Special to WorldTribune.com By John J. Metzler UNITED NATIONS — In a riveting election for new members of the Human Rights Council, the General Assembly voted for 18 new members. Yet, given that all prospective candidates were unopposed, the perfunctory ballot simply selected a list of states where everyone won, including some notorious human rights […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By John J. Metzler UNITED NATIONS — It didn’t have to be this way. An oil rich, economically prosperous middle class country, once a stable Latin American democracy, is disintegrating into a socialist dystopia plagued by hunger, corruption, hyper-inflation and churning political unrest. While petroleum remains Venezuela’s major export, now tragically it’s […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By John J. Metzler UNITED NATIONS — In a week of speeches which swirled from the sublime to the ridiculous or were simply just boring, the recent UN General Assembly debate reached some notable exceptions. Among the sonorous drone of 193 addresses, either restating the obvious or repeating by rote the contemporary […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By John J. Metzler UNITED NATIONS — Presidents, Prime Ministers, Kings and Potentates have converged in New York for the 73rd UN General Assembly. The annual rite of Autumn brings together world leaders from 193 member states to discuss and hopefully try to solve key global crises ranging from the wars in […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By John J. Metzler UNITED NATIONS — One of the UN’s most vital, unsung, but necessary operations concerns its global peacekeeping missions. For more than sixty years, the UN “Blue helmets” have seen service from the Sinai to Cyprus and the Congo. In 1988, UN Peacekeeping won the Nobel Peace Prize. But […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By John J. Metzler UNITED NATIONS — After seven years of bitter fighting, twelve million civilians displaced, and more than a half million people killed, Syria’s relentless civil war may be coming to a dramatic conclusion. The final showdown seems set for the north-western province of Idlib, a rebel stronghold, where three […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By John J. Metzler UNITED NATIONS — A “climate of fear and persecution” face Burma’s minority Rohingya population as a year of unrelenting human rights abuses and forced expulsions continue by the country’s Beijing-backed military rulers. As UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres told a stunned Security Council meeting, “The massive refugee emergency […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By John J. Metzler BRATISLAVA, Slovakia — The light mist on the Danube river and the morning radiance on the honey-hued buildings of the Comenius University greet each summer day with the optimism of a fresh beginning. Yet this is August and the memories of the past still dart among shadows and […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By John J. Metzler PARIS — The very name Cambodia evokes tragic memories and historical passions. This small Southeast Asian land which was ravaged by the communist Khmer Rouge genocide a generation ago, then occupied by neighboring Vietnam, and later, resuscitated back to life by a long forgotten United Nations peacekeeping and […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By John J. Metzler UNITED NATIONS — With trade and tariff polices shifting like the proverbial weathervane, the Trump Administration has confused and confounded even many close trading partners, Europe, Canada and Japan among them. This may be the Donald’s tactic in his wider strategy of getting fairer trade and better “deals” […]