United Nations

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Spider-Man's Mission: Save UN
Spider-Man's Mission: Save UN

Spider-Man's Mission: Save UN

United Nations teams up with Marvel Comics for new publication

(Newser) - Battered by the oil-for-food scandal and accused of inaction and inefficiency, the United Nations is looking to an unusual ally for help improving its image: Spider-Man. In a novel collaboration, the international body has enlisted Marvel Comics to produce a one-off comic book that will see its cast of superheroes...

Tsunami Survivors Look Ahead
Tsunami Survivors Look Ahead

Tsunami Survivors Look Ahead

Officials concerned about post-aid economy, beefing up warning systems

(Newser) - As candles are lit today in memory of the 230,000 victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the Christian Science Monitor reports on the results of the $13.6 billion effort to help survivors. The aid has largely been used effectively, but now officials worry about the recovering economies...

Iran Plans 19 Nuke Plants
Iran Plans 19 Nuke Plants

Iran Plans 19 Nuke Plants

Rejects calls to drop uranium enrichment

(Newser) - Iran has dismissed calls to drop uranium enrichment and plans 19 new nuclear power plants, Reuters reports. "US officials have talked of negotiations" on the condition that Iran stop the enrichment, "but we do not accept any preconditions for talks," Iran's Foreign Minister said today. The UN...

Lakotas Secede From Union
Lakotas Secede From Union

Lakotas Secede From Union

Native Americans declare independence, demand international recognition

(Newser) - Some Lakota tribesman, led by veteran American Indian activist Russell Means, have declared a sovereign nation within US borders. “We are now a free country and independent of the United States,” Means told the Rapid City Journal yesterday, adding, "This is all completely legal." The group...

UN Fails to Break Kosovo Deadlock
UN Fails to
Break Kosovo Deadlock

UN Fails to Break Kosovo Deadlock

Province plans to declare independence in coming weeks

(Newser) - The United Nations Security Council failed yesterday to break the deadlock in negotiations between Serbia and Kosovo, with one ambassador warning that "the status quo is unsustainable." The US and European Union are both arguing that the two parties remain irreconcilable and that further negotiations are worthless. Kosovo...

Russia Gives Iran Nuclear Fuel
Russia Gives Iran Nuclear Fuel

Russia Gives Iran Nuclear Fuel

Says Tehran has promised not to develop weaponry

(Newser) - Russia delivered nuclear material to Iran yesterday, the BBC reports, ignoring Washington’s protests. Russia says it has assurances that the plutonium will only be used for the nuclear power plant in Bushehr, which is being built by a Russian company, but the US says that spent uranium could be...

Ethiopia Forces Untrained Civilians Into War

Clerks, teachers, administrators sent into action against Ogaden rebels

(Newser) - Ethiopa's overstretched army is forcing untrained civilians into the bush to fight guerrillas, the New York Times reports. Office clerks, teachers, and other white-collar workers face imprisonment or torture if they refuse to comply, but many have been killed in battle, say aid workers. “We don’t know how...

Last-Minute US Compromise Saves Bali Talks

Officials agree to reach accord in 2009—after end of Bush term

(Newser) - The Bali climate summit averted failure at the eleventh hour today when the US capitulated under sharp criticism and agreed to further talks to forge a successor treaty to the Kyoto Protocol in 2009 that will include the US and developing nations. The deal came after the US dropped opposition...

Gore Points Finger at US in Bali
Gore Points Finger at US in Bali

Gore Points Finger at US in Bali

Nobel laureate says Bush and company stonewalling in Bali

(Newser) - Al Gore’s latest inconvenient truth: the US is stonewalling the UN climate conference. “My own country, the United States, is principally responsible for obstructing progress here,” the Nobel laureate raged today in Bali. The US, along with Japan and several other nations, refuses to accept a specific...

Bali Eco Summit Nears Collapse
Bali Eco Summit Nears Collapse

Bali Eco Summit Nears Collapse

US, EU in standoff over new carbon limits

(Newser) - A face-off between American and European environment officials has pushed the Bali climate change talks to the breaking point, with United Nations officials warning that the summit could collapse "like a house of cards." Delegates in Bali are sharply divided over the guidelines for the next two years...

