FAO Meeting leads to “stomach full of promises” yet “think we have found a solution.”

The North/South divide rears its head in Rome, where the FAO hoped for a major commitment to reduce hunger.  Apparently, the two major views were not ready for consensus:

In the hard-fought negotiations over a draft declaration from the three-day talks, richer nations succeeded in removing a goal to end world hunger by 2025 and declined to commit to increasing agricultural aid to nearly 20 percent of all international development aid, where it peaked in 1980 before gradually falling.Instead, the draft declaration restated the United Nations target of halving world hunger by 2015 and said that eradicating hunger should come “at the earliest possible date.” Diplomats from wealthier countries argued that creating a deadline for eradicating hunger was unrealistic, according to officials involved in the negotiations. The United Nations estimates that the number of people facing hunger around the world rose to more than one billion this year.

via Disagreement Over Goals at U.N. Meeting on Hunger – NYTimes.com.

Two Steps Forward, But HIV Efforts “on a treadmill”

The bad news seems to outweigh the good news:

“In the space of one year, you’re seeing a huge ramping up of AIDS services,” said Mark Stirling, regional director for the United Nations’ efforts against AIDS in eastern and southern Africa. “It’s unprecedented. In the acceleration and intensification of reach, 2008 was an extraordinary year.”

But the United Nations’ progress report on AIDS also contained sobering news. While more than a million people were put on drugs in the past year — drugs they will need for the rest of their lives — 2.7 million people were newly infected with H.I.V. in 2007, the latest year for which there were estimates.

via U.N. Cites Global Rise in Detection and Treatment of AIDS – NYTimes.com.

Take a look at the epidemic map, where you can see how Sub-Saharan Africa has 70% of the total world HIV-positive population.  Or this sobering graphic:

U.N. Finds Evidence of Afghan Drug Cartels – NYTimes.com

Insurgents + criminals = narco-cartels in Afghanistan.  Not good news:

As in some nations, including Colombia and Myanmar, the agency said in a statement, “the drug trade in Afghanistan has gone from being a funding source for insurgency to becoming an end in itself.”

Afghanistan in recent years has produced 90 percent of the world’s opium.

United Nations officials said this year’s decline stemmed largely from a steep drop in the value of opium amid a huge supply glut; high prices last year for some other crops that caused farmers to switch; and more aggressive counternarcotics actions by Western and Afghan forces.

They said it was not clear whether the decline would continue, especially if the difference between prices for opium and other crops were to widen to previous levels. Just two years ago, for example, an acre of opium fetched 10 times as much as an acre of wheat, but that ratio has diminished to three to one.

“A market correction is going on while law enforcement has increased the pressure,” Mr. Costa said. “Now, military and economic forces are playing in the same direction.”

via U.N. Finds Evidence of Afghan Drug Cartels – NYTimes.com.

Draft Global Sex-Education Guidelines Draw U.S. Conservatives’ Objections – NYTimes.com

Social policy is one of the biggest hot button areas at the United Nations, especially for single-issue groups.  Let’s take a step back and look at the larger issues for a minute:

Key Problems:   111 million new cases of sexually transmitted disease among people ages 10 to 24; 10 percent of births are to teenage mothers; and up to 4.4 million women 15 to 19 seek abortions.

Solution:  A report issued by various UN specialized agencies on sex-ed guidelines.

So what’s the issue, then?  Interest groups, also called non-governmental organizations–have some concerns, which in turn have resulted in changes to the documents and other delays:

A draft issued in June has been attacked by conservative and religious groups, mainly in the United States, for recommending discussions of homosexuality, describing sexual abstinence as “only one of a range of choices available to young people” to prevent disease and unwanted pregnancy, and suggesting a discussion of masturbation with children as young as 5.

“If you ever have a situation where kids need to be taught earlier than their adolescence, this is not the way to do it,” said Colin Mason of the Population Research Institute, an anti-abortion organization based in Virginia. “It’s very graphic and encourages practices like masturbation, which conservative Christians and others feel are wrong.”

The diversity of views around the world on these issues renders any universal approach “culturally insensitive,” Mr. Mason said. “We think it’s a kind of one-size-fits-all approach that’s damaging to cultures, religions and to children,” he said.

