oil
industry, an investment intended to boost the amount of food and
medicine Baghdad could buy through the UN humanitarian program.
(SFC, 4/1/00, p.A12)(AP, 3/31/01)
2000 May 17, Ethiopian forces
pushed into Eritrean territory and the UN Security council approved
an embargo against both countries.
(SFC, 5/18/00, p.A11)
2000 May 20, The 5 nuclear
powers of the UN Security Council agreed to eliminate their nuclear
arsenals over time as part of a new disarmament agenda approved by
187 countries.
(SFEC, 5/21/00, p.A8)
2000 Jun 8, The UN voted
(Resolution 1302) to extend Iraq’s oil for food program. Over the
next 2 years the extensions were repeated every 180 days.
(SFC, 9/24/02, p.A12)
2000 Jul 5, The UN Security
Council placed a diamond ban on the rebels of Sierra Leone to
strangle their ability to finance the civil war. 90% of the diamond
mines were in rebel hands.
(SFC, 7/6/00, p.A12)
2000 Sep 6, World leaders
gathered in NYC for a UN Millennium Summit to bring peace and
prosperity to the world.
(WSJ, 9/5/00, p.A1)(SFC, 9/5/00, p.A10)(SFC,
9/7/00, p.A10)
2000 Sep 7, The UN Security
Council approved an organizational overhaul of UN peacekeeping.
(SFC, 9/8/00, p.A12)
2000 Sep 8, The UN Millennium
Summit ended in NYC with the adoption of an 8-page plan, the
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to cure the world’s direst
problems. Pledges were made to halve the proportion of people in
poverty, to reverse the spread of AIDS, and to strengthen the UN’s
ability to keep peace.
(SFC, 9/9/00, p.A1)(AP, 9/8/01)(Econ, 1/22/05,
p.69)
2000 Nov 20, China singed an
agreement with the UN for cooperation and training on individual
rights and the rule of law.
(SFC, 11/21/00, p.A13)
2000 Dec 21, Ted Turner offered
to make up the $35 million difference between dues the US owes to
the UN and the amount Congress is wiling to pay.
(SFC, 12/22/00, p.A1)
2000 Dec 21, A UN report
accused Jonas Savimbi and UNITA rebels in Angola of trading diamonds
for arms.
(SFC, 12/22/00, p.A20)
2000 Dec 22, UN members agreed
to reduce US dues following the Ted turner proposal to pick up a $34
million tab.
(SFC, 12/23/00, p.A12)
2000 Dec 23, The UN voted to
reduce US dues and to reallocate costs among the 189 members.
(SSFC, 12/24/00, p.A1)
2000 The UN launched its
“Global Compact” initiative to bring business and its critics
together for an inclusive dialogue on globalization. By 2000 ten
core principles were drawn up.
(Econ, 6/19/04, p.61)
2001 Feb 26, The UN War Crimes
tribunal in the Hague convicted Dario Kordic, a former Bosnian Croat
leader, for crimes against humanity in the 1992-1995 Bosnian War.
Mario Crekez (41), a brigade commander of Croatian troops in Bosnia,
was also convicted. They had carried out an "ethnic cleansing"
campaign in an area they wished to be joined to Croatia.
(SFC, 2/27/01, p.A12)(WSJ, 2/27/01, p.A1)
2001 Mar 22, UN Sec.-Gen. Kofi
Annan said that he agreed to seek a 2nd five-year term.
(SFC, 3/23/01, p.D5)
2001 Mar 29, UN troops from
Uruguay began to set up camp on Lake Tanganyika for their mission to
help end the Congo civil war.
(SFC, 3/30/01, p.D4)
2001 Apr 15, U.N. investigators
arrested Bosnian Serb army officer Dragan Obrenovic in connection
with the Serbian Army's slaughter of as many as 7,000 Muslim men and
boys. Obrenovic later pleaded guilty to five war crimes charges and
testified against his one-time superior officers; he was sentenced
to 17 years in prison.
(AP, 4/15/06)
2001 Apr 19, In Kosovo NATO
troops broke up Serb roadblocks set up to protest UN tax collections
on goods from elsewhere in Yugoslavia.
(WSJ, 4/20/01, p.A1)
2001 May 4, The UN Security
Council imposed sanctions against Liberia for failing to sever ties
with rebels in Sierra Leone.
(SFC, 5/5/01, p.D2)
2001 Jun 27, Kofi Annan was
nominated for a 2nd 5-year term as UN Sec.-Gen.
(WSJ, 6/28/01, p.A1)
2001 Jun 27, The UN special
session on AIDS adopted a 16-page Declaration of Commitment with a
5-year plan to boost spending in low and middle income nations to
$7-10 billion.
(SFC, 6/28/01, p.A1)
2001 Jun 29, Kofi Annan was
swore himself in for a 2nd 5-year term as UN Sec.-Gen.
(SFC, 6/30/01, p.A10)
2001 Jul 21, Over 140 UN
nations agreed on a voluntary pact to stem small arms into conflict
zones. It required manufacturers to compile records of sales and to
mark weapons to enable their traces. The US managed to keep out some
restrictions.
(SSFC, 7/22/01, p.A14)(WSJ, 7/23/01, p.A1)
2001 Aug 2, The UN war crimes
tribunal found Radislav Krstic, former Bosnian Serb general, guilty
for the 1995 genocide of some 8,000 Muslim men in Srebrenica. He was
sentenced to 46 years in prison. A 2004 appeal reduced the sentence
to 35 years.
(SFC, 8/3/01, p.A1)(http://tinyurl.com/gm9l9)
2001 Aug 31, The UN World
Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and
Related Intolerance began in Durban, South Africa.
(SFC, 9/1/01, p.A1)
2001 Sep 1, In Durban, South
Africa, a variety of African leaders at the UN World Conference
Against Racism demanded apologies, and in some cases financial
reparations, from Western countries that benefited from slavery and
colonization of African countries for over 3 centuries. Activists at
the conference developed a strategy, later known as “BDS,” that
included boycotts, divestments and sanctions, to push their agenda.
(SSFC, 9/2/01, p.A12)(Econ, 9/15/07, p.74)
2001 Sep 7, In Durban the UN
Conference on Racism went into overtime and agreed on a deal. The
conference acknowledged that slavery and the salve trade were crimes
against humanity, expressed an apology and offered a package
of economic assistance to Africa. A deal on the Middle East was not
yet reached.
(SFC, 9/8/01, p.A8)
2001 Sep 9, The US pulled out
of the World Conference Against Racism objecting to hateful language
in a preliminary declaration.
(SFC, 12/30/01, p.D5)
2001 Sep 10, The UN Security
Council ended an arms embargo against Yugoslavia.
(SFC, 9/11/01, p.B3)
2001 Sep 24, The US agreed to
pay $582 million in overdue dues to the UN.
(SFC, 9/25/01, p.A1)
2001 Sep 28, The UN Security
Council unanimously adopted a US sponsored resolution to oblige all
189 member states to crack down on the financing, training and
movement of terrorists.
(SFC, 9/29/01, p.A10)
2001 Sep 28, The UN Security
Council lifted sanctions against Sudan after the US abstained from
voting.
(SFC, 9/29/01, p.A10)
2001 Oct 8, Syria won a seat on
the UN Security Council and was opposed only by Israel.
(SFC, 10/8/01, p.B1)
2001 Oct 8, In the Abkhazia
region of Georgia a UN helicopter was shot down and 9 people were
killed.
(SFC, 10/8/01, p.B4)
2001 Oct 12, Kofi Annan, Sec.
Gen. of the UN, and the UN itself won the Nobel Peace Prize.
(SFC, 10/13/01, p.A13)
2001 Oct 24, A Greek captain
provided the UN Security Council with a letter that admitted the
illegal export of 500,000 barrels of Iraqi crude oil during 2 trips
in May and August.
(SFC, 10/26/01, p.D4)
2001 Oct 25, Ismat Kittani,
Iraqi diplomat, died at age 71. He served in the UN under 5
secretaries-general and was president of the 36th UN General
Assembly from 1981-1982.
(SFC, 10/26/01, p.D7)
2001 Nov 8, A UN helicopter
crashed into the sea off of Sierra Leone. All 7 aboard were presumed
dead,
(SFC, 11/9/01, p.A15)
2001 Nov 14, The UN Security
Council approved a resolution to fill the political vacuum in
Afghanistan and to provide security in areas freed by anti-Taliban
forces.
(SFC, 11/15/01, p.A5)
2001 Nov 23, In Belgium the UN
war crimes tribunal announced that Slobodan Milosevic, former
Yugoslav president, would stand trial on charges of genocide in the
1992-1995 war in Bosnia. Milosevic died in March 2006 while his
trial was in progress.
(SFC, 11/24/01, p.A11)(AP, 11/23/06)
2001 Nov 29, The U.N. Security
Council unanimously approved a resolution extending for 6 months the
U.N. humanitarian program in Iraq and setting the stage for an
overhaul of U.N. sanctions against Baghdad the following year. The
US and Russia agreed to overhaul the program before the next vote.
(WSJ, 11/30/01, p.A1)(AP, 11/29/02)
2001 Dec 20, In Afghanistan the
1st int’l. peacekeeping forces arrived from Britain as the U.N.
Security Council authorized a multinational force for Afghanistan. A
grenade attack in Mazar-e-Sharif market wounded some 35-100 people.
US air strikes at Asmani and Pokharai killed about 50 civilians.
(SFC, 12/21/01, p.A24)(WSJ, 12/21/01, p.A1)(AP,
12/20/02)
2001 At Washington’s request
the UN Security Council ordered that the assets of Yassin Qadi, a
Saudi businessman and multimillionaire, be frozen soon after the Sep
11 attacks in NYC. He was alleged to be a financier of Islamic
terrorism with close links to al-Qaida. The EU froze the assets of
Yasin al-Qadi, a Saudi businessman, and the Al-Barakaat
International Foundation, a Sweden-based charity suspected of
funding al-Qaida terror groups. In 2008 the EU's highest court
overturned the decision saying the order failed to offer those on a
terror blacklist any legal rights to a judicial review under
European law. Also frozen were the assets of Omar Mohammed Othman,
also known as Abu Qatada, an extremist Muslim preacher from Jordan.
In 2009 an EU court voided the freeze on Othman due to lack of
proper judicial review. Othman has lived in Britain since 1993, has
been arrested several times there under anti-terrorist legislation
and currently faced deportation to Jordan.
(WSJ, 8/29/07, p.A1)(AP, 9/3/08)(AP, 6/11/09)
2002 Jan 3, The UN made public
a decision by Kofi Annan to pursue war crimes in Sierra Leone with a
war crimes tribunal.
(SFC, 1/5/02, p.A7)
2002 Jan, The Global Fund was
formed as a charitable foundation, based in Geneva. The Board held
its first meeting and in April 2002 approved the first round of
grants. The concept of the new int’l effort, to increase
coordination and mobilize additional resources to fight HIV/AIDS,
tuberculosis, and malaria, was first proposed at the July 2000 G-8
Summit in Okinawa. Richard, Feachem, who served as the 1st executive
director, stepped down in 2006.
(www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2002/15583.htm)(SFC,
3/7/06, p.B8)
2002 Mar 3, Switzerland voted
to join the United Nations, the 190th member.
(SFC, 3/4/02, p.A2)
2002 Mar 12, The UN Security
Council endorsed a Palestinian state for the 1st time and called for
an immediate cease-fire.
(SFC, 3/13/02, p.A1)
2002 Mar 21, A UN meeting on
poverty, despair and violence opened in Mexico City.
(SFC, 3/22/02, p.A13)
2002 Mar 22, Pres. Bush
addressed the UN meeting in Monterey, Mexico, and called on wealthy
nations to link foreign aid to economic reform.
(SFC, 3/23/02, p.A1)
2002 Apr 11, The UN sponsored
Int’l. Criminal Court was ratified without US approval. Temporary
headquarters will be in the Hague, Netherlands.
(SFC, 4/11/02, p.A10)(SFC, 4/12/02, p.A9)
2002 Apr 12, UN delegates in
Madrid agreed on a 44-page "Int’l. Plan of Action on Aging." There
were no specifics to finance or monitor compliance.
(SFC, 4/13/02, p.A11)
2002 Apr 13, The Eritrea
Ethiopia Boundary Commission (EEBC), established to determine the
new border, released its report. The UN panel ruled in favor of
Ethiopia on all territory contested with Eritrea, but Ethiopia
contested some of the commission's decisions.
(WSJ, 4/15/02,
p.A1)(www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/hornafrica.html#eri)
2002 Apr 17, The UN officially
declared former guerrilla leader Xanana Gusmao as winner in East
Timor’s 1st presidential elections.
(SFC, 5/18/02, p.A15)
2002 Apr 29, The US regained
its seat on the UN Human Rights Commission.
(WSJ, 4/30/02, p.A1)
2002 Apr, The UN voted to
remove Iran from the list of countries assigned to a special
investigator to watch on human rights abuses.
(SFC, 7/27/02, p.A6)
2002 May 14, The UN Security
Council revamped its sanctions against Iraq in order to ease the
delivery of civilian goods and tighten controls on military items.
(SFC, 5/15/02, p.A12)
2002 May 16, The WHO created
the 1st global strategy for traditional medicine.
(SFC, 5/17/02, p.A16)
2002 May 22, A UN environmental
report said population growth was slowing but that severe water
shortages should be expected in the Middle East over the next
generation and biodiversity will continue to be damaged in many
world regions. Ocean degradation was also noted.
(SFC, 5/23/02, p.A6)
2002 May 23, The UN voted to
extend the mandate for an int’l. force in Afghanistan for 6 months
but with no expansion of troops or presence beyond Kabul.
(SFC, 5/24/02, p.A13)
2002 Jun 1, The UN ordered its
employees in India and Pakistan to evacuate their families over a
growing concern of war.
(SSFC, 6/2/02, p.A12)
2002 Jun 13, The U.N. World
Food Summit in Rome ended much as it began, with criticism about the
proliferation of biotech crops and complaints that too little has
been done to end world hunger.
(AP, 6/13/02)
2002 Jul 12, The UN Security
Council agreed to exempt US peacekeepers from war crimes prosecution
for a year, ending a threat to UN peacekeeping operations.
(AP, 7/12/03)
2002 Jul 13, A unanimous UN
Security Council vote to exempt American peacekeepers from
prosecution by the new war crimes tribunal for a year ended a U.S.
threat to halt U.N. peacekeeping but angered many court supporters.
(AP, 7/13/02)
2002 Ju 17, Switzerland
formally requested membership to the United Nations.
(SFC, 7/18/02, p.A15)
2002 Jul 22, The Bush
administration said it would not contribute to a UN program that it
contends provides aid to the Chinese government to coerce women in
getting abortions. $34 million was withheld under the 1985
Kemp-Kasten law.
(SFC, 7/23/02, p.A3)
2002 Jul 24, The UN voted 35-8
on a plan to enforce a convention on torture that called for
independent visits to prisons. The US failed to block the vote.
(SFC, 7/25/02, p.A10)(WSJ, 7/25/02, p.A1)
2002 Jul 29, The United Nations
indefinitely suspended aid operations in Chechnya after the
kidnapping last week of a Russian aid worker in the breakaway
republic.
(AP, 7/29/02)
2002 Aug 10, It was reported
that the Bush administration had begun warning foreign diplomats
that they could lose US military assistance if they join the Int’l.
Criminal Court without pledging to protect Americans from its reach.
Article 98 allowed nations to negotiate immunity on a bilateral
basis.
(SFC, 8/10/02, p.A12)
2002 Aug 10, A UNICEF report
said about 2,500 Haitian children are smuggled illegally into the
Dominican Republic each year to work as manual laborers or beggars.
(AP, 8/10/02)
2002 Aug 15, The U.N. Security
Council voted unanimously to strengthen the U.N. presence in Angola
to help consolidate peace in the southwest African nation after 27
years of civil war.
(AP, 8/15/02)
2002 Aug 26, The 4th UN World
Summit on Sustainable Development opened in Johannesburg, SA, with a
call for coordinated international action to fight poverty and
protect the world's natural resources. Pres. Bush sent Colin Powell
as his stand-in. The 3rd gathering was in Rio de Janeiro in 1992.
(SSFC, 8/25/02, p.A3)(AP, 8/26/02)
2002 Aug 28, The United Nations
confirmed that Uganda and Zimbabwe have begun their pledged troop
withdrawals from Congo.
(AP, 8/28/02)
2002 Aug 28, U.N. Sec.-Gen.
Kofi Annan urged the United States to resist attacking Iraq, joining
calls from leaders in Germany, China, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain for
restraint in considering military action to topple Saddam Hussein.
(AP, 8/28/02)
2002 Sep 2, At the UN Earth
Summit in South Africa negotiators agreed on a global plan to reduce
the use of oil and switch to other cleaner and more efficient forms
of energy.
(SFC, 9/3/02, p.A1)
2002 Sep 4, The World Summit on
Sustainable Development closed Wednesday with just a handful of
small victories and some promising new initiatives. Colin Powell was
heckled and the US was viewed as a key obstacle to setting firm
targets on many issues.
(AP, 9/5/02)(SFC, 9/5/02, p.A10)
2002 Sep 7, The U.N. Security
Council has decided to keep U.N. peacekeepers in Ethiopia and
Eritrea six more months to give the countries time to mark their
border.
(AP, 9/7/02)
2002 Sep 13, Foreign ministers
of the U.N. Security Council's permanent five nations said that
Iraq's refusal to obey past U.N. resolutions "is a serious matter
and that Iraq must comply." Russia, Europe and key Arab states piled
pressure on Iraq on Friday to readmit U.N. weapons inspectors to
avert possible U.S.-led military action.
(AP, 9/13/02)(Reuters, 9/13/02)
2002 Sep 27, East Timor, the
first country to be born in the 21st century, gained a seat at the
United Nations, swelling the membership roll to 191.
(Reuters, 9/27/02)
2002 Oct 1, Allied aircraft
launched an airstrike in the southern no-fly zone over Iraq after
Iraqi aircraft penetrated the restricted area. Iraq agreed to a plan
for the return of UN weapons inspectors for the first time in nearly
four years, but ignored US demands for access to Saddam Hussein's
palaces and other contested sites. Iraq said it expected an advance
party in Baghdad in two weeks.
(AP, 10/1/07)(AP, 10/2/02)
2002 Oct 10, The United
Nations' highest judicial body ruled in favor of Cameroon in a
border dispute with Nigeria, giving it possession of an oil-rich
peninsula in the Gulf of Guinea.
(AP, 10/12/02)
2002 Oct 21, A UN panel accused
criminal groups linked to the armies of Rwanda, Uganda, Zimbabwe and
Congo of plundering Congo's riches, and called on the United Nations
to impose financial restrictions on 29 companies and 54 individuals.
(AP, 10/21/02)
2002 Nov 8, The UN Security
Council unanimously approved a tough new Iraq resolution, aimed at
forcing Saddam Hussein to disarm or face "serious consequences."
Iraq has until Nov. 15 to accept its terms and pledge to comply.
Iraq has until Dec. 8 to provide weapons inspectors and the Security
Council with a complete declaration of all aspects of its chemical,
biological and nuclear programs. Weapons inspectors have until Dec.
23 to resume their work in Iraq. Weapons inspectors are to report to
the Security Council 60 days after the start of their work. If
inspectors resume their work on Dec. 23, the latest they would be
able to report to the council would be Feb. 21, 2003.
(AP, 11/8/02)
2002 Nov 11, UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan presented Greek and Turkish Cypriots
with a plan to unite their divided island into a single country
modeled on Switzerland, with two equal states.
(AP, 11/11/02)
2002 Nov 13, A U.N. body voted
to restrict the international trade of big leaf mahogany, sea horses
and 26 species of sea turtles, but failed to pass legislation to
protect two species of threatened sharks.
(AP, 11/14/02)
2002 Nov 18, UN inspectors
returned to Iraq after a 4-year hiatus to resume the search for
weapons of mass destruction.
(AP, 11/18/03)
2002 Dec 8, The UN Security
Council agreed to give the United States, Russia, France, China and
Britain full access to Iraq's arms declaration.
(AP, 12/9/02)
2002 Dec 9, The UN Security
Council lifted 9-year-old sanctions against Angola's UNITA movement,
welcoming efforts by the government and the former rebel group to
end the country's civil war.
(AP, 12/9/02)
2002 Dec 13, The U.N. Security
Council condemned "acts of terror" against Israel in Kenya and
deplored the claims of responsibility by the al-Qaida terror
network.
(AP, 12/13/03)
2002 Dec 19, U.N. weapons
inspectors reported that Iraq's new arms declaration contained
inconsistencies and contradictions and didn't answer key questions
about its nuclear, chemical and biological programs.
(AP, 12/19/02)
2002 Dec 20, U.N. weapons
inspectors put Iraq on notice that it must provide far more evidence
about its weapons of mass destruction. Chief U.N. weapons inspector
Hans Blix urged the United States and Britain to hand over any
evidence they have about Iraq's secret weapons programs so U.N.
inspectors can check it on the ground. The US began sharing
sensitive information with the UN.
(AP, 12/20/02)(AP, 12/21/02)(SFC, 12/21/02, p.A7)
2002 Dec 28, The U.N. nuclear
agency said its inspectors would leave North Korea early next week
after the communist state said it would expel them and press on with
its nuclear plans.
(Reuters, 12/28/02)
2002 Dec 30, The UN passed a
resolution by a 13-0 vote with Russia and Syria abstaining that put
new limits on Iraq for purchases of certain communications equipment
and antibiotics.
(AP, 1/2/03)
2003 Jan 8, A U.N. team was
reported to be investigating reports that Congolese rebel troops had
killed and eaten Pygmies in northeastern Congo. UN authorities
confirmed the reports Jan 15 and identified the rebel campaign as
"Operation Clean Slate."
(AP, 1/8/03)(SFC, 1/16/03, p.A9)
2003 Jan 9, UN weapons
inspectors said there's no "smoking gun" to prove Iraq has nuclear,
chemical or biological weapons, but they demanded that Baghdad
provide private access to scientists and fresh evidence to back its
claim that it had destroyed its weapons of mass destruction.
(AP, 1/9/08)
2003 Jan 13, U.N. inspectors
took their hunt for banned arms to science and technology colleges
in Baghdad, and the top nuclear inspector said his teams' mission
would take several more months.
(AP, 1/13/03)
2003 Jan 18, UN officials
warned Iraq it was running out of time to cooperate and avoid war.
(AP, 1/18/08)
2003 Jan 19, Hans Blix
and Mohamed El Baradei, the chief U.N. arms inspectors, sat down for
urgent talks with Iraqi officials.
(AP, 1/19/03)
2003 Jan 20, The chief U.N.
arms inspectors and Iraqi officials agreed on practical steps to
greater Iraqi cooperation in the U.N. disarmament program, including
Baghdad's encouragement of weapons scientists to submit to private
U.N. interviews.
(AP, 1/20/03)
2003 Jan 20, The U.N. human
rights watchdog elected a Libyan diplomat as its president for this
year, despite concern from the United States about the country's
poor record on civil liberties and its alleged role in sponsoring
terrorism.
(AP, 1/20/03)
2003 Jan 27, The Bush
administration moved toward a military showdown with Iraq and
suggested a decision could come as early as next week after U.N.
inspectors credited Iraq with only limited cooperation in the search
for weapons.
(AP, 1/27/03)(SFC, 1/28/03, p.A1)
2003 Jan 31, Top U.N. arms
inspectors said they would not agree to new talks in Baghdad unless
Iraq demonstrated more cooperation and met unspecified conditions.
(AP, 1/31/03)
2003 Feb 4, The United Nations
indicted 32 people, including 15 Indonesian soldiers, on allegations
they tortured and killed East Timorese during the country's bloody
split from Indonesia in 1999.
(AP, 2/4/03)
2003 Feb 8, The chief UN arms
inspectors arrived in Baghdad for a new round of crucial talks with
Iraqi officials.
(AP, 2/8/04)
2003 Feb 14, Saddam Hussein
banned all weapons of mass destruction from Iraq, meeting a long
time U.N. demand.
(AP, 2/14/03)
2003 Feb 14, U.N. weapons
inspectors haven't found any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq but
chief inspector Hans Blix said many proscribed materials remain
unaccounted for.
(AP, 2/14/03)
2003 Feb 14, The Hans Blix
report on Iraq failed to support Pres. Bush’s call for war on Iraq.
The UN Security Council called for more inspections.
(SFC, 2/15/03, p.A1)
2003 Feb 21, Chief UN
inspector Hans Blix ordered Baghdad to begin destroying dozens of
illegal missiles and their components by March 1.
(AP, 2/22/03)(SFC, 2/22/03, A1)
2003 Feb 23, The UN
Children’s Fund and Iraqi health teams began a five-day campaign to
vaccinate 4 million Iraqi children against polio.
(AP, 2/23/03)
2003 Mar 13, The UN Human
Rights chief excoriated the US Guantanamo policy. He said the world
shouldn’t have territory "where no law applies."
(WSJ, 3/14/03, p.A1)
2003 Mar 17-May 25, Iraq was
scheduled to take over as chairman of the UN disarmament
organization.
(SSFC, 2/9/03, p.A16)
2003 Mar 20, UN Sec. Gen’l.
Kofi Annan asked to be put in charge of a humanitarian program to
aid Iraq.
(SFC, 3/21/03, p.W14)
2003 Feb 24, The UN
indicted former Indonesia military chief Wiranto, 6 generals and an
ex-governor for the bloodbath preceding East Timor independence.
(WSJ, 2/25/03, p.A1)
2003 Mar 2, UN weapons
inspectors returned to an Iraqi military compound to supervise the
disposal of more outlawed Al Samoud 2 rockets.
(AP, 3/2/03)
2003 Mar 11, Kofi Annan
said military action against Iraq without support of the UN security
council would be out of conformity with the UN charter. The US and
Britain considered a short extension past March 17, but rejected a
45-day deadline backed by 6 council members.
(SFC, 3/11/03, p.A1)(SFC, 3/12/03, p.A1)
2003 Mar 11, The
18-judge world court was inaugurated at the Hague. It had been
approved Jul 17, 1998, by the Rome Treaty.
(SFC, 3/12/03, p.A1)
2003 Mar 13, The UN Human
Rights chief excoriated the US Guantanamo policy. He said the world
shouldn’t have territory "where no law applies."
(WSJ, 3/14/03, p.A1)
2003 Mar 28, The UN Security
Council voted unanimously to extend the UN assistance mission in
Afghanistan for a year.
(AP, 3/28/03)
2003 Apr 2, The UN health
agency advised travelers to avoid going to Hong Kong and the Chinese
province of Guangdong because of the deadly outbreak of SARS.
(AP, 4/2/03)
2003 Apr 3, US Sec. of State
Colin Powell assured NATO allies and the EU that the Bush
administration seeks a partnership with the United Nations for the
reconstruction of post-war Iraq.
(AP, 4/3/03)
2003 Apr 11, The leaders of
Russia, France and Germany gathered for a summit that was expected
to push for the United Nations to play the leading role after the
end of hostilities in Iraq.
(AP, 4/11/03)
2003 Apr 25, UN agencies
reported that malaria kills 3,000 children a day in Africa and robs
the continent of millions of dollars in lost productivity, even
though the disease could be controlled with nets costing $5 and
other simple measures.
(AP, 4/25/03)
2003 May 12, The UN Security
Council tentatively agreed to send peacekeepers to the Ivory Coast
to help enforce an agreement aimed at ending nine months of civil
war.
(AP, 5/12/03)
2003 May 22, The UN Security
Council overwhelmingly approved an end to 13-year-old sanctions
against Iraq and gave the United States and Britain extraordinary
powers to run the country and its lucrative oil industry. Security
Council Resolution 1483 identified the US and Britain as “occupying
powers” in Iraq.
(AP, 5/22/03)(Econ, 4/19/08, p.102)
2003 Jun 4, A UN-backed war
crimes court indicted Liberian Pres. Charles Taylor, accusing him of
"the greatest responsibility" in the vicious 10-year civil war in
neighboring Sierra Leone.
(AP, 6/4/03)
2003 Jun 4, The UN Security
Council agreed to end a ban on the export of so-called "blood
diamonds" from Sierra Leone because of government efforts to control
the diamond industry.
(AP, 6/4/03)
2003 Aug 19, In Baghdad a car
bomb exploded in front of the hotel housing the UN headquarters,
collapsing the front of the building. UN Special Representative
Sergio Vieira de Mello (55) of Brazil and 22 other people were
killed. UNICEF said that its program co-coordinator for Iraq,
Canadian Christopher Klein-Beekman, was among the dead. In 2008
Samantha Power authored “Chasing the Flame: Sergio Vieira de Mello
and the Fight to Save the World.” In 2010 a court sentenced two
Iraqis to life in jail for taking part in the bombing and the kidnap
of two French journalists a year later.
(SFC, 8/20/03, p.A12)(AP, 8/21/03)(SSFC, 2/10/08,
p.M1)(AFP, 9/22/10)
2003 Sep 12, The UN Security
Council lifted 11-year-old sanctions on Libya after Moammar
Gadhafi's government took responsibility for bombing a Pan Am jet
over Scotland and agreed to pay the victims' families $2.7 billion.
(AP, 9/12/03)
2003 Sep 16, The UN turned over
responsibility for security in East Timor's second largest city to
the country's fledgling police force.
(AP, 9/16/03)
2003 Oct 13, The UN Security
Council approved a resolution expanding the NATO-led peacekeeping
force in Afghanistan.
(AP, 10/13/04)
2003 Oct 16, The UN Security
Council unanimously adopted a resolution aimed at attracting aid to
stabilize Iraq and putting it on the road to independence.
(AP, 10/16/03)
2003 Oct 21, The U.N. General
Assembly overwhelmingly approved a resolution demanding that Israel
tear down a barrier jutting into the West Bank.
(AP, 10/21/04)
2003 Nov 26, The UN Children's
Fund warned that AIDS has already orphaned more than 11 million
African children under the age of 15, and "the worst is yet to
come."
(AP, 11/26/03)
2003 Nov 26, The UN nuclear
watchdog agency, IAEA, condemned Iran over an 18-year cover-up of
its nuclear energy program and said future violations of
non-proliferation obligations would not be tolerated.
(AP, 11/26/03)
2003 Dec 9, The Global
Commission on International Migration was launched by the United
Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan and a number of governments in
Geneva.
(Econ, 10/8/05, p.86)(www.gcim.org/en/)
2003 Dec 11, The UN children's
fund said some 65 million girls worldwide are kept out of school,
increasing the risks that they will suffer from extreme poverty, die
in childbirth or from AIDS and pass those dangers on to future
generations.
(AP, 12/11/03)
2003 Dec 12, A UN conference on
climate control closed in Milan, Italy. Many countries planned to go
ahead with their Kyoto Protocol commitments to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions.
(AP, 12/13/03)
2003 Dec 13, Oscar Schachter
(88), pioneer of int'l. law, died in NYC. He helped establish the
legal framework of the United Nations.
(SSFC, 12/28/03, p.A29)
2003 Dec 15, The UN said it was
suspending for a month a disarmament campaign in war-battered
Liberia so it can improve a camp for former combatants.
(AP, 12/15/03)
2003 Dec 22, The UN Security
Council voted unanimously to maintain sanctions on Liberia including
an arms embargo and a ban on importing diamonds from the west
African nation.
(AP, 12/23/03)
2003 Dec, The US signed
the U.N. Convention Against Corruption, which requires countries to
cooperate in investigations and return funds to the countries where
they were stolen.
(AP, 1/12/04)
2003 The UN imposed a ban in
Liberia on trade in logs due to uncontrolled and environmentally
devastating logging.
(Econ, 3/8/08, p.92)
2004 Jan 14, A UN agency said
Libya has ratified the nuclear test ban treaty. The treaty is 12
nations short of the 44 ratifications needed for it to enter into
force. Once it comes into force, the treaty bans any nuclear weapon
test explosion in any environment.
(AP, 1/14/04)
2004 Feb 8, A UN team met with
Iraqi leaders to discuss the feasibility of early legislative
elections, and its leader pledged to do "everything possible" to
help the country regain its sovereignty.
(AP, 2/8/04)
2004 Feb 9, The UN adopted
Resolution 1559. It called for free elections in Lebanon and the
withdrawal of all foreign forces and the disbanding of all militias.
(www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2004/sc8181.doc.htm)
2004 Feb 17, UN agencies began
urgently airlifting relief supplies into eastern Chad and western
Sudan to help more than 600,000 Sudanese lacking food, water and
medical supplies because of fighting.
(AP, 2/17/04)
2004 Mar 25, The United States
used its veto power to quash a U.N. Security Council resolution
condemning Israel for killing Hamas leader Ahmed Yassin in a missile
strike.
(AP, 3/26/04)
2004 Mar 29, In a stinging
rebuke, Secretary-General Kofi Annan fired one top UN official and
demoted another for security failures leading to the Aug. 19 bombing
of the U.N.’s Baghdad headquarters that killed 22 people.
