Special to WorldTribune.com By John J. Metzler NEW YORK — The results of the U.S. midterm elections did not follow the predictable script outlined by the mainstream media and most pollsters, namely that the ruling Republicans and President Trump would be soundly rebuked by a restive electorate. Rather a complex outcome offered gains for both […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By John J. Metzler UNITED NATIONS — Burma’s human rights situation is deteriorating despite consistent pressures by the United States and the wider international community to stem the humanitarian crisis. In a rare address before the Security Council, Marzuki Darusman, human rights Rapporteur for Burma, aka Myanmar, presented a report which details […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By John J. Metzler UNITED NATIONS — What was expected to be a quiet but informational meeting on the plight of political prisoners in Cuba, was suddenly jolted into chaos by table thumping and harangues hurled at an American Ambassador by Cuban regime diplomats packing the audience. A sober human rights presentation […]
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 […]
