'Just World News' with Helena Cobban

Malta: Notes from the conference, part 2

Washington long ago—under Henry Kissinger-- elbowed the United Nations completely out of the lead role that, by all rights, it should play in spearheading the search for lasting peace between...

Nonsense from Blair

Mondoweiss today gives us a Youtube clip of Tony Blair dodging a tough question from a University of Buffalo student about the Goldstone report. The student, Nick Kabat, asked Blair...

Peter Galbraith, oil contracts, and Kurds

Reidar Visser informs us today that the independent-minded US "free-lance diplomat" Peter Galbraith reportedly, from 2004 through 2008, held a five-percent share in the production-sharing agreement concluded between the small...

China and the US in Afghanistan

It's good to put yourself into the shoes of others from time to time. For a while now, I've been trying to imagine the conversations that the Central Committee of...

Goldstone's careful documentation & argument

I've had the chance to be reading more of the report of the Goldstone Commission Report (PDF). It's 425 pages long, so not an easy or light read! But I've...

Goldstone Commission reports on Gaza-war war-crimes

The Goldstone Commission, appointed in April by the UN Human Rights Council to investigate all violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law that were committed during last...

Goal of the Mumbai attacks: Sparking India-Pakistan war?

The perpetrators of the recent wave of anti-civilian (i.e. terror) attacks in Mumbai were evidently well organized and well prepared for their mission. It was almost certainly planned as a...

Iraq's international 'Contact group' becoming stronger?

The Security Cooperation and Coordination Committee of Iraq's neighboring countries held its third meeting in Damascus Sunday. This 'Contact Group' brings together representatives of the UN, the US, Iraq's neighbors...

Discussing Afghanistan, UN over at Registan

I am continually amazed at the number of otherwise thoughtful and well-informed Americans who seem to have a deep blindspot when it comes to looking at the record of the...

Count Folke Bernadotte, RIP 9-17-1948

Read this and weep....

Why Kosovo's independence bid is (Not) unique

CS Monitor today includes an interesting story about pending recognition of Kosovo's independence. The article is built around the theme that Kosovo's bid is somehow unique, that Kosovo has emerged...

The US, the UN, and the world: The De Soto report

The London Guardian yesterday published the 52-page "End of Mission Report" written by the UN's recently retired envoy to the Middle East peace talks, Alvaro De Soto. De Soto reportedly...

Final CSM column: on the US and the UN, in Iraq

So Thursday's CSM will be publishing the final column in the series I have published with them since 1990. It is here. (Also here.) In it, I write: Can Washington...

Making Persian Gulf Security Durable (Ramazani)

FYI, here's a recently published short essay by R.K. Ramazani, as I mentioned in discussions here several days ago. Seeking to go beyond the immediate details of the recent UK-Iran...

Article on East Timor in TomPaine.com

I have a piece on TomPaine.com today, about East Timor. It was a good experience working with them. Their turnround time on the piece was about one hour. So it...

UNU symposium, war, peace, etc.

(Apologies to readers that the first version of this post was badly edited... It's hard to do all this on my modestly-sized laptop.... Now, it should be better. ~HC) So...