(AP, 3/29/05)
2004 Apr 8, U.N.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan expressed disappointment after Cypriot
leaders on both sides rejected his reunification plan.
(AP, 4/8/04)
2004 Apr 16, Pres. Bush said is
handing over the lead role in the Iraqi political transition to the
UN's top envoy.
(SFC, 4/17/04, p.A1)
2004 Apr 18, The UN reported
that at least 50,000 people have fled their homes in recent weeks
because of militia attacks and fighting between Sudanese government
and rebel forces in southern Sudan.
(AP, 4/18/04)
2004 Apr 24, Greek Cypriots
overwhelmingly rejected a UN plan, the Annan Plan, to reunite
Cyprus. The European Union pledged to start searching for ways to
extend a hand of friendship to the island's long-ostracized Turkish
side. It meant that only the Greek side of Cyprus would join the
European Union on May 1.
(AP, 4/25/04)(WSJ, 4/26/04, p.A13)(Econ, 5/1/04,
p.49)
2004 Apr 28, The UN Security
Council unanimously approved Resolution 1540 requiring all 191 UN
states to pass laws to keep weapons of mass destruction out of the
hands of terrorists.
(AP, 4/29/04)(www.nti.org/f_WMD411/f2n.html)
2004 May 10, A U.N.-backed
tribunal issued an arrest warrant against Indonesia's former
military chief and current presidential candidate Gen. Wiranto for
human rights abuses during the territory's bloody break with Jakarta
in 1999.
(AP, 5/10/04)
2004 May 26, The U.N. Security
Council called for the immediate deployment of international
monitors to Sudan's western Darfur region and put new pressure on
the country's government to end a conflict there.
(AP, 5/26/04)
2004 Jun 1, In Haiti US
commanders began turning over authority to a UN force under Gen.
Augusto Pereira of Brazil.
(SFC, 6/2/04, A1)
2004 Jun 8, The UN voted 15-0
to accept a US and British resolution to end the formal
co-occupation of Iraq on June 30.
(SFC, 6/9/04, A1)
2004 Jun 13, The UN Conference
on Trade and Development opened in San Paulo, Brazil. This marked
its 11th forum over a 40 year history. The so-called Group of 77
developing nations actually has 132 member nations.
(AP, 6/13/04)
2004 Jun 18, The U.N. atomic
watchdog agency censured Iran for past cover-ups in its nuclear
program in a resolution, warning Tehran to be more forthcoming.
(AP, 6/18/04)
2004 Jul 1, The United Nation's
World Food Program (WFP) began airlifting enriched food from the
Ethiopian capital to Sudan's western Darfur region, where it
estimates 1.2 million people will need food aid every month until
October.
(AFP, 7/2/04)
2004 Jul 20, The U.N. General
Assembly called for the structure to be torn down in compliance with
a world court ruling. Israel's construction of its West Bank barrier
continued.
(AP, 7/21/04)
2004 Jul 27, The U.N. Security
Council extended an arms embargo on Congo for a year as fighting
continued between rival factions.
(AP, 7/27/04)
2004 Aug 1, The Sudanese
cabinet condemned the 30-day deadline for action on Darfur set by
the U.N. Security Council, but said it would implement a 90-day
program agreed earlier with U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan.
(AP, 8/1/04)
2004 Aug 2, The UN began
air-dropping food for refugees in Darfur, Sudan.
(WSJ, 8/3/04, p.A1)
2004 Aug 29, The UN Security
Council set this date for Sudan to stop the killing in Darfur, allow
help to reach the region and disarm the militias terrorizing the
region.
(Econ, 8/28/04, p.39)
2004 Sep 2, The UN Security
Council narrowly approved a U.S.-backed resolution aimed at
pressuring Lebanon to reject a second term for its pro-Syrian
president and calling for an immediate withdrawal of all foreign
forces.
(AP, 9/2/04)(Econ, 9/11/04, p.43)
2004 Sep 18, A divided UN
Security Council approved a resolution threatening oil sanctions
against Sudan unless the government reins in Arab militias blamed
for a killing spree in Darfur and ordered an investigation of
whether the attacks constitute genocide.
(AP, 9/19/04)
2004 Sep 21, The UN Children's
Fund and the World Food Program launched a $123 million program to
reduce the mortality rate of children in Ethiopia.
(Reuters, 9/21/04)
2004 Sep 21, Seeking more
influence over global decisions, Brazil, Germany, India and Japan
joined forces to lobby for a permanent UN Security Council seat and
pledged to work together to reform the United Nations.
(AP, 9/22/04)
2004 Sep 22, On the 2nd day of
the General Assembly's ministerial meeting the UN Security Council
highlighted the need for more military and civilian cooperation to
rebuild war-torn nations, while the secretary-general called for
more resources and a more practical approach to international
peacekeeping efforts.
(AP, 9/23/04)
2004 Sep 24, The UN High
Commissioner for Refugees proposed autonomy for the troubled Darfur
region of Sudan. The government has resisted this but said it would
be willing to discuss it anew in an effort to end the violence that
has killed 50,000 people.
(CP, 9/24/04)
2004 Sep 30, A United Nations
body argued that Africa's debt must be completely written off if the
continent is to have a chance of meeting international goals on
reducing poverty.
(AP, 9/30/04)
2004 Oct 1, The United Nations
launched a massive voluntary repatriation program to return an
estimated 340,000 Liberian refugees still scattered across West
Africa.
(AP, 10/1/04)
2004 Oct 15, Japan won a
two-year term on the U.N. Security Council along with Argentina,
Denmark, Greece and Tanzania.
(AP, 10/15/04)
2004 Oct 19, UN officials
warned that the spread of AIDS in Ecuador's most populated province
is reaching levels comparable to Africa and the Caribbean a decade
ago and could mushroom into a national epidemic if left unchecked.
(AP, 10/20/04)
2004 Oct 28, For the 13th
straight year, the U.N. General Assembly overwhelmingly urged the
United States to end its more than four decade trade embargo against
Cuba.
(AP, 10/28/04)
2004 Nov 15, The UN Security
Council imposed an immediate arms embargo on Ivory Coast's hard-line
government.
(AP, 11/16/04)
2004 Nov 18, The UN Security
Council opened an extraordinary two-day session in Nairobi, the
first outside its New York headquarters in 14 years. Sudan topped
the agenda. Great Lakes regional foreign ministers approved a pact
for greater cross-border cooperation and confidence-building. It was
due to be adopted at a summit in Dar es Salaam.
(AP, 11/18/04)(AP, 11/19/04)
2004 Nov 19, UN Secretary
General Kofi Annan urged leaders of Africa's blood-soaked Great
Lakes region to implement a peace plan that could herald a "new era"
for millions of Africans.
(AP, 11/19/04)
2004 Nov 23, The UN Working
Group on Internet Governance (40 delegates) met in Geneva.
(Econ, 11/20/04, p.65)
2004 Nov 25, The UN World Food
Program said it has suspended its operations in most of the Sudanese
state of North Darfur and relocated its staff to the capital due to
renewed clashes between rebels and government forces.
(AP, 11/25/04)
2004 Nov 26, A UN spokesman
said the son of Secretary-General Kofi Annan received payments from
a firm with a UN Iraqi oil-for-food contract more than four years
longer than the world body previously admitted.
(AP, 11/26/04)
2004 Dec 13, The UN restricted
its humanitarian operations in Sudan's troubled South Darfur area
following a shooting that killed two aid workers. Rebels said they
would boycott peace talks until the government stops a Darfur
offensive.
(AP, 12/14/04)(WSJ, 12/14/04, p.A1)
2005 Jan-2005 Dec, The UN named
2005 as the year of Microcredit.
(Econ, 12/17/05, p.74)
2005 Jan 5, The UN said that
camps for up to 500,000 tsunami refugees will be built on devastated
Sumatra island, while world leaders headed to Indonesia to discuss
how to distribute billions of dollars in aid.
(AP, 1/5/05)
2005 Jan 6, A tsunami aid
conference convened in Jakarta, Indonesia, and the UN asserted
control over the massive relief campaign.
(WSJ, 1/7/05, p.A1)
2005 Jan 30, UN Secretary
General Kofi Annan, at a summit of the 53-member African Union in
Abuja, urged pan-African cooperation to resolve conflicts.
(AFP, 1/30/05)
2005 Jan 31, A UN-appointed
commission accused the Sudanese government of gross, systematic
human rights violations in Darfur, but stopped short of labeling the
violence in the region as genocide.
(AP, 1/31/05)
2005 Jan, A 220-page UN report
on atrocities in Afghanistan was scheduled for release but kept
under wraps for the next 18 months. Publication was expected in
mid-2006.
(SFC, 6/17/06, p.A1)
2005 Feb 3, An interim UN
report zeroed in on the chief of the oil-for-food program, Benon
Sevan, saying Saddam Hussein's regime awarded oil allocations in his
name to a trading company between 1998 and 2001.
(AP, 2/4/05)
2005 Feb 4, Diplomats said Iran
has agreed to give the UN nuclear watchdog agency a fresh look at a
military complex linked by the US to possible atomic arms research.
(AP, 2/4/05)
2005 Feb 4, The UN vowed to
discipline two officials implicated in a report that detailed
conflicts of interest and flawed management in the U.N. oil-for-food
program. Secretary-General Kofi Annan will discipline Benon Sevan
and another UN official, Joseph Stephanides, who may have "tainted"
bidding for an oil-for-food contract,
(AP, 2/4/05)
2005 Feb 7, UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan suspended the head of the UN
oil-for-food program in Iraq and a senior official who dealt with
contracts, following an independent investigation that accused them
of misconduct.
(AP, 2/7/05)
2005 Mar 7, President Bush
named John R. Bolton (56), undersecretary of state for arms control
and international security, as US ambassador to the UN.
(AP, 3/8/05)(SFC, 3/8/05, p.A10)
2005 Mar 10, The UN panel
overseeing compensation for victims of Iraq's 1990 invasion of
Kuwait approved new awards worth $265 million, mostly to families of
people who died in Iraqi detention.
(AP, 3/11/05)
2005 Mar 21, UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan proposed a new Human Rights Council, a
smaller body that would meet year-round.
(http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2005/sgsm9772.doc.htm)
2005 Mar 25, The UN Security
Council voted to send 10,700 peacekeepers to Sudan to monitor a
peace deal ending a 21-year-civil war.
(AP, 3/25/05)
2005 Mar 31, After weeks of
often bitter negotiations, the UN Security Council approved a
resolution to refer Sudanese war crimes suspects to the
International Criminal Court, agreeing to major concessions demanded
by United States.
(AP, 4/1/05)
2005 Mar, Kofi Annan proposed a
UN reform plan that included increasing the security council
membership from 15 to 24. A change in the charter required the
approval of at least two-thirds of the UN’s 191 members.
(Econ, 3/26/05, p.31)
2005 Apr 4, A one year mandate
for UN forces in the Ivory Coast ended. 6,000 UN and 4,000 French
troops separated the northern New Forces rebels from the southern
half under Pres. Laurent Gbagbo.
(Econ, 3/19/05, p.52)
2005 Apr 5, The UN handed
prosecutors from the International Criminal Court thousands of
documents and a list of 51 people to be investigated for alleged war
crimes in Sudan's conflict-wracked Darfur region.
(AP, 4/6/05)
2005 Apr 13, The UN approved a
global treaty aimed at preventing nuclear terrorism by making it a
crime for would-be terrorists to possess or threaten to use nuclear
material.
(AP, 4/13/05)
2005 Apr 18, The UN Security
Council voted unanimously to widen the arms embargo in Congo as part
of stepped-up efforts to bring peace to the African country's
volatile east.
(AP, 4/18/05)
2005 Apr 26, UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan nominated former Turkish finance
minister Kemal Dervis to lead the UN Development Program, breaking
with a tradition of giving top UN posts to major contributor
nations.
(AP, 4/26/05)
2005 May 2, The world's nations
gathered, for the 7th time since it took force in 1970, to reassess
how well the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty is working.
(AP, 5/2/05)
2005 May 6, The UN Sec. Gen.
appointed Alvaro de Soto as the Special Coordinator for the Middle
East Peace Process. De Soto resigned in May, 2007.
(www.un.org/unsco/coordinator.html)
2005 May 22, The UN condemned
as "utterly unacceptable" the alleged abuse of detainees at the main
US base in Afghanistan and called on the American military to allow
an investigation by Afghan human rights officials.
(AP, 5/22/05)
2005 May 28, In Sudan tens of
thousands of chanting refugees lined the muddy streets of Darfur's
largest camp to greet the U.N.'s Kofi Annan, who later listened as
women raped during the conflict told their stories.
(AP, 5/28/05)
2005 Jun 1, A 5-day UN World
Environment Day conference opened in SF.
(SFC, 6/1/05, p.A1)
2005 Jun 3, UN Pres. Jean Ping
presented 191 member governments the first draft of a plan for
overhauling the United Nations, complete with demands to pay more
attention to poverty and human rights. The document avoided the
contentious issues of Security Council expansion, defining terrorism
and guidelines for using force.
(AP, 6/4/05)
2005 Jun 13, Israel was elected
one of 21 vice-presidents of the next UN General Assembly session.
(AP, 6/13/05)
2005 Jun 13, Mohammed ElBaradei
won a third term as head of the UN nuclear watchdog agency.
(AP, 6/13/05)
2005 Jun 14, A UN report showed
South America's cocaine output rose by 2 percent last year, bucking
a five year downward trend as increases in Peru and Bolivia outpaced
Colombia's clampdown on coca cultivation.
(AP, 6/14/05)
2005 Jun 16, Board members of
the UN atomic watchdog agency approved a deal that exempts Saudi
Arabia from nuclear inspections, despite serious misgivings about
the arrangement in an era of heightened proliferation fears.
(AP, 6/16/05)
2005 Jun 22, The UN Security
Council voted to temporarily enlarge the peacekeeping mission in
Haiti by more than 1,000 troops and police in the run-up to
elections set for later this year.
(AP, 6/22/05)
2005 Jun 23, UN human rights
experts said they have reliable accounts of detainees being tortured
at the U.S. base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
(AP, 6/23/05)
2005 Jun 24, The UN Security
Council approved the transfer of $200 million in oil-for-food
revenue to the Development Fund for Iraq and said an additional $20
million can be used to pay Iraq's past UN dues.
(AP, 6/24/05)
2005 Jun 27, The UN said it
wanted to move hundreds of Uzbek refugees to third countries from
camps in Kyrgyzstan because there were fears Uzbekistan might try to
snatch them and take them home by force.
(AP, 6/27/05)
2005 Jun 29, A UN team of
experts called for an international tribunal to prosecute
Indonesia’s security forces and militia during its bloodstained exit
from East Timor in 1999.
(AP, 6/29/05)
2005 Jun 29, The UN World Food
Program in Zambia said lack of funds will soon force it to slash
rations and reduce the number of vulnerable women and children on
food aid.
(AP, 6/29/05)
2005 Jun 30, The UN panel
overseeing compensation for victims of Iraq's 1990 invasion of
Kuwait approved its final claims, bringing the total award to $52.5
billion.
(AP, 6/30/05)
2005 Jul 4, In Austria
IAEA representatives of more than 100 countries gathered at the UN
nuclear agency's Vienna headquarters to consider strengthening
international laws meant to safeguard nuclear materials from theft
and prevent terrorist attacks on atomic power plants.
(AP, 7/4/05)
2005 Jul 4, In Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia, UN agencies met for a 3-day conference on bird flu virus
and said the disease remains as dangerous as ever and nations must
do more to prepare for a pandemic among humans.
(AP, 7/4/05)
2005 Jul 4, The UN’s World Food
Program (WFP) said it has suspended aid shipments to lawless Somalia
after gunmen hijacked a vessel it chartered and demanded a $500,000
ransom.
(AP, 7/4/05)
2005 Jul 27, A UN envoy
presented her report condemning Zimbabwe's sweeping slum clearance
to the Security Council, despite opposition from China, Russia and
African countries, and called for urgent assistance to help those
who have lost their homes and jobs.
(AP, 7/27/05)
2005 Jul 27, The UN started
evacuating more than 400 refugees from a camp in Kyrgyzstan and will
fly them to a third country to keep them from being sent home to
Uzbekistan where they fear prosecution. Uzbekistan has been
pressuring Kyrgyzstan to hand over the refugees, and Kyrgyz
officials relented in recent weeks, sending at least 87 of them
back.
(AP, 7/27/05)
2005 Jul 29, The UN Security
Council unanimously adopted a US-sponsored resolution expanding UN
sanctions against al-Qaida terrorists and Afghanistan's former
Taliban rulers to affiliates and splinter groups.
(AP, 7/29/06)
2005 Jul 29, The UN Security
Council voted unanimously to extend an arms embargo and other
sanctions against Congo for another year.
(AP, 7/29/05)
2005 Jul 29, The UN's cancer
research agency added hormone pills to the list of substances that
can cause cancer.
(AP, 7/29/05)
2005 Aug 1, President Bush
sidestepped the Senate and installed embattled nominee John Bolton
as ambassador to the United Nations. Bolton would only be able to
serve until the end of the current Congress i.e. December 2006.
(AP, 8/1/05)(Econ, 8/6/05, p.23)
2005 Aug 7, Benon Sevan (67),
the former head of the scandal-tainted oil-for-food program,
resigned from the UN hours before he was expected to be accused of
getting kickbacks from the $67 billion operation.
(AP, 8/8/05)
2005 Aug 11, The UN Security
Council voted unanimously to extend its mission in Iraq, reaffirming
its leading role in helping to promote a national dialogue which is
crucial for the country's political stability and unity.
(AP, 8/11/05)
2005 Aug 23, UN officials
called on African ministers meeting in Mozambique to declare TB and
emergency in the area.
(WSJ, 8/24/05, p.A1)
2005 Aug 26, The UN food relief
agency said that it's battling to feed 90,000 Eritrean and Ethiopian
refugees displaced in eastern Sudan mainly due to a serious funding
shortfall.
(AP, 8/27/05)
2005 Aug 27, UN member states
agreed to let about 30 nations take the lead in trying to resolve
major differences over an action plan world leaders can adopt at
next month's summit.
(AP, 8/27/05)
2005 Aug 30, UN officials said
the 9 UN agencies involved in the oil-for-food program have agreed
to pay Iraq about $40 million in oil proceeds they received in 2003
to finish their work but never spent.
(AP, 8/30/05)
2005 Sep 1, Vadim Kouznetsov,
the chair of a powerful UN budget committee, was arrested by the FBI
on money laundering charges. Kouznetsov, who heads the General
Assembly panel that oversees the UN budget, was the 2nd Russian UN
official to be arrested by the FBI for alleged money laundering in
recent weeks. On Aug. 8, Alexander Yakovlev, a Russian who worked in
the UN procurement office, was arrested for allegedly soliciting a
bribe from a company seeking an oil-for-food contract.
(AP, 9/2/05)
2005 Sep 1, The UN said a
cholera epidemic spreading across West Africa has sickened tens of
thousands of people this year and killed nearly 500 amid a long-term
deterioration in health services in one of the world's poorest
regions.
(AP, 9/1/05)
2005 Sep 7, Investigators
strongly criticized UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, his deputy and
the Security Council for allowing Saddam Hussein to bilk some $10.2
billion from the giant humanitarian operation.
(AP, 9/7/05)
2005 Sep 12, A senior UN
official said traffickers have been shifting to the manufacture of
amphetamine-type drugs in Asia as cultivation and production of
heroin drops sharply.
(AP, 9/13/05)
2005 Sep 13, The UN General
Assembly approved a watered-down, 35-page reform document after
months of hard bargaining. The current text refers the issue back to
the president of the General Assembly for further negotiations “with
the aim of establishing the mandate, modalities, functions, size,
composition, membership, working methods and procedures for the
council.”
(AP, 9/14/05)(http://tinyurl.com/lfzje)
2005 Sep 14, In Geneva the UN
refugee and food agencies' chiefs made a joint appeal to donors for
more money to alleviate shortages of survival rations for people
displaced by war across Africa.
(AP, 9/14/05)
2005 Sep 14, Taiwan failed for
the 13th straight year to get a seat at the United Nations, a move
that has been blocked annually since 1993 by archrival China and its
allies.
(AP, 9/14/05)
2005 Sep 14, In NYC UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan appealed to world leaders marking the
60th anniversary of the United Nations to help restore confidence in
the world body. He also said that UN members had failed to achieve
the profound reform the global organization needed on its 60th
anniversary. President Bush urged compassion for the needy and
pressed the global community to "put the terrorists on notice" by
cracking down on any activities that could incite deadly attacks.
(AP, 9/14/05)
2005 Sep 14, In NYC Iranian
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad blasted US unilateralism, militarism
and privilege and called for the UN to promote spirituality. The
conservative Muslim leader advanced unusual broad concepts,
including recommendations that the UN "institutionalize justice at
the international level" and ensure all members have "equal rights."
(AP, 9/16/05)
2005 Sep 15, The UN General
Assembly adopted the concept of “responsibility to protect” (R2P)
during its World summit in NYC.
(Econ, 6/28/08, p.51)(http://tinyurl.com/669gvu)
2005 Sep 15, Venezuelan Pres.
Hugo Chavez took Pres. Bush to task in front of a global summit for
waging war in Iraq without UN consent and won rousing applause for
his critique.
(AP, 9/16/05)
2005 Sep 16, UN Sec.-Gen. Kofi
Annan announced that a group of six US-based foundations is
committing $200 million over five years to support universities in 7
African countries (Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, South Africa,
Tanzania and Uganda) including a project to significantly improve
Internet access. The Rockefeller, Carnegie, Ford and MacArthur
foundations were extending their involvement in an earlier project,
while the Andrew W. Mellon and William and Flora Hewlett Foundations
began participating for the first time.
(AP, 9/16/05)
2005 Sep 16, The UN said the
hole in the ozone layer above Antarctica has grown to near record
size this year, suggesting 20 years of pollution controls have so
far had little effect.
(AP, 9/16/05)
2005 Sep 16, A 3-day UN summit,
billed as the largest gathering of world leaders in history, ended
and achieved far less than U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan had
hoped. The final document represented the lowest common denominator
that all 151 member states could agree on after months of
negotiations.
(AP, 9/17/05)
2005 Sep 18, At least 2.2
million people die of work-related accidents and diseases around the
world each year, the UN International Labour Organization said in a
report, adding that the estimate was 10 percent higher than in 2002.
The report was to be released at the 17th World Congress on Safety
and Health at Work in Orlando, Florida, which runs to Sep 22.
(AP, 9/18/05)
2005 Sep 18, Leaders from
developing nations took the speaker's platform on the second day of
the annual UN General Assembly debate to criticize rich countries
for not doing enough to ease the plight of the world's poorest
people.
(AP, 9/19/05)
2005 Sep 21, UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged the United States and 10 other
key countries to ratify the 1996 nuclear test-ban treaty so it can
finally take effect, but like Pakistan, India, Israel and North
Korea, the U.S. administration refuses to do so. It has been signed
by 175 countries and ratified by 123 countries. But it will only
take effect when 44 countries that participated in the Conference on
Disarmament in 1996 and possessed nuclear research and power
reactors have ratified it. To date, 33 of the 44 countries have
ratified the treaty, but there seems little prospects of getting all
11 holdouts to change their positions.
(AP, 9/22/05)
2005 Sep 23, The UN Security
Council extended the peacekeeping mission in Sudan by six months.
(AP, 9/23/05)
2005 Sep 24, The 35-nation
board of the U.N. atomic watchdog agency approved a resolution that
could lead to Iran's referral to the U.N. Security Council for
violating a nuclear arms control treaty, something the United States
has been urging for years.
(AP, 9/24/05)
2005 Sep 28, Jan Egeland, UN
humanitarian chief, said escalating violence in the Sudanese region
of Darfur is threatening to halt aid work as increasing numbers of
international staff come under attack.
(AP, 9/28/05)
2005 Sep 29, The UN warned that
a global flu pandemic could kill as many as 150 million people if
the world fails to prepare for an expected mutation of the bird flu
virus enabling it to spread from human to human.
(AP, 9/29/05)
2005 Oct 4, UN peacekeepers
preparing to pull out of Sierra Leone said they have completed the
mission they began six years ago but warn the country still has a
long way to go before it recovers from one of Africa's most brutal
wars.
(AP, 10/4/05)
2005 Oct 4, The UN Security
Council warned Ethiopia and Eritrea against reigniting their border
war and urged Eritrea to immediately reverse its ban on all
helicopter flights by UN peacekeepers.
(AP, 10/4/05)
2005 Oct 6, A UN official said
the International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for five
leaders of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), a Ugandan cult
notorious for raping, maiming and killing children.
(Reuters, 10/6/05)
2005 Oct 18, A new UN study
said armed conflicts have declined by 40 percent since the end of
the Cold War primarily because the United Nations was finally able
to launch peacekeeping and conflict-prevention operations around the
world.
(AP, 10/18/05)
2005 Oct 20, A UN report
implicated the brother-in-law of Syria's president in the Feb 14
assassination of former Lebanese PM Rafik Hariri, and Lebanese
intelligence officials helped organize it. The UN inquiry officially
linked Damascus to the slaying for the first time. Syria rejected
the report. The names of top Syrians were edited out in the final
version of the report.
(AP, 10/21/05)
2005 Oct 20, UNESCO's member
nations voted overwhelmingly to approve a pact on protecting
cultural diversity after a bitter debate left the United States
isolated in opposition to what it sees as a threat to sales of
American movies and music.
(AP, 10/20/05)
2005 Oct 22, In Haiti Muhammed
Khalaf (32), a UN peacekeeper from the Jordanian army. was
shot while on patrol near the volatile Cite Soleil slum of
Port-au-Prince. He died 2 days later.
(AP, 10/24/05)
2005 Oct 27, The 18-month
Independent Inquiry Committee under former US Federal Reserve
chairman Paul Volcker issued a final 623-page report on corruption
in the UN oil-for-food program. It claimed that between 1997 and
2003 the Iraqi government sold $64 billion of oil to 248 companies
and bought $34.5 billion worth of humanitarian goods. The report
accused more than 2,200 companies from some 40 countries of
colluding with Saddam's regime to bilk the humanitarian program in
Iraq of $1.8 billion.
(AP, 10/27/05)(Econ, 10/29/05, p.28)(AP, 1/26/08)
2005 Oct 28, The UN Security
Council voted unanimously to extend the 16,700-member UN
peacekeeping mission in Congo for a year and add 300 troops.
(AP, 10/28/05)
2005 Oct 28, The UN food agency
warned that at least 1.7 million Zambians need food, and the
situation is deteriorating rapidly.
(AP, 10/27/05)
2005 Nov 1, The UN General
Assembly adopted a landmark resolution that will create the first
international day of commemoration for the six million Jews and
other victims of the Nazi Holocaust. The International Day of
Commemoration will be held every year on Jan. 27.
(AP, 11/1/05)
2005 Nov 7, The United Nations
elected five judges -- from the United States, Morocco, Mexico, New
Zealand and Russia -- to the prestigious World Court, the highest
judicial authority of the world body.
(AP, 11/8/05)
2005 Nov 8, The UN Security
Council voted unanimously to extend the mandate of the nearly
180,000-strong multinational force in Iraq for a year, a move the
United States called a significant signal of international
commitment to Iraq's political transition.
(AP, 11/8/05)
2005 Nov 14, A UN report said
the Iraqi army and multinational forces violated international law
during military operations in western Iraq last month by arresting
doctors and occupying medical facilities.
(AP, 11/14/05)
2005 Nov 17, UN officials said
Zimbabwe has backtracked on its refusal to allow the UN to help
build emergency housing for people whose homes were demolished in a
government eviction campaign.
(AP, 11/17/05)
2005 Nov 21, A UN count of HIV
infections around the world topped 40.3 million.
(SFC, 11/22/05, p.A1)
2005 Nov 22, The UN’s food and
farming body renewed its plea for more effort to improve agriculture
in poor countries to ease hunger and malnutrition which kill nearly
6 million children a year.
(AP, 11/22/05)
2005 Nov 24, The UN food agency
said the United States has thrown a lifeline to six southern African
countries, donating food aid valued at $45 million.
(AP, 11/24/05)
2005 Dec 1, A UN Security
Council committee called on all governments to freeze the assets and
travel of two individuals linked to international gunrunner Victor
Bout over past arms sales to Liberia. The council added Syrian-born
accountant Richard Ammar Chichakli of Texas and Ukrainian-born
businessman Valeriy Naydo, with an address in the United Arab
Emirates, to its list of people whose assets and travel are to be
frozen around the world.
(AP, 12/01/05)
2005 Dec 2, Manfred Nowak, the
first UN torture investigator to visit China said that abuse was
still widespread and authorities subjected detainees to electric
shocks, beatings and sleep deprivation. He also accused the
government of obstructing his work.
(AP, 12/02/05)
2005 Dec 6, The UN top election
official, Carina Perelli of Uruguay, vowed to fight her dismissal
over sexual harassment charges, which she rejected as false and
complained that she was being denied due process.
(AFP, 12/07/05)
2005 Dec 7, The UN rejected an
Eritrean order to expel Western members of the peacekeeping mission
that monitors its tense border with Ethiopia amid concerns that war
between the two countries could re-ignite.
(AP, 12/07/05)
2005 Dec 13, A UN tribunal
convicted former Lt. Col. Aloys Simba, a retired Rwandan army
officer, of genocide and sentenced him to 25 years in prison for
participating in the slaughter of ethnic minority Tutsi.
(AP, 12/13/05)
2005 Dec 15, The UN approved
the establishment of a Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) under
Jan Egeland, coordinator of the UN’s emergency relief.
(http://ochaonline2.un.org/Default.aspx?tabid=7480)
2005 Dec 20, A Canadian police
officer serving as a UN peacekeeper in Haiti was shot to death near
a volatile slum on the outskirts of the capital.
(AP, 12/21/05)
2005 Dec 21, The UN Security
Council voted unanimously to maintain diamond and timber sanctions
against Liberia but said it will lift the embargoes when the
country's new government ends illicit trade in its valuable
resources.
(AP, 12/21/05)
2005 Dec 21, The UN and the
African Union condemned an attack on a village in Sudan’s western
Darfur region in which camel and horse-riding assailants killed 20
civilians and burned their huts.
(AP, 12/21/05)
2005 Dec 24, Congolese and UN
troops captured a militia base in the volatile east, as referendum
results showed an overwhelming "Yes" to a new constitution intended
to help end the country's conflict.
(AP, 12/24/05)
2005 Dec 28, Officials said UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan has nominated Serge Brammertz, a
Belgian prosecutor, to lead the next stage of a probe into the
assassination of former Lebanese PM Rafik Hariri.
(AP, 12/28/05)
2005 The UN listed 193
sovereign nations, 191 members plus Taiwan and the Vatican. The
Travelers’ Century Club listed 315 “countries” on its list.
(SSFC, 9/25/05, 9)
2005 A UN unit called the Joint
Integrated Unit was created and stationed in Malakal, Sudan, after
the 2005 north-south peace deal that ended more than two decades of
civil war.
(AP, 2/4/11)
2006 Jan 8, The UN envoy to
Myanmar, Razali Ismail of Malaysia, said he had quit his post after
being refused entry for the past 2 years to the military-ruled
country where he pushed for reforms.
(AFP, 1/8/06)
2006 Jan 12, UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan said he wants the US and European
countries to help form a tough mobile force that would stop the
bloodshed, rape and plunder in Sudan's Darfur region.
(AP, 1/12/06)
2006 Jan 16, A lawyer told a
government inquiry that Australia's wheat exporter, AWB Ltd.,
knowingly provided hundreds of millions of dollars in kickbacks to
Saddam Hussein's regime and deceived the United Nations about the
payments under the oil-for-food program.
(AP, 1/16/06)
2006 Jan 23, The United Nations
Children's Fund (UNICEF) appealed for $805 million to provide aid to
children and mothers in 29 emergencies worldwide.
(AP, 1/23/06)
2006 Feb 3, The UN Security
Council authorized planning for the expected UN takeover of
peacekeeping operations in Sudan's conflict-wracked Darfur region.
(AP, 2/3/06)
2006 Feb 6, UN Secretary
General Kofi Annan announced he was establishing a foundation for
agriculture and women's education in his home continent of Africa as
he received a 500,000-dollar environment prize.
(AFP, 2/6/06)
2006 Feb 8, Kenya’s government
and the UN said Kenya needs $221.5 million in aid to help feed
3.5 million people threatened by starvation due to drought and avoid
a "massive humanitarian catastrophe."
(AP, 2/8/06)
2006 Feb 10, The UN said
Secretary-General Kofi Annan has sent Ivory Coast President Laurent
Gbagbo a $3.6 million bill for UN property and equipment damaged or
lost during January riots.
(Reuters, 2/10/06)
2006 Feb 13, The UN launched a
$680 million aid plan for the Democratic Republic of Congo,
complaining the world remained ignorant of what it called the worst
humanitarian crisis since World War Two.
(Reuters, 2/13/06)
2006 Feb 14, The UN said 13
Eritreans employed by the UN peacekeeping mission in Eritrea have
been detained by local authorities and another 30 are in hiding for
fear of being arrested.