Algiers Searches for Missing
Algiers Searches for Missing

Algiers Searches for Missing

Al-Qaeda claims responsibility for twin blasts that killed dozens

(Newser) - Rescuers worked though the night to locate missing UN workers and others trapped in the rubble left by yesterday's twin car bombs in Algiers, which a North African group linked to al-Qaeda claims to have detonated. Death counts vary, but the UN estimates that 45 were killed, including a dozen...

UN Chief Issues Urgent Plea for Warming Battle Plan

Ban: Action is 'moral challenge of generation'

(Newser) - Citing a "desperate urgency," United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon called upon environmental ministers from over 120 nations to forge a new battle plan against climate change by 2009. The new treaty would attempt to improve on the Kyoto Protocol by including every country, and serve as a "...

US Race Record Is 'Abysmal'
US Race Record Is 'Abysmal'

US Race Record Is 'Abysmal'

Katrina, profiling, education—minorities still lag, study says

(Newser) - From racial profiling to voting discrimination and Hurricane Katrina, US race relations are "abysmal," according to a new report. The Human Rights Network, an umbrella organization of some 250 nonprofits, found that minorities aren't given the same educational resources and are disproportionately represented in prisons. The findings counter...

UN Stepping Up Work in Iraq
UN Stepping Up Work in Iraq

UN Stepping Up Work in Iraq

Four years after bombing killed 22, UN re-engaged

(Newser) - The United Nations is stepping up its work in Iraq in a bid to land a final peace—four years after a terrorist bomb in the UN compound in Baghdad killed 22 officials. "Three years of horror have led nowhere. It only produced tit-for-tat destruction and the displacement of...

Climate Reps at Odds Over Deforestation

Rich countries balk at paying poorer nations to stop hacking trees

(Newser) - The triumph of the Bali summit may be its plan to stop deforestation, but rich and poor nations are still clashing over details, the Washington Post reports. A dozen developing countries want incentives to stop tree-cutting, but some developed nations wince at paying them for actions not taken. "The...

Darfur's Displaced Battle Hunger, Disease, Raids

Sudan's 2.5M refugees struggle to survive

(Newser) - "It is unsafe for me to go back home and it's not safe here," a resident of Abu Chok, a refugee camp in Darfur currently home to 54,000, tells the Guardian. Residents endure endemic malnutrition, malaria, and typhoid in hopes of security—the camp is 4 miles...

Burmese Junta Downplays Protest Death Toll: Report

Government 'lying,' rights group says

(Newser) - The quashing of pro-democracy demonstrations in September was significantly bloodier than the Burmese junta claims, says a Human Rights Watch report released today. Although the government acknowledges only 10 deaths during the suppression of the protests, 20 killings have been verified by eyewitnesses in Yangon alone, and the rights group...

UN Food Aid Restored in Somalia
UN Food Aid Restored in Somalia

UN Food Aid Restored in Somalia

Mysterious obstacles disappear as help is allowed again to devastated region

(Newser) - United Nations food aid has been restored to Somalia today after it was suspended yesterday, when the government hiked road tolls to $500 a truck and prevented two ships from delivering food to the problem-plagued Lower Shabelle region. UN aid teams were given no explanation for the trouble. But a...

Climate Talks Move Forward, But Slowly

Bali participants take baby steps toward fighting global warming

(Newser) - Sniping among the 190 nations in attendance isn't keeping the climate talks in Bali from inching forward, Reuters reports. Participants have succeeded in putting together a "special group" to look at post-Kyoto Protocol options, but "the devil's in the detail," cautioned a top UN official. Meanwhile, environmentalists...

Sudan Making Peacekeeping 'Impossible'

Top UN official says Khartoum demands will make forces worthless

(Newser) - The UN's head of peacekeeping operations blasted the Sudanese government for intentionally restrictive demands that "would make it impossible for the mission to operate." Khartoum is refusing to admit non-African soldiers, withholding permission for night flights, and insisting on advance notice of all troop movements, the BBC reports....

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