UN appeals for 3,000 extra peacekeepers for eastern Congo have yet to be answered. A proposal to send European troops was blocked by Britain and Germany, prompting the London Director of Human Rights Watch to denounce what he calls “Britain’s cowardice“:
“In speech after speech, the Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, talks up human rights and his [...]
Eastern Congo and the ‘Responsibility to Protect’
On this tremendous occasion, and I feel as much relief as excitement and hope that a more United States offers good prospects for a more United Nations.
On that note, I trust you and your team will consider what needs to be done to implement the ‘Responsibility to Protect’ doctrine [...]
New arrivals in a camp for displaced people in the market town of Masisi, North Kivu, last December. Having offered a semblance of refuge from the fighting and lawlessness surrounding it, Masisi was emptied by fighting in September 2008. (Photo by Fred.)
The last time eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) had this much media attention, [...]
Three years after saying “We accept that responsibility”, the United Nations General Assembly will soon debate how to put ‘the Responsibility to Protect‘ into practice. How do we know this? Because UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon plans to present to the General Assembly some proposals on the subject by the end of 2008.
Forget about UN procedures, complicated politics and differing [...]
Yuri Fedotov, who is the Russian Federation’s Ambassador to the UK, has written to The Guardian to defend his country’s decision to veto Security Council sanctions on Zimbabwean officials responsible for political violence since the elections. In aside, he writes:
“There is an important technical point at stake. UN security council resolutions exist as a mechanism to address [...]
In this video, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) say the fighting in Somalia is more intense than it has been in 15 years. Hundreds of thousands have fled Mogadishu. A single clinic has treated over a thousand civilians for war wounds since September. Malnutrition indicators are above the emergency threshold; a third of the population are in urgent [...]
Video: Appeal by Zainab Bangura, Sierra Leone’s Foreign Minister (a former civil society activist)
Avaaz is organising a petition to world leaders at this week’s emergency UN summit on the skyrocketing world food crisis: “There is a real danger that rich country leaders will push half measures and band-aid solutions – we need a huge global [...]
United for Africa is a collaborative effort to map incidents of xenophobic violence in Southern Africa, including by SMS.
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A coalition of human rights, legal and union activists has succeeded in preventing a Chinese ship from delivering 77 tons of weapons and ammunitions to Zimbabwe’s army via the South African port of Durban. South African President Thabo Mbeki had earlier said that the government was “powerless” to stop the transfer, but activists obtained a [...]
Following Steven Spielberg’s resignation as Artistic Director of the Beijing Olympics, a number of leading advocacy groups have released a joint statement calling on China ‘to use all the influence at its disposal to press the Sudanese government to a) permit the swift, full and effective deployment of UNAMID; b) implement the North-South peace deal [...]