(AP, 2/14/06)
2006 Feb 14, The UN asked
Lebanon to explain reports of arms shipments crossing the Syrian
border destined for the Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah.
(AP, 2/14/06)
2006 Feb 16, The UN released a
report saying the US should shut down the prison for terror suspects
at Guantanamo Bay and either release all detainees or bring them to
trial.
(AP, 2/16/06)
2006 Feb 20, UN mediated talks
on the future status of Kosovo opened in Vienna as Serbs and ethnic
Albanians staked out tough positions.
(AP, 2/20/06)
2006 Feb 28, A top UN envoy
said Sudan has begun a campaign to keep African Union troops in
Darfur and prevent a UN force from taking over efforts to restore
peace there. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Libyan leader
Moamer Kadhafi rejected the replacement of an AU force in the
Sudanese region of Darfur by UN peacekeepers.
(AP, 2/28/06)
2006 Mar 1, Congolese army
soldiers fighting alongside U.N. peacekeepers against ethnic
militiamen mutinied and ransacked a UN camp in the east of the vast
country. Hundreds of peacekeepers and thousands of government troops
have fought for three days to dislodge militia fighters from the
town of Tchei in northeastern Ituri district, where ethnic violence
has killed 60,000 people since 1999.
(Reuters, 3/1/06)(Reuters, 3/2/06)
2006 Mar 21, The UN appealed
for nearly $327 million in aid to help starving people in southern
Somalia, which is suffering its worst drought in a decade.
(AP, 3/21/06)
2006 Mar 22, The UN gave a
green light to abolish the discredited Human Rights Commission on
June 16, clearing the way for the new Human Rights Council to become
the UN's main rights watchdog.
(AP, 3/22/06)
2006 Mar 24, The UN Security
Council voted keep UN peacekeepers in Sudan to monitor an accord
ending a 21-year civil war and authorized planning for the expected
extension of the UN force's operations to Darfur.
(AP, 3/24/06)
2006 Mar 26, The UN said it did
not expect Lebanon to disarm Hezbollah guerillas by force but hoped
they would join the Lebanese army.
(AP, 3/26/06)
2006 Mar 29, The UN Security
Council demanded that Iran suspend uranium enrichment, the first
time the body directly urged Tehran to clear up suspicions that it
was seeking nuclear weapons.
(AP, 3/29/07)
2006 Apr 3, Jan Egeland, the
U.N.'s top humanitarian official in Sudan, said the government
barred him from visiting Darfur to prevent him seeing poor
conditions there.
(AP, 4/3/06)
2006 Apr 5, Actor Michael
Douglas presented UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan with an award for
his dedication to ridding the world of land mines, marking the first
international day to honor the cause.
(AP, 4/5/06)
2006 Apr 5, Sudan said it would
allow UN Undersecretary Jan Egeland to visit Darfur.
(AP, 4/5/06)
2006 Apr 7, The UN appealed for
$426 million to help victims of drought in Horn of Africa, where
more than 40 percent of people are undernourished and thousands have
died because of complications due to hunger.
(AP, 4/7/06)
2006 Apr 11, The UN said it has
ended its policy of unrestricted political contacts with the
Palestinians and will now assess every request for political talks
with the new Hamas-run government.
(AP, 4/11/06)
2006 Apr 11, The UN Security
Council demanded that the Sudanese government and rebels reach
agreement by April 30 to end the conflict in Darfur.
(AP, 4/11/06)
2006 Apr 19, A UN spokesman
said Sudan has refused to grant visas for a UN military assessment
mission planning a UN peacekeeping operation in Darfur.
(Reuters, 4/19/06)
2006 Apr 25, The UN Security
Council imposed sanctions on four men accused of atrocities in
Sudan's Darfur region, the first time it has moved to punish those
responsible for three years of conflict that has left 180,000 dead.
(AP, 4/25/06)
2006 Apr 27, The UN panel
overseeing compensation for victims of Iraq's 1990 invasion of
Kuwait said the UN has paid out a $248 million installment to cover
claims for losses and damages.
(AP, 4/27/06)
2006 Apr 28, A powerful group
of developing nations blocked reform proposals that would have given
Secretary-General Kofi Annan more budget power, and rich countries
warned the move could push the world body toward financial crisis.
(AP, 4/28/06)
2006 Apr 28, The UN food agency
said it is cutting rations in half for about 3 million refugees in
Sudan's war-ravaged Darfur region because of a shortage of money,
calling it "scandalous" that it has to stretch out supplies while it
pleads for funds.
(AP, 4/28/06)
2006 Apr 30, In Ethiopia
visiting Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has said he
backed plans for an expanded United Nations Security Council, adding
that he would present his country's position at the African Union
(AU) headquarters in Addis Ababa.
(AFP, 4/30/06)
2006 May 4, Over Chinese and
Russian opposition, Western nations circulated a UN Security Council
resolution that would demand Iran abandon uranium enrichment or face
the threat of unspecified further measures, a possible reference to
sanctions.
(AP, 5/4/06)
2006 May 8, A report said UN
peacekeepers, aid workers and teachers are having sex with Liberian
girls as young as 8 in return for money, food or favors, threatening
efforts to rebuild a nation wrecked by war.
(AP, 5/8/06)
2006 May 9, Cuba, Saudi Arabia,
China and Russia won seats on the new UN Human Rights Council
despite their poor human rights records. Two rights abusers, Iran
and Venezuela, were defeated.
(AP, 5/10/06)
2006 May 11, The UN’s World
Food Program said it has reached agreement with North Korea to
resume food aid to the hunger-stricken country, but the operation
will be smaller than it was before its suspension in December.
(AP, 5/11/06)
2006 May 12, It was announced
that "King Kong" star and Oscar nominee Naomi Watts of Australia has
agreed to serve as special representative for the Joint United
Nations Program on AIDS (UNAIDS).
(AFP, 5/12/06)
2006 May 16, The UN Security
Council passed a resolution pressing Sudan to cooperate with the
United Nations as it prepares take over peacekeeping in Darfur from
an underfunded African Union force.
(AP, 5/16/06)
2006 May 19, The UN panel that
monitors compliance with the world's anti-torture treaty said the
United States should close its prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and
avoid using secret detention facilities in the war on terror. The
report by the Committee Against Torture came as the US military
disclosed that prisoners wielding improvised weapons had clashed
with guards trying to save a detainee who was pretending to commit
suicide.
(AP, 5/19/06)(AP, 5/19/07)
2006 May 22, Dr. Lee Jong-wook
(61) died following surgery for a blood clot on the brain. He
spearheaded the World Health Organization's successive battles
against SARS and bird flu and was the first South Korean to head a
UN agency.
(AP, 5/22/06)
2006 May 23, A high-level UN
delegation arrived in Sudan to press a reluctant government to
accept a large force of U.N. peacekeepers in the strife-torn Darfur
region.
(AP, 5/23/06)
2006 May 25, Sudan said it
would permit the UN to lay the groundwork for possible deployment of
a peacekeeping force in Darfur, but cautioned that the world body's
role would be smaller than some Security Council members want.
(AP, 5/25/06)
2006 May 31, The UN Security
Council cut the number of peacekeepers deployed in Eritrea and
Ethiopia by at least one-third while extending the UN mission's
mandate for another four months.
(AP, 5/31/06)
2006 Jun 2, The United Nations
General Assembly concluded a conference on AIDS by promising to set
"ambitious national targets," but falling short of setting exact
financial goals for the fight against the disease.
(AP, 6/2/07)
2006 Jun 2, Four governments
(Brazil, Chile, France, and Norway), the UN and the world's soccer
federation launched a plan to use the proceeds of a new airline
ticket tax to treat people in the developing world suffering from
AIDS, malaria or tuberculosis. Countries that have either approved
or say they expect to approve a new airline ticket tax include
Britain, Cyprus, Congo, Gabon, Ivory Coast, Jordan, Luxembourg,
Madagascar, Mauritius and Nicaragua.
(AP, 6/2/06)
2006 Jun 2, The UN Security
Council added 1,500 peacekeepers to its mission in Ivory Coast in
renewed efforts to restore order in the troubled West African
country.
(AP, 6/2/06)
2006 Jun 5, Activists marked
World Environment Day with the United Nations warning that
desertification was a main obstacle to ending poverty and can
trigger conflicts.
(Reuters, 6/4/06)
2006 Jun 8, Sheikha Haya Rashed
Al Khalifa, a pioneering lawyer and women's rights advocate from
Bahrain, was elected UN General Assembly president, the first woman
from the Middle East to take the post.
(AP, 6/8/06)
2006 Jun 13, The UN Security
Council eased a ban on weapons sales to Liberia so it could arm
newly trained security forces. The US proposed lifting a UN embargo
on Liberian timber exports.
(AP, 6/13/06)
2006 Jun 13, UN chief Kofi
Annan asked UN human rights chief Louise Arbour to help set up an
independent enquiry commission to probe a recent wave of ethnic
violence in East Timor.
(AP, 6/13/06)
2006 Jun 18, Thousands of
Palestinian government workers who have been living without salaries
for nearly four months received food packets from the UN.
(AP, 6/19/06)
2006 Jun 19, The UN inaugurated
its new Human Rights Council. The 47-member council replaced the
Human Rights Commission, which became discredited in recent years as
rights-abusing countries conspired to escape condemnation. Muslim
countries and various non-democracies held a majority of the 47
seats.
(AP, 6/19/06)(Econ, 3/24/07, p.68)
2006 Jun 20, The UN said
production of the coca plant used to make cocaine had increased by
8% in Colombia, to 330 square miles.
(AP, 6/20/06)
2006 Jun 20, UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in a report that Congo's armed
forces and police are responsible for the majority of documented
abuses against children in the chaotic country, sometimes abducting
kids to carry equipment or for sex.
(AP, 6/20/06)
2006 Jun 20, A senior UN
official marked World Refugee Day by welcoming home 125 Liberians
from Sierra Leone where they lived for years seeking haven from
Liberia's civil war. Former Liberian President Charles Taylor was
taken to a Dutch prison to await a UN war crimes trial for the
killing, rape or mutilation of hundreds of thousands in West Africa.
(AP, 6/20/06)
2006 Jun 22, The UN Security
Council unanimously recommended that newly independent Montenegro
become the 192nd member of the United Nations.
(AP, 6/23/06)
2006 Jun 23, UN bird flu
experts said 7 recent deaths in Indonesia involved a viral mutation,
but one that didn’t spread beyond that gathering.
(WSJ, 6/24/06, p.A1)
2006 Jun 28, A spokesman said
the UN Development Program has halted a voluntary disarmament
program in Uganda's troubled northeast amid new reports of rights
abuses by government troops in the region.
(AP, 6/28/06)
2006 Jun 28, The UN General
Assembly unanimously admitted the newly independent Republic of
Montenegro as the 192nd member of the world body.
(AP, 6/28/06)
2006 Jun 29, The new UN Human
Rights Council overrode Canadian and Russian objections and passed a
declaration to protect the rights of indigenous peoples around the
world. The declaration asserted that indigenous peoples may have a
right to restitution of land and resources taken from them. The
Council also unanimously approved an international treaty that would
ban states from abducting perceived enemies and hiding them in
secret prisons or killing them.
(AP, 6/29/06)(Reuters, 6/30/06)
2006 Jun 30, The UN Security
Council voted unanimously to conclude its peacekeeping mission in
Burundi on Dec. 31 and replace it with a UN office to help promote
development and democracy in the central African nation.
(AP, 6/30/06)
2006 Jun 30, The UN General
Assembly lifted a $950 million budget spending cap over objections
from the US, which wanted to keep the lid to press for management
reforms.
(AP, 7/1/06)
2006 Jul 5, Japan, the United
States and Britain readied a UN Security Council resolution
demanding that nations withhold all funds, goods and technology that
could be used for North Korea's missile program.
(AP, 7/5/06)
2006 Jul 7, The UN General
Assembly unanimously approved a series of reforms that were welcomed
by the US as a long overdue step toward greater efficiency and
accountability. A two-week UN conference reviewing efforts to fight
the illegal weapons trade ended in failure, with nations too divided
on too many contentious issues to agree on the best way to combat a
scourge that fuels conflict worldwide. Japan introduced a draft UN
Security Council resolution to sanction North Korea for
test-launching a series of missiles. The Council unanimously adopted
a compromise resolution on July 15.
(AP, 7/8/06)(AP, 7/7/07)
2006 Jul 12, UNESCO, meeting in
Vilnius, Lithuania, added 8 sites added to its World Heritage list
including a panda refuge in China and an agave producing region in
Mexico.
(AP, 7/12/06)
2006 Jul 15, The UN Security
Council unanimously passed resolution 1718 condemning North Korea's
multiple missile launches on July 5 and imposed limited sanctions; a
defiant North said it would launch more missiles.
(AP, 7/16/07)(Econ, 2/28/09, p.63)
2006 Jul 16, North Korea
rejected a UN Security Council resolution sanctioning the communist
nation for recent missile tests and warned the measure was a prelude
to a renewed Korean War.
(AP, 7/16/06)
2006 Jul 17, British PM Tony
Blair and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan called for the deployment
of international forces to stop Hezbollah from bombing Israel, a
proposal that Israel quickly rejected.
(AP, 7/17/06)
2006 Jul 20, The UN food agency
said China became the world's third-largest food aid donor in 2005,
the same year it stopped receiving assistance from the World Food
Program, while the US and the EU remained the top two contributors.
(AP, 7/20/06)
2006 Jul 25, Israeli troops
sealed off the town of Bint Jbail, a Hezbollah stronghold in fierce
fighting in south Lebanon. Warplanes struck Nabatiyeh and destroyed
a house killing seven people, four from the same family. Guerrillas
fired rockets at northern Israel, killing a girl. An Israeli
airstrike killed 4 UN observers at a UNIFIL post in southern
Lebanon. The observers were from Austria, Canada, China and Finland.
Irish observers had warned that airstrikes were too close. UNIFIL
was created in 1978 after Israel's first major invasion of southern
Lebanon and has been there ever since.
(AP, 7/25/06)(Reuters, 7/25/06)(WSJ, 7/27/06,
p.A1)
2006 Jul 28, The UN decided to
remove 50 unarmed observers (UNTSO and UNIFIL) from posts
along the Israeli-Lebanese border and relocate them with lightly
armed UN peacekeepers.
(AP, 7/28/06)
2006 Jul 28, The five permanent
members of the UN Security Council reached a deal on a resolution
that would give Iran until the end of August to suspend uranium
enrichment or face the threat of economic and diplomatic sanctions.
(AP, 7/28/06)
2006 Jul 31, The UN scrapped a
meeting of nations that might contribute troops to help stabilize
south Lebanon, a decision that reflected the deep divisions among
key nations on how to end the three-week war between Israel and
Hezbollah.
(AP, 7/31/06)
2006 Aug 3, UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan, making his first trip to Haiti, called
for strengthening the national police force to stem an upsurge in
kidnapping and lawlessness.
(AP, 8/3/06)
2006 Aug 5, The US and France
reached agreement on a UN Security Council resolution aimed at
ending the fighting between Israel and Lebanese Hezbollah
guerrillas.
(AP, 8/5/06)
2006 Aug 11, The UN Human
Rights Council condemned Israel for "massive bombardment of Lebanese
civilian populations" and other "systematic" human rights
violations, and decided to send a commission to investigate. UN
Resolution 1701 called for Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon and the
disarmament of Hezbollah.
(AP, 8/11/06)(Econ, 8/26/06,
p.11)(www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2006/sc8808.doc.htm)
2006 Aug 12, The UN Security
Council adopted a resolution seeking a "full cessation" of violence
between Israel and Hezbollah, offering the region its best chance
yet for peace after a month of fighting that has killed more than
800 people and inflamed Mideast tensions.
(AP, 8/12/06)
2006 Aug 15, The UN Security
Council voted unanimously to extend the UN peacekeeping mission in
Haiti for six months and urged its troops and police to help fight
gang violence and kidnapping.
(AP, 8/15/06)
2006 Aug 21, Diplomats and UN
officials said Iran has turned away UN inspectors wanting to examine
its underground nuclear site in an apparent violation of the
Nonproliferation Treaty.
(AP, 8/21/06)
2006 Aug 25, The UN established
a new mission in East Timor but left Australian-led troops in place
following a dispute over whether they should remain independent or
be part of a UN force.
(Reuters, 8/25/06)
2006 Aug 25, A military truck
carrying UN peacekeepers crashed in Ivory Coast, killing six
Bangladeshi troops and injuring 11 others.
(AP, 8/26/06)
2006 Aug 25, In Niger the UN
food agency inaugurated a program to help feed hundreds of thousands
of people as the impoverished West African nation struggles to
recover from severe shortages.
(AP, 8/25/06)
2006 Aug 31, The UN Security
Council passed a resolution that would give the United Nations
authority over peacekeepers in Darfur as soon as Sudan's government
gives its consent, which it has so far refused to do.
(AP, 8/31/06)
2006 Aug 31, An internal
investigation concluded that a UN official steered millions of
dollars in contracts to a company owned by the government of his
native India in exchange for favors that included low-rent
apartments.
(AP, 9/1/06)
2006 Sep 1, UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan said that Syria had pledged to step up
border patrols and work with the Lebanese army to stop the flow of
weapons to Hezbollah.
(AP, 9/1/06)
2006 Sep 4, In Lebanon US civil
rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson met with Hezbollah officials and
called on them to show proof that two captured Israeli soldiers are
still alive. A UN spokesman said Secretary-General Kofi Annan has
agreed to requests by Hezbollah and Israel that he mediate in
negotiations over the release of two abducted Israeli soldiers.
Qatar announced that it would contribute 200 to 300 troops to the UN
peacekeeping force in Lebanon, making the Persian Gulf state the
first Arab country to commit soldiers to the peace effort in
Lebanon.
(AP, 9/4/06)
2006 Sep 8, The UN General
Assembly adopted a long-awaited strategy to combat terrorism, though
many nations lamented that it does not include a definition or say
anything about states that commit terrorist acts.
(AP, 9/8/06)
2006 Sep 15, Latvian President
Vaira Vike-Freiberga joined the race to become the next UN
secretary-general, becoming the first woman vying for the UN's top
post.
(AP, 9/15/06)
2006 Sep 15, Over strong
opposition from China, the UN Security Council put Myanmar on its
agenda in what US officials called a "major step forward" in
American efforts to increase pressure on the country's military
dictatorship.
(AP, 9/15/06)
2006 Sep 19, President Bush
addressed the 61st meeting of the UN General Assembly with a call
for nations to unite to work for a more peaceful world where
"extremists are marginalized by the peaceful majority." UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan delivered an emotional farewell
address, appealing to the world to unite against human rights
abuses, religious divisions, brutal conflicts and an unjust world
economy.
(AP, 9/19/06)(AP, 9/19/07)
2006 Sep 19, Iranian President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad addressed the UN General Assembly and took aim
at US policies in Iraq and Lebanon. He accused Washington of abusing
its power in the UN Security Council to punish others while
protecting its own interests and allies.
(AP, 9/19/06)
2006 Sep 19, Sudan's Pres. Omar
Hassan al-Bashir, on the sidelines of the UN General assembly, said
his country would never allow UN peacekeepers into Darfur and
charged that the West wanted to dismember his country in order to
help Israel.
(Reuters, 9/19/06)
2006 Sep 20, Venezuelan
President Hugo Chavez took his verbal battle with the US to the
floor of the UN General Assembly, calling President Bush "the
devil." "The devil came here yesterday," Chavez said. "He came here
talking as if he were the owner of the world."
(AP, 9/20/06)
2006 Sep 26, The UN and Sudan
discussed the deployment of UN military advisers to reinforce
African Union peacekeepers in Darfur, in a possible compromise in
their standoff over the war-torn region.
(Reuters, 9/26/06)
2006 Sep 29, The UN Security
Council extended the mandate of peacekeepers in Eritrea and Ethiopia
by four months, and threatened to overhaul the mission if the two
sides don't make progress toward demarcating their border.
(AP, 9/29/06)
2006 Sep 29, The UN Security
Council allowed UN experts, who have recommended sanctions on top
Sudanese officials, to continue monitoring atrocities and arms
embargo violations in Darfur.
(AP, 9/29/06)
2006 Oct 2, An informal UN poll
showed that South Korea's foreign minister Ban Ki-Moon (67) has
nearly full support from the Security Council, including its five
veto-wielding members, and appears almost certain to succeed Kofi
Annan as secretary-general of the United Nations.
(AP, 10/3/06)
2006 Oct 5, The Latvian and
Thai candidates dropped out of the race to become the next U.N.
chief on Thursday, leaving South Korea's foreign minister as the
lone remaining contender and near-certain successor to Kofi Annan.
(AP, 10/5/06)
2006 Oct 6, A unanimous UN
Security Council urged North Korea to abandon all atomic weapons, as
it promised last year, and cancel plans to detonate a device. Japan
hinted the North could face sanctions or possible military action.
(AP, 10/6/06)
2006 Oct 6, The fledgling UN
Human Rights Council ended its second session after failing to
approve any decisions addressing the world's worst abuses. The
47-member council adjourned following a 3-week session. The US is
not a member but is an observer. Human Rights Watch said the
council, which held its first session in June and July, was a
disappointing successor to the widely discredited UN Human Rights
Commission.
(AP, 10/6/06)
2006 Oct 9, The UN Security
Council officially nominated South Korean Foreign Minister Ban
Ki-Moon to be the next UN secretary-general.
(AP, 10/9/06)
2006 Oct 12, The UN said it has
temporarily pulled international staff out of parts of Somalia
controlled by Islamic radicals after receiving written threats.
(AP, 10/12/06)
2006 Oct 13, The UN General
Assembly appointed South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon as the
next UN secretary-general. The veteran diplomat who grew up during a
war that divided his country pledged to make peace with North Korea
a top priority.
(AP, 10/13/06)
2006 Oct 14, The UN Security
Council gave unanimous approval to sanctions against North Korea for
its purported nuclear test. The US-sponsored resolution demanded
that North Korea eliminate nuclear weapons, but expressly rules out
military action against the country.
(AP, 10/15/06)
2006 Oct 16, Guatemala topped
Venezuela in the first round of voting for a UN Security Council
seat, but it failed to get the necessary two-thirds majority to win
a two-year term on the decision-making body. The 192-nation General
Assembly elected South Africa, Indonesia, Italy and Belgium for the
four other open seats in a secret ballot.
(AP, 10/16/06)
2006 Oct 19, The UN Environment
Program said the number of "dead zones" in the world's oceans had
reached 200, an increase of 34% in 2 years, threatening fish stocks
and the people who depend on them.
(AP, 10/19/06)(WSJ, 10/20/06, p.A1)
2006 Oct 19, A UN report said
The North Korean government rounds up disabled people and sends them
away from the capital Pyongyang to special camps, where they are
sorted by their handicap and subjected to "subhuman conditions."
(AP, 10/19/06)
2006 Oct 20, The UN refugee
agency said it had received reports of at least 38 civilians killed
in attacks in southern Sudan and was suspending its operation
helping Sudanese refugees return from neighboring Uganda.
(AP, 10/20/06)
2006 Oct 22, The Sudanese
government ordered the chief UN envoy to leave the country within
three days after he wrote that the Sudanese army had suffered
serious losses in fighting with rebels in northern Darfur.
(AP, 10/22/06)
2006 Oct 24, Georgia's Foreign
Ministry said it had protested to the UN about Russia's crackdown on
illegal Georgian migrants, demanding a stop to what it called
"persecution on ethnic grounds."
(AP, 10/24/06)
2006 Oct 26, Russia rejected a
draft UN resolution put forward by European powers targeting Iran's
nuclear program, saying the proposed measures did not advance
objectives agreed on earlier by major world powers.
(AP, 10/26/06)
2006 Oct 27, The UN said it is
sending a mission to Chad and the Central African Republic to look
at operations to curb the escalating violence and help protect
hundreds of thousands of civilians.
(AP, 10/28/06)
2006 Oct 27, Hundreds of
protesters marched peacefully through Haiti's largest slum to demand
the withdrawal of UN peacekeepers, accusing the troops of killing
civilians during gunbattles with street gangs.
(AP, 10/27/06)
2006 Nov 1, The UN Security
Council voted unanimously to extend Ivory Coast's transitional
government for a final year and give new powers to the country's
unelected prime minister to implement a peace plan and prepare for
long-delayed elections.
(AP, 11/1/06)
2006 Nov 1, The UN Security
Council agreed on a list of banned items that could be used to make
nuclear, chemical and biological weapons or ballistic missiles and
ordered all countries to prevent North Korea from importing or
exporting the items.
(AP, 11/1/06)
2006 Nov 1, Venezuela and
US-backed Guatemala agreed to withdraw from the race and support
Panama, a compromise reached after voting in the UN General Assembly
dragged through 47 rounds of balloting.
(AP, 11/2/06)
2006 Nov 2, The UN management
chief said an investigation into corruption was "at full throttle"
and he urged anyone with relevant information to cooperate.
(AP, 11/3/06)
2006 Nov 2, Russia and China
indicated that they will not support a draft UN resolution imposing
tough sanctions on Iran for its refusal to halt its nuclear
enrichment program.
(AP, 11/2/06)
2006 Nov 3, Latin American and
Caribbean nations unanimously endorsed Panama for a seat on the UN
Security Council after Guatemala and Venezuela agreed to withdraw to
break a deadlock that dragged on through 47 votes in the General
Assembly.
(AP, 11/3/06)
2006 Nov 3, In Uruguay UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan praised leaders at the 16th annual
Iberoamerican summit for resolving to make progress on growing
illegal immigration in an increasingly mobile world community.
(AP, 11/3/06)
2006 Nov 3, The UN weather
agency said heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere reached
a record high in 2005 and are still increasing.
(AP, 11/3/06)
2006 Nov 6, In Kenya thousands
of delegates from around the world opened a UN conference on next
steps to ward off the worst effects of climate change.
(AP, 11/6/06)
2006 Nov 7, Panama won a seat
on the UN Security Council on the 48th ballot after US-backed
Guatemala and Venezuela, led by leftist anti-American President Hugo
Chavez, dropped out to end a deadlock.
(AP, 11/7/06)
2006 Nov 7, The UN named
American diplomat Josette Sheeran the next head of the World Food
Program and she said her top priorities will be to ensure no child
goes to bed hungry and to reduce hunger-related deaths.
(AP, 11/7/06)
2006 Nov 8, The UN General
Assembly voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to urge the United States to
end its 45-year-old trade embargo against Cuba after defeating an
amendment calling on Fidel Castro's government to free political
prisoners and respect human rights.
(AP, 11/8/06)
2006 Nov 9, The UN ranked
Norway as the best country to live in for a sixth consecutive year,
prompting the country's aid minister to tell Norwegians to stop
whining about wanting more.
(AP, 11/9/06)
2006 Nov 10, The UN announced
it would postpone a decision on the future status of Serbia's
breakaway Kosovo province, hours after Serbia said it would hold an
early general election in January.
(AP, 11/10/06)
2006 Nov 10, A report launched
by the UN Human Development Program (UNDP) highlighted how more than
2.6 billion people do not have access to proper sanitation and how
dirty water claims more lives than AIDS or conflicts. According to
the UN 78% of Mozambique's 17 million people earn less than two
dollars a day and more than 20,000 children die every year from
water-borne diseases.
(AP, 11/10/06)
2006 Nov 11, The US vetoed a UN
Security Council draft resolution that sought to condemn an Israeli
military offensive in the Gaza Strip and demand Israeli troops pull
out of the territory.
(AP, 11/12/06)
2006 Nov 11, In Haiti 2 UN
peacekeepers from Jordan were shot to death in Port-au-Prince after
coming under attack by gunmen. Jordan counted about 1,500 troops in
the force of some 8,800 peacekeepers. Nine peacekeepers have been
killed since the force arrived in June 2004.
(AP, 11/11/06)
2006 Nov 12, Jan Egeland, the
UN's top humanitarian official, helicoptered to a jungle clearing to
meet with Joseph Kony, a Ugandan rebel leader accused of war crimes,
but he failed to secure freedom for women and children held captive
by the insurgent group. Kony denied that his forces are holding
prisoners.
(AP, 11/12/06)
2006 Nov 13, UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan said that any effort to stop growing
violence between Islamic and Western societies must include an end
to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
(AP, 11/13/06)
2006 Nov 13, The Lebanese
government approved a UN draft setting up an international tribunal
to try suspects in the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik
Hariri. A London-based Arabic newspaper said Al-Qaida has
purportedly issued a statement threatening to topple Lebanon's
"corrupt" Western-backed government.
(AP, 11/13/06)
2006 Nov 14, The UN called
Lebanon's approval of an international tribunal for the suspected
killers of former PM Rafik Hariri "an important step" toward
fulfilling the requirements of a Security Council resolution.
(AP, 11/14/06)
2006 Nov 15, A UN report
identified 10 African and Arab countries, as well as Lebanon’s
Hezbollah, as arms suppliers to the Islamic militia in Somalia.
(WSJ, 11/16/06, p.A1)
2006 Nov 16, UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan worked with key African, Arab, European
leaders in Ethiopia to break the deadlock over worsening violence in
Sudan's Darfur region. Leaders agreed in principle to a joint
African Union-United Nations peacekeeping force for Darfur. UN
humanitarian chief Jan Egeland arrived in Darfur to find security so
bad he could not visit the camps outside el-Geneina town housing
tens of thousands of displaced Darfuris.
(Reuters, 11/16/06)(AP, 11/16/06)(AP, 11/16/07)
2006 Nov 16, In Kenya the UN
conference on climate change ended. The participating 180 countries
reached no agreement on how to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
(http://unfccc.int/meetings/cop_12/items/3754.php)(Econ, 11/25/06,
p.60)
2006 Nov 17, The UN General
Assembly called for an end to Israeli military operations in the
Gaza Strip, overwhelmingly passing a resolution in an emergency
special session the Israeli ambassador blasted as a "farce" and a
"circus."
(AP, 11/18/06)
2006 Nov 17, UN aid bodies said
torrential rains and floods have hit up to 1.8 million people in the
Horn of Africa, driving tens of thousands from their homes and
threatening to trigger epidemics. Torrential rains have pounded the
Horn of Africa this month, bringing misery to large parts of Kenya,
Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan and Eritrea.
(AP, 11/17/06)
2006 Nov 21, In Austria
diplomats said most of the 35 nations at a key meeting of the UN
nuclear watchdog agency have agreed to deny Iran technical aid for a
plutonium-producing reactor.
(AP, 11/21/06)
2006 Nov 21, The UN Security
Council voted to extend the EU peacekeeping force in Bosnia for a
year, welcoming "tangible signs" of the Balkan nation's progress
toward EU membership.
(AP, 11/21/06)
2006 Nov 21, The UN said an
estimated 4.3 million people were infected with HIV, the virus that
causes AIDS, in the last 12 months. The UNAIDS report estimated that
the total number of people infected with HIV stood between 34-47
million.
(http://tinyurl.com/tajka)(Econ, 11/25/06, p.84)
2006 Nov 22, Sudanese President
Omar al-Beshir told Britain and the UN that he still rejects the
deployment of UN troops in war-torn Darfur.
(AFP, 11/23/06)
2006 Nov 23, The UN nuclear
agency decided to deny Iran technical help in building a
plutonium-producing reactor, but left room for Tehran to eventually
renew its request.
(AP, 11/23/06)
2006 Nov 24, The UN said its
investigators have discovered three mass graves at a northeast Congo
military camp containing the bodies of 30 people, including women
and children, who were allegedly killed by soldiers.
(AP, 11/24/06)
2006 Nov 24, A UN anti-torture
panel said it had credible reports of unofficial detention centers,
abuse and disappearances in Russia's restive southern province of
Chechnya.
(AP, 11/24/06)
2006 Nov 24, Fishing nations
led by Iceland and Russia blocked UN negotiators from imposing a
full-fledged ban against destructive bottom trawling on the high
seas. After weeks of talks in New York, a United Nations committee
that oversees high seas fisheries failed to gain unanimous support
this week for ending unregulated bottom trawling.
(AP, 11/24/06)
2006 Nov 29, The UN Security
Council condemned a "significant increase" in the flow of weapons to
and through Somalia in violation of a 1992 arms embargo and voted
unanimously to keep monitoring weapons trafficking in the poor and
lawless Horn of Africa nation.
(AP, 11/30/06)
2006 Dec 4, The White House,
unable to win Senate confirmation, said UN Ambassador John Bolton
will step down when his temporary appointment expires within weeks.
(AP, 12/4/06)
2006 Dec 11, UN officials said
Israel has blocked a UN fact-finding mission to the Gaza Strip that
was to be led by Nobel Laureate Desmond Tutu. Israeli Foreign
Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said that no final decision has been
made.
(AP, 12/11/06)
2006 Dec 12, The UN inquiry
into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik
Hariri said it has now identified suspects and witnesses and found
possible links to 14 other murders or attempted murders in Lebanon
in the last two years.
