United Nations

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Letter From,
Michael J. Kavanagh

Rwandan troops have pulled out of eastern Congo. Will peace fill the vacuum they left behind, or is a new front in a long war on the horizon?

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Author Interview,
Andrew Natsios

This week, Andrew Natsios answers questions submitted by readers about what the United States and others can do to bring peace and humanitarian relief to Sudan. 

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Essay, Sep/Oct 2008
António Guterres

The international community must ensure that people seeking safety are protected; sovereignty is not a shield behind which authoritarian governments may terrorize their own people.

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Essay, Sep/Oct 2008
Morton Abramowitz and Thomas Pickering

The UN must streamline its decision making process so it can start backing up its lofty words with action.

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Essay, May/June 2008
Séverine Autesserre

Although the war in Congo officially ended in 2003, two million people have died since. One of the reasons is that the international community's peacekeeping efforts there have not focused on the local grievances in eastern Congo, especially those over land, that are fueling much of the broader tensions. Until they do, the nation's security and that of the wider Great Lakes region will remain uncertain.

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Review Essay, Nov/Dec 2006
Stephen Schlesinger

In The Best Intentions, James Traub provides an inside view of the UN secretary-general during one of the organization's most tumultuous eras. Annan emerges as a flawed but principled statesman, with a stature his successors are unlikely to achieve.

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Comment, Sep/Oct 2006
Brian Urquhart

The UN's top job is one of the hardest, and least defined, in the world. Canny officeholders have managed to turn it into an open-ended diplomatic and humanitarian post, but much depends on personality. So when the UN picks a new chief this year, it should focus on character; that, not experience, is the key to success.

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Essay, Jan/Feb 2006
David G. Victor

Sustainable development -- the notion that boosting economic growth, protecting natural resources, and ensuring social justice can be complementary goals -- has lost much appeal over the past two decades, the victim of woolly thinking and interest-group politics. The concept can be relevant again, but only if its original purpose -- helping the poor live healthier lives on their own terms -- is restored.

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Essay, Sep/Oct 2005
Stephen Ellis

Past attempts to fix failed states in Africa have gone nowhere for similar reasons: they have tried to restore good governance to places that have never enjoyed it in the first place. A radical rethinking is needed; in the hardest cases, international trusteeships offer the best chance for success.

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Essay, May/Jun 2005
Kofi Annan

Dealing with today's threats requires broad, deep, and sustained global cooperation. Thus the states of the world must create a collective security system to prevent terrorism, strengthen nonproliferation, and bring peace to war-torn areas, while also promoting human rights, democracy, and development. And the UN must go through its most radical overhaul yet.

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