The barrage of criticism has put Unesco, the United Nations agency charged with advancing education and culture worldwide, on the defensive. The agency has removed the June draft of the guidelines from its Web site, and delayed the release of the final document.

via Draft Global Sex-Education Guidelines Draw U.S. Conservatives’ Objections – NYTimes.com.

Paving the Way for WCAR | Effort resurgest to link racism + anti-Semitism

The World Conference Against Racism was a memorable UN-sponsored conference, held in Durban, South Africa and ending a day before 9/11.  One of the most controversial dimensions–and with over 6,000 participants, there were many side issues, document games, and negotiations occurring throughout the culminating hours–was the against-the-wall stand made by a few countries to link racism with anti-Semitist langauge.

Years may pass, the the issue remains–or, maybe not:

The amended text, circulated Tuesday, followed a European Union threat to boycott the World Conference Against Racism next month in Geneva unless the declaration was changed to keep the meeting from becoming an anti-Semitic forum

What Human Rights Issues Look Like

A 13 year old girl who was stoned to death in Somalia:

“Reports indicate that she had been raped by three men while traveling on foot to visit her grandmother in the war-torn capital, Mogadishu,” Unicef, the United Nations children’s agency, said in a statement.

“Following the assault, she sought protection from the authorities, who then accused her of adultery and sentenced her to death,” Unicef added. “A child was victimized twice — first by the perpetrators of the rape and then by those responsible for administering justice.”

Unicef said the episode highlighted the vulnerability of girls and women in Somalia, which has suffered under cycles of civil conflict for the past 17 years. In the latest cycle, Islamist rebels are fighting the government and their Ethiopian military backers.

Border Wars: Mexico Heats Up (update)

Its not just immigration that attracts concern as a border issue, but the Mexican governments’ war on narco-traffickers has resulted in a violent backlash–especially in the northern regions, up to the U.S. borders.

The Bush administration increasingly sees the violent clashes in Mexico as a threat to American security, and the lawlessness was high on the agenda when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived on Wednesday in Puerto Vallarta for meetings with her local counterpart, Patricia Espinosa. …

The Mexican government’s fight against traffickers comes with considerable risk, because cartel leaders have singled out for assassination numerous law enforcement officials engaged in the antidrug campaign. Mr. Calderón has said that he has received numerous threats since he started his antidrug offensive upon taking office nearly two years ago.

Things are getting confusing at the border where Reuters reports that US border troops arrested Mexican troops who strayed into US territory.

But even more difficult is the job of finding and prosecuting the guilty–many of whom are meshed in society at all levels.

That house is clearly dirty. There is ample evidence that Mexicans of all walks of life are willing to join the drug gangs in exchange for cash, including farmers who abandon traditional crops and turn to growing marijuana and accountants who hide the narco-traffickers’ profits.

Congo Faces the Rape Problem (finally)

Rape as a tool of war has been outlawed since the initial Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but efforts to contain it of late have faced the sorry case of Congo–where what has been seen as a terrible offense reached a low point—until now:

After years of denial and shame, the silence is being broken. Because of stepped-up efforts in the past nine months by international organizations and the Congolese government, rapists are no longer able to count on a culture of impunity. Of course, countless men still get away with assaulting women. But more and more are getting caught, prosecuted and put behind bars.

European aid agencies are spending tens of millions of dollars building new courthouses and prisons across eastern Congo, in part to punish rapists. Mobile courts are holding rape trials in villages deep in the forest that have not seen a black-robed magistrate since the Belgians ruled the country decades ago.

A Challenge to Secular Turkey–from its youth

So at 16, she did something none of her friends had done: She put on an Islamic head scarf.

In most Muslim countries, that would be a nonevent. In Turkey, it was a rebellion. Turkey has built its modern identity on secularism. Women on billboards do not wear scarves. The scarves are banned in schools and universities. So Ms. Yilmaz dropped out of school. Her parents were angry. Her classmates stopped calling her. [NYT}

Moving post on Women in Afghanistan

Compelling tale from Bamian, “the only province that has a female governor.”

“It was very difficult to find a job,” she said. “We had economic problems, and with the high prices life was difficult. Finally, I decided if I could not find another job, I should go into the police.” After joining nine months ago, she likes the job so much she says she is encouraging other women to join, too.

Indeed, growing economic hardship has helped drive some women to join the work force or to take other bold steps as they try to help their families cope with a severe drought, rising food prices and unemployment.