(AP, 12/12/06)
2006 Dec 12, A UN-backed
commission, the Int’l. Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala
(CICIG), was established to investigate rampant organized crime in
Guatemala, which authorities said has become a key point of transit
for smugglers bringing drugs into the US.
(AP, 12/12/06)(Econ, 3/13/10, p.39)
2006 Dec 13, A UN court trying
leaders of Rwanda's 1994 genocide jailed a former Catholic priest
for 15 years for ordering bulldozers to level a church, sparking the
death of 2,000 people hiding inside.
(AP, 12/13/06)
2006 Dec 14, South Korea's Ban
Ki-moon formally took the reins of the UN as the institution
grappled with internal reforms, volatility in the Middle East and
international standoffs over the nuclear ambitions of North Korea
and Iran.
(AP, 12/14/06)
2006 Dec 15, The UN General
Assembly voted overwhelmingly to establish an office to register
Palestinian damage claims stemming from Israel's construction of a
barrier in the West Bank.
(AP, 12/16/06)
2006 Dec 19, Dr. Peter Piot,
the head of the UN anti-AIDS agency, said AIDS-stricken Southern
African nations should develop a policy of mass male circumcision to
fight the disease.
(Reuters, 12/19/06)
2006 Dec 19, The UN evacuated
71 aid workers from the largest refugee camp in Darfur after gunmen
looted their compounds, leaving some 130,000 refugees virtually
without humanitarian help.
(AP, 12/19/06)
2006 Dec 22, The UN adopted new
regulations aimed at restricting the future employment of UN staff
who handle contracts for goods and services following fraud
allegations.
(AP, 12/23/06)
2006 Dec 23, The UN Security
Council voted unanimously to impose sanctions on Iran for refusing
to suspend uranium enrichment. The Security Council resolution
ordered all countries to stop supplying Iran with materials and
technology that could contribute to its nuclear and missile
programs. It also froze the Iranian assets of 10 key companies and
12 individuals related to those programs. Iran denounced the
sanctions. China’s endorsement was an important symbolic act.
(AP, 12/24/06)(Econ, 1/13/07, p.37)
2006 Dec 26, President Omar
al-Bashir said in the letter to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan that
Sudan is ready to immediately implement two recent agreements
endorsing a three-step UN plan to strengthen the beleaguered
7,000-strong African Union force in Darfur.
(AP, 12/27/06)
2006 Paul Kennedy authored “The
Parliament of Man: The Past, Present, and Future of the United
Nations.”
(Econ, 7/15/06, p.81)
2006 The UN created an
antifraud task force and funded it through 2008. Over the next 3
years it identified about $630 million in allegedly tainted UN
contracts. At the end of 2008 funding was not renewed and efforts to
retain some investigators were delayed following objections by the
Russian government.
(WSJ, 1/8/09, p.A4)
2007 Jan 1, South Korean
diplomat Ban Ki-moon became the UN’s eighth secretary-general.
(AP, 1/1/07)
2007 Jan 2, New UN
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon ran into trouble on his first day of
work over Saddam Hussein's execution when he failed to state the
United Nations' opposition to the death penalty and said capital
punishment should be a decision of individual countries.
(AP, 1/2/07)
2007 Jan 2, A UN official said
the UN will investigate a report of allegations of sexual abuse and
child rape by peacekeepers operating in southern Sudan.
(AP, 1/2/07)
2007 Jan 4, Sudan described the
alleged sexual abuse of children by UN peacekeepers in south Sudan
as "outrageous" and said it would launch its own investigation into
the affair.
(AP, 1/4/07)
2007 Jan 5, UN
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appointed Tanzania's Foreign Minister
Asha-Rose Migiro to the deputy secretary-general post at the UN,
calling her a highly respected leader and outstanding manager who
has championed the developing world. A senior UN official said the
United Nations has investigated more than 300 members of UN
peacekeeping missions for alleged sexual exploitation and abuse
during the past three years and more than half were fired or sent
home.
(AP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 11, The UN Security
Council said it backs the speedy deployment of African troops to
Somalia and strongly urges a dialogue among all political players,
in addition to the delivery of humanitarian aid to the country.
(AP, 1/11/07)
2007 Jan 12, China and Russia
blocked the Security Council from demanding an end to political
repression and human rights violations in military-ruled Myanmar,
rejecting a resolution proposed by the United States. South Africa
sided with China and Russia.
(AP, 1/13/07)(Econ, 1/27/07, p.47)
2007 Jan 18, East Timor and the
UN launched an appeal for $16.6 million to help resettle and
reintegrate about 100,000 people displaced by violence which wracked
the country last year.
(AFP, 1/18/07)
2007 Jan 19, US deputy
ambassador Mark Wallace charged that the UNDP operated "in blatant
violation of UN rules" for years in North Korea. UN
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon responded quickly to the accusations,
calling on all UN funds and programs to conduct an urgent outside
investigation into their operations.
(AP, 1/20/07)
2007 Jan 20, The UN’s food
agency said some 800,000 Burundians face a serious food crisis after
devastating floods ravaged several regions of the tiny central
African nation.
(AP, 1/20/07)
2007 Jan 22, UN
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced that an external audit would
be conducted of the UN Development Program in North Korea after the
US alleged the program had funneled millions of dollars to Kim Jong
Il's regime.
(AP, 1/22/07)
2007 Jan 26, The UN General
Assembly adopted a resolution condemning the denial of the
Holocaust, with only Iran rejecting it as an attempt by the United
States and Israel to exploit the atrocity for their political
interests.
(AP, 1/26/07)
2007 Jan 26, Officials said
Jody Williams, the US anti-landmine campaigner and Nobel Peace Prize
winner, will lead a team of United Nations investigators to probe
killings, rapes, destruction of villages and mass flight in Darfur.
(AP, 1/26/07)
2007 Jan 27, UN
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon held up Congo's first elections in 46
years as a sign of hope for the rest of Africa, praising the
country's fragile democracy on his first tour of the continent.
(AP, 1/27/07)
2007 Jan 30, The United Nations
said it will send 350 more peacekeepers to Haiti in the latest
effort to flush out armed gangs from the capital's slums.
(AP, 1/30/07)
2007 Feb 2, UN envoy Martti
Ahtisaari unveiled his long-awaited plan for Kosovo, a proposal
recommending internationally supervised statehood for the contested
province where separatists fought a bloody war with Serbia in the
late 1990s.
(AP, 2/2/07)
2007 Feb 9, The UN atomic
monitor suspended nearly half the technical aid it provides to Iran,
a symbolically significant punishment for nuclear defiance that only
North Korea and Saddam Hussein's Iraq had faced in the past.
(AP, 2/9/07)
2007 Feb 9, The United Nations
agreed to a Serbian request to delay final talks on the fate of
breakaway Kosovo province by a week to give Belgrade time to appoint
delegates.
(Reuters, 2/9/07)
2007 Feb 9, Hundreds of UN
peacekeepers raided Haiti's largest and most violent slum, seizing a
portion of it in a six-hour gunbattle that left a gang member dead
and two soldiers wounded.
(AP, 2/10/07)
2007 Feb 10, UN police in
Kosovo fired teargas and rubber bullets during clashes with ethnic
Albanians protesting against a UN plan on the fate of the breakaway
Serbian province.
(Reuters, 2/10/07)
2007 Feb 15, The Security
Council voted unanimously to extend the nearly 18,000-strong UN
peacekeeping force in Congo for two months to give the
secretary-general time to recommend possible changes in its mandate
following last year's successful elections.
(AP, 2/15/07)
2007 Feb 16, A spokesperson
said the UN has allocated $2.35 million from an emergency fund to
provide humanitarian aid to Guinea, which is in the midst of a tense
nationwide strike.
(AP, 2/16/07)
2007 Feb 17, James Morris, the
head of the UN food agency, said some 18,000 children die every day
because of hunger and malnutrition and 850 million people go to bed
every night with empty stomachs, a "terrible indictment of the world
in 2007."
(AP, 2/17/07)
2007 Feb 20, In Somalia mortar
rounds and rockets hit Mogadishu in a series of attacks that killed
15 people, including a 4-year-old boy, and wounded more than 40
others. The UN Security Council voted unanimously to authorize an
African Union force to help stabilize Somalia.
(AP, 2/20/07)(AFP, 2/20/07)
2007 Feb 22, The UN Security
Council voted unanimously to extend the UN mission in East Timor for
a year and beef up the international police force ahead of upcoming
elections.
(AP, 2/22/07)
2007 Feb 26, The United
Nations' highest court exonerated Serbia of direct responsibility
for the mass slaughter of Bosnian Muslims at Srebrenica during the
1992-95 Bosnia war, but ruled that it failed to prevent genocide.
(AP, 2/26/07)
2007 Feb 27, The UN said Somali
authorities have arrested four suspects in the hijacking of a
UN-chartered cargo ship delivering food aid. The MV Rozen, however,
was still under the control of four pirates who remained aboard with
12 crew members as hostage.
(AP, 2/27/07)
2007 Mar 5, John Holmes, the
new UN humanitarian chief, said the UN plans to open an office in
Jordan to deal with the increasingly serious humanitarian problems
posed by 1.8 million Iraqis who have fled to neighboring countries
and a similar number who have fled their homes and are still inside
Iraq.
(AP, 3/6/07)
2007 Mar 14, The chief UN
nuclear inspector returned from a one-day trip to Pyongyang saying
that North Korea was "fully committed" to an agreement that requires
it to shutter its main nuclear reactor and let in inspectors as soon
as the U.S. drops financial sanctions.
(AP, 3/14/07)
2007 Mar 12, Peter Smith, the
highest-ranking American at UNESCO, sent a letter to director
Koichiro Matsuura saying that fierce opposition to his reforms and
the "negative climate" forced him to quit. Smith had served as
associate director general for education. French business magazine
Capital recently reported that Smith, a former Republican
congressman from Vermont, had awarded seven contracts worth a total
of $2 million to Washington-based Navigant Consulting without proper
oversight from UNESCO's Executive Board.
(AP, 3/16/07)
2007 Mar 18, The UN said a
first group of Congolese refugees, who escaped a 2004 massacre at a
camp in Burundi, left for the US to start a program to resettle more
than 500 people.
(AFP, 3/18/07)
2007 Mar 21, The EU and the UN
eased their diplomatic boycott of the Palestinian government,
holding talks with non-Hamas ministers.
(Reuters, 3/21/07)
2007 Mar 23, The United Nations
said nearly 800 people have died after a meningitis epidemic spread
from Burkina Faso to eight other western African countries since the
start of the year. Benin, Chad, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Mali, Niger,
Nigeria and Togo have also been affected to differing degrees.
(AFP, 3/23/07)
2007 Mar 24, The UN Security
Council unanimously voted to impose additional sanctions against
Iran for its refusal to stop enriching uranium, a move intended to
show Tehran that defiance will leave it increasingly isolated.
(AP, 3/25/07)
2007 Mar 25, UN
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, declaring the atmosphere "not fully
ripe," shunned officials from the Islamic militant Hamas group. Ban
Ki-Moon toured a Palestinian refugee camp and a stretch of Israel's
separation barrier in the West Bank, and said the visit strengthened
his resolve to work for Mideast peace.
(AP, 3/25/07)
2007 Mar 26, A report by a
special envoy for UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon recommended
independence for Serbia's breakaway province of Kosovo, supervised
by the international community.
(AP, 3/26/07)
2007 Mar 28, Sudan and the UN
signed an agreement to guarantee humanitarian access to refugees in
Darfur.
(AP, 3/28/07)
2007 Mar 29, Britain took its
escalating crisis with Iran over 15 captured sailors to the UN
Security Council, as Tehran said it would not release the only woman
among the detainees.
(AP, 3/29/07)
2007 Mar 30, Leaked extracts of
a UN report said Australia will suffer more droughts, fires, floods
and storms due to global warming and its famous Great Barrier Reef
will be devastated by 2030.
(AFP, 3/30/07)
2007 Mar 30, Islamic countries
pushed through a resolution at the UN Human Rights Council urging a
global prohibition on the public defamation of religion, a response
largely to the furor last year over caricatures published in a
Danish newspaper of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad.
(AP, 3/31/07)
2007 Mar 30, In an
unprecedented show of support to empower the physically and mentally
impaired, 80 countries signed a UN convention enshrining the rights
of the world's 650 million disabled. 19 more ratifications are
needed before the convention comes into force.
(AP, 3/31/07)
2007 Mar 30, The World Health
Organization (WHO) said demand for human organ transplants far
exceeds supply, fueling a growth in "transplant tourism" to
developing nations where organs can be bought.
(AP, 3/30/07)
2007 Apr 2, A UN conference on
climate change opened in Belgium with the EU's top environment
official calling on the US to join efforts to curb global warming.
(AP, 4/2/07)
2007 Apr 6, UN climate experts
issued their starkest warning yet about the impact of global
warming, ranging from hunger in Africa to a fast thaw in the
Himalayas, in a report that increased pressure on governments to
act.
(Reuters, 4/6/07)
2007 Apr 10, South African
President Thabo Mbeki arrived in Khartoum to join the international
push for UN peacekeepers in Darfur, amid fears of a regional
spillover after clashes between Sudan and Chad. Officials said the
UN, the African Union and the Sudanese government have reached
agreement to beef up the African force in Sudan's violence-wracked
Darfur region with UN troops, police and equipment.
(AP, 4/10/07)
2007 Apr 11, The Ivory Coast
government and rebels signed an agreement with foreign peacekeepers
to dismantle a buffer zone dividing the west African nation since
2002. The deal required the head of the UN mission to sign off on
election results.
(AFP, 4/11/07)(Econ, 12/4/10, p.60)
2007 Apr 15, The official Saudi
news agency reported that Sudan has signed a joint agreement with
the UN and the African Union that defines their respective roles in
Darfur.
(AP, 4/16/07)
2007 Apr 18, The UN Security
Council expressed "serious concern" at mounting reports of weapons
being smuggled from Syria to Lebanon and authorized an independent
mission to evaluate monitoring of the border between the two
countries.
(AP, 4/18/07)
2007 May 16, The UN Security
Council voted unanimously to extend its peacekeeping mission in
Congo until the end of the year while calling for a timetable to
gradually withdraw the nearly 18,000-member force.
(AP, 5/16/07)
2007 May 18, The UN accused
Sudan government forces of direct involvement in recent
machine-gunning of Darfur villages that left at least 100 dead.
(WSJ, 5/19/07, p.A1)
2007 May 22, The UN's top
refugee official arrived in Nepal for a visit aimed at resolving the
fate of around 100,000 refugees from Bhutan stuck in Nepal for 16
years.
(AP, 5/22/07)
2007 May 23, The UN human
rights commissioner said that Burundi has agreed to set up a
tribunal to try people suspected of genocide and war crimes during
its 12-year civil war.
(AP, 5/23/07)
2007 May 24, The head of the UN
nuclear agency said he agreed with CIA estimates that Iran was three
to eight years from being able to make nuclear weapons and he urged
the US and other powers to pursue talks with the Islamic country.
(AP, 5/24/07)
2007 May 31, Iran pledged to
end years of stonewalling and provide answers on past suspicious
activities to the UN nuclear monitoring agency probing its atomic
program, in a move being seen as an attempt to avoid new UN
sanctions.
(AP, 6/1/07)
2007 Jun 1, The UN refugee
agency said hundreds of women and children fled by foot and on
donkeys from Darfur to the neighboring Central African Republic
after their town was attacked by planes and helicopters. The
refugees said their town of Dafak, in southern Darfur, was attacked
repeatedly by janjaweed militia from May 12 to May 18 and that their
homes had been bombarded by airstrikes.
(AP, 6/1/07)
2007 Jun 2, The UN Convention
on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) decided to
permit a one-off sale of 60 tons of ivory from Botswana, Namibia and
South Africa to Japan, saying it would monitor closely the impact on
poaching and population levels.
(Reuters, 6/3/07)
2007 Jun 4, The UN warned in a
report that up to 12% of Arctic ice has turned to water in the past
30 years, an alarming fact that only accelerates global warming
further.
(AP, 6/4/07)
2007 Jun 6, The UN and African
Union chief executives resolved a dispute over command of a proposed
joint military force to help end bloodshed in Darfur, but the deal
still must be approved by their organizations' security councils and
Sudan's government.
(AP, 6/6/07)
2007 Jun 7, Sanjaya Bahel (57),
former UN chief of the Commodity Procurement Section (1999-2003),
was convicted in NYC of helping a friend secure $100 million in UN
contracts in exchange for a huge discount on two luxury apartments
in Manhattan and cash.
(SFC, 6/8/07, p.A10)
2007 Jun 14, A UN spokesman
said that Ethiopia has accepted a UN commission's ruling to turn
over the disputed town of Badme to Eritrea. In a letter last week to
the UN Security Council, the Ethiopian government gave its
unconditional acceptance of the commission's decision announced five
years ago.
(AP, 6/15/07)
2007 Jun 15, New international
health regulations (IHRS) obliged governments to co-operate with
Margaret Chan, director-general of WHO, and report potential
pandemics at once.
(Econ, 6/16/07, p.67)
2007 Jun 29, A top official
said the UN nuclear watchdog and North Korea have reached an
agreement on how the agency will monitor and verify shutdown of the
country's main nuclear reactor.
(AP, 6/29/07)
2007 Jul 4, UN food agencies
called for global backing for a "Green Revolution" in Africa to help
the continent build stable agricultural systems and rescue tens of
millions of people from poverty.
(Reuters, 7/4/07)
2007 Jul 13, UN officials said
they are investigating allegations that Indian peacekeepers in Congo
traded food and even military intelligence with Rwandan Hutu rebels
in return for gold.
(Reuters, 7/13/07)
2007 Jul 14, UN inspectors
arrived in North Korea to monitor the communist country's
long-anticipated promise to scale back its nuclear weapons program.
North Korea said it had shut down its nuclear reactor at Yongbyon,
hours after a ship cruised into port loaded with oil promised in
return for the country's pledge to disarm.
(SSFC, 7/15/07, p.A4)(AP, 7/14/08)
2007 Jul 15, UN and African
Union representatives gathered in Tripoli to evaluate Darfur.
(AP, 7/15/07)
2007 Jul 20, The UN said that
it had confined a group of peacekeepers to their base in Ivory Coast
after receiving allegations of widespread sexual abuse, the latest
in a string of accusations of sexual violations by UN forces around
the world.
(AP, 7/20/07)
2007 Jul 23, The United Nations
rejected Taiwan's application to become a member of the world body,
citing UN adherence to the "one China" policy and its recognition of
the Chinese government in Beijing.
(AP, 7/24/07)
2007 Jul 25, The UN governor in
Kosovo called on major powers to set a clear roadmap to the final
status of Serbia's breakaway province, whose independence bid is
blocked by Russia. Serbia warned the US and the EU not to recognize
Kosovo's independence without UN consent, saying that would prompt
an immediate response from Serbian authorities and could destabilize
the region.
(AP, 7/25/07)
2007 Jul 26, UN arms experts
reported that Eritrea has secretly supplied "huge quantities of
arms" to a Somali insurgent group with alleged ties to al-Qaida in
violation of an international arms embargo and despite the
deployment of African peacekeepers.
(AP, 7/26/07)
2007 Jul 30, UN inspectors
visited a nuclear reactor being built in central Iran, a facility
that has been off-limits since April. Iran's foreign ministry
spokesman criticized a US plan to sell state-of-the-art weapons to
Saudi Arabia.
(AP, 7/30/07)
2007 Aug 1, Denmark, France and
Indonesia offered to contribute to a joint UN-African Union mission
for Darfur, a 26,000-strong force expected to be made up mostly of
peacekeepers from Africa with backup from Asian troops. Sudan
accepted a UN resolution approving a joint African Union-UN
peacekeeping force in Darfur.
(AP, 8/1/07)(AFP, 8/1/07)
2007 Aug 10, A Security Council
resolution authorized the UN, at the request of the Iraqi
government, to promote political talks among Iraqis and a regional
dialogue on issues including border security, energy and refugees as
well as help tackling the country's worsening humanitarian crisis.
(AP, 8/11/07)
2007 Aug 17, The UN announced
that the Netherlands has agreed to host the tribunal that will
prosecute suspects in the assassination of former Lebanese PM Rafik
Hariri.
(AP, 8/17/07)
2007 Aug 18, UNESCO said a
joint mission of several UN agencies is conducting an emergency
investigation into the shooting of endangered mountain gorillas in a
Democratic Republic of Congo national park. In the last two months,
seven of the primates have been killed in separate incidents in the
Virunga park.
(AP, 8/19/07)
2007 Aug 20, The UN Security
Council authorized an African Union force in chaotic Somalia for
another six months and asked the secretary-general to develop plans
for a possible UN troop replacement.
(Reuters, 8/20/07)
2007 Aug 23, Sudan summoned the
envoy of the European Commission and the Canadian charge d'affaires
and informed them they were considered persona non grata because
they interfered in Sudanese affairs. The UN chief called on the
Sudanese military to remove troops remaining in southern Sudan,
expressing disappointment that a July 9 deadline was not met as
called for in a 2005 peace deal.
(AFP, 8/24/07)(AP, 8/24/07)
2007 Aug 24, A deal was reached
with Islamic extremists holed up in a Palestinian refugee camp in
northern Lebanon to allow their families to leave the besieged area.
The UN Security Council voted unanimously to keep peacekeepers in
Lebanon for another 12 months.
(AP, 8/24/07)(AP, 8/24/07)
2007 Aug 30, The UN nuclear
agency said that Iran was producing less nuclear fuel than expected
and praised Tehran for "a significant step forward" in explaining
past atomic actions that have raised suspicions.
(AP, 8/30/07)
2007 Aug 31, In Vienna,
Austria, negotiators from 158 countries reached basic agreement, at
a UN conference on climate, on rough targets aimed at getting some
of the world's biggest polluters to reduce emissions of the
greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.
(AP, 8/31/07)(WSJ, 9/1/07, p.A1)
2007 Sep 3, UN Secretary
General Ban Ki-moon arrived in Sudan in a bid to jumpstart the peace
process in strife-torn Darfur ahead of a massive joint UN-African
Union peacekeeping operation.
(AFP, 9/3/07)
2007 Sep 7, UN Secretary
General Ban Ki-moon arrived in Chad for talks with President Idriss
Deby Itno on the Darfur crisis in neighbouring Sudan, and the plight
of refugees who have fled to his country.
(AP, 9/7/07)
2007 Sep 18, UN
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said that Taiwan's application to join
the UN wasn't accepted for legal reasons linked to the 1971 UN
resolution that gave China's seat to the Beijing-based People's
Republic of China.
(AP, 9/18/07)
2007 Sep 21, Today was the
United Nations' International Day of Peace.
(AFP, 9/21/07)
2007 Sep 25, UN
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told global leaders the world faces "a
daunting array of challenges" in the coming year, from combating
global warming and fighting poverty to ending the conflict in
Sudan's Darfur region and promoting Mideast peace. He spoke at the
opening of the UN General Assembly's annual ministerial meeting.
(AP, 9/25/07)
2007 Sep 25, The UN Security
Council unanimously passed a French resolution endorsing sending a
European Union-UN force to Chad and the Central African Republic to
protect civilians reeling from a spillover of the Darfur conflict.
(AP, 9/25/07)
2007 Sep 25, Nicaraguan
President Daniel Ortega accused the US of imposing a worldwide
dictatorship and defended the right of Iran and North Korea to
pursue nuclear technology in a speech before the UN General Assembly
meeting.
(AP, 9/25/07)
2007 Sep 27, A UN tribunal
convicted Mile Mrksic (60), a Serb army officer, of clearing the way
for the torture and killing of nearly 200 Croats seized from a
hospital in a 1991 massacre. Veselin Sljivancanin (54), the area's
chief security officer, was sentenced to five years for failing to
protect the Croats from beatings and torture by the local Serb
paramilitary forces and Territorial Defense units. Officer Miroslav
Radic (45) was acquitted of any wrongdoing.
(AP, 9/27/07)
2007 Oct 1, Myanmar's junta
leader stalled a UN envoy for yet another day, delaying his chance
to present international demands for an end to the crackdown on the
largest protests in two decades. A Norway-based dissident news
organization, the Democratic Voice of Burma, said pro-democracy
activists estimate 138 people were killed in the recent protests.
Shari Villarosa, the top US diplomat in Myanmar, said her staff had
visited up to 15 monasteries around Yangon and every single one was
empty. She put the number of arrested demonstrators, monks and
civilians, in the thousands.
(AP, 10/1/07)(AP, 10/1/07)
2007 Oct 2, Myanmar's reclusive
junta leader, Senior Gen. Than Shwe, finally granted an audience to
a UN envoy hoping to broker an end to Myanmar's crackdown on
pro-democracy protesters.
(AP, 10/2/07)
2007 Oct 3, The UN General
Assembly's ministerial meeting that saw an international outcry over
military repression in Myanmar, new killings in Darfur and Iran's
nuclear program, closed in NYC with a call for global action on
climate change, poverty and terrorism.
(AP, 10/4/07)
2007 Oct 12, Former Vice
President Al Gore and the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for spreading awareness of
man-made climate change and laying the foundations for counteracting
it.
(AP, 10/12/07)(SFC, 10/13/07, p.A8)
2007 Oct 15, The Security
Council voted unanimously to extend the UN observer mission in
Georgia, expressing "serious concern" at violence that has escalated
tensions between Georgia and the breakaway region of Abkhazia.
(AP, 10/15/07)
2007 Oct 15, The UN Security
Council voted unanimously to extend the UN peacekeeping mission in
Haiti for a year, noting significant improvements in security in
recent months but saying the situation remains fragile.
(AP, 10/15/07)
2007 Oct 16, Libya, a former
pariah state condemned by the U.S. as a sponsor of terrorism, won a
seat on the UN Security Council without opposition from the Bush
administration.
(AP, 10/16/07)
2007 Oct 17,
Irdris Osman, the head of UN food agency operations in the
violence-wracked Somali capital, was taken away by 50 to 60 heavily
armed government security officers who had stormed the UN compound
in Mogadishu. Overnight, at least eight civilians and one policeman
died during a battle between Islamic insurgents and policemen.
(AP, 10/17/07)
2007 Oct 18, The UN said action
would be taken against the interpreter responsible for an erroneous
report that Syria has a nuclear facility and expressed regret at the
incident.
(AP, 10/18/07)
2007 Oct 28, UN-brokered peace
talks ground to a halt, with officials saying there could be no key
steps until the fighters decided how to negotiate with the Sudanese
government.
(AP, 10/28/07)
2007 Oct 30, The UN General
Assembly voted for the 16th straight year to urge the United States
to end its trade embargo against Cuba, whose foreign minister
accused the US of stepping up its "brutal economic war" to new
heights.
(AP, 10/30/07)
2007 Nov 1, The UN General
Assembly's disarmament committee approved a resolution calling for
all nuclear weapons to be taken off high alert, despite objections
from the United States, Britain and France.
(AP, 11/1/07)
2007 Nov 2, A UN helicopter
crashed on a routine flight in northern Liberia, killing two crew
members and leaving a third missing.
(AP, 11/2/07)
2007 Nov 7, The UN said the
governor of South Darfur ordered the UN humanitarian director to
leave the state, which has been the scene of recent fighting. South
Darfur's Governor Ali Mahmood Mohammed said in a letter that Wael
Al-Haj Ibrahim, a Canadian, "was not complying with the Humanitarian
Act," but he didn't elaborate.
(AP, 11/7/07)
2007 Nov 13, In a letter to the
UN Security Council, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon nominated
Canadian prosecutor Daniel Bellemare to lead the UN investigation
into the 2005 killing of former Lebanese PM Rafik al-Hariri.
(Reuters, 11/13/07)
2007 Nov 17, A Nobel-winning UN
scientific panel said in a landmark report that the Earth was
hurtling toward a warmer climate at a quickening pace.
(AP, 11/17/08)
2007 Nov 21, The UN Security
Council extended the EU's peacekeeping force in Bosnia for a year,
citing the Balkan nation's "very limited progress" towards EU
membership and its failure to implement key reforms.
(AP, 11/22/07)
2007 Nov 21, The UN Security
Council welcomed a deal signed by Congo and Rwanda to forcibly
disarm Rwandan Hutu rebels in Congo in an effort to reduce tensions
between the central African neighbors.
(Reuters, 11/21/07)
2007 Nov 22, The UN resumed the
repatriation of 12,000 Congolese refugees from Zambia which was
suspended three months ago due to insecurity in the Democratic
Republic of Congo's (DRC) Katanga province.
(AP, 11/22/07)
2007 Nov, In Haiti 108 Sri
Lankan soldiers were recalled after investigators found they had
paid for sex with Haitians, some of whom were underage.
(AP, 12/26/07)
2007 Dec 7, A UN court in
Tanzania trying masterminds of Rwanda's 1994 genocide sentenced
Francois Karera, a former provincial governor, to life imprisonment
for his role in the killings, including helping soldiers kill
refugees in a church.
(Reuters, 12/7/07)
2007 Dec 11, Car bombs exploded
minutes apart in central Algiers, heavily damaging UN buildings and
ripping the facade off the wing of a government office. 37 people
were killed, including at least 11 UN employees. Two convicted
terrorists who had been freed in an amnesty carried out the suicide
bombings at U.N. and government buildings.
(Reuters, 12/11/07)(AP, 12/12/07)(AP, 12/13/07)
2007 Dec 12, The UN Yugoslav
war crimes tribunal at The Hague sentenced former Bosnian Serb
general Dragomir Milosevic (b.1942) to 33 years imprisonment for the
shelling of Sarajevo during the Bosnian war, one of the court's
toughest sentences. In 2009 UN judges trimmed the sentence from 33
to 29 years but upheld his convictions for leading troops who
terrorized Sarajevo with a deadly rain of shells and sniper bullets.
(AP, 12/12/07)(AP, 11/12/09)
2007 Dec 14, Australian PM
Kevin Rudd and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon jetted into East
Timor to lend support to the nation's efforts to stabilize and
rebuild after violence last year. Rudd pledged to support the
nation's ongoing security needs during the five-hour stop.
(AP, 12/14/07)(AFP, 12/14/07)
2007 Dec 14, The UN refugee
agency said more than 200 migrants are feared to have drowned at sea
in separate incidents off Yemen, Turkey and the Canary Islands so
far this month.
(AP, 12/14/07)
2007 Dec 14, Diplomats from the
Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda met in Kampala to discuss
border tensions that have triggered deadly clashes on one of
Africa's hottest frontiers in the search for oil. The UN said rival
factions in Congo are forcibly recruiting hundreds of children and
sending them to fight on the front lines of an escalating conflict
in the east of the country.
(AP, 12/14/07)(AP, 12/15/07)
2007 Dec 18, The UN Security
Council voted unanimously to extend the US-led multinational force
in Iraq for one year, a move that Iraq's prime minister said would
be his nation's "final request" for help.
(AP, 12/18/07)
2007 Dec 18, The UN passed a
resolution backed by 104 states calling for the 1st time for a
worldwide moratorium on capital punishment.
(Econ, 4/26/08,
p.46)(www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2007/ga10678.doc.htm)
2007 Dec 19, Donors pledged
millions of dollars at a conference in Spain to help Guinea Bissau,
which a top UN official called "under siege" by drug cartels who
might even sway the country's future polls.
(AFP, 12/19/07)
2007 Dec 21, The Security
Council voted unanimously to extend the UN peacekeeping mission in
Congo for a year and demanded that all militias and armed groups in
the volatile east lay down their weapons and start disarming.
(AP, 12/21/07)
2007 Dec 27, The Afghan
government expelled UN advisor Mervyn Patterson and EU official
Michael Semple, on accusations they held unauthorized meetings with
Taliban militants. A spokesman for the UN mission said the diplomats
had traveled to Musa Qala, a former Taliban stronghold in southern
Helmand province on Dec 24, where they met with local leaders.
(AP, 12/27/07)
2007 Dec 31, In Sudan the
African Union transferred authority to a new joint peacekeeping
force with the UN in Darfur. An AU official said Ethiopia and Egypt
will each send 850 troops early in the new year to serve with a
joint UN-AU force in the Darfur region.
(AP, 12/31/07)(Reuters, 12/31/07)
2008 Jan 1, This marked the
start of the Year of the Potato as declared by the UN.
(Econ, 3/1/08, p.18)
2008 Jan 1, Libya took over the
rotating presidency of the UN Security Council in a major step back
to global respectability after decades as a pariah of the West.
(AP, 1/1/08)
2008 Jan 16, The UN Security
Council imposed sanctions on three Kuwaitis who allegedly help
finance al-Qaida operations and recruit fighters for the terrorist
network. The three men, Hamid Al-Ali, Jaber Al-Jalamah and Mubarak
Mushakhas Sanad Al-Bathali, will be added to a list of some 480
individuals and businesses with purported links to al-Qaida and the
Taliban.
(AP, 1/16/08)
2008 Jan 18, UN chief Ban
Ki-moon picked Hollywood heart-throb George Clooney, a passionate
advocate for an end to war and famine in Sudan's Darfur region, as
the world body's latest Messenger of Peace.
