Multilateralism Under Siege / IPS Inter Press Service

Thursday, September 02, 2010 20:56 GMT

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U.S.
Public Most Inward-Looking in 40 Years, Poll Finds
By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON - Despite President Barack Obama's emphasis on diplomatic engagement, the U.S. public has become more inward-looking and unilateralist than at any time since the early stages of the Vietnam War, according to the latest in a series of quadrennial surveys on foreign policy attitudes released Thursday by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.
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POLITICS
U.N. Session Marked by Highs and Lows
Analysis by Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS - The two-week long high-level segment of the U.N. General Assembly, which concluded last week, was characterised by historic moments, political controversies, and at times, routine boredom.
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POLITICS
U.N. to Live or Die by Its Policy Ideas
By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS - The United Nations has long been described - rather contemptuously - as one of the world's biggest talking shops.
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US-IRAN
To Deal or Not to Deal, That Is the Question
By Ali Gharib
NEW YORK - In 2007, after eight months of detention in Iran – four in solitary confinement in Tehran's notorious Evin prison – Iranian-American scholar Haleh Esfandiari returned to the U.S. and held a press conference at the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars, where she directs the Middle East Programme.
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SCIENCE
G8 Failure to Launch on Climate
Analysis by Stephen Leahy
BERLIN - The G8's failure to make meaningful commitments on climate last week pushes the world ever closer to global climate catastrophe, experts warn. Without commitments to take action, there is little comfort in G8 countries' agreement to keep overall global warming below 2.0 degrees Celsius.
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FINANCE
OECD Tax Havens Deal Falls Short, Critics Say
By Lucy Komisar*
MIAMI BEACH, Florida, U.S. - Jeffrey Owens, the tax "point person" of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), was stung by activist critics of the OECD standards under which countries will be put on a tax haven blacklist and targeted for sanctions.
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POLITICS
Maritime Treaty Would Boost U.S. Interests, Report Says
By Marina Litvinsky and Jim Lobe*
WASHINGTON - The U. S. should quickly accede to the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, according to a new Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) report.
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FINANCE-US
IRS on the Track of Tax-Cheating "John Doe's"
By Lucy Komisar*
NEW YORK - The U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is hitting pay dirt with a novel legal tactic designed to catch tax evaders. And it's going to use it to force international banks to give up the names of tax cheats.
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POLITICS
Obama Sets New Course at the U.N.
By Haider Rizvi
UNITED NATIONS - After nearly a decade of an often tense and estranged relationship with the United Nations, Washington appears to be taking a much more conciliatory and multilateral approach to the world body.
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POLITICS
The U.S. Is Back in Geneva
By Gustavo Capdevila
GENEVA - United States diplomats are back in force at the U.N., after having distanced themselves from the world body for several years. This week they contributed to successful mediation between Georgia and Russia, although they did not help resolve a stalemate on gay rights.
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ENVIRONMENT
U.S. Back in the Fold?
By Carole Brousse
UNITED NATIONS - After nearly a decade of defiance by Washington toward international efforts to protect the environment, notably its disengagement from the Kyoto treaty to limit greenhouse gas emissions, there are high hopes that the United States will soon play a leading role in addressing what U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has described as "the defining challenge of our era".
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POLITICS
U.N. Hopes for "New Multilateralism" Under Obama
By Wolfgang Kerler
UNITED NATIONS - With the election of Democratic Senator Barack Obama as the next president of the United States, many observers and diplomats believe the United Nations can look forward to stronger cooperation with Washington - after eight years of often contentious relations with the George W. Bush administration.
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POLITICS
Is Cold War Rhetoric Back at the U.N.?
Analysis by Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS - When the United States and the former Soviet Union were on the verge of a military confrontation over Cuba during the height of the Cold War, the legendary U.S. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson went eyeball-to-eyeball with Soviet envoy Valerian Zorin in the Security Council chamber.
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BOOKS-US
A Path Out of the Wilderness
By Ali Gharib
WASHINGTON - Helena Cobban's new book, "Re-Engage! America and the World After Bush", is not aimed at a target audience of officials, policy wonks and Washington elite think-tank types. So much is clear from a tagline running across the bottom of the cover: "An informed citizen's guide."
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EUROPE
Germans Love Obama – For Now
By Julio Godoy
BERLIN - The extraordinary enthusiasm with which Germans greeted U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama in Berlin Thursday may have concealed a fear: once the presidency of George W. Bush ends, Germans might be forced to close ranks with the U.S. and go back to playing the role of military junior partner of a superpower at war.
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UNITED STATES - OVER OR UNDER THE UN?
By Fredrik S. Heffermehl
However much the Iraqi people need and deserve urgent assistance from the UN, the member organisations cannot permit the United States to wage wars of aggression and leave it to the UN to tidy up when the US gets bogged down, writes Fredrik S. Heffermehl, president of the Norwegian Peace and member of the International Peace Bureau.
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WILL UNILATERALISM DESTROY THE UN?
By Boutros Boutros-Ghali
Closely following world events, I fear that unilateralism may destroy the United Nations, writes Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Secretary-General of the United Nations from 1991-1995.
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