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U.N. Official Urges Political Independence
| A daily ration of warm milk and platitudes... |
The United Nations should find ways to demonstrate political independence, regain the neutrality it lost after the Sept. 11 attacks and better communicate with the world's 1 billion Muslims, a top U.N. official said Monday.
| I believe they communicate by hollering slogans or blowing things up... |
Mark Malloch Brown, administrator of the U.N. Development Program, also said the Arab region, compared with other parts of the world, is stagnating and governments need to reform if they want to compete in the global economy. Malloch Brown was on an official trip to Lebanon, where he met with President Emile Lahoud on Monday. Malloch Brown said the Aug. 19, 2003, suicide bombing on U.N. headquarters in Baghdad, Iraq, that killed 23 people — including U.N. representative Sergio Vieira de Mello — forced the world body to question whether it had compromised its neutrality.
| Milking the oil for palaces program didn't compromise its neutrality, of course... |
While saying "broadly we don't believe we had," Malloch Brown told The Associated Press the bombing was "indicative of the fact that in this highly polarized post-Sept. 11 world, this sort of 'with us or against us' mentality which has infected both sides has dramatically reduced the space for a neutral third force like the U.N. to operate.
| Was the original idea for the UN to be neutral? Didn't the "UN" fight World War II and Korea? |
Posted by: Fred 2004-08-17 |