(AFP, 1/18/08)
2008 Jan 22, The UN Security
Council's permanent members and Germany agreed on a new draft
resolution on sanctions against Iran, strengthening existing
measures over the country's refusal to suspend its nuclear program.
(AP, 1/22/08)
2008 Jan 22, A UN report said a
newborn in Sierra Leone has the lowest chance in the world of
surviving until age 5, and the prospects are almost as bad for
children in Angola and Afghanistan.
(AP, 1/22/08)
2008 Jan 23, Russia said a new
draft UN resolution on Iran's disputed nuclear program does not call
for any harsh sanctions, and the Iranian president said new measures
would not deter the country in its pursuit of nuclear technology.
(AP, 1/23/08)
2008 Jan 23, Canada bowed out
of the 2009 UN conference on racism in Durban, South Africa, saying
it would likely "degenerate into ... expressions of intolerance and
anti-Semitism."
(AFP, 1/24/08)
2008 Jan 30, The United
Nation's disaster relief agency announced that a meningitis outbreak
that has claimed some 52 lives in Burkina Faso by mid-month has
spread to three other west African countries. A spike in the number
of meningitis cases has also been reported in Mali, Niger and
Nigeria since the end of 2007.
(AFP, 1/31/08)
2008 Jan 30, The UN Security
Council renewed the mandate of the struggling UN peace force on the
Eritrea-Ethiopia border for six months despite a request from
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for just one month.
(Reuters, 1/30/08)
2008 Jan 31, In Kenya an
opposition lawmaker was gunned down by a police officer in the
second fatal shooting of an opposition legislator this week.
National police chief Hussein Ali said the police officer, who has
been arrested, shot David Too in a dispute over the officer's
girlfriend. The opposition said it was an assassination plot. Kofi
Annan suspended crisis talks aimed at ending Kenya's political
crisis after the lawmaker was shot dead, triggering further clashes.
In Ethiopia UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon met with Pres. Kibaki
at the African Union summit and warned that the violence in Kenya
could spiral out of control unless quick action was taken.
(AP, 1/31/08)(AFP, 1/31/08)
2008 Jan 31, An official at the
UN labor agency said more than 5 million people will lose their jobs
this year as the world economy slows.
(AP, 1/31/08)
2008 Feb 4, Secretary-General
Ban Ki-moon said the UN has transferred $161 million from the
defunct oil-for-food program to a development program for Iraq.
(AP, 2/4/08)
2008 Feb 4, The UN Security
Council sent a "firm and unwavering demand" that Eritrea immediately
lift fuel restrictions hampering the efforts of peacekeepers
monitoring a tense buffer zone between Ethiopia and Eritrea.
(AP, 2/4/08)
2008 Feb 5, UN officials said
Ethiopia and Bangladesh have offered to jump-start the UN
peacekeeping mission in Darfur by loaning it helicopters to fly
troops and supplies around the vast region in western Sudan.
(AP, 2/5/08)
2008 Feb 8, The UN said it is
being forced to prepare an imminent pullout from Eritrea and plans
to relocate all its peacekeeping troops there across the border in
Ethiopia.
(AP, 2/9/08)
2008 Feb 29, The UN refugee
agency said that 3,000 refugees from Darfur have arrived in Chad in
the last week, bringing the total number to over 13,000 in February
alone.
(AFP, 2/29/08)
2008 Mar 3, The UN Security
Council imposed another round of sanctions on Iran for refusing to
suspend uranium enrichment. Iran defiantly vowed to continue its
nuclear program, which it insists is aimed only at generating power.
(AP, 3/4/08)
2008 Mar 11, Serbia and Russia
demanded that the UN administration in Kosovo halt the transfer of
authority to the European Union, calling a handover illegal and
declaring they will never recognize the independence of the Serb
province.
(AP, 3/12/08)
2008 Mar 12, A UN tribunal
extended the sentence of Rwandan Roman Catholic priest Athanase
Serombawar to life in prison after upholding his war crimes
conviction for ordering militiamen to burn and bulldoze a church
with 1,500 people inside during the 1994 Rwandan genocide. He was
originally sentenced to 15 years in prison.
(AP, 3/13/08)
2008 Mar 14, The UN General
Assembly adopted a resolution demanding the "immediate, complete and
unconditional" withdrawal of all Armenian forces from Azerbaijan's
territory in a vote in which more than 100 countries abstained.
(AFP, 3/15/08)
2008 Mar 15, Azerbaijan warned
it would review relations with France, Russia and the US after they
voted against a UN resolution calling on Armenia to pull out of
Azerbaijani territory.
(AFP, 3/15/08)
2008 Mar 17, UN forces pulling
Serb demonstrators from a UN courthouse were attacked by hundreds of
furious protesters who massed outside, setting off an hours-long
battle with rocks, grenades and live ammunition.
(AP, 3/17/08)
2008 Mar 23, Serbian PM
Vojislav Kostunica accused NATO peacekeepers and UN police of using
"snipers and banned ammunition" to quell a Serb riot against
Kosovo's independence.
(AP, 3/23/08)
2008 Mar 26, The African
Union-UN mission said 5 civilians were killed and more than a dozen
others injured when an international peacekeeping vehicle crashed
into a bus in Darfur.
(AFP, 3/26/08)
2008 Mar, Islamic members of
the UN Human Rights Council, backed by China and Russia, pushed
through a resolution saying free speech could be limited out of
“respect for religions and beliefs.”
(Econ, 4/26/08, p.77)
2008 Apr 1, Poor countries at a
UN conference in Thailand said they won't sign a global warming pact
unless industrialized nations guarantee them billions of dollars
needed to adapt to the impact of climate change.
(AP, 4/1/08)
2008 Apr 2, Diplomats said that
China has given the UN nuclear watchdog intelligence linked to
Tehran's alleged attempts to make nuclear arms.
(AP, 4/2/08)
2008 Apr 2, Russia's foreign
minister said that Moscow will not allow newly independent Kosovo to
become a member of the UN.
(AP, 4/2/08)
2008 Apr 3, President Bush won
NATO's endorsement for his plan to build a missile defense system in
Europe over Russian objections. The proposal also advanced with
Czech officials announcing an agreement to install a missile
tracking site for the system in their country. NATO decided not to
put Georgia and Ukraine on track to join the alliance after vehement
Russian opposition, but the alliance pledged that the strategically
important Black Sea nations will become members one day.
(AP, 4/3/08)
2008 Apr 3, The UN tribunal in
The Hague, Netherlands, ruled that there was not enough evidence to
convict former Kosovo PM Ramush Haradinaj of murder, torture and
rape of Serbs and non-Albanians during the Kosovo war.
(AP, 4/4/08)
2008 Apr 4, At least three
Haitians were killed and 25 others injured amid food riots and
clashes with UN peacekeepers.
(AP, 4/4/08)
2008 Apr 8, The UN refugee
agency unveiled a new partnership with Internet giant Google to help
track refugees from Iraq to Darfur and raise public awareness of its
work.
(AP, 4/8/08)
2008 Apr 10, The UN Environment
Program said dumping of waste by ships in the Mediterranean Sea will
become illegal as of May 1, 2009.
(AFP, 4/11/08)
2008 Apr 21, In Sudan gunmen
killed a second driver delivering food aid for the UN's World Food
Program in the Darfur region, where banditry has forced vital
rations to be halved.
(AFP, 4/24/08)
2008 Apr 23, The UN nuclear
monitoring agency announced what it called a "milestone" agreement
with Iran that aims to provide answers about allegations that Tehran
tried to develop nuclear weapons.
(AP, 4/23/08)
2008 Apr 30, The UN Security
Council voted unanimously to extend the UN peacekeeping mission in
southern Sudan and called for demarcation of the contested oil-rich
border region between the north and south.
(AP, 5/1/08)
2008 May 1, Pascal Marlinge,
the country head of Save the Children UK in Chad, was shot dead by
gunmen who held up his three-car convoy between the villages of
Forchana and Hadjer Hadid, not far from the border with Sudan's
Darfur region. UN aid agencies suspended all but their most urgent
work in eastern Chad for two days in a "symbolic protest."
(Reuters, 5/2/08)
2008 May 2, A UN official said
rising prices and funding shortages have forced the UN to stop
providing emergency food aid to more than 13 percent of the 750,000
Palestinian refugees it feeds in Gaza.
(AP, 5/2/08)
2008 May 4, Senegal’s Pres.
Abdoulaye Wade called the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization
(FAO) a “bottomless pit of money largely spent on its own
functioning.”
(Econ, 5/10/08, p.69)
2008 May 7, The international
relief effort for hundreds of thousands of Myanmar cyclone victims
picked up speed as India dispatched two planeloads of aid and
Myanmar authorized the UN to send its own air shipment.
(AP, 5/7/08)
2008 May 8, The UN Convention
on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities entered into force.
(www.un.org/disabilities/default.asp?id=17)
2008 May 8, Relief supplies
from the United Nations began arriving in Myanmar, but US military
planes loaded with aid were still denied access by the country's
isolationist regime five days after a devastating cyclone. Some
feared that lack of safe food and drinking water could push the
death toll above 100,000.
(AP, 5/8/08)
2008 May 9, Myanmar's junta
seized UN aid shipments headed for hungry and homeless survivors of
last week's devastating cyclone prompting the world body to suspend
further help. According to state media, 23,335 people died and
37,019 are missing from Cyclone Nargis.
(AP, 5/9/08)
2008 May 14, Experts said the
1.5 million people left destitute by Myanmar's cyclone are in
increasing danger of disease and starvation, but the ruling junta
said no to a Thai request to admit more aid workers. Another
powerful storm headed toward Myanmar's cyclone-devastated delta and
the UN warned that inadequate relief efforts could lead to a second
wave of deaths among the estimated 2 million survivors.
(AP, 5/14/08)
2008 May 19, In Ireland UN
chief Ban Ki-Moon called for a "visionary" global deal to ban
cluster bombs, as delegates from over 100 countries opened a
conference aimed at outlawing the lethal weapons.
(AFP, 5/19/08)
2008 May 21, UN chief Ban
Ki-moon began a mission for Myanmar's cyclone victims, saying "our
focus now is on saving lives," as the military government gave
approval UN helicopters to distribute aid.
(Reuters, 5/21/08)(WSJ, 5/22/08, p.A1)
2008 May 23, UN
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Myanmar's junta agreed to allow
all aid workers into the country after weeks of refusing access to
foreign relief experts seeking to help cyclone survivors.
(AP, 5/23/08)
2008 May 23, UN peacekeepers
found over 100 bodies in three mass graves in the east of Democratic
Republic of Congo. A UN spokesman said they apparently were graves
dating back to the 1990s, but that is was difficult to know
accurately.
(Reuters, 5/24/08)
2008 May 23, A UN food aid
agency said the response to its appeal for money to help meet
soaring fuel and food costs went beyond what it had hoped to
collect, saying $500 million from Saudi Arabia means it won't have
to cut rations.
(AP, 5/23/08)
2008 May 27, UN
Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said the UN will investigate
allegations by a leading children's charity that UN peacekeepers are
involved in widespread sexual abuse of children. The report by Save
the Children UK was based on field research in southern Sudan, Ivory
Coast and Haiti.
(AP, 5/27/08)
2008 Jun 2, Foreign ships
gained UN authorization to enter Somali waters when fighting piracy
and armed robbery.
(AP, 6/2/08)
2008 Jun 3 The UN commission on
the legal empowerment of the poor released a report that said 2 of
every 3 people on the planet are excluded from the rule of law.
(Econ, 6/7/08, p.87)
2008 Jun 5, In Italy a 3-day UN
summit aimed at fighting hunger worldwide ended with pledges to
boost food output, calls to cut trade barriers and more research on
biofuels. Just before the meeting Saudi Arabia announced a donation
of $500 million.
(WSJ, 6/6/08, p.A10)(Econ, 6/7/08, p.70)
2008 Jun 7, Congo President
Joseph Kabila met with UN envoys who backed his plans to disarm and
expel Rwandan rebels behind years of strife. They also planned to
refocus the biggest UN peace force on rebuilding the shattered
nation.
(Reuters, 6/7/08)
2008 Jun 9, UN helicopters
fanned out across Myanmar's Irrawaddy delta, ferrying critical
supplies to villages struggling to survive since a devastating
cyclone struck more than five weeks ago.
(AP, 6/9/08)
2008 Jun 12, ASEAN said
Southeast Asian and UN experts will have full access to
cyclone-devastated parts of Myanmar, where more than a million
people have still not received any foreign help.
(AFP, 6/12/08)
2008 Jun 12, UN
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told Kosovo's leaders he intends to
reshape the UN mission there to allow the EU to take on key tasks,
according to a letter in the letter to Kosovo President Fatmir
Sejdiu. Russia demanded disciplinary action against the head of the
UN mission in Kosovo for preparing to hand over powers to a EU
mission that Moscow says is illegal.
(Reuters, 6/12/08)
2008 Jun 16, UN
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon unveiled an arresting shaft-of-light
memorial in London to journalists killed in the line of work.
(AP, 6/16/08)
2008 Jun 18, The UN said up to
5 million people could go hungry in Zimbabwe next year due to a
steady drop in food production coupled with the world's highest rate
of inflation.
(AP, 6/18/08)
2008 Jun 19, The UN adopted
Resolution 1820 affirming that sexual violence as a weapon of war
affects international peace and security, and could trigger
sanctions.
(Econ, 2/21/09, p.61)(http://tinyurl.com/lg8px5)
2008 Jun 21, In Somalia Hassan
Mohamed Ali, head of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees
organization in Mogadishu, was abducted from his home on the
outskirts of Mogadishu. He was released in late August. He had
suffered bullet wounds in the neck and knee from the kidnapping, but
said that he was generally treated well during his captivity.
(AP, 8/28/08)
2008 Jun 23, UN experts began
probing allegations that Syria has a hidden nuclear program, as
Damascus imposed strict secrecy on the visit, warning the UN not to
drag it into a drawn-out investigation like the standoff with Iran.
(AP, 6/24/08)
2008 Jun 23, Zimbabwe police
raided the opposition party's headquarters and took away about 60
people, a day after the party's presidential candidate withdrew from
a runoff against longtime leader Robert Mugabe. Opposition leader
Morgan Tsvangirai took refuge at the Netherlands embassy in Harare.
World leaders challenged Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe's
legitimacy and threatened sanctions. UN Security Council members
unanimously condemned Zimbabwe's government, saying it has waged a
"campaign of violence" that has made it impossible to hold a fair
presidential election. The Zimbabwe opposition said that one of its
lawmakers was in intensive care after being beaten up by President
Robert Mugabe's supporters ahead of an aborted campaign rally.
(AP, 6/23/08)(AFP, 6/23/08)(AP, 6/24/08)(AFP,
6/24/08)
2008 Jun 25, A senior UN atomic
inspector said an initial probe of US allegations that a Syrian site
hit by Israeli warplanes was a secretly built nuclear reactor is
inconclusive and further checks are necessary.
(AP, 6/25/08)
2008 Jun 26, A UN rights
official said many poor countries accept toxic waste from abroad,
such as old computers, rusted ships and pesticides, in a
shortsighted bid to lift themselves out of poverty, despite the
dangers to human health and the environment.
(AP, 6/26/08)
2008 Jul 7, A UNESCO official
said that an 11th century temple that sits on Cambodia's disputed
border zone with Thailand has been designated as a world heritage
site. Hindu-themed Preah Vihear reflects the beliefs of the kings
who ruled what was then the Angkorean empire.
(AP, 7/8/08)
2008 Jul 8, In Sudan 5
peacekeepers from a joint UN-African Union force were killed and 17
were missing after their patrol was ambushed in northern Darfur.
(AP, 7/9/08)
2008 Jul 10, Nigeria's main
militant group said it would resume attacks in the country's
oil-rich river delta region because of Britain's recent pledge to
back the government in the conflict there. UN special envoy Ibrahim
Gambari resigned as chairman of a planned peace summit for the
oil-rich Niger Delta following opposition from regional leaders.
(AP, 7/10/08)(AFP, 7/10/08)
2008 Jul 11, The UN
commemorated World Population Day.
(www.unfpa.org/wpd/)
2008 Jul 11, Zimbabwe’s
opposition Movement for Democratic Change said a total of 113 MDC
supporters have now been killed in politically-related violence.
Zimbabwe's ruling party and opposition held a second day of talks in
South Africa. A UN Security Council bid to pass sanctions against
Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe was vetoed by Russia and China.
(AP, 7/11/08)(AFP, 7/11/08)(AFP, 7/12/08)
2008 Jul 21, The African Union
urged the UN Security Council to put on hold the International
Criminal Court's move to indict Sudanese President Omar Hassan
al-Bashir over war crimes in Darfur.
(Reuters, 7/21/08)
2008 Jul 22, Cambodia asked the
UN Security Council and its Southeast Asian neighbors to intervene
in resolving a military standoff over disputed border territory
around an ancient temple, stepping up its rhetoric against Thailand.
(AP, 7/22/08)
2008 Jul 23, The African Union
said it was incapable of stabilizing the situation in Somalia and
urged the UN take over peacekeeping operations in the lawless Horn
of Africa country.
(Reuters, 7/23/08)
2008 Jul 25, A UN official said
as much as 25 percent of cyclone relief aid in Myanmar is being lost
because of the military government's foreign exchange system.
(AP, 7/25/08)
2008 Jul 25, Ahmedou Ould
Abdallah, the UN special envoy for Somalia, sounded the alarm about
rampant illegal fishing and the dumping of toxic waste off the coast
of the lawless nation.
(AFP, 7/25/08)
2008 Jul 28, Navanethem Pillay,
a judge from South Africa, was confirmed as the new UN chief of
human rights.
(SFC, 7/29/08, p.A3)
2008 Jul 29, A UN court trying
the masterminds of Rwanda's 1994 genocide said that its mandate had
been extended by a year until 2009.
(AP, 7/29/08)
2008 Jul 30, The UN said hunger
in North Korea is at its worst since the 1990s, prompting the
resumption of emergency UN food shipments after a two-year hiatus.
(AFP, 7/30/08)
2008 Jul 30, The UN Security
Council voted to end an 8-year-long peacekeeping mission between
Eritrea and Ethiopia despite continuing tensions, a move that the
United Nations' chief has warned could lead to a new war.
(AP, 7/30/08)
2008 Jul 31, Fourteen of the UN
security council's 15 members voted in favor of Resolution 1828 to
extends the mandate of the joint UN-African Union peacekeeping force
in Darfur (UNAMID) for one year from this day, when it had been set
to expire. The United States abstained in the vote because language
added to the resolution noting concern that any indictment of Beshir
might jeopardize the Darfur peace process.
(AFP, 8/1/08)
2008 Aug 1, The UN atomic
watchdog's board of governors unanimously approved an inspections
agreement with India that is key to finalizing a US-India nuclear
deal.
(AP, 8/1/08)
2008 Aug 18, Tens of thousands
of Muslims waving green and black protest flags gathered in Indian
Kashmir's main city for a march to UN offices demanding freedom from
India and intervention by the world body.
(AP, 8/18/08)
2008 Aug 26, A UN team in
Herat, Afghanistan, said it found "convincing evidence" that 90
civilians, including 60 children, were killed in US-led air strikes
last week. Aerial bombardment was clearly evident with some 78
houses having been totally destroyed and serious damage to many
others. A Japanese aid worker was kidnapped at gunpoint with his
driver in eastern Afghanistan.
(AP, 8/26/08)
2008 Aug 27, The UN Security
Council voted unanimously to keep a peacekeeping force in Lebanon
for another year, calling for stepped-up efforts to achieve a
permanent cease-fire and long-term resolution of the 2006
Israel-Hezbollah war.
(AP, 8/27/08)
2008 Aug 30, The UN says
Russian soldiers are telling thousands of refugees in Georgia who
want to return to their homes that their security can't be
guaranteed. All hoped to return to villages that are in the
"security zones" that Russia has claimed for itself. Russian PM
Vladimir Putin urged the EU to ignore calls to punish Moscow over
the Georgia conflict as Tbilisi appealed for targeted punishment of
the Russian leadership.
(AP, 8/30/08)(AFP, 8/30/08)
2008 Sep 1, The top UN aid
official John Holmes called for greater international efforts to
help millions of Ethiopians suffering from a severe drought.
(AP, 9/1/08)
2008 Sep 9, Tamil Tiger rebels
launched an air and ground assault on a military complex in northern
Sri Lanka, in an attack that killed 11 troops, one civilian and 10
of the assailants The UN announced it was withdrawing its aid
workers from Sri Lanka's embattled north ahead of a major military
drive, as Colombo claimed its first downing of a rebel aircraft.
(AP, 9/9/08)
2008 Sep 10, In Sri Lanka air
force jets attacked a rebel intelligence base in the north, stepping
up a punishing wave of airstrikes a day after Tamil Tiger fighters
launched a surprise attack on a military base. UN chief Ban Ki-moon
expressed international concern for tens of thousands civilians
trapped in Sri Lanka's north as government forces prepared for a
major showdown with Tamil separatists.
(AP, 9/10/08)
2008 Sep 11, A Paris court
convicted Didier Bourguet, a former UN employee, for the rape of
young Africans during his postings in Central African Republic and
Congo. Bourguet was sentenced to nine years in prison for having
committed about 20 rapes of teenage girls between 1998 and 2004
during his postings as a mechanic for the UN.
(AP, 9/11/08)
2008 Sep 12,The Sudanese
government army and Janjaweed militias launched new attacks in a
mountainous area of south Darfur according to rebel claims made the
next day. UN boss Ban Ki-moon welcomed the establishment of an Arab
League panel led by Qatar that will work with the African Union and
United Nations to sponsor peace talks in Sudan's Darfur region.
(AFP, 9/12/08)(AFP, 9/13/08)
2008 Sep 21, The UN said guns
fell silent across much of Afghanistan for the 26th anniversary of
the International Day of Peace that saw pledges by the US, NATO, the
Afghan government and the Taliban to halt attacks. Taliban militants
attacked a security company guarding a road construction crew in the
southern province of Ghazni, killing two guards. In southwestern
Afghanistan suspected Taliban militants kidnapped about 156 civilian
laborers who were traveling in three buses in the Bala Buluk area.
(AP, 9/21/08)(AFP, 9/22/08)
2008 Sep 24, North Korea barred
UN nuclear inspectors from its main nuclear reactor and within a
week plans to reactivate the plant that once provided the plutonium
for its atomic test explosion.
(AP, 9/24/08)
2008 Sep 27, The UN Security
Council unanimously approved a new resolution reaffirming previous
sanctions on Iran for refusing to halt its uranium enrichment
program and offering Tehran incentives to do so.
(AP, 9/27/08)
2008 Oct 3, The United Nations
said fighting has killed at least 80 civilians in Somalia's capital
over the last two weeks. More than 100 people have been injured. UN
humanitarian office spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs said nearly half of
Somalia's 8.3 million people were in need of food and other
assistance.
(AP, 10/3/08)
2008 Oct 7, The UN food agency
(WFP) said it is resuming free breakfasts for hundreds of thousands
of poor Cambodian schoolchildren after securing new funds for a
program suspended due to high food prices.
(AP, 10/7/08)
2008 Oct 7, The UN refugee
agency said at least 5,000 people have fled violence in northeastern
Congo and sought shelter in neighboring Sudan over the last two
weeks due to ferocious attacks by rebels of the Lord's Resistance
Army from neighboring Uganda.
(AP, 10/7/08)
2008 Oct 10, The UN urged Congo
and Rwanda to hold talks to avoid a war after Kinshasa accused its
eastern neighbor of sending troops over the border to back Congolese
rebels.
(Reuters, 10/10/08)
2008 Oct 14, The UN Security
Council voted unanimously to renew its peacekeeping mission in Haiti
for another year.
(AP, 10/15/08)
2008 Oct 17, The UN added
Japan, Austria, Turkey, Mexico and Uganda as members to the 10
non-permanent seats of the Security Council, replacing Belgium,
Indonesia, Italy, Panama and South Africa.
(AP, 10/17/08)
2008 Oct 20, The UN said the
financial crises will add at least 20 million people to the world’s
jobless, raising the total to 210 million.
(WSJ, 10/21/08, p.A1)
2008 Oct 27, Thousands of
civilians threw rocks at four UN offices in eastern Congo, venting
outrage at the organization's inability to protect them from rebel
forces advancing on the provincial capital of Goma.
(AP, 10/27/08)
2008 Oct 29, The UN panel
overseeing compensation for victims of Iraq's 1990 invasion of
Kuwait said it has paid a $888.6 million (709.4 million euros)
installment from Iraqi oil funds to cover losses and damages
suffered by governments and private companies.
(AP, 10/29/08)
2008 Oct 29, The UN General
Assembly overwhelmingly approved a resolution urging the US to
repeal its trade embargo against Cuba, and the island nation's
foreign minister said he expects the next American president to
respond positively.
(AP, 10/29/08)
2008 Oct 29, Congolese rebel
forces advanced on the eastern city of Goma, threatening to
overwhelm government troops and a 17,000-strong UN force deployed to
halt a return to all-out war. The Congolese army said troops from
Rwanda have crossed the nearby border and attacked its soldiers in
support of a minority Tutsi rebellion.
(Reuters, 10/29/08)(AP, 10/29/08)
2008 Nov 7, The UN
secretary-general joined African leaders to try to end the fighting
in eastern Congo, where a fragile cease-fire is close to collapse. A
UN official and a peacekeeping officer said Angolan troops are
fighting alongside Congolese soldiers battling rebels outside the
eastern provincial capital of Goma. The UN official said an
unspecified number of Angolans arrived four days ago.
(AP, 11/7/08)
2008 Nov 11, The UN reported
that hundreds of Congolese soldiers rampaged through several
villages in eastern Congo raping women and pillaging homes as they
pulled back ahead of a feared rebel advance.
(SFC, 11/12/08, p.A7)
2008 Nov 18, Spanish artist
Miquel Barcelo unveiled his lavish, $23 million ceiling painting at
the European headquarters of the United Nations in Switzerland, a
project that has evoked controversy over its hefty price tag.
(AP, 11/18/08)
2008 Nov 19, The UN asked for
$7 billion (5.5 billion euros) to fund its humanitarian work around
the world in 2009, almost double last year's appeal as a result of
soaring food prices and crises in Africa, among other factors. The
UN's food agency will slim down its bureaucracy, work to cut costs
and make investments that will improve efficiency as part of a
reform plan adopted by member nations.
(AP, 11/19/08)
2008 Nov 19, Vladimir
Kuznetsov, a former UN diplomat convicted in the US of money
laundering and fraud, arrived in Moscow and will serve the last 16
months of his sentence in a Russian prison. Kuznetsov once chaired
the UN's powerful budget oversight committee.
(AP, 11/19/08)
2008 Nov 20, The UN Security
Council voted unanimously to send some 3,000 additional UN
peacekeepers to the Democratic Republic of the Congo to help prevent
a new war in the country's east.
(AP, 11/20/08)
2008 Nov 20, The UN Security
Council voted unanimously to extend the European Union's
peacekeeping force in Bosnia for a year, emphasizing the importance
of the country's progress towards Euro-Atlantic integration.
(AP, 11/20/08)
2008 Nov 20, The UN Security
Council voted unanimously to impose sanctions on pirates, arms
smugglers, and perpetrators of instability in Somalia in a fresh
attempt to help end years of lawlessness in the Horn of Africa
nation.
(AP, 11/20/08)
2008 Nov 23, Congolese soldiers
stopped a peacekeepers' convoy at an impromptu roadblock and dragged
23 Congolese men off the trucks, accusing them of being rebels. UN
officials said the men were rebels who had surrendered as well as
national policemen and civilians.
(AP, 11/24/08)
2008 Nov 25, Afghan President
Hamid Karzai demanded at a meeting with a UN Security Council team
that the international community set a "timeline" for ending
military intervention in Afghanistan.
(AFP, 11/25/08)
2008 Nov 26, The UN and other
aid agencies appealed to the international community to send $462
million in emergency assistance to address what they said is a
humanitarian crisis in the Palestinian territories.
(AP, 11/26/08)
2008 Nov 26, The UN Security
Council approved the deployment of a European Union mission
throughout Kosovo under the UN umbrella.
(AP, 11/26/08)
2008 Dec 10, The government of
Cambodia and the UN agreed in principle to strengthen measures to
prevent corruption among staff at the country's genocide tribunal.
(AP, 12/10/08)
2008 Dec 12, A UN Security
Council panel said that Rwanda and Congo are fighting a proxy war by
aiding each other's enemies, a conclusion that could lead to
additional UN sanctions over the conflict in the central African
region. A UN report cited an advisor to Rwandan President Paul
Kagame and a member of the Congolese opposition, both wealthy
businessmen, as key financial backers of rebels in eastern DR Congo.
(AP, 12/12/08)(AFP, 12/13/08)
2008 Dec 12, In Poland
negotiators at a UN climate conference broke through red tape and
freed up millions of dollars to help poor countries adapt to
increasingly severe droughts, floods and other effects of global
warming.
(AP, 12/12/08)
2008 Dec 14, In Niger Tuareg
rebels of the Front for the Forces of Redress (FFR) kidnapped a UN
special envoy and three other people.
(AP, 12/16/08)
2008 Dec 16, The UN Security
Council approved land and air attacks on pirate bases in Somalia.
(SFC, 12/17/08, p.A14)
2008 Dec 17, The UN said it
will double the budget of its Afghan mission next year, taking on
hundreds of new staff and opening more offices to meet more
"complex" challenges. The UN’s chief in Afghanistan called for
international military forces to revise their agreement with the
Afghan government to include practices that will better safeguard
civilians.
(AFP, 12/17/08)(AP, 12/17/08)
2008 Dec 28, The UN Security
Council has issued a statement expressing serious concern at the
escalating violence in Gaza and is calling on Israel and the
Palestinians to immediately halt all military activities.
(AP, 12/28/08)
2008 Dec 29, UN
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon demanded an immediate cease-fire in
Gaza and urged Mideast and world leaders to do more to help end the
Israeli-Hamas conflict and promote political dialogue.
(AP, 12/30/08)
2008 Dec 31, The UN Security
Council held an emergency meeting on an Arab request for a binding
and enforceable resolution condemning Israel and halting its
military attacks on Gaza. The US immediately called the draft
resolution circulated by Libya on behalf of the 22-member Arab
League "unacceptable" and "unbalanced" and because it makes no
mention of halting the Hamas rocket attacks that led to the Israeli
offensive.
(AP, 1/1/09)
2008 Dec, A 131-page report by
the UN Procurement Task Force said former officials Ventzislav
Stoykov and Edgar Casals each scammed hundreds of thousands of
dollars and ran outside ventures at the UN's Economic Commission for
Africa. The task force recommended providing the ECA report to
prosecutors in Ethiopia and the Philippines and to US authorities to
review visas Casals apparently obtained through Santiago "Sonny"
Busa, a former US consular chief in Addis Ababa.
(AP, 6/19/10)
2008 The UN estimated that
Afghanistan’s illegal opium trade for this year was worth about $3.4
billion, or 33% of the country’s GDP.
(Econ, 8/22/09, p.22)
2009 Jan 3, The United States
blocked approval of a UN Security Council statement calling for an
immediate cease-fire between Israel and Gaza's Hamas rulers.
(AP, 1/4/09)
2009 Jan 5, Israel consolidated
its hold on parts of the Gaza Strip, seizing high-rise buildings on
the outskirts of the territory's biggest city as a stream of world
leaders headed for the region to press for a truce. About 12
Palestinian children were killed. The 10th day of fighting put the
Palestinian death toll at an estimated 550. 3 Israeli soldiers were
killed and 24 others wounded by friendly fire. Gaza health officials
said an Israeli airstrike outside a United Nations school in the
Gaza Strip killed 39 people, many of them children.
(AP, 1/5/09)(SFC, 1/6/09, p.A3)(AP, 1/11/09)
2009 Jan 6, In Somalia 3 masked
gunmen fatally shot a Somali aid worker, as the UN envoy to Somalia
said the UN should create a Baghdad-style Green Zone in the African
country so he can base all his aid workers there.
(AP, 1/6/09)
2009 Jan 8, The UN halted aid
deliveries to the besieged Gaza Strip, citing Israeli attacks on a
UN truck that killed 2 Palestinian workers. For a 2nd straight day,
Israel suspended its Gaza military operation for three hours to
allow in humanitarian supplies. Israel killed at least 11 people,
including three who were fleeing their homes, raising the death toll
from its 13-day offensive to 699 Palestinians. 11 Israelis have died
since the offensive began. Militants in Lebanon fired at least three
rockets into Israel. UN figures said as many as 257 children have
been killed and 1,080 wounded, about a third of the total casualties
since Dec. 27.
(AP, 1/8/09)(SFC, 1/9/09, p.A3)
2009 Jan 8, In Somalia
gunmen fatally shot a UN World Food program worker during a food
distribution, the second staff member killed this week.
(AP, 1/8/09)
2009 Jan 9, Israeli jets and
helicopters bombarded Gaza and Hamas responded with a barrage of
rockets on at least two cities as both sides defied a UN call for an
immediate cease-fire. By the afternoon 22 Palestinians had been
killed, pushing the death toll to 776 and in the two-week-old
conflict.
