U.N. diplomacy in Syria is not dead; it's just taking a nap
Last week, the foreign policy punditry, myself included, had declared the U.N. role in Syria all but dead. But of course no U.N. diplomatic initiative ever truly dies. Ban Ki-moon has vowed to conduct...
View ArticleHelp, the Russians are out to get me!
Russia's U.N. ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, angered by real-time press leaks from a closed door Security Council meeting on Syria, threatened to urge the United Nations to strip the credentials of...
View ArticleU.N. launches drone investigation
An independent U.N. human rights researcher this morning announced the opening of an investigation into the use of drone attacks and other targeted assassinations by the United States and other...
View ArticleBrahimi to give grim report on Syrian peace prospects
U.N.-Arab League Syria envoy Lakhdar Brahimi is expected to present the U.N. Security Council tomorrow with a darkly pessimistic assessment of peace prospects in Syria, where political repression and...
View ArticleBrahimi: Syria is 'breaking up before everyone's eyes'
U.N.-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi issued an impassioned appeal to U.N. Security Council members, particularly the United States and Russia, to put aside their differences and to take firmer...
View ArticleBrahimi's Plan C for Syria
U.N.-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi has hit an impasse in his efforts to promote a Syrian political transition that would ultimately lead to President Bashar al-Assad yielding power to a caretaker...
View ArticleHazard pay
When Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, withdrew her name from consideration for U.S. secretary of state in December, the consensus among many of her Security Council colleagues...
View ArticleRice, Churkin trade blows in Security Council
It's not exactly the Cold War. But U.S.-Russia relations have been getting pretty chilly in the U.N. Security Council lately. On Tuesday, Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, and her...
View ArticleIran, Russia, U.S. go to the mat in New York
For a rare afternoon at U.N. headquarters, the U.S. and Iranian governments took a break from bashing one another. Instead, they were getting ready to go to the mat. The U.N. cafeteria provided the...
View ArticleGeneral Assembly 'strongly' condemns Syrian human rights abuses
The 193-member U.N. General Assembly today "strongly" condemned the Syrian government for its "indiscriminate" shelling and bombing of civilian populations and the commission of "widespread and...
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Brahimi's Last Stand?
The latest round of Russian and U.S. diplomacy has yet to prove it can end a civil war in Syria that has already exacted well over 70,000 lives and threatened to engulf the region. But it has been...
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Amid safety concerns, Russia set to snag another major helicopter contract
Earlier this week, I wrote a piece about the March 9 crash of a U.N.-contracted Russian Mi-8 helicopter during a storm in Eastern Congo that killed all four crew members and prompted internal calls...
View ArticleGuéhenno: lifting European arms embargo on Syrian rebels 'backfired'
A British-led effort to lift a European Union arms embargo on Syria succeeded by default on Monday, as a political split between European leaders over the fate of the ban killed off any hopes of...
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Russia wants Tehran at Syria conference
Russia will mount a diplomatic effort to secure Iran a seat at the table at a U.N.-brokered political conference on Syria, Russia's U.N. envoy Vitaly Churkin said in an interview. Speaking at the...
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Is the U.N. peacekeeping mission in the Golan Heights collapsing?
The U.N. Security Council struggled this evening to prevent the collapse of a beleaguered mission that has helped maintain peace between Israel and Syria along the Golan Heights for nearly 40 years....
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