Kelley Currie, the No. 2 ambassador at the UN mission to the UN, speaking with reporters on Oct. 16, 2018, regarding Cuban political prisoners. Currie is leaving the US mission as it awaits a formal ambassador to arrive to succeed Nikki Haley, who resigned on Oct. 9. MANUEL ELIAS/UN PHOTO
Secretary-General António Guterres holding a global town hall meeting with United Nations staff members, Jan. 17, 2019. The authors cite instances of tough resistance to Guterres’s systemwide gender parity strategy, including from certain staff unions. MARK GARTEN/UN PHOTO
The General Assembly elected five nations to two-year terms on the Security Council, starting on Jan. 1, 2019: Belgium, Dominican Republic, Germany, Indonesia and South Africa. Heiko Mass (left), Germany’s foreign minister, congratulates Christoph Heusgen, his country’s ambassador to the UN. Walter Lindner, state secretary of Germany, right; June 8, 2018. MANUEL ELIAS/UN PHOTO
In the recent autumn session of the United Nations General Assembly a number of resolutions involving the Syrian Golan Heights occupied by Israel came up for debate and voting. A familiar pattern emerged. The first of the votes to be noted was UNGA Resolution A/C.4/73/L.20. The wording of this resolution was that the general Assembly “reaffirmed that Israel’s settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories including East Jerusalem are illegal and an obstacle to peace and social development”.
José Singer Weisinger, a businessman, is representing the Dominican Republic as a new special envoy during the country’s two-year term on the UN Security Council, starting in January. The country is also holding the rotating presidency this month.
Nikki Haley, the US ambassador, flanked by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, addressing the press at UN headquarters in New York, July 20, 2018, after a private meeting with the Security Council on North Korea. Haley is leaving the post by the end of the year and Donald Trump has nominated Heather Nauert, State Department spokesperson, for the UN job.
Dear Heather,
A US-drafted resolution condemning the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas and other Palestinian factions has failed to get the required majority for adoption by the UN General Assembly. This was despite the US “warning” countries which planned to vote against the proposal.
Police on horses escorting migrants after they crossed from Croatia in Dobova, Slovenia, Oct. 20, 2015. A new UN global compact on migrants is to be formalized at a conference in Marrakesh, Morocco, in early December, before the UN General Assembly adopts it through a resolution. The United States is working against the compact’s approval and is pressuring other countries to follow suit.
On November 1, 2018, for the twenty-seventh straight year, the full United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) voted by a near-unanimous 189-2 for “the necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba.” The Israeli government, as usual, voted automatically with the US without saying a word on the floor. There were no abstentions, but Moldova and the Ukraine chose not to vote at all.1
Although white poppies have been around for almost as long as the red ones as a symbol of remembrance a surprisingly large number of people know nothing about what they stand for. To put it in a nutshell, white poppies promote peace, red poppies help promote Permanent War.