(AP, 1/9/09)
2009 Jan 12, The United States
circulated a draft resolution calling for a UN peacekeeping force to
be deployed in Somalia to replace a small African Union force, but
leaving the Security Council to make a final decision by June 1.
(AP, 1/13/09)
2009 Jan 13, Israeli ground
troops closed in on downtown Gaza City, battling Palestinian
militants in the streets of a densely populated neighborhood,
destroying dozens of homes and sending terrified residents running
for cover as gunfire and explosions echoed in the distance. Some 15
rockets and mortar shells were fired toward Israel, causing no
injuries. Egyptian mediators pushed the militant Palestinian Hamas
group to accept a truce proposal for the embattled Gaza Strip in
talks. The UN secretary-general headed to the region to join the
multitrack diplomatic efforts for a cease-fire in Israel’s 18-day
offensive, in which more than 900 Palestinians have been killed,
half of them civilians.
(AP, 1/13/09)
2009 Jan 14, The UN Security
Council authorized 5,200 UN peacekeepers to replace a 3,300-strong
EU force in Chad and Central African Republic, which have been
seriously affected by fighting in neighboring Sudan's Darfur region.
(AP, 1/14/09)
2009 Jan 15, Israel shelled the
United Nations headquarters in the Gaza Strip, engulfing the
compound and the main warehouse in fire and destroying thousands of
pounds of food and humanitarian supplies intended for Palestinian
refugees. Fighting killed at least 70 people including 2 top Hamas
leaders, Said Siam (49), the minister of the interior, and deputy
Salah Abu Sharah. Gaza medical officials said 1,100 Palestinians
have been killed since Israel's offensive started Dec. 27.
(AP, 1/15/09)(SFC, 1/16/09, p.A2)
2009 Jan 16, The UN Security
Council unanimously adopted a resolution expressing its intention to
establish a UN peacekeeping force in Somalia, but putting off a
decision for several months in order to assess the volatile
situation in the Horn of Africa nation.
(AP, 1/17/09)
2009 Jan 18, The UN-African
Union peacekeeping mission said rebels from the Justice and Equality
Movement have taken control of Muhajaria town in the western Sudan
region of Darfur.
(AP, 1/19/09)
2009 Jan 20, In Gaza UN chief
Ban Ki-moon voiced sorrow and frustration over the suffering of
civilians during Israel’s 3-week war on Hamas rulers. Ismail Radwan,
a Hamas legislator, celebrated the blood battles as proof of Hamas
strength and defiance.
(SFC, 1/21/09, p.A21)
2009 Jan 29, The UN launched an
emergency appeal for $613 million to help Palestinians recover from
Israel's three weeks of military operations in Gaza.
(AP, 1/29/09)
2009 Feb 1, In Sudan a
spokeswoman for the UN mission known as UNAMID said the has
government asked peacekeepers to clear out of the town of Muhajeria.
She said Sudan wants to launch an offensive against rebels from the
Justice and Equality Movement, a Chad-backed rebel group that has
held the south Darfur town since mid-January.
(AP, 2/1/09)
2009 Feb 2, In southwestern
Pakistan gunmen seized John Solecki, head of the UN refugee office
in the city of Quetta, as he traveled to work. On April 4 Solecki
was released unharmed.
(AP, 2/2/09)(SSFC, 4/5/09, p.A7)
2009 Feb 16, The UN said Tamil
Tiger guerrillas have prevented tens of thousands of civilians from
leaving Sri Lanka's war zone and those trying to escape have been
"shot and sometimes killed."
(AP, 2/16/09)
2009 Feb 17, The UN said some
4.9 million more Ethiopians are in urgent need of food aid, bringing
the total number of people in Ethiopia who need relief aid to 12
million, or 15 percent of the population.
(AP, 2/17/09)
2009 Feb 17, The UN agency for
children said Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers have stepped up conscription
of child soldiers, as the rebels prepare to face a final onslaught
by the military. Tamil politicians accused the Sri Lankan government
of ignoring the safety of tens of thousands of civilians in its
campaign to wipe out the Tamil Tiger rebels, saying more than 2,000
noncombatants have been killed in the recent fighting.
(AFP, 2/17/09)(AP, 2/17/09)
2009 Feb 26, At The Hague
UN judges in the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal acquitted former Serb
President Milan Milutinovic of ordering a deadly campaign of terror
by Serb forces against Kosovo Albanians in 1999. The court convicted
five other senior Serbs and gave them prison sentences of between 15
and 22 years. The marathon trial started July 10, 2006.
(AP, 2/26/09)
2009 Feb 27, The UN Children's
Fund said 53 million children are being targeted by a mass
immunization drive against polio in Benin, Burkina Faso, Ivory
Coast, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, and Togo. Some 844 polio cases were
reported in the 8 countries in 2008, 95% of them in Nigeria.
(AFP, 2/27/09)
2009 Mar 6, A UN spokesman said
its human rights office will examine whether Sudan's decision to
expel aid groups constitutes a breach of basic human rights and
possibly a war crime. UN agencies warned that Sudan's decision to
expel 13 international aid groups will leave more than a million
people without food or health care and could threaten thousands of
lives.
(AP, 3/6/09)(AFP, 3/6/09)
2009 Mar 15, In Abeche, Chad,
UN forces took over command from EU peacekeepers to protect refugees
and displaced people in Chad and the Central African Republic.
(AFP, 3/15/09)
2009 Mar 16, In southern
Somalia gunmen seized four UN workers, the latest in a series of
attacks on aid workers in the war-ravaged Horn of Africa nation.
(AP, 3/16/09)
2009 Mar 16, In Turkey a UN
global forum on water opened in Istanbul. The UN said global demand
for water is rising as access to safe drinking water remains
inadequate in much of the developing world.
(SFC, 3/17/09, p.A2)
2009 Mar 20, The UN Security
Council gave a stamp of approval to Somalia's new unity government
and urged increased international aid to African Union (AU)
peacekeepers trying to contain the violence in the lawless country.
(AP, 3/20/09)
2009 Mar 26, The UN's top
human-rights body approved a proposal by Muslims nations urging
passage of laws around the world to protect religion from criticism.
The resolution was sponsored by Pakistan, Belarus and Venezuela.
(AP, 3/26/09)(Econ, 4/4/09, p.17)
2009 Mar 31, The US State
Department said the United States will seek election to the UN Human
Rights Council this year, announcing the Obama administration's
latest reversal of former President George W. Bush's foreign
policies.
(AP, 3/31/09)
2009 Apr 3, The UN appointed
Richard Goldstone, former chief prosecutor for war crimes in
Yugoslavia and Rwanda, to lead a mission to investigate alleged war
crimes committed by Israel in the Gaza Strip.
(SFC, 4/4/09, p.A2)
2009 Apr 3, Australia endorsed
a UN declaration that recognizes indigenous rights, reversing years
of opposition and promising a new era in relations between white
Australians and the nation's impoverished Aborigines. Australia was
one of four nations that voted against the declaration when it was
adopted by the General Assembly in 2007.
(AP, 4/3/09)
2009 Apr 7, UNESCO awarded the
World Press Freedom Prize to Lasantha Wickrematunge, a murdered Sri
Lankan journalist, whose self-written obituary accused the
government of silencing him. His self-written obituary was published
three days after his murder in early January, in which no arrests
have been made.
(AP, 4/7/09)
2009 Apr 13, The UN Security
Council unanimously condemned North Korea's April 5 rocket launch,
demanded an end to missile tests and said it will expand sanctions
against the reclusive communist nation.
(AP, 4/14/09)
2009 Apr 18, The Obama
administration said it will boycott the April 20-25 UN conference on
racism due to objectionable language in the meeting’s final draft
document.
(SSFC, 4/19/09, p.A13)
2009 Apr 20, A UN racism
conference opened in Geneva. Iran’s Pres. Ahmadinejad accused Israel
of being the "most cruel and racist regime," sparking a walkout by
angry Western diplomats. The US, Australia, Canada, Germany, Israel,
Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand and Poland boycotted the conference
out of concern that it could be used by Muslim countries to
criticize Israel and to limit free speech when it comes to
criticizing their religion.
(AP, 4/19/09)(AP, 4/20/09)
2009 Apr 21, National libraries
and the UN education agency put some of humanity's earliest written
works online, from ancient Chinese oracle bones to the first
European map of the New World. The World Digital Library project is
modeled on the Library of Congress' American Memory project, which
debuted in the 1990s.
(AP, 4/21/09)(http://www.wdl.org)
2009 Apr 21, In Geneva over 100
countries agreed on a declaration to combat racism and related forms
of intolerance worldwide. The US was not among them, prompting sharp
criticism from African-American groups participating in the UN's
second global conference on racism.
(AP, 4/21/09)
2009 Apr 30, The UN Security
Council extended for another year the mandate of UN peacekeepers in
southern Sudan who monitor compliance with a peace deal that ended
Sudan's two-decade-long civil war.
(Reuters, 4/30/09)
2009 May 1, A UN agency urged
Israel to freeze demolitions of Arab homes in east Jerusalem, citing
a growing housing crisis in the part of the city the Palestinians
claim as their future capital.
(AP, 5/1/09)
2009 May 5, The UN chief
accused Israel of lying about attacks on United Nations schools and
other facilities during the Gaza military campaign, including one
reported to have killed more than 40 people, and formally demanded
compensation.
(AP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 5, A restricted UN
report said IAEA inspectors detected nuclear particles in Egypt last
year and in 2007. A senior diplomat accredited to the agency said
that it was the first time the traces were reported by the
Vienna-based nuclear monitor.
(AP, 5/6/09)
2009 May 9, UN officials said a
UN-sponsored treaty to combat highly dangerous chemicals has been
expanded beyond the original "dirty dozen" to include nine more
substances that are used in pesticides, flame retardants and other
products.
(AP, 5/9/09)
2009 May 11, The UN condemned a
"bloodbath" in Sri Lanka's northern war zone after two days of
shelling that a government doctor said killed as many as 1,000
ethnic Tamil civilians, including 106 children.
(AP, 5/11/09)
2009 May 18, UN military
commanders told top UN officials that Congolese rebels integrated
into the country's army as part of a peace deal are looting, raping
and killing the civilians they are meant to protect.
(AP, 5/18/09)
2009 May 19, UN
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon formally named Bill Clinton as its
special envoy to Haiti.
(AP, 5/19/09)
2009 May 19, The UN Security
Council said that it had asked the Congolese government to
investigate and arrest five high-ranking army officers known to have
committed atrocities.
(AP, 5/19/09)
2009 May 22, The African Union
called on the UN Security Council to take "immediate measures" to
impose sanctions on Eritrea over its support for Islamist insurgents
in Somalia.
(AFP, 5/22/09)
2009 May 28, In Senegal UN,
African Union, EU and Arab League representatives met with Mauritian
political parties in Dakar to discuss upcoming polls and a political
stalemate since a coup.
(AFP, 5/28/09)
2009 Jun 10, Sudan’s President
Omar al-Beshir inaugurated a new plant that he said will begin
producing ethanol from sugar cane with a target of 200 million
liters in two years. Former rebels who fought a devastating 22-year
civil war in south Sudan began laying down their arms as the UN’s
biggest demobilization program stepped up a gear.
(AFP, 6/10/09)
2009 Jun 10, Western powers
reached agreement with North Korea's key allies on a UN draft
proposal that would impose tough new sanctions on the communist
nation's weapons exports and financial dealings, and allow
inspections of suspect cargo in ports and on the high seas.
(AP, 6/10/09)(SFC, 6/11/09, p.A3)
2009 Jun 12, The UN Security
Council agreed to expand an arms embargo against North Korea with
the goal of derailing the isolated nation's nuclear and missile
programs. It passed Resolution 1874 authorizing the search of North
Korean ship suspected of carrying illegal arms.
(AP, 6/13/09)(Econ, 6/27/09, p.50)
2009 Jun 15, Brazilian
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva brought a message of worker
solidarity and economic responsibility to the United Nations. He
left with some rare, sharp criticism from human rights groups that
once championed his government.
(AP, 6/15/09)
2009 Jun 15, Moscow vetoed a
Western-proposed resolution to extend the mandate of UN monitors in
the breakaway region of Abkhazia. It designed to buy time to
negotiate a long-term plan for the 16-year-old monitoring mission in
the Black Sea rebel region.
(Reuters, 6/16/09)
2009 Jun 18, In Haiti a
confrontation between UN peacekeepers and mourners for Rev. Gerard
Jean-Juste, a popular priest allied with former President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide, left one person dead. A video showed
marchers throw rocks at UN soldiers, who periodically turn and fire
their assault rifles into the air.
(AP, 6/19/09)
2009 Jun 19, The United States
joined the UN Human Rights Council, a body widely criticized for
failing to confront abuses around the world and for acting primarily
to condemn Israel, one of Washington's closest allies.
(AP, 6/19/09)
2009 Jun 19, The UN Food and
Agriculture Organization said one in six people in the world, or
more than 1 billion, is now hungry, a historic high due largely to
the global economic crisis and stubbornly high food prices.
(AP, 6/19/09)
2009 Jun 19, The UN said
Colombia's coca crop shrank by nearly a fifth last year while
cultivation of the bush that is the basis of cocaine rose for a
third straight year in Peru and Bolivia, the world's two other
coca-producing nations.
(AP, 6/19/09)
2009 Jun 30, The UN adopted a
resolution calling on all 192 UN member states not to recognize any
government in Honduras other than Zelaya's. Roberto Micheletti,
Honduras' interim leader, warned that the only way his predecessor
will return to office is through a foreign invasion. The regime that
ousted Zelaya claimed that the deposed president allowed money and
tons of cocaine to be flown into the Central American country on its
way to the US.
(AP, 7/1/09)
2009 Jul 2, The UN nuclear
agency's governing board (IAEA) chose Yukiya Amano, a veteran
Japanese diplomat as its new head. The term of the present head,
Mohamed ElBaradei, ends in November.
(AP, 7/2/09)
2009 Jul 4, In Myanmar UN chief
Ban Ki-moon gave a rare public speech outlining his vision for a
democratic Myanmar, just hours after the ruling junta refused to let
him meet opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
(AFP, 7/4/09)
2009 Jul 9, An African Union
panel said former UN chief Kofi Annan handed the International
Criminal Court the names of key suspects in Kenya's post-poll
violence which he helped end last year.
(AFP, 7/9/09)
2009 Jul 9, The UN passed a
resolution extending the lifetime of the International Criminal
Tribunal for Rwanda to next year. The latest extension is the second
for the Tanzania-based court which had originally been scheduled
wind up its lower court cases by December 2008, but had its life
extended to December 2009.
(AFP, 7/9/09)
2009 Jul 13, The UN’s highest
court set travel rules for the Nicaraguan river that borders Costa
Rica, affirming freedom for Costa Rican boats while upholding
Nicaragua's right to regulate traffic.
(AP, 7/13/09)
2009 Jul 16, The UN Security
Council banned travel and froze assets of 10 North Korean
individuals and businesses linked to the country’s nuclear and
ballistic missile programs.
(SFC, 7/17/09, p.A2)
2009 Jul 16, In northwestern
Pakistan gunmen killed UN employee Zill-e-Usman (59) and a guard
during a failed kidnap attempt at a refugee camp near Peshawar, a
blow to humanitarian efforts to help civilians displaced by army
offensives against the Taliban.
(AP, 7/16/09)(SFC, 7/17/09, p.A2)
2009 Jul 17, The UN said an
international accord requiring governments to publicly identify
sites of environmental pollution will come into force on Oct. 8.
(AP, 7/17/09)
2009 Jul 20, A UN war crimes
court in the Hague convicted Milan Lukic and Sredoje Lukic, two
Bosnian Serb cousins, for a "callous" 1992 killing spree that
included locking scores of Muslims in two houses and burning them
alive in Visegrad. He sentenced Milan to life in prison and Sredoje
to 30 years.
(AP, 7/20/09)
2009 Jul 20, In Somalia Islamic
insurgents with alleged links with al-Qaida looted two United
Nations compounds in southern Somalia, and announced they will ban
three UN agencies from operating in areas the militants control.
(AP, 7/20/09)
2009 Jul 30, The UN Security
Council unanimously extended the mandate for the joint UN-African
Union peacekeeping mission which has been slowly deploying in
Sudan's conflict-torn Darfur region.
(Reuters, 7/30/09)
2009 Jul 31, UN human rights
experts asked Azerbaijan to stop curbing free speech and to protect
journalists from harassment, violence and even murder.
(Reuters, 7/31/09)
2009 Aug 11, Former US
President Bill Clinton appointed the physician and Harvard
University professor Paul Farmer as the UN Deputy Special Envoy to
Haiti to assist in advancing the economic and social development of
the impoverished Caribbean nation.
(www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=31740)
2009 Sep 7, The UN’s Children's
Fund reacted furiously to Sri Lanka's decision to expel its
spokesman over his allegedly pro-rebel stance in the final stages of
the island's ethnic war. James Elder, communications chief for
UNICEF in Sri Lanka, was accused by the government of issuing
"propaganda" in support of the Tamil Tiger separatists before their
defeat at the hands of government forces in May.
(AFP, 9/7/09)
2009 Sep 14, The US attended
its first formal meeting of the UN Human Rights Council, saying it
will try to promote dialogue at a body it once avoided and heavily
criticized.
(AP, 9/14/09)
2009 Sep 15, Israeli and
Palestinian activists presented the most detailed vision yet of what
a peace deal could look like. It included more than 400 pages
crammed with maps, timetables for troop withdrawals and even a list
of weapons a non-militarized Palestine would be barred from having.
The UN Goldstone Commission accused Israel of having deliberately
committed war crimes during its 3-week attack on Gaza in January.
(AP, 9/15/09)(Econ, 9/19/09, p.14)
2009 Sep 15, The UN refugee
agency said 16 African migrants have died and another 49 were
missing and presumed dead after trying to cross the Gulf of Aden in
three boats. One boat reached Yemen on Sep 13, one had capsized on
Sep 13 and one sank on Sep 14.
(AP, 9/15/09)
2009 Sep 16, Israel rejected UN
calls to open an independent inquiry into its conduct in last
winter's Gaza Strip war and said it would launch a diplomatic
offensive to block any attempt to bring its soldiers before an
international war crimes tribunal. The Goldstone Commission report
had concluded that Israel committed actions amounting to war crimes
during its December incursion into Gaza. It also concluded that
there was evidence that Palestinian armed groups had committed war
crimes against humanity.
(AP, 9/16/09)(SSFC, 9/20/09, p.A20)
2009 Sep 17, In Somalia
Islamist insurgents drove two stolen UN cars loaded with explosives
onto the main base of African Union peacekeepers and triggered
massive blasts that a witness said killed 21 people, including 4
suicide bombers, 16 officials from the government and AMISOM, the AU
peacekeeping force, and the Burundian deputy commander of the force.
Islamist insurgents said the attack was in revenge for a US commando
raid that killed an al-Qaida operative. An hour later missiles were
fired from the AU base strike rebel-controlled areas of Mogadishu,
killing seven people and wounded 16.
(AP, 9/17/09)(AP, 9/18/09)
2009 Sep 21, Grant Kippen, the
Canadian head of the UN-backed panel investigating fraud in
Afghanistan's presidential vote, said the panel has agreed to allow
a recount of just a sampling of hundreds of thousands of suspect
ballots to speed the process. In southern Afghanistan a roadside
bomb killed an American service member.
(AP, 9/21/09)(AP, 9/22/09)
2009 Sep 22, The UN Office for
the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs announced that flash floods
and lighting have claimed 187 lives and affected 635,273 people in
west Africa since the rainy season started in June. This included
103 dead in Sierra Leone, followed by Ghana (24), Mali (20), Ivory
Coast (19), Burkina Faso (8), Niger (7) and Senegal (6).
(AFP, 9/22/09)
2009 Sep 23, US President
Barack Obama delivered a stern message to global leaders to work
together to solve the world's most pressing problems in his maiden
speech to UN General Assembly. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
challenged world leaders to cleanse the globe of nuclear weapons,
tackle the threat of catastrophic climate change and combat growing
poverty from the global financial crisis.
(AFP, 9/23/09)(AP, 9/23/09)
2009 Sep 24, The UN Security
Council unanimously approved a historic resolution aimed at ridding
the world of nuclear weapons at a summit-level meeting chaired by
President Barack Obama.
(AP, 9/24/09)
2009 Sep 28, In Thailand
climate talks kicked off in Bangkok with the UN urging nations to
break the deadlock over a global warming deal that is supposed to be
finalized in just 70 days time, and warning that failure to act
would leave future generations fighting for survival.
(AP, 9/28/09)
2009 Sep 30, In North Korea a
ceremony marked the return of UN Development Program to the country.
UNDP withdrew its operations in March 2007 following allegations
that the agency had left itself open to exploitation by the
communist regime for money laundering and other illicit purposes. A
UN audit cleared UNDP of wrongdoing in June, 2008.
(AP, 9/30/09)
2009 Sep 30, The UN dismissed
Peter Galbraith, the top US diplomat at the UN mission in
Afghanistan, after he quarreled with Kai Eide, his European boss,
over the Afghan presidential election.
(Reuters, 9/30/09)
2009 Oct 1, In Switzerland
senior American and Iranian delegates met one-on-one during a lunch
break at seven-nation talks in Geneva. Iran brought a broad range of
geopolitical issues to the table, while the six powers, the
permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany, sought to soften
Iran's resistance to freezing its uranium enrichment program. Iran
accepted a demand to allow UN inspectors into its covertly built
enrichment plant.
(AP, 10/1/09)(AP, 10/2/09)
2009 Oct 5, A UN agency said
Norway enjoys the world's highest quality of life, while Niger
suffers the lowest, as it released Human Development Index, a
ranking that highlights the wide disparities in well-being between
rich and poor countries.
(AP, 10/5/09)(http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/)
2009 Oct 5, In Pakistan a
suicide bomber disguised as a security officer struck the lobby of
the UN food agency's headquarters in Islamabad, killing five people
a day after the new leader of the Pakistani Taliban vowed fresh
assaults.
(AP, 10/5/09)
2009 Oct 9, In Haiti 11 UN
peacekeepers were killed when a CASA C-212 surveillance flight
slammed into a mountain. The victims were Uruguayan and Jordanian
troops serving with the 9,000-strong UN peacekeeping force that has
been in Haiti since 2004.
(AP, 10/10/09)
2009 Oct 16, The UN Human
Rights Council voted to endorse a Gaza war crimes report and send it
to the Security Council, possibly setting up international
prosecution of Israelis and Palestinians accused of war crimes.
(AP, 10/16/09)
2009 Oct 25, In Iran UN IAEA
inspectors got their first look inside the Fordo uranium enrichment
site 20 miles north of Qom, a once-secret uranium enrichment
facility that has raised Western suspicions about the extent of
Iran's nuclear program.
(AP, 10/25/09)
2009 Oct 28, In Afghanistan
Taliban militants wearing suicide vests and police uniforms stormed
a guest house used by UN staff in the heart of Kabul. 11 people were
killed, including 5 UN staff, 3 attackers, 2 security guards and an
Afghan civilian. It was the biggest in a series of attacks intended
to undermine next month's presidential runoff election. The assault
included rocket attacks at the presidential palace and the city's
main luxury hotel. Two NATO members were killed in bomb blasts in
the south, including one American.
(AP, 10/28/09)(AP, 10/29/09)
2009 Oct 28, The UN said
Zimbabwe's government has blocked a visit by Manfred Nowak, the UN’s
torture investigator who was to examine alleged attacks on
opposition activists by ruling party supporters.
(AP, 10/28/09)
2009 Oct 29, Honduras filed a
case at the UN's highest court accusing Brazil of meddling in
internal Honduran affairs by allowing ousted President Manuel Zelaya
to stay at its embassy in Tegucigalpa since Sep 21.
(AP, 10/29/09)
2009 Nov 2, A top UN official
announced that the UN has withdrawn its support for Congolese army
units operating in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, accusing
its soldiers of killing 62 civilians.
(AFP, 11/2/09)
2009 Nov 5, The UN said at
least 50 peacekeepers have received punishments ranging from
reduction in military rank to eight months imprisonment for
committing sexual abuses on United Nations missions since 2007.
(AP, 11/5/09)
2009 Nov 5, The UN said that it
will send more than half its international staff either out of
Afghanistan or into more secure compounds following last week's
deadly Taliban attack against UN workers, the most direct targeting
of its employees during decades of work in the country.
(AP, 11/5/09)
2009 Nov 6, A UN report said 2
Iranian businessmen working at a Dubai-based firm were linked to
video surveillance devices sold to Sudan and used in unmanned drones
in Darfur in violation of a UN arms embargo.
(Reuters, 11/6/09)
2009 Nov 10, Libya signed an
agreement with the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) to join
forces to crack down on organized crime in the Maghreb region.
(AFP, 11/11/09)
2009 Nov 13, A UN official said
an agreement has been reached for sweeping anti-corruption reviews
on how countries account for their public assets. The pact came
after talks in Qatar's capital, Doha, between the United Nations,
World Bank and watchdog groups.
(AP, 11/13/09)
2009 Nov 16, A 3-day summit on
world hunger opened in Rome. Zimbabwe’s Pres. Mugabe used the UN
summit on world hunger to lash out at the West and defend land
reforms blamed for plunging his people into starvation. Some 60
heads of state and dozens of minister rejected a UN call to commit
$44 billion annually for agricultural development in poor countries.
(AP, 11/17/09)(SFC, 11/17/09, p.A8)
2009 Nov 17, Zimbabwe’s Pres.
Mugabe used the UN summit on world hunger in Rome to lash out at the
West and defend land reforms blamed for plunging his people into
starvation.
(AP, 11/17/09)
2009 Nov 18, In Italy the head
of a UN food agency expressed regret that an anti-hunger summit
failed to result in precise promises of funding, and critics said
the meeting had only thrown crumbs to the world's 1 billion people
without enough to eat.
(AP, 11/18/09)
2009 Nov 24, A report was
leaked on the UN’s peacekeeping mission in the CongoDRC, better
known as MONUC. The report alleged collusion between peacekeepers
and Congo’s army to help various rebel groups in exchange for cash
and access to mineral wealth.
(Econ, 11/28/09,
p.54)(http://congosiasa.blogspot.com/2009/11/leak-un-expert-report.html)
2009 Nov 25, A United Nations
report confirmed that one of Africa's most brutal rebel movements
relies on a vast, international network of supporters in at least 25
countries including in the US and Europe who facilitate arms
trafficking, money transfers and day-to-day operational support. The
findings are a scathing indictment of how little has been done by
the international community to cut off logistical support to the
Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), an ethnic
Hutu militia which has wreaked havoc in Congo.
(AP, 11/25/09)
2009 Nov 27, Haiti's UN
peacekeeping mission urged local officials to provide a
justification for banning 17 political groups from participating in
next year's legislative elections.
(AP, 11/27/09)
2009 Nov 30, The United Nations
asked for $7.1 billion to pay for its humanitarian work around the
world next year, with Sudan and its troubled Darfur region most in
need and Afghanistan rising to second.
(AP, 11/30/09)
2009 Dec 1, In Vienna Japanese
diplomat Yukiya Amano took the helm of the UN atomic watchdog
(IAEA), pledging a steady hand to steer the agency through the storm
surrounding Iran's nuclear drive. Mohamed ElBaradei (67), the
outgoing Egyptian chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA), handed over his leadership to Yukiya Amano.
(AP, 11/30/09)(AFP, 12/1/09)
2009 Dec 8, The UN weather
agency reported that this decade is on track to become the warmest
since records began in 1850, and 2009 could rank among the top-five
warmest years, on the second day of a pivotal 192-nation climate
conference.
(AP, 12/8/09)
2009 Dec 14, Human Rights Watch
said a UN-backed Congolese military operation to oust rebels from
eastern Congo has caused more civilian casualties than damage to
rebels, with more than 1,400 people deliberately killed over a
nine-month period.
(AP, 12/14/09)
2009 Dec 18, The UN High
Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) said an estimated 74,000 Africans,
mainly from Ethiopia and Somalia, have fled to Yemen as refugees or
economic migrants. That's a 50 percent higher than in 2008.
(AP, 12/18/09)
2009 Dec 19, In Denmark the
13-day UN climate conference ended. It narrowly escaped collapse by
agreeing to recognize a political accord brokered by President
Barack Obama with China and other emerging powers. The US supported
the idea that, by 2020, $100 billion should be flowing from the
north to the south every year to pay for emissions reduction and
climate adaptation. A small group of nations blocked the Copenhagen
Accord, because it lacked specific targets for reducing carbon
emissions. After a break, the conference president gaveled the
decision to "take note" of the agreement instead of formally
approving it. Experts said that clears the way for the accord to
become operational in practice even though it has not been formally
approved by the conference. Several developing countries, including
Bolivia, Cuba, Sudan and Venezuela, bitterly protested the deal and
said it is unacceptable because it lacks specific targets for
reducing carbon emissions.
(AP, 12/19/09)(SSFC, 12/20/09, p.A1)(Econ,
10/30/10, p.79)
2009 Dec 21, The UN accused the
Ugandan-based Lord's Resistance Army of killing, mutilating and
raping villagers in Sudan and Congo in what may have been crimes
against humanity.
(AP, 12/21/09)
2009 Dec 23, The UN Security
Council voted to renew the mandate of peacekeeping forces in Congo
by 5 months instead of the usual year amid plans to overhaul their
role in the war-torn country.
(Reuters, 12/23/09)
2009 Dec 23, The UN Security
Council imposed an arms embargo on Eritrea and pledged to slap
financial and travel restrictions on its leaders for arming Islamist
militants in Somalia.
(SFC, 12/24/09, p.A2)
2009 The UN estimated the
illegal drug industry is worth some $320 billion a year.
(Econ, 3/7/09, p.15)
2009 In the Ivory Coast a
random poll of 10 underage girls in Toulepleu by aid group Save The
Children U.K. found that eight performed sexual acts for UN-Benin
peacekeepers on a regular basis in order to secure their most basic
needs. A 2010 diplomatic cable revealed that "Eight of the 10 said
they had ongoing sexual relationships with Beninese soldiers in
exchange for food or lodging," citing information shared with the
embassy by a protection officer.
(AP, 9/1/11)
2010 Jan 5, The UN food agency
said it is stopping aid distribution to about 1 million people in
southern Somalia because of attacks against staff and demands by
armed groups that aid organizations remove women from their teams.
(AP, 1/5/10)
2010 Jan 7, A top UN human
rights investigator said video footage purportedly showing troops
shooting blindfolded, naked Tamils in the final months of Sri
Lanka's civil war, appeared to be authentic. The video, reportedly
shot by a soldier with a mobile phone, revived calls for a war
crimes investigation and cast a shadow over the upcoming
presidential elections.
(AP, 1/8/10)
2010 Jan 15, In Haiti the UN
and other aid organizations struggled to get food and water to
stricken millions. Fears spread of unrest among the people in their
fourth day of desperation. France urged Haiti’s creditors to cancel
the nation’s debt.
(AP, 1/15/10)(SFC, 1/16/10, p.A2)
2010 Jan 15, A UN official said
North Korea is meting out harsher punishment to citizens who try to
flee the country, a sign that overall human rights conditions remain
dire in the communist state.
(AP, 1/15/10)
2010 Jan 17, UN
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon flew to Haiti to support earthquake
relief efforts and to visit his staff's devastated headquarters in
what the agency is calling the most challenging disaster it has ever
faced.
(AP, 1/17/10)
2010 Jan 19, A UN report said
corruption in Afghanistan is so entrenched that Afghans had to pay
bribes worth nearly a quarter of the country's GDP last year.
(AP, 1/19/10)
2010 Jan 28, The US formally
pledged to the UN that it would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by
17% (from what they were in 2005) by 2020. Meeting the target
depended on getting a climate bill through Congress.
(Econ, 2/6/10, p.38)
2010 Jan 31, In Ethiopia UN
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon attended the AU's annual summit in
Addis Ababa and again failed to pledge peacekeepers for Somalia. Ban
Ki-Moon criticized power-grabs in Africa in a speech to the
continent's leaders as Libya's Moamer Kadhafi reluctantly handed
over the presidency of the African Union to Malawian President Bingu
wa Mutharika. The AU agreed to consider a Senegalese proposal to
resettle Haiti's earthquake homeless and possibly create a state for
them in Africa.
(Reuters, 1/31/10)(AFP, 1/31/10)(Reuters,
1/31/10)
2010 Feb 9, The UN said in an
international appeal that aid groups in Pakistan need nearly $538
million over the next six months to help hundreds of thousands of
people displaced by army clashes against the Taliban.
(AP, 2/9/10)
2010 Feb 11, Willem
Wijnstekers, head of the UN program to protect endangered species,
said that Zimbabwe security forces had killed over 200 rhinos over
the past 2 years putting that population on the verge of extinction.
(SFC, 2/12/10, p.A2)
2010 Feb 22, A UN report said
sales of household electrical gadgets will boom across the
developing world in the next decade, wreaking environmental havoc if
there are no new strategies to deal with the discarded TVs, cell
phones and computers.
