The International Affairs Association

Yet again, the United States is battling the UN over human rights issues. This time, the concern is the use of drones on the Afghan border.
Human rights watchdog Phillip Alston has been investigating drone attacks and has found evidence that the United States is not taking proper precautions to avoid civilian casualties. Although the drone [...]

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The big story from the United Nations is about the inspectors who are in Iran for a 3-day examination of one Iran’s uranium enrichment sites. At this point, there’s not a lot to say until results come in. So until those results come in I’ll focus on something perhaps a little less critical.
The United Nations [...]

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The recent UN probe into the Afghan elections turned out to be very successful, evidenced by Karzai’s recent agreement to hold runoff elections. Even though Karzai had denied all accusations of fraud in the previous few months, he has finally agreed to the runoff. According to the Secretary-General, the United Nations will also play a [...]

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This edition of Ban Ki Croons is strictly opinionated.
 
It has been reported that African leaders from throughout the continent have raised over $65 billion dollars, which they aim to contribute to the United Nations’ initiative to prevent global warming. I think this is ridiculous.
The African continent is in complete disarray right now. We all know [...]

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For years the international public called for the United Nations to step up and take action against the atrocities being committed by Rwandan militia groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo.  The Congolese government has faced opposition from the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), and recently they requested help from the United [...]

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As I’m sure you know, last winter Israel led an offensive on the Gaza Strip, and both sides of the struggle claimed the other side was violating war crimes. Since then the United Nations has struggled to deliver a decisive verdict on the issue. I think there are two steps the UN needs to take [...]

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Recently, the Taliban claimed responsibility for a suicide attack at the United Nations food agency’s headquarters in Pakistan. The question I have is why is the Taliban going after the UN? The answer of course is that the UN is seen for the most part as a western, liberal organization. They are [...]

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With the international scene ordinarily so gloomy, I thought it would be nice to take a look at a real positive story from the United Nations involving Bill Clinton. Clinton was hired as a special UN envoy to Haiti, a country that is facing severe economic difficulties and rampant deforestation. Clinton spent two days in [...]

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Thanks in part to Bush’s ‘axis of evil’ the West generally shares a plain view of North Korea: it is a malicious non-democratic country with an irrational leader that can never be trusted. This argument gained popularity especially in 2003 when the country left the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and again in May 2009 when it [...]

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