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- UNSC blasts Somali leaders over political feuding
Political infighting among leaders of the transitional government of Somalia elicited Wednesday a threat by the UN Security Council to revoke financial support. The lack of cohesion in government -- for two decades -- has resulted in the country becoming turf for pirates and Islamist rebels. Reuters (5/25)       - Obama urges Europe to hold off on UN vote for Palestine
An effort by U.S. President Barack Obama to convince European leaders not to support a UN vote next fall on Palestinian statehood generated a lukewarm response Wednesday from British Prime Minister David Cameron. Both leaders urged Israeli and Palestinian negotiators to resume peace talks abandoned last year. Los Angeles Times (5/26) - Poll shows strong U.S. bipartisan support for UN
A recent poll shows that some 85% of Americans believe the U.S. should continue to be active in the United Nations, while some 60% support the full, on-time payment of the country's financial contributions to the world body. "Anyone who wants to perpetuate myths about negative American perceptions about the United Nations is ignoring the data," said Peter Yeo, vice president of the UN Foundation and executive director of the Better World Campaign, which released the poll results. Devex.com (5/25) - Gates urges more agricultural investment
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has issued a challenge to the world's wealthiest countries to increase government investment in agricultural production and help address volatile global food prices. Gates, with the help of Warren Buffett, has funneled $1.7 billion over the past five years into efforts to support small farmers in developing countries. The Globe and Mail (Toronto) (5/25) - The last mile of polio eradication may be the toughest
 Polio has shown over the past decade that it is a disease that won't die easily. Research by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine -- which has established a system designed to reduce refusals to be vaccinated -- finds that, in order to eradicate the last 1% of known cases of the disease, the developing world must: better integrate social and political factors into assessments; find out what is driving resistance to vaccination; and design and monitor strategies to better enable people to feel ownership of their immunization programs. Nature (5/25) - Women's advocacy group takes Irish case to UN
Advocacy group Justice for Magdalenes has approached the United Nations to address the Irish government's failure to adequately respond to abuses by the Catholic Church. More than 30,000 women were forced to work under harsh conditions with no pay in church-run laundries for having children out of wedlock, and have to receive any form of apology for the ordeal from Irish authorities. The New York Times (tiered subscription model) (5/25) - Overall U.S. abortion rates continue to fall
The level of abortions continues to drop amongst most groups of U.S. women, with overall abortion rates declining every year since 1990, according to a study published in the journal Obstetrics Gynecology. The trend does not extend to the lowest income groups of women, in which abortion rates continued to rise. Reuters (5/23) - UN agency: Weather will affect global food supply
Extreme weather patterns associated with climate change are likely to adversely impact global food production over the next decade, the World Meteorological Organization warns. China, the U.S. and Mediterranean regions will face some of the biggest challenges with food production drops. Bloomberg (5/26) - Nuclear reactors are nixed in Switzerland
The effects of the ongoing Japanese nuclear crisis continue to be felt across Europe, with Switzerland on Wednesday nullifying plans to build three new reactors and European Union regulators agreeing upon a plan to stress-test 143 operating reactors across the 27-nation territory. Switzerland, days after some 20,000 people rallied against nuclear energy, said its five existing reactors would go offline by 2034 as the country develops new energy sources. The New York Times (tiered subscription model) (5/25) - Serbia arrests Mladic for war crimes
After more than a decade on the run, Bosnian war crimes suspect Ratko Mladic has been arrested for his alleged role in the massacre of at least 7,500 men and boys at Srebrenica in 1995. "Today we closed one chapter of our recent history," said Serbian President Boris Tadic, who, in confirming Mladic's apprehension, added that the general would be extradited to the international war crimes tribunal at The Hague. BBC (5/26) - OECD must ensure accountability from rich and poor
Development aid from wealthy countries is still "too opaque, too unpredictable, and too driven by donor desires," resulting in poor people, as usual, getting the short shrift, writes an aid official from Oxfam America. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development should do more to ensure poor countries invest the aid more effectively, but also should require rich countries to be more predictable so as to give poor governments, and investors, more time to plan. AlertNet/AlertNet News Blog (5/25)  | |  | | | | |  |  Project Coordinator | Invisible Children | Dungu, Congo (Dem. Rep. of) | | Senior Associate, Private Sector Engagement | United Nations Foundation | Washington, DC | | Program Administrator - Project on Justice in Times of Transition, Institute for Global Leadership | Tufts University | Medford, MA | | Regional Leader, East Asia | World Vision International | Bangkok, Thailand | | Senior Associate, Planning and Learning | United Nations Foundations | Washington, DC | | Senior Communications Officer, Global Health | United Nations Foundation | Washington, DC | | Communications Officer, (UNA) | United Nations Foundation | Washington, DC | | Associate, Online Communications (UNA) | United Nations Foundation | Washington, DC | | | |  | |  |
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