(AP, 2/22/10)
2010 Feb 28, A UN-backed
military operation against Rwandan Hutu rebels in eastern Democratic
Republic of Congo was launched. The operation will involve 18
battalions from the Congolese FARDC army in a series of targeted
attacks throughout north and south Kivu provinces in Congo's
conflict-racked east.
(AP, 3/4/10)
2010 Mar 13, In Qatar a two
week UN conference opened with a focus on the Atlantic bluefin tuna
and other marine life in the world's overfished oceans. The
175-nation Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species
(CITES) discussed new proposals on regulating the trade in number of
plant and animal species.
(AP, 3/13/10)
2010 Mar 18, UN Secretary
General Ban Ki-moon signed a cooperation agreement with Nikolai
Bordyuzha, the head of the Collective Treaty Organization, a
Moscow-dominated alliance that includes Russia and six other former
Soviet republics.
(AP, 3/18/10)
2010 Mar 20, UN chief Ban
Ki-moon, after getting a closer look at some of the Israeli enclaves
scattered across Palestinian-claimed territories, said Israeli
settlement building anywhere on occupied land is illegal and must be
stopped.
(AP, 3/20/10)
2010 Mar 24, The UN and
Interpol released a joint report saying gorillas in central Africa
are in danger from illegal logging, mining and from hunters who are
killing great apes for meat.
(AP, 3/24/10)
2010 Mar 25, The top UN envoy
for Afghanistan, Staffan de Mistura, met with delegates from
Hezb-e-Islami, the country's second-biggest militant group, who are
in Kabul for talks on a possible peace deal. Hezb-e-Islami is headed
by warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who is black-listed as a terrorist
by the UN and the US.
(AFP, 3/25/10)
2010 Mar 25, In Switzerland the
Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council (HRC) voted 20-17 for a text
that lists the “defamation of religion” as an infringement of
liberty.
(Econ, 4/3/10, p.62)
2010 Mar 31, Nearly 50 donors
pledged $9.9 billion in reconstruction aid for Haiti at a UN donor
conference, but leaders and businessmen stressed private investment
would be the key to improving the lot of the hemisphere's poorest
nation.
(AP, 4/1/10)
2010 Apr 2, UN
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon pushed Turkmenistan to improve its
human rights record, opening a trip through ex-Soviet Central Asia
where complaints of violations are extensive.
(AP, 4/2/10)
2010 Apr 3, UN
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon repeatedly criticized Kyrgyzstan for
human rights problems, a strong rebuke to the country once regarded
as former Soviet Central Asia's "island of democracy."
(AP, 4/3/10)
2010 Apr 4, In Uzbekistan UN
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called the drying up of the Aral Sea
one of the planet's most shocking disasters and urged Central Asian
leaders to step up efforts to solve the problem.
(AP, 4/4/10)
2010 Apr 5, UN
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged Uzbekistan to fulfill its
international human rights commitments and take further steps toward
improving the repressive political climate in the Central Asian
nation.
(AP, 4/5/10)
2010 Apr 6, UN
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon criticized as "unacceptable"
Uzbekistan's placing of land mines along parts of its border with
Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan that have not been delineated.
(AP, 4/6/10)
2010 Apr 20, A UN court
delivered a long-awaited ruling rejecting Argentina's claim that an
Uruguayan pulp mill pollutes their shared river. Both sides said the
decision by the International Court of Justice in the Netherlands
gave them what they need to resolve their differences, with
Argentina taking heart from a part of the ruling that said Uruguay
did not properly inform it about the project. Argentine activists
were still blocking the main bridge across the river and refused to
give up their fight. Activists in June voted to lift their four-year
bridge blockade.
(AP, 4/21/10)(AP, 6/17/10)
2010 Apr 22, The UN World
Health Organization and UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) asked for funds
for vaccinations saying almost 200 children have died of measles in
16 African countries in the first three months of this year.
(AFP, 4/22/10)
2010 Apr 23, Diplomats said
Iran has agreed to give the UN nuclear monitoring agency greater
inspection and monitoring rights to a sensitive site where it is
enriching uranium to higher levels.
(AP, 4/23/10)
2010 May 3, Iranian President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad seized center stage at the opening of a
monthlong debate at the United Nations on how to stop the spread of
nuclear weapons. But behind the scenes, UN Security Council powers
were discussing ways to punish Iran for defying their demands that
it curb nuclear activities that could be used to make bombs.
(AP, 5/4/10)
2010 May 4, The Croatian
government and the UN said Justice Minister Ivan Simonovic has been
chosen to be assistant UN secretary-general for human rights.
(AP, 5/4/10)
2010 May 5, Yukiya Amano, the
head of the UN atomic watchdog, asked for international input on an
Arab-led push to have Israel join the Nonproliferation Treaty, in a
move that adds to pressure on the Jewish state to disclose its
unacknowledged nuclear arsenal.
(AP, 5/6/10)
2010 May 12, The UN
peacekeeping mission in Sudan said Clashes between rival Arab tribes
have claimed 107 lives since March in Darfur, warning of a buildup
of government and rebel troops in the region.
(AFP, 5/12/10)
2010 May 13, The UN General
Assembly approved all 14 candidates for the 14 seats on the
47-member Human Rights Council. Human rights groups criticized the
poor human rights records 7 of the candidates: Angola, Libya,
Malaysia, Mauritania, Qatar, Thailand and Uganda.
(SFC, 5/14/10, p.A2)
2010 May 23, In Gaza masked
gunmen stormed a UN-run Gaza summer camp early on Sunday and set it
on fire, threatening "harsh measures" against the Gaza director of
UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.
(AFP, 5/23/10)
2010 May 24, Iran, seeking to
evade new UN sanctions, formally submitted its plan to swap some of
its enriched uranium for reactor fuel and said the onus was on world
powers to defuse tensions by accepting the deal.
(AP, 5/24/10)
2010 May 25, Chad's government
succeeded in forcing a 3,300-strong UN peacekeeping force operating
in Chad and the Central African Republic to pull out by the end of
this year. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization warned
that a dramatic shortfall in donations for Chad's agriculture relief
puts 2 million people at risk of hunger.
(AP, 5/25/10)
2010 May 28, The UN, bowing to
pressure from Congo's President Joseph Kabila, agreed to withdraw up
to 2,000 peacekeeping troops and redefine the remaining force as a
"stabilization" mission in his nation to coincide with its 50th
anniversary of independence on June 30.
(AP, 5/28/10)
2010 May 31, Indonesia's
failure to ban tobacco advertising or enforce laws against smoking
in bars and restaurants came under heavy fire as the UN marked world
anti-tobacco day.
(AP, 5/31/10)
2010 May 31, UN chief Ban
Ki-moon called for African nations to cooperate with the
International Criminal Court by arresting fugitive Ugandan rebel
Joseph Kony, leader of the Lord's Resistance Army, and some of his
commanders.
(AP, 5/31/10)
2010 May 31, The UN atomic
agency said Iran has amassed more than two tons of enriched uranium
in a report that heightened Western concerns about the country
developing the ability to produce a nuclear weapon.
(AP, 5/31/10)
2010 Jun 1, China called on
Iran to improve its cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog, after
the agency said in a report that Tehran was pressing ahead with its
controversial atomic program.
(AFP, 6/1/10)
2010 Jun 2, UN chief Ban
Ki-moon demanded that Israel lift its blockade of the Gaza Strip
immediately in the wake of its deadly raid on a Gaza-bound aid
flotilla.
(AP, 6/3/10)
2010 Jun 3, Israel rejected
calls from the UN and others for an international investigation of
its deadly raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla but left the door open
to foreign involvement. The Foreign Press Association demanded that
Israel’s military stop using the captured material without
permission and identify the source of the video already released.
The material appeared Wednesday on the army's YouTube site labeled
as "captured."
(AP, 6/3/10)
2010 Jun 4, South Korea handed
over a letter officially referring North Korea to the UN Security
Council over the March 26 sinking of the Cheonan, which left 46
sailors killed.
(AP, 6/4/10)
2010 Jun 5, Rwanda hosted UN
World Environment Day with a ceremony to name 11 endangered baby
mountain gorillas in which Internet users worldwide were for the
first time able to take part.
(AFP, 6/5/10)
2010 Jun 8, The UN refugee
agency said it is being expelled from Libya without explanation
despite being responsible for thousands of refugees in the North
African country. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees received a
note from Libyan authorities last week ordering it to cease its work
and leave the country.
(AP, 6/8/10)
2010 Jun 8, A Russian source
close to Security Council talks told reporters that UN sanctions
against Iran over its nuclear program have been "completely agreed
upon."
(Reuters, 6/8/10)
2010 Jun 9, The US, Russia and
France dismissed a proposal by Iran to swap some of its enriched
uranium for reactor fuel hours before an expected UN Security
Council vote on new sanctions. The UN Security Council endorsed a
4th round of sanctions against Iran.
(AP, 6/9/10)(Econ, 6/12/10, p.15)
2010 Jun 10, Iran said it will
review relations with the UN nuclear watchdog a day after the UN
Security Council approved a fourth round of sanctions against Tehran
over its disputed nuclear program. Russia looked set to freeze the
sale to Tehran of S300 air defense missiles in response to new UN
sanctions on Iran.
(AP, 6/10/10)(AFP, 6/10/10)
2010 Jun 17, The United Nations
said it will set up a panel to probe war crimes in Sri Lanka despite
repeated protests from the island's hawkish government.
(AFP, 6/17/10)
2010 Jun 18, The UN said a
recent measles outbreak in eastern and southern Africa has killed
more than 700 people, threatening to reverse gains made over several
years to stem the disease.
(AP, 6/18/10)
2010 Jun 18, In Haiti UN and
Haitian police raided a crowded earthquake survivor camp to capture
30 criminal suspects in the biggest law-enforcement operation since
the Jan. 12 earthquake.
(AP, 6/19/10)
2010 Jun 21, The UN Human
Rights Council unanimously elected Thailand's ambassador in Geneva
as its president for the coming year. Sihasak Phuangketkeow succeeds
Belgium's Alex Van Meeuwen after being nominated as the Asian
region's sole candidate.
(AP, 6/21/10)
2010 Jun 24, Libya justified
its closure of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees office in a
statement that included claims its representative had offered
refugee status in exchange for sex.
(AP, 6/25/10)
2010 Jun 27, A new UN report
cited political repression as one of the main forces preventing
Egyptian youths, who make up a quarter of the population, from
participating in the country's development.
(AP, 6/27/10)
2010 Jun 28, In central Gaza 2
dozen masked men vandalized a UN summer camp for children, burning
and slashing tents, toys and a plastic swimming pool. It was the
second such attack in just over a month.
(AP, 6/28/10)
2010 Jul 6, Britain's Queen
Elizabeth (84) addressed the UN for the first time since1957. The
queen's 10-minute speech to a special session of the General
Assembly was finished before Netherlands and Uruguay returned to
their soccer match in Cape Town. Netherlands moved to the finals
after beating Uruguay 3-2.
(Reuters, 7/6/10)
2010 Jul 21, Sudanese rebel
group JEM signed a landmark deal with the UN, pledging to protect
children caught up in the Darfur conflict.
(AFP, 7/21/10)
2010 Jul 22, The UN Security
Council pressed for effective actions to combat the growing threat
of drug trafficking and organized crime in the west African nation
of Guinea-Bissau.
(AFP, 7/22/10)
2010 Jul 22, The UN's highest
court said that Kosovo's declaration of independence from Serbia in
2008 did not break international law.
(AP, 7/22/10)
2010 Jul 29, The UN released
$650 million in Iraqi compensation to Kuwait, the latest payment of
a war reparation scheme that began in 1994. The payment brings the
total sum of compensation paid to Kuwait to $30.15 billion. A
further $22.3 billion is due to Kuwait.
(AFP, 7/29/10)
2010 Jul 30, A UN panel of
experts called on Israel to fall in line with international norms on
civil rights and to take action against targeted killings, torture
and impunity for security forces.
(AP, 7/30/10)
2010 Jul 30, The UN Security
Council extended the stay of peacekeepers in Sudan's western Darfur
region by another year, telling the force to focus primarily on
protecting civilians and aid deliveries.
(Reuters, 7/30/10)
2010 Jul 30, UNESCO added a
region of mountainous forests in Sri Lanka and the Papahanaumokuakea
archipelago off Hawaii to the World Heritage list. Florida's
Everglades and Madagascar's tropical forest were added to the roll
of endangered sites, which is meant to ring alarm bells and
encourage protective measures.
(AFP, 7/31/10)
2010 Jul 31, UNESCO added seven
cultural sites to its World Heritage List including Bikini Atoll in
the Marshall Islands, home to nuclear bomb testing in the 1940s and
1950s. Also added to the list were the Turaif District in Saudi
Arabia; Australia's penal colony sites; the Jantar Mantar
astronomical observation site in India; a shrine in Ardabil in Iran;
the Tabriz historic bazaar complex, also in Iran; and the historic
villages of Hahoe and Yangdong in South Korea.
(AP, 8/1/10)
2010 Aug 2, UN chief Ban
Ki-moon announced a four-member panel, including an Israeli and a
Turk, to probe Israel's deadly raid in May on a Gaza-bound aid
flotilla.
(AP, 8/2/10)
2010 Aug 2, UNESCO added 6
sites located in Brazil, China, Mexico, France's Reunion Island and
the South Pacific nation of Kiribati to World Heritage status.
(AP, 8/2/10)
2010 Aug 3, The UN launched an
appeal for 478 million dollars (362 million euros) in aid to
Zimbabwe, 100 million dollars more than in 2009, saying the country
was at crossroads.
(AFP, 8/3/10)
2010 Aug 11, The UN appealed
for $459 million in aid for flood-hit Pakistan, warning of a second
wave of death among sick, hungry survivors unless help arrived
quickly.
(Reuters 8/11/10)
2010 Aug 15, UN chief Ban
Ki-moon urged the world to quicken aid for up to 20 million people
hit by Pakistan's worst humanitarian crisis as he flew in to visit
areas ravaged by record floods.
(AFP, 8/15/10)
2010 Aug 18, In the Democratic
of Republic of Congo 3 Indian UN peacekeepers were killed in a
surprise attack on their base by 50 fighters armed with machetes,
spears and traditional weapons. The next day Congolese soldiers
arrested two suspects in the killing of the Indian
peacekeepers.
(Reuters, 8/18/10)(AFP, 8/19/10)
2010 Aug 18, Iran took its case
against the United States to the UN and strongly condemned the top
US military chief for saying military action remains a possibility
if the country develops nuclear weapons.
(AP, 8/18/10)
2010 Aug 19, The UN said more
than 4 million Pakistanis have been made homeless by nearly 3 weeks
of floods, making the critical task of securing greater amounts of
aid more urgent.
(Reuters, 8/19/10)
2010 Aug 20, UN agencies
stepped up calls for donors to cash up pledges for Pakistan in order
to prevent what UN chief Ban Ki-moon called a "slow-motion tsunami"
from wrecking further catastrophe.
(AFP, 8/20/10)
2010 Aug 24, The UN said some
80,000 people have been cut off by floods in Pakistan and that it
needs at least 40 more helicopters to ferry aid to increasingly
desperate people.
(SFC, 8/25/10, p.A3)
2010 Aug 27, The UN anti-racism
panel called on Iran to counter racism and ethnic discrimination,
including incitement to hatred by officials and "double
discrimination suffered by women from minorities.
(AP, 8/27/10)
2010 Sep 7, The UN said more
than 10 million people have been left without shelter in Pakistan's
floods for the past 6 weeks, in "one of the worst humanitarian
disasters" in UN history.
(AFP, 9/7/10)
2010 Sep 8, The UN Children's
Fund launched a scheme to provide 13 million textbooks to Zimbabwe's
students, in a 50-million-dollar effort to revive the struggling
school system.
(AFP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 8, Iran’s UN
ambassador Mohammad Khazaee told the UN General Assembly his country
needs more international help to combat the narcotics trade which he
said was the "main financial source" for militant groups in the
region.
(AFP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 13, The UN court that
settles disputes among member states swore in 2 new female judges,
one from the United States and one from China to join the 15-member
bench. Russia's Yury Fedotov took office as the UN's new drugs and
crime czar. He replaced Italy's Antonio Maria Costa as the head of
the UN Office on Drugs and Crime and will also oversee the UN office
in the Austrian capital.
(AP, 9/13/10)
2010 Sep 13, The head of the UN
nuclear watchdog agency warned that Iran's selective cooperation
with his inspectors means that he cannot confirm that all of
Tehran's atomic activities are peaceful.
(AP, 9/13/10)
2010 Sep 21, The UN’s World
Health Organization (WHO) said 40 young Europeans are murdered every
day, with Russia, Albania and Kazakhstan having the highest homicide
rates for people aged 10-29.
(AP, 9/21/10)
2010 Sep 24, The UN atomic
watchdog threw out an Arab-backed resolution urging Israel to accede
to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The International Atomic
Energy Agency, on the last day of its annual general conference,
voted against the resolution, with 51 votes against, 46 votes for
and 23 abstentions.
(AFP, 9/24/10)
2010 Sep 27, Pakistan was
chosen to head the UN atomic agency's governing body, despite its
refusal to accept the nonproliferation treaty and its link to the
nuclear black marketer who supplied Iran and North Korea.
(AP, 9/27/10)
2010 Sep 29, The UN Security
Council lifted a 13-year-old arms embargo against Sierra Leone after
being assured that the nation is sufficiently stable following the
civil war that ended in 2002.
(AP, 9/29/10)
2010 Sep 30, The UN's drug
agency said Afghanistan's opium production has fallen by almost half
in 2010 due largely to the spread of a disease that damaged poppy
plants, but the amount of land used for growing the crop remained
the same after two years of declines.
(AP, 9/30/10)
2010 Oct 1, The UN released its
545-page report into mass killings in Congo over a ten-year period.
Rwanda and Uganda insisted the $3 million report is flawed and could
harm security in Africa's volatile Great Lakes region.
(AP, 10/1/10)
2010 Oct 12, At the United
Nations Colombia, Germany, India, Portugal and South Africa were
elected to join the big guns on the UN Security Council for two
years, starting in January.
(http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20101012/ts_csm/331624)(Reuters,
10/13/10)
2010 Oct 14, Margot Wallstrom,
the UN special representative for sexual violence in armed conflict,
told the 15-nation Security Council that a man known as "Colonel
Serafim" was among those believed to be responsible for the rape of
over 300 people. She also said Congolese government troops are
raping, killing and looting civilians in the same area of eastern
Congo where militias carried out mass rapes over two months ago.
(AP, 10/14/10)(AP, 10/14/10)
2010 Oct 17, In Morocco world
leaders at the World Policy Conference (WPC) in Marrakech examined
frameworks for global governance ahead of a G20 summit in Seoul,
with UN chief Ban Ki-Moon stressing no single power could tackle key
issues alone.
{Morocco, UN}
(AFP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 18, The UN said it is
sending 100 more troops to Sudan's oil-producing Abyei region to
step up security ahead of a referendum that could pitch the area
back into bloodshed.
(Reuters, 10/18/10)
2010 Oct 19, The UN said that
377 people had died in flooding in central and west Africa, with
nearly 1.5 million people affected since the start of the rainy
season in June. The highest toll was in Nigeria with 118, followed
by Ghana (52), Sudan (50), Benin (43), Chad (24), Mauritania (21),
Burkina Faso (16), Cameroon (13), Gambia (12), with other countries
reporting less than 10 dead.
(AFP, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 21, UNESCO, the UN's
cultural and education agency, suspended plans to grant a prize
named after Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, Equatorial Guinea's longtime
dictator, after human rights groups slammed the award by citing the
leader's poor human rights record.
(AP, 10/21/10)
2010 Oct 24, In CongoDRC
militia attacked a UN base near Virunga National Park. Some 100
attackers were members of the shadowy Mai Mai militia. Peacekeepers
killed 8 militiamen.
(AP, 10/26/10)
2010 Oct 28, Sheik Hassan
Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, called on all Lebanese to
boycott the UN tribunal investigating the 2005 assassination of a
former prime minister, saying all information gathered by the team
was being sent to Israel. He spoke a day after a crowd of women
attacked two UN investigators and a Lebanese interpreter as they
gathered evidence at a private gynecology clinic in Beirut. He
confirmed that the wives and relatives of Hezbollah commanders and
officials were among the clinic's patients.
(AP, 10/29/10)
2010 Oct 30, In Japan
representatives to a UN conference on biodiversity agreed to expand
protected areas on land and at sea in the hopes of slowing the rate
of extinction of the world’s animals and plant. Scientists have
estimated that the Earth is losing species at 100 to 1,000 times the
historical average.
(SFC, 10/30/10, p.A2)
2010 Nov 4, The UN named
oil-rich Norway as the country with the best quality of life, while
Asia has made the biggest strides in recent decades. Australia, New
Zealand, the United States and Ireland followed at the top of the
standings. Zimbabwe came in last among the 169 nations ranked,
behind Mozambique, Burundi, Niger and Democratic Republic of Congo.
(AFP, 11/5/10)
2010 Nov 6, United Nations
officials said they were investigating reports that some 700
Congolese women were sexually attacked along the country's border
with Angola. Many women had said Angolan soldiers were responsible
for their attacks.
(AP, 11/6/10)
2010 Nov 8, President Barack
Obama backed India for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council,
a dramatic diplomatic gesture to his hosts at the end of his first
visit to this booming nation. The White House said Indian and US
companies have discussed or signed over $14.9 billion in deals
around President Barack Obama's trip that will support 53,670 US
jobs.
(AP, 11/8/10)
2010 Nov 9, A UN report
suggesting North Korea may have supplied Syria, Iran and Myanmar
with banned nuclear technology headed to the Security Council. The
latest report by the so-called Panel of Experts on Pyongyang's
compliance with UN sanctions was delivered to the Security Council's
North Korea sanctions committee in May, but did not move for nearly
six months due to Chinese objections.
(Reuters, 11/9/10)
2010 Nov 12, The UN asked for
$164 million to fight the cholera outbreak in Haiti, as the death
toll reached 724 with 10 of the deaths and 278 cases in the capital
Port-au-Prince.
(AP, 11/12/10)
2010 Nov 12, After weeks of
delays due to Chinese objections, the UN Security Council received a
report on violations of the arms embargo in Sudan's western Darfur
region that infuriated Beijing. The confidential report said
Khartoum committed multiple breaches of the embargo and China has
done little to ensure its weaponry is not used in Darfur.
(Reuters, 11/12/10)
2010 Nov 16, The UN Education,
Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) recognized everything
from the growing of corn, beans and chilies to Mexican dishes
prepared with grinding stones and mortars as an ancient process
worth safeguarding in the face of encroaching global influences.
France's multi-course gastronomic meal, Flamenco in Spain and
carpet-weaving in Azerbaijan also made the list.
(AP, 11/17/10)
2010 Nov 19, A UN General
Assembly committee passed resolutions condemning human rights
violations in Iran, North Korea and Myanmar, provoking a furious
reaction from their delegations. The committee passed the resolution
by 80 votes to 44, with 57 abstentions.
(AFP, 11/19/10)
2010 Nov 24, The UN human
rights office says a new international treaty against enforced
disappearances will come into effect on Dec. 23 after Iraq became
the 20th country to ratify it. The 2006 International Convention for
the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance declares
widespread or systematic kidnappings a crime against humanity. The
US has not signed the treaty.
(AP, 11/24/10)
2010 Nov 29, The United Nations
released a report saying armed groups in volatile eastern Congo,
including the army, have bypassed international efforts at reform
and have instead formed criminal networks to exploit the nation's
mineral wealth.
(AP, 11/29/10)
2010 Nov 29, The UN launched an
appeal for $252 million (193 million euros) in international aid to
respond to the urgent needs of some 32 million West Africans in
2011.
(AFP, 11/30/10)
2010 Dec 1, The UN said it is
seeking $530 million for aid projects in Somalia next year, and it
called the country's 20 years of strife a catastrophe that is "as
urgent as ever."
(AP, 12/1/10)
2010 Dec 1, The UN named 3
Rwandan rebel leaders and a Congolese military officer, suspected of
recruiting child soldiers and other abuses, on its worldwide travel
ban and assets freeze aimed at stemming widespread violence in
Congo.
(AP, 12/2/10)
2010 Dec 2, The UN appealed for
$415 million (€315 million) to feed almost two million Zimbabweans
facing near immediate malnutrition.
(AFP, 12/2/10)
2010 Dec 16, The UN Security
Council adopted Resolution 1960, which called for an end to all acts
of sexual violence. The Secretary-General was asked to include
information on parties suspected to be responsible for acts of rape
or other acts of sexual violence, which the Council would use to
engage with the parties or take action against them.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Council_Resolution_1960)
2010 Dec 18, A Sri Lanka
Cabinet minister backtracked saying the government will now allow a
UN team to visit the country and share evidence gathered during an
investigation into whether war crimes were committed during the
final phase of the island's bloody civil war.
(AP, 12/18/10)
2010 Dec 19, The UN Security
Council held an emergency meeting on rising tensions on the Korean
Peninsula.
(AP, 12/19/10)
2010 Dec 22, The UN nuclear
agency said tons of highly radioactive nuclear waste from a defunct
Serbian reactor have been repatriated to Russia. The 2.5 metric tons
(2.76 tons) of the spent fuel arrived at a secure Russian facility
from Serbia's Vinca reactor.
(AP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 22, The UN Security
Council voted to increase by half the number of African Union
peacekeepers supporting Somalia's transitional government against
Al-Qaeda-inspired rebels.
(AP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 23, The UN said at
least 173 people have been killed in the Ivory Coast and 90 others
tortured or treated inhumanely because of post-election violence.
(AP, 12/23/10)
2010 Dec 29, Sudan demanded a
detailed UN audit on a program to rehabilitate ex-civil war soldiers
following charges that millions of dollars have been embezzled or
mismanaged.
(AFP, 12/29/10)
2010 Dec 30, The United Nations
accused Ivory Coast incumbent leader Laurent Gbagbo's security
forces of blocking access to mass graves, saying investigators
believe as many as 80 bodies may be in one building that UN
personnel are being kept from entering.
(AP, 12/30/10)
2011 Jan 14, The UN peace
mission to Nepal ended after a four-year engagement that helped end
a communist insurgency.
(AP, 1/14/11)
2011 Jan 19, UN Assistant
Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Catherine Bragg launched
a $51 million appeal to help Sri Lankans recover from deadly floods
as she began a 3-day visit to the island.
(AP, 1/19/11)
2011 Jan 19, The UN Security
Council voted unanimously to deploy 2,000 additional peacekeepers to
Ivory Coast, where the incumbent president has refused to relinquish
his post to the man internationally recognized as the legitimate
leader.
(AP, 1/19/11)
2011 Jan 19, The UN reported
that Lt. Col. Kibibi Mutware, a former rebel commander integrated as
a colonel into the Congolese army, has been arrested in the rapes of
dozens of women in volatile eastern Congo on New Year's Day. 7 other
soldiers were also arrested.
(AP, 1/19/11)
2011 Jan 20, Ivory Coast's
incumbent leader Laurent Gbagbo ordered the military to stop and
search UN vehicles, the latest escalation of hostilities between the
man who refuses to leave office and the global body that declared
his rival the election winner.
(AP, 1/21/11)
2011 Jan 23, UN Development
Program spokesman Stephane Dujarric said that the program's policy
bars it from sharing internal audit reports with the Global Fund,
but that it is reassessing that policy. Investigators for the Global
Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria said donated
prescription drugs wind up being sold on the black market. As much
as two-thirds of some grants have been eaten up by corruption.
(AP, 1/24/11)
2011 Feb 4, In Sudan two days
of fighting in Malakal, a flashpoint town near the north-south
border, has killed nine people, including a UN staff member.
(AP, 2/4/11)
2011 Feb 9, An Ivory Coast
regulatory board loyal to incumbent leader Laurent Gbagbo ordered
United Nations radio off the air. UN radio director Sylvain
Semilinko said the next day that work continued as normal at UN
radio headquarters as preparations were being made in case their
signal was jammed.
(AP, 2/10/11)
2011 Feb 18, The Obama
administration vetoed a UN Arab-backed Security Council resolution
that would have condemned Israel for continuing to build Jewish-only
settlements in the West Bank.
(AP, 2/19/11)
2011 Feb 23, A UN spokesman
said Aisha al-Khadafy, the daughter of Libyan leader Moammar
Khadafy, has been terminated as good will ambassador for the UN
Development Program (UNDP).
(SFC, 2/24/11, p.A2)
2011 Feb 23, The UN Yugoslav
war crimes tribunal in the Hague sentenced Vlastimir Djordjevic (62)
to 27 years in prison after pronouncing him guilty of murdering at
least 724 Kosovo Albanians, as well as committing inhumane acts,
persecution and deportations.
(AP, 2/23/11)
2011 Feb 26, Russia joined
other UN Security Council members in ordering an arms embargo
against Libya and other sanctions (Resolution 1970). Russia stood to
lose a total of up to $10 billion in arms sales, including almost $4
billion with Libya, from the wave of unrest currently destabilizing
regimes in north Africa and the Middle East. The UN Security Council
agreed to tell the prosecutor of the Int’l. Criminal Court (ICC) to
probe the Libyan crisis.
(AFP,
2/27/11)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Council_Resolution_1970)
2011 Mar 1, The UN General
Assembly suspended Libya from its top human rights body as
governments worldwide pressured Moammar Gadhafi to halt the deadly
crackdown on his people. It is the first time any country has been
suspended from the 47-member council since it was formed in 2006.
(AP, 3/2/11)
2011 Mar 1, The UN Refugee
Agency said the Uganda-based Lord’s Resistance Army has killed 35
people and displaced over 1700 since January.
(SFC, 3/2/11, p.A2)
2011 Mar 4, The UN said its
Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and World Organization for
Animal Health (OIE) has sent a team of animal health experts
to North Korea to help manage an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease
that could worsen a food crisis.
(AFP, 3/4/11)
2011 Mar 17, The UN Security
Council voted to permit "all necessary measures" to establish a
no-fly zone, protect civilian areas and impose a ceasefire on
Kadhafi's military. Five countries on the 15-strong council
abstained, including China, Russia, India, Brazil and Germany.
Resolution 1973 outlined the "responsibility of the Libyan
authorities to protect the Libyan population.
(AFP, 3/18/11)
2011 Mar 18, The United States
disavowed torture and pledged to treat terror suspects humanely, but
set aside calls to drop the death penalty, as the UN carried out its
first review of Washington's human rights record.
(AP, 3/18/11)
2011 Mar 24, The UN human
rights council voted to appoint an investigator to monitor Iran amid
a crackdown on dissent and surge in executions in the country.
(AFP, 3/24/11)
2011 Mar 24, The Economic
Community of West African States (ECOWAS) called on the UN Security
Council to take immediate steps to force Laurent Gbagbo to cede
power in Ivory Coast.
(SFC, 3/25/11, p.A2)
2011 Mar 27, United Nations
police returned full control of East Timor to the national force,
more than four years after bloody clashes threatened to push the
country into civil war.
(AFP, 3/27/11)
2011 Mar 29, The UN refugee
agency says over 2,000 people have arrived in Italy from Libya by
boat since March 26 and more are believed to be en route.
(AP, 3/29/11)
2011 Apr 1, In Afghanistan 7
foreigners including 4 Nepalese guards were killed after
demonstrators protesting a reported burning of the Muslim holy book
stormed a UN office in Mazar-e-Sharif, opening fire on guards and
setting fires inside the compound. Those killed included Nepalese
guards who were working for the UN and other foreigners employed at
the complex. Five Afghan protesters were also killed and others
wounded.
(AP, 4/1/11)(Reuters, 4/2/11)(SFC, 4/2/11, p.A4)
2011 Apr 1, The United Nations'
highest court threw out Georgia's complaint accusing Russia and
separatist militias of years of ethnic cleansing in two breakaway
Georgian provinces. The court said it had no jurisdiction in the
case because Russia and Georgia had never attempted to negotiate a
settlement to the dispute before Georgia brought it to the court.
(AP, 4/1/11)
2011 Apr 3, Israel demanded
that the United Nations bin a report critical of its deadly
2008-2009 offensive on Gaza after the author, South African judge
Richard Goldstone, said he had been wrong to say it had targeted
civilians.
(AFP, 4/3/11)
2011 Apr 4, In CongoDRC a UN
plane crashed while attempting to land at the airport serving
Kinshasa, killing 10 people and injuring 16.
(Reuters, 4/4/11)
2011 Apr 4, In Ivory Coast UN
and French forces opened fire with attack helicopters on the home of
incumbent Pres. Laurent Gbagbo and 3 strategic military garrisons as
foot soldiers backing Alassane Ouattara pierced the limits of
Abidjan.
(SFC, 4/5/11, p.A4)
2011 Apr 10, In the Ivory Coast
UN and French helicopters fired rockets on strongman Laurent
Gbagbo's residence in an assault the UN said was to retaliate for
attacks by his forces on UN headquarters and civilians.
