Thalif Deen

Ousted political and military leaders in the Middle East continue to seek immunity from war crimes prosecutions.

Defying a challenge by Sri Lanka, UN Sec-Gen Ban Ki-moon has named a three-member expert panel to advise him on how to proceed with probing violations of human rights and humanitarian law during the concluding stages of the country's separatist war last May.

The 27-member Global Governance Group (3G) is challenging the politically and economically powerful G20 not to marginalise the interests of small and medium-sized countries or undermine the United Nations in key decision-making.

When two widely-divergent panels launch their probes on the Israeli attack on a flotilla of ships carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza, one of the issues under scrutiny would be the legality of forcibly boarding a vessel in international waters.

There are international treaties to ban a wide array of deadly weapons: anti-personnel landmines, blinding laser weapons, cluster munitions, dum-dum bullets and chemical and biological weapons. But "the most iniquitous weapon of all" - the nuclear weapon - has continued to escape.

When the UN General Assembly meets later this week to elect 14 new members for the Human Rights Council, the election results will be highly predictable for one reason: all candidates are running unopposed as nominees of their regions.

The 10-member association refuses to see eye-to-eye with the US or China on how the crisis should be tackled.

UN is studying the feasibility of appointing a special rapporteur - a human rights expert - who will focus specifically on national laws that discriminate against women in their home countries.

The current thinking is that there will never be an agreed definition of terrorism - as long as the Palestinian issue remains unsettled.

After a break of 30 years, the 116-member Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) is trying to resurrect a long-dormant proposal for the creation of a Southern news agency.

The United Nations and political leaders are working to eliminate racism and promote peace through sports - itself plagued with problems.

Months have passed, and the tsunami victims are still living in displacement camps where they have virtually no say in how their communities will be rebuilt.

Bill Clinton says that specific policy and operational challenges needed to be resolved for a successful recovery, including the creation of a common action plan for all actors.

Launching the new 'South Fund for Development', Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani of Qatar pledged US$20 million in seed money to the proposed financing facility.

Nearly six months after the massive tsunami devastation in the Indian Ocean region, women and children in the camps are still suffering.

One reason why most Western media rarely provided in-depth coverage of issues such as poverty, hunger, maternal mortality, and debilitating diseases is that these issues just weren't ''sexy'' enough for most newsrooms.

Former US president Bill Clinton shares the problems of aid distribution to tsunami survivors as the United Nations special envoy for tsunami recovery.

They are expressing scepticism over the eventual delivery of the hefty sum in pledges made by donors for tsunami disaster relief operations in South and Southeast Asia.

For the first time, the United Nations hosts a seminar zeroing in on the subject of Islamophobia, symbolising the gravity of the situation.

The United Nations says cooperation between nations of the South will eventually trigger growth and development in some of the world's poorest countries.

'The United Nations is slow, hesitant obstructive and guarded. And that creates suspicion, not trust.

A new UN study on African economies says donor money that comes with strings attached cuts the value of aid to recipient countries by 25-40 percent.

The world's poor are getting left further behind, as rich countries renege on aid commitments that could improve water supply, sanitation and housing as part of efforts to tackle wider environmental problems.

Known in China as "the crocodile" and lambasted by Dr Mahathir Mohamad, among his many 'achievements', billionaire George Soros now takes on PresidentGeorge W Bush.