(Reuters, 4/10/11)
2011 Apr 13, The UN said that
more than 800 people have been killed and 94,000 displaced because
of violence in Southern Sudan this year. A top official warned of a
humanitarian crisis if the violence continues. A militia aligned
with the northern government reportedly attacked el-Feid and the
nearby village of Um Barmbita in the Nuba Mountains of southern
Kordofan state. Attackers burned between 300 to 500 houses and
reportedly killed more than 20 people, including women and children.
(AP, 4/13/11)(AP, 4/20/11)
2011 Apr 28, The UN nuclear
agency said for the first time that a target destroyed by Israeli
warplanes in the Syrian desert five years ago was a covertly built
nuclear reactor, countering assertions by Syria that it had no
atomic secrets to hide.
(AP, 4/28/11)
2011 May 3, A UN report said
the world’s population is growing and may hit 10.1 billion by the
year 2100.
(SFC, 5/4/11, p.A2)
2011 May 9, In Turkey a
five-day UN-backed conference of the 48-member "least-developed
countries" opened to address the problems of the world's poorest
countries. The last such conference was hosted by the EU in Brussels
in 2001. France hosted the two previous ones in 1990 and 1981.
(AP, 5/9/11)
2011 May 13, A report was
submitted to the Security Council by a UN Panel of Experts, a group
that monitors compliance with UN sanctions imposed on Pyongyang
after it conducted two nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009. It said North
Korea and Iran appear to have been regularly exchanging ballistic
missile technology in violation of UN sanctions. The report said the
illicit technology transfers had "trans-shipment through a
neighboring 3rd country," said to be China.
(Reuters, 5/14/11)
2011 May 16, Luis
Moreno-Ocampo, International Criminal Court prosecutor, sought an
arrest warrant for Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi accusing him of
committing crimes against humanity by killing protesters during an
uprising against his 41-year rule.
(Reuters, 5/16/11)
2011 May 17, China downplayed a
UN report saying North Korea remains "actively engaged" in exporting
ballistic missiles, components and technology to numerous customers
in the Middle East, saying it was not an official Security Council
report.
(AP, 5/17/11)
2011 May 27, In southern
Lebanon a roadside bomb ripped through a UN convoy carrying Italian
peacekeepers, wounding six of them in the first such attack since
2008.
(AP, 5/27/11)
2011 May 30, A UN human rights
expert said gruesome new footage from the final days of Sri Lanka's
civil war is authentic and proves war crimes took place there,
challenging the government's claim that videos showing the army
executing captured rebels in May 2009 are faked.
(AP, 5/30/11)
2011 Jun 1, NATO agreed to
extend its Libyan air war by three months and dismissed charges by
Moamer Kadhafi's regime that the bombing campaign has already killed
718 civilians. Libyan oil minister Shukri Ghanem said in Rome that
he now supports the rebel insurgency who have set up a de-facto
capital in Benghazi. A UN panel said government forces have
committed crimes against humanity and war crimes in a conflict that
has left an estimated 10-15 thousand people dead.
(AP, 6/1/11)(AP, 6/2/11)(SFC, 6/2/11, p.A4)
2011 Jun 3, The UN Security
Council demanded that Sudan withdraw troops from Abyei and stop
looting and attacks in the region disputed with rival southern
Sudan.
(AP, 6/4/11)
2011 Jun 6, UN
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon of South Korea announced his intention
to seek a second five-year term. His current term expires at the end
of December.
(AP, 6/6/11)
2011 Jun 10, A UN AIDS summit
adopted a ground-breaking declaration that committed to providing
life-saving medications to 15 million AIDS sufferers in the poorest
countries by 2015.
(AFP, 6/10/11)
2011 Jun 17, The UN Security
Council approved 2 resolutions to unlink Al-Qaida and the Taliban
and recognize their different agendas.
(SFC, 6/18/11, p.A2)
2011 Jun 20, Rival north and
south Sudan signed a deal to demilitarize their disputed frontier
region of Abyei and let in an Ethiopian peacekeeping force. Sudanese
intelligence agents posed as Red Crescent workers and ordered some
7000 civilians to leave a UN camp in Kadugli, Southern Kordofan.
(AP, 6/21/11)(AP, 6/23/11)(AP, 6/28/11)
2011 Jun 25, Thailand announced
its withdrawal from the UN's World Heritage Convention, at a meeting
of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee in Paris. Thailand said it
was withdrawing because the committee's consideration of Cambodia's
plan for managing the Preah Vihear temple site could threaten Thai
sovereignty and territory.
(AP, 6/26/11)
2011 Jun 26, Jose Graziano da
Silva of Brazil was elected as director-general of the Food and
Agriculture Organization, the UN agency tasked with reducing world
hunger at a time of high food prices.
(AP, 6/26/11)
2011 Jun 27, The UN Security
Council ordered a 4,200-strong Ethiopian peacekeeping force to Abyei
to monitor the withdrawal of northern Sudanese troops who occupied
the disputed border region on May 21.
(AFP, 6/29/11)
2011 Jun 30, A UN-backed court
investigating the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime
Minister Rafik Hariri delivered four arrest warrants. Lebanese
authorities were given 30 days to serve the indictments on suspects
or execute arrest warrants. If they fail, the court can then order
the indictment published and advertised in local media. One of the
people named is Mustafa Badreddine, believed to have been
Hezbollah's deputy military commander. He is the brother-in-law of
the late Hezbollah military commander Imad Mughniyeh and is
suspected of involvement in the 1983 bombings of the U.S. and French
embassies in Kuwait that killed five people. The other suspects are:
Salim Ayyash, also known as Abu Salim; Assad Sabra and Hassan Anise,
who changed his name to Hassan Issa.
(AP, 6/30/11)(AP, 7/1/11)
2011 Jun 28, The UN officially
declared that the rinderpest disease has been wiped off the face of
the Earth. The UN program to eradicate the animal disease began in
1945 and cost some $5 billion.
(SFC, 6/28/11, p.A4)
2011 Jun 30, A UN-backed court
investigating the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime
Minister Rafik Hariri delivered four arrest warrants. Lebanese
authorities were given 30 days to serve the indictments on suspects
or execute arrest warrants. If they fail, the court can then order
the indictment published and advertised in local media.
(AP, 6/30/11)
2011 Jun, UN Statistics
Division said 70 territories would be holding censuses in 2011. Only
Iraq, Lebanon, Myanmar, Somalia, Uzbekistan and Western Sahara would
fail to hold a count in this ten-year round.
(Econ, 6/4/11, p.71)
2011 Jul 6, The UN Office for
the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said the Lord's
Resistance Army forces killed 26 civilians in the Democratic
Republic of Congo in June alone.
(AFP, 7/7/11)
2011 Jul 10, The head of the UN
refugee agency said that drought-ridden Somalia is the "worst
humanitarian disaster" in the world. The World Food Program
estimated that 10 million people already need humanitarian aid. More
than 380,000 refugees had moved into Kenya’s Dabaab refugee camp.
(AP, 7/10/11)
2011 Jul 13, The United Nations
made its first aid delivery to a rebel-held Somalia region after the
insurgents lifted a ban on the operations of foreign aid agencies.
(AFP, 7/17/11)
2011 Jul 14, South Sudan became
the newest and 193rd member of the United Nations, as it was
welcomed into the world's top club amid pledges to help one of the
planet's poorest states take its first steps.
(AFP, 7/15/11)
2011 Jul 18, The UN's highest
court ordered troops from both Thailand and Cambodia to immediately
withdraw military forces from disputed areas around a World Heritage
temple straddling their border.
(AP, 7/18/11)
2011 Jul 20, The United Nations
said it faces a $4.3 billion shortfall in helping the 50 million
people worldwide in need of emergency food, shelter and other
humanitarian aid. The UN declared famine in 2 regions of southern
Somalia.
(AP, 7/20/11)(SFC, 7/21/11, p.A2)
2011 Jul 22, The United Nations
named two Congolese army colonels who appear to be blocking an
investigation of soldiers accused of mass gang-raping at least 47
women in eastern Congo, and said if the attackers are not identified
the officers themselves should stand trial for the crimes committed
by the troopers under their command. Col. Chuma Balumisa was
commander of the operational area including the attacked villages,
and Col. Bobo Kakudji was commander of overall operations in North
Kivu during the New Year eve rapes.
(AP, 7/22/11)
2011 Jul 22, UN food official
Olivier De Schutter ended a five-day visit to Madagascar. He said
nearly 70 percent of people living in the south of the island nation
are food insecure and that the country has one of the world's
highest levels of child malnutrition. He also said US and EU
sanctions have led to major job losses and hurt agricultural
development and urged nations to reconsider their sanctions.
(AP, 7/23/11)
2011 Jul 26, The UN refugees
agency said some 40,000 famine-hit people have fled to the Somali
capital Mogadishu over the past month in search of food and water.
An estimated 3.7 million people in Somalia, around a third of the
population, are on the brink of starvation and millions more in
Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda have been affected by the worst
drought in the region in 60 years.
(AFP, 7/26/11)
2011 Aug 9, The World Food
Program said it is sending 800 metric tons of high energy biscuits
to East Africa to help fight the famine in Somalia. The UN food
agency said that the series of nine airlifts will be enough to feed
1.6 million people for a day.
(AP, 8/9/11)
2011 Aug 15, The United Nations
called for a thorough probe into alleged war crimes and crimes
against humanity committed in Sudan's South Kordofan region between
June 5-30, shortly before the nation formally separated into two
countries.
(AP, 8/15/11)
2011 Aug 15, The UN's World
Food Program for the first time acknowledged it has been
investigating food theft in Somalia for two months. Vast piles of
food sacks with stamps on them from the World Food Program, the US
government aid arm USAID and the Japanese government were found for
sale in Mogadishu markets.
(AP, 8/15/11)
2011 Aug 17, The United Nations
appealed for $1.2 billion for famine victims in Somalia and its Horn
of Africa neighbors and Muslim nations pledged to contribute $350
million.
(AP, 8/17/11)
2011 Aug 19, The UN released
the full text of its report on the Syrian crackdown. It said Syrian
government forces may have committed crimes against humanity by
conducting summary executions, torturing prisoners and targeting
children. The release included rebuttals from the Syrian Foreign
Ministry, offering a rare firsthand look into the regime's
justifications for the crackdown.
(AP, 8/20/11)
2011 Aug 19, The UN said tens
of thousands of people have already died in Djibouti, Ethiopia,
Kenya and Somalia. It warned that the famine has not peaked and that
12 million people in the area need food aid.
(AP, 8/20/11)
2011 Aug 20, In Honduras the
UN-backed 1st World Summit of African Descendants called on the UN
to create a development fund to fight poverty and protect the human
rights of Afro-descendants. Over 1,000 representatives from 70
nations gathered for the event. The 2nd World Summit was scheduled
for 2014 in Madrid.
(AP, 8/21/11)
2011 Aug 22, A UN human rights
expert said Arab nations have agreed to demand that Syria allow an
international probe within its borders to see whether crimes against
humanity have been committed.
(AP, 8/22/11)
2011 Aug 23, The UN's top human
rights body voted overwhelmingly to demand that Syria end its
crackdown and cooperate with an international probe into possible
crimes against humanity. The opposition took steps toward forming a
national council, but serious divisions and mistrust among the
members have prevented them from presenting a unified front against
Assad's regime.
(AP, 8/23/11)(AP, 8/24/11)
2011 Aug 26, In Nigeria a
suicide bomber in car laden with explosives rammed through two gates
and blew up at the UN offices in Abuja shattering part of the
4-story concrete structure. 23 people were killed and 116 wounded.
The radical Muslim sect known locally as Boko Haram claimed
responsibility for the attack.
(AP, 8/26/11)(AP, 8/27/11)(AP, 9/15/11)
2011 Aug 29, The UN Food and
Agriculture Organization (FAO) warned about a new mutant strain of
the deadly bird flu H5N1 virus (H5N1 - 2.3.2.1.) in China and
Vietnam, saying there could be a "major resurgence" of the disease.
(AFP, 8/29/11)
2011 Sep 4, Haitian President
Michel Martelly "vigorously condemned" an alleged sexual assault by
UN troops against an 18-year-old man. The incident aggravated
mistrust between Haitians and the peacekeeping mission. The UN was
investigating allegations that five Uruguayan naval personnel at a
UN base in the south sexually molested an 18-year-old man in an
attack reportedly captured by a cell phone camera.
(AP, 9/5/11)
2011 Sep 6, The UN's labor
agency said more than two dozen global clothing brands pledged to
investigate a spate of mass faintings among Cambodian garment
workers.
(AFP, 9/6/11)
2011 Sep 6, Syrian soldiers
opened fire in the restive city of Homs and armored vehicles rolled
through its streets, as the UN secretary-general urged the world
community to take action on Syria.
(AP, 9/6/11)
2011 Sep 13, In Austria a
35-nation meeting of the UN nuclear agency adopted a post-Fukushima
nuclear safety plan, despite gripes by influential member nations
that it to too timid for making compliance voluntary.
(AP, 9/13/11)
2011 Sep 14, Somalia's PM
Abdiweli Mohamed Ali pleaded with the UN Security Council to send
more peacekeepers to help his beleaguered government fight Islamist
militants.
(AFP, 9/14/11)
2011 Sep 16, Libyan
revolutionary forces faced fierce resistance as they streamed into
Bani Walid and Sirte, among the last remaining bastions of support
for Moammar Gadhafi. The battles coincide with a visit to Tripoli by
Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The UN General Assembly also voted
to give Libya's seat in the world body to the National Transitional
Council.
(AP, 9/16/11)(AP, 9/17/11)
2011 Sep 20, The UN called for
an immediate truce between rival groups in the Central African
Republic fighting for control over diamond mines.
(AFP, 9/20/11)
2011 Sep 20, Matt Bryden, head
of the UN arms monitoring group, said that corrupt Somali
politicians could face travel bans and have their foreign bank
accounts and property frozen under tough new UN sanctions.
(AP, 9/20/11)
2011 Sep 21, President Barack
Obama publicly pushed for the Palestinians to drop a statehood bid
as he addressed the UN General Assembly.
(AP, 9/21/11)
2011 Sep 21, French President
Nicolas Sarkozy called on the United Nations to admit Palestine as a
non-member state, upgrading its status as a simple observer but
opposing a Palestinian bid for full membership.
(AFP, 9/21/11)
2011 Sep 23, Palestinians
calling for UN recognition of a Palestinian state clashed with
Israeli soldiers in the West Bank, just hours before their
president, Mahmoud Abbas, was to deliver his widely anticipated
request to the world body.
(AP, 9/23/11)
2011 Oct 4, China and Russia
vetoed a UN Security Council resolution threatening action against
Syria's deadly crackdown on protests.
(AP, 10/5/11)
2011 Oct 6, The UN said
increased access to technology that allows parents to know the sex
of their fetus has left Asia short of 117 million women, mostly in
China and India.
(AFP, 10/6/11)
2011 Oct 6, A United Nations
report said Honduras and El Salvador have the highest homicide rates
in the world. Honduras had 6,200 killings in 2010 out of a
population of 7.7 million people, while El Salvador with 6.1 million
people had 4,000 homicides.
(AP, 10/6/11)
2011 Oct 9, Yemeni opposition
spokesman Mohammed Qahtan urged the UN Security Council to break the
political deadlock in Yemen, scoffing at a statement from President
Ali Abdullah Saleh that he was ready to step down.
(AFP, 10/9/11)
2011 Oct 10, The UN issued a
74-page report that found that detainees in 47 facilities in 24
provinces run by the Afghan National Police and the Directorate of
Security suffered interrogation techniques that constituted torture
under both international and Afghan law.
(AP, 10/10/11)
2011 Oct 10, In Sudan attackers
killed three UNAMID peacekeepers and wounded six others near the Zam
Zam displaced persons camp in North Darfur. One assailant was
killed.
{Sudan, UN}
(AP, 10/11/11)
2011 Oct 11, UNICEF, the UN
children's agency, warned that the west and central Africa region is
facing one of the worst cholera epidemics in its history, with over
85,000 cases reported leading to 2,466 deaths this year.
(AFP, 10/11/11)
2011 Oct 12, The Yemeni
government urged the UN Security Council to avoid a resolution
targeting embattled President Ali Abdullah Saleh, calling on it
instead to back a political solution for the country's crisis.
(AFP, 10/13/11)
2011 Oct 13, Equatorial
Guinea's President Teodoro Nguema Obiang signed a decree
nominating his playboy son, Teodoro Obiang Mangue, as his deputy
envoy to UNESCO in apparent retaliation for the UN body's refusal to
award a prize named in his honor. The news was made public on Oct
19. Teodorin's appointment was announced on the same day that Human
Rights Watch urged United States authorities to move quickly to
probe his alleged corruption and money-laundering.
(AFP, 10/19/11)
2011 Oct 19, The UN called on
Damascus to end its incursions into Lebanon, which have left three
Syrians dead in recent weeks, warning the raids could ignite
tensions in the region.
(AFP, 10/20/11)
2011 Oct 20, A United Nations
envoy said North Korea is estimated to hold up to 200,000 people in
political prisons, a sharp increase from a decade ago. South Korea
estimates that North Korea holds 154,000 political prisoners in six
large camps across the country.
(AP, 10/20/11)
2011 Oct 21, The UN Security
council unanimously passed a resolution that "strongly" condemns the
deadly Yemen government attacks on demonstrators and backs a Gulf
plan for Pres. Saleh to end his 33 years in power.
(AFP, 10/22/11)
2011 Oct 26, UN and industry
officials said 8 drug makers have agreed to create a UN-administered
pool of patented information and other data to spur new research
into 21 tropical diseases and ailments.
(AP, 10/26/11)
2011 Oct 31, The UN marked the
world population reaching 7 billion amid fears of how the planet
will cope.
(AP, 10/31/11)
2011 Oct 31, In Afghanistan
insurgents driving a suicide truck bomb and attacking on foot killed
five people, including three UN employees, near the offices of the
UN's refugee agency in the Kandahar city. Afghan forces and the
militants exchanged fire for nearly seven hours before the militants
were killed.
(AP, 10/31/11)
2011 Oct 31, The Palestinians
were admitted to UNESCO as full members in a vote at the UN cultural
body's general assembly in Paris. The resolution was adopted by 107
countries, 14 countries voted against and 52 abstained, bringing
member states to 195.
(AFP, 10/31/11)
2011 Oct 31, In Zimbabwe a $430
million fund was launched with the help of the EU and UNICEF to give
children and pregnant women free medical care at public hospitals.
(AFP, 10/31/11)
2011 Nov 2, Kenyan military
spokesman Maj. Emmanuel Chirchir said that military planes would
target and attack weapons flown into the Somali town of Baidoa so
they cannot be used. A July UN report said illicit flights with
weapons or fighters for Somali militants could be originating from
Eritrea, Yemen or the United Arab Emirates. The report also said
Eritrea gives about $80,000 a month to al-Shabab-linked individuals
in Nairobi.
(AP, 11/2/11)
2011 Nov 3, Top UN envoy to
Iraq, Martin Kobler, offered to broker the peaceful closing of out
of Camp Ashraf, a camp of Iranian exiles, before the government in
Baghdad forces its residents out at the end of the year.
(AP, 11/3/11)
2011 Nov 8, The UN
International Atomic Energy Agency claimed Tehran was on the brink
of developing a nuclear weapon.
(AP, 11/9/11)
2011 Nov 8, The Boston-based
Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti said it has filed
claims with the United Nations seeking damages on behalf of more
than 5,000 Haitian cholera victims and their families.
(AP, 11/8/11)
2011 Nov 8, The Palestinian
foreign minister admitted for the first time there is not enough
support in the UN Security Council for recognition of a Palestinian
state.
(AP, 11/9/11)
2011 Nov 17, The UN nuclear
agency said a Hungarian manufacturer of medical radioactive
substances was "most probably" the source of increased radiation
levels measured in several European countries in the past weeks.
(AP, 11/17/11)
2011 Nov 18, The UN downgraded
famine declarations in three Somali regions, but warned the crisis
remains the worst in the world with nearly 250,000 people facing
imminent starvation.
(AFP, 11/18/11)
2011 Nov 22, The UN
secretary-general's envoy to Yemen said all parties have agreed on a
plan under which longtime President Ali Abdullah Saleh would step
down. A date for signing the deal was yet to be set.
(AP, 11/22/11)
2011 Nov 22, Turkey's PM
Erdogan said that Syria's Pres. Bashar Assad must step down over the
country's crackdown on dissent. The Local Coordination Committees
and the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said four
children, ages of 10 and 15, were killed by gunshots fired at random
from a military checkpoint near the town of Houla in Homs province.
A fifth person was killed by security forces in the district of
Khaldieh. 122 countries voted for a resolution at the UN General
Assembly's human rights committee condemning the government
crackdown.
(AP, 11/22/11)(Reuters, 11/23/11)
2011 Nov 23, The Palestinians
signed a document finally giving them a voice within the vast UNESCO
system, bringing pride across the Arab world yet hobbling the
agency's pro-democracy projects around the globe. Last month's
decision by the Paris-based UN education and cultural organization
to give Palestine membership triggered an immediate funding cutoff
by the US that will force UNESCO to scale down literacy and
development programs in countries like Iraq, Afghanistan or the new
nation of South Sudan.
(AP, 11/23/11)
2011 Nov 24, The UN warned that
Ethiopia's reported deployment of troops into Somalia could worsen
what is already the world's most severe humanitarian
crisis.
(AFP, 11/24/11)
2011 Nov 28, The United Nations
completed the first-ever global assessment of the state of the
planet's land resources, finding in “"State of the World's Land and
Water Resources for Food and Agriculture,” that a quarter of all
land is highly degraded and warning the trend must be reversed if
the world's growing population is to be fed.
(AP, 11/28/11)
2011 Nov 28, UN climate
negotiations opened in Durban, South Africa, with pressure building
to salvage the only treaty limiting greenhouse gas emissions.
(AP, 11/28/11)
2011 Nov 28, The UN released a
report a detailing alleged torture and ill treatment in lockups
controlled by the forces that overthrew dictator Moammar Gadhafi.
The report says that Libyan revolutionaries still hold about 7,000
people, many of them sub-Saharan Africans who in some cases are
accused or suspected of being mercenaries hired by Gadhafi.
(AP, 11/29/11)
2011 Nov 28, A UN investigation
concluded that Syrian forces committed crimes against humanity by
killing and torturing hundreds of children, including a 2-year-old
girl reportedly shot to death so she wouldn't grow up to be a
demonstrator.
(AP, 11/28/11)
2011 Nov 29, The UN weather
office said world temperatures keep rising, and are heading for a
threshold that could lead to irreversible changes of the Earth.
(AP, 11/29/11)
2011 Nov 30, In South Africa
Rajendra Pachauri, the UN's top climate scientist, cautioned climate
negotiators that global warming is leading to human dangers and
soaring financial costs, but containing carbon emissions will have a
host of benefits.
(AP, 11/30/11)
2011 Dec 5, The UN Security
Council toughened sanctions against Eritrea which neighboring
governments accuse of plotting terrorist attacks and supporting
Somali Islamist rebels.
(AFP, 12/5/11)
2011 Dec 8, The UN's World Food
Program said meager rains and diminished harvests have left between
five and seven million people in Africa's Sahel region facing food
shortages.
(AFP, 12/9/11)
2011 Dec 9, UN chief Ban
Ki-moon urged Somalia's Al Qaeda-linked insurgents to end violence
during a surprise visit to war-torn Mogadishu.
(AFP, 12/9/11)
2011 Dec 11, In South Africa a
UN climate conference reached a hard-fought agreement on a
far-reaching program meant to set a new course for the global fight
against climate change. The 194-party conference agreed to start
negotiations on a new accord that would ensure that countries will
be legally bound to carry out any pledges they make. It would take
effect by 2020 at the latest. The conference also agreed on a Green
Climate Fund, which would funnel some of the $110 billion, promised
by rich countries to poor ones, to help them cut emissions and adopt
to climate change.
(AP, 12/11/11)(Econ, 12/17/11, p.140)
2011 Dec 13, The Palestinian
flag was raised for the first time above a UN agency, the UNESCO
headquarters in Paris, in a diplomatic victory won despite stiff
resistance from the US and Israel.
(AFP, 12/13/11)
2011 Dec 14, Colombia's
government and the UN Office of Drugs and Crime released a new study
th says more than 3,000 square miles (800,000 hectares) of
Colombia's woodlands have been cleared since 1981 in the planting
and destruction of drug crops. According to the UN, Colombia had 240
square miles (62,000 hectares) of coca under cultivation last year.
(AP, 12/14/11)
2011 Dec 19, The UN General
Assembly approved a resolution denouncing human rights violations in
Iran in an 89-30 vote. There were 64 abstentions.
(SFC, 12/19/11, p.A2)
2011 Dec 21, The UN tribunal
for Rwanda handed life sentences to Matthieu Ngirumpatse and Edouard
Karemera, former heads of the ex-ruling party, for genocide crimes
committed in 1994.
(AFP, 12/21/11)
2011 Dec 27, UN human rights
officials in Haiti issued a report accusing the national police
department of excessive force, saying there is evidence officers may
have killed at least nine people in the capital.
(AP, 12/27/11)
2012 Jan 5, The African Union
asked the UN to authorize an increase of its peacekeeping force in
war-torn Somalia by 5,700 to 17,700 amid mounting attacks by
Islamist rebels.
(AFP, 1/5/12)
2012 Jan 12, Speaking in Sudan
the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, said
Eritrean refugees are being kidnapped and sometimes killed by human
traffickers. He called for global action against the crimes.
(AFP, 1/12/12)
2012 Jan 15, UN chief Ban
Ki-moon, speaking in Beirut, called for an end to Israeli occupation
of the Palestinian territories, saying the illegal building of
settlements worked against a two-state solution. Ban Ki-moon also
demanded that Syria's president stop killing his own people.
(AFP, 1/15/12)(AP, 1/15/12)
2012 Jan 20, The UN refugee
agency said an upsurge in violence involving government troops and
militia in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has forced 100,000
people from their homes since November.
(AFP, 1/20/12)
2012 Jan 20, The UN refugee
agency raised concern over the record numbers of Ethiopians and
Somalis flocking to Yemen, despite the deteriorating security
situation there. Last year 103,000 refugees, asylum seekers and
migrants crossed the Gulf of Aden and Red Sea, almost double the
2010 figure of 53,000.
(AFP, 1/20/12)
2012 Jan 25, The UN said that
the worldwide fishing industry could benefit from a $50 billion
boost annually if stocks were allowed time to recover. A UN
Environment Program report released in the Philippine said 32
percent of the world's fish stocks have already been depleted by
years of overfishing and poor coastal management.
(AFP, 1/25/12)
2012 Jan 27, The UN called on
Israel to immediately halt the destruction of Palestinian homes in
the West Bank after reporting a dramatic rise in demolitions in the
past year.
(AFP, 1/28/12)
2012 Feb 1, Senior UN nuclear
expert Herman Nackaerts announced plans to revisit Tehran soon after
a "good trip," indicating progress on his team's quest to probe
suspicions that the Islamic Republic is secretly working on an
atomic arms program.
(AP, 2/1/12)
2012 Feb 2, Palestinians tried
to block the UN chief from entering the Gaza Strip and flung shoes
at his armored convoy, the second day of Ban Ki-moon's mission to
the region to keep informal peace talks alive.
(AP, 2/2/12)
2012 Feb 3, The UN's highest
court confirmed that Germany has legal immunity from being sued in
foreign courts by victims of World War II Nazi atrocities.
(AP, 2/3/12)
2012 Feb 4, Western diplomats
at the United Nations said they are determined to vote on a
resolution condemning bloodshed in Syria, despite strong Russian
objections.
(AFP, 2/4/12)
2012 Feb 10, The UN refugee
agency said it needs $145 million (110 million euros) in extra funds
to help thousands fleeing fighting in Sudan's Blue Nile and South
Kordofan states.
(AFP, 2/10/12)
2012 Feb 13, The United Nations
backed the Maldives' new leader's proposal for a national unity
government though the ousted leader called for a snap poll to
resolve a political crisis.
(AP, 2/13/12)
2012 Feb 15, United Nations and
EU aid chiefs called for "urgent" assistance for West Africa's
drought-hit Sahel region, saying it needed $725 million (552 million
euros) this year.
(AFP, 2/15/12)
2012 Feb 16, UN chief Ban
Ki-moon urged Afghanistan to make fighting drug trafficking a
priority as opium harvests soar in the world's top producer, and
said the world must help in the effort in his opening address in
Vienna of a Paris Pact meeting to fight drug trafficking in
Afghanistan.
(AFP, 2/16/12)
2012 Feb 16, Syrian forces
attacked the city of Daraa, carrying out arrests and shooting
randomly in the city where the uprising against President Bashar
Assad erupted 11 months ago. UN chief Ban Ki-moon called for an end
to the violence in Syria and urged the international community to
find a common response to the unrest.
(AP, 2/16/12)(AFP, 2/16/12)
2012 Feb 20, UN nuclear
inspectors arrived in Iran in the latest push to hold key talks with
Iranian officials about how far the country's controversial nuclear
program has come.
(AP, 2/20/12)
2012 Feb 22, The UN nuclear
agency acknowledged renewed failure after a trip to probe suspicions
of covert Iranian nuclear weapons work. Their statement was issued
just hours after an Iranian general warned of a pre-emptive strike
against any foe threatening the country.
(AP, 2/22/12)
2012 Feb 24, The UN said
clashes between the army and Tuareg rebels in northern Mali have
forced 126,400 people to flee their homes since mid-January and
called for $35.6 million (26.5 million euros) to cover the needs of
those displaced by the escalating conflict.
(AFP, 2/24/12)
2012 Mar 1, Members of the UN
Human Rights Council voted 37 in favor and three against a
resolution proposed by Turkey that calls on Syria to immediately
stop all attacks on civilians and grant unhindered access to aid
groups. Russia, China and Cuba objected to the resolution.
(AP, 3/1/12)
2012 Mar 7, UN's humanitarian
chief Valerie Amos arrived in Syria to try to secure aid for
battered protest cities, as tanks and troops headed for a rebel
bastion in Idlib. Syria's deputy oil minister, Abdo Husameldin,
defected to Turkey. His online video emerged the next day, making
him the highest ranking civilian official to abandon the regime
since the uprising against President Bashar Assad erupted a year
ago.
(AFP, 3/7/12)(AP, 3/8/12)(Econ, 3/10/12, p.60)
2012 Mar 8, UNESCO's governing
board voted for the UN's educational body to go ahead with a
controversial prize financed by Equatorial Guinea's President
Teodoro Obiang Nguema.
(AFP, 3/8/12)
2012 Mar 12, The UN and
humanitarian group Oxfam said more than six million people in Niger
need immediate help as the country faces a persistent food crisis
due to drought and a number of other factors.
(AFP, 3/12/12)
2012 Mar 12, UN-Arab League
peace envoy on Syria, Kofi Annan, held talks with top Qatari
officials after a weekend trip to Damascus where he urged leaders to
end the bloodshed there.
(AFP, 3/12/12)
2012 Mar 19, A UN report said
Israeli settlers have taken over dozens of natural springs in the
West Bank, limiting or preventing Palestinian access to much-needed
water sources.
(AFP, 3/19/12)
2012 Mar 22, The UN Human
Rights Council passed a resolution urging Sri Lanka to conduct a
credible investigation into alleged war crimes committed during its
battle against Tamil Tiger separatists in 2009.
(AFP, 3/22/12)
2012 Mar 22, UN envoy Michael
von der Schulenburg called on the impoverished Sierra Leone
government to explain why it imported several million dollars worth
of assault weapons last January for a police paramilitary wing. A
leaked shipping bill indicated the arms included machine guns and
even grenade launchers.
(AFP, 3/22/12)
2012 Mar 23, The UN Human
Rights Council adopted a resolution urging Libya's new rulers to
probe all alleged abuses, but threw out a Russian proposal calling
for a halt to arbitrary detentions.
(AFP, 3/23/12)
2012 Mar 27, Syrian President
Bashar al-Assad toured the flashpoint Baba Amr neighborhood of Homs.
A spokesman for UN envoy Kofi Annan said Syria has accepted his
6-point plan to end the bloodshed in the country. Syrian security
forces reportedly killed 10 people as the regime pushed to retake
areas still under rebel control.
(AFP, 3/27/12)(AP, 3/27/12)
2012 Mar 30, The UN refugee
agency warned that attacks by the renegade Lord's Resistance Army
were on the rise and forcing thousands of people to flee. Since
March 6, 13 new attacks were recorded in northwest CongoDRC,
displacing 1,160 people in the region.
(AFP, 3/30/12)
2012 Apr 2, UN-Arab League
envoy Kofi Annan said Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had accepted
an April 10 deadline to start implementing a peace plan, as more
than 30 people died in new clashes.
(AFP, 4/2/12)
2012 Apr 5, A team led by a
Norwegian major general arrived in Damascus to negotiate the
possible deployment of a UN team that would monitor a cease-fire
agreement between Syrian government troops and rebel forces.
(AP, 4/5/12)
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