Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar on Friday dismissed U.N. sanctions imposed on Iran as “psychological warfare” and suggested they would not affect Iran’s missile production capability.

The U.N. Security Council banned Iran from importing or exporting sensitive nuclear materials and technology as well as ballistic missile delivery systems in a move aimed at stopping it from nuclear enrichment activities that can be used in nuclear weapons.

“We see these sanctions as a psychological warfare that will have no effect on the output of Iran’s defense industries,” Najjar said in an interview with state television.

“We produce several items of defense industries in various fields. They are all indigenous and need no (assistance from) abroad,” he added. (more…)

UNITED NATIONS — Iran demanded Tuesday that the U.N. Security Council condemn what it said was Israel’s clandestine development of nuclear weapons and “compel” it to place all its nuclear facilities under U.N. inspection.

If Israel refuses to comply, Iran said the council must take “resolute action” under Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter which authorizes a range of measures from diplomatic and economic sanctions to military action.

Iran insists its own nuclear program is a purely peaceful effort to develop energy, but the United States and many European nations believe Tehran’s real aim in enriching uranium is to produce nuclear weapons. The Security Council is currently debating a resolution that would impose sanctions on Iran for refusing to suspend its enrichment program. (more…)

Meet the world’s top destroyer of the environment. It is not the car, or the plane,or even George Bush: it is the cow.

A United Nations report has identified the world’s rapidly growing herds of cattle as the greatest threat to the climate, forests and wildlife. And they are blamed for a host of other environmental crimes, from acid rain to the introduction of alien species, from producing deserts to creating dead zones in the oceans, from poisoning rivers and drinking water to destroying coral reefs.

The 400-page report by the Food and Agricultural Organisation, entitled Livestock’s Long Shadow, also surveys the damage done by sheep, chickens, pigs and goats. But in almost every case, the world’s 1.5 billion cattle are most to blame. Livestock are responsible for 18 per cent of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming, more than cars, planes and all other forms of transport put together. (more…)

Internet Search Yields Names Cited in U.N. Draft Resolution

When the State Department recently asked the CIA for names of Iranians who could be sanctioned for their involvement in a clandestine nuclear weapons program, the agency refused, citing a large workload and a desire to protect its sources and tradecraft.

Frustrated, the State Department assigned a junior Foreign Service officer to find the names another way — by using Google. Those with the most hits under search terms such as “Iran and nuclear,” three officials said, became targets for international rebuke Friday when a sanctions resolution circulated at the United Nations. (more…)

The debate over how to punish Iran for its refusal to suspend sensitive nuclear fuel work resumes in New York Monday with Western diplomats confident that the UN Security Council will approve targeted sanctions against Tehran by Christmas.
Ambassadors of the Security Council’s five permanent members — Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States — plus Germany are to meet informally Monday morning to consider a revised sanctions draft resolution, which was circulated Friday to the full 15-member Council, diplomats said.

Following inconclusive talks among senior officials of the six powers in Paris last Tuesday, the sponsors slightly amended the draft to try to make it more palatable to Russia and China. The two countries have opposed previous proposals as too tough and unlikely to persuade Tehran to comply with UN demands that it halt all uranium enrichment activities. (more…)

Mankind has had less effect on global warming than previously supposed, a United Nations report on climate change will claim next year.

The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says there can be little doubt that humans are responsible for warming the planet, but the organisation has reduced its overall estimate of this effect by 25 per cent.

In a final draft of its fourth assessment report, to be published in February, the panel reports that the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has accelerated in the past five years. It also predicts that temperatures will rise by up to 4.5 C during the next 100 years, bringing more frequent heat waves and storms.

The panel, however, has lowered predictions of how much sea levels will rise in comparison with its last report in 2001. (more…)

HELSINKI — Two percent of adults have more than half of the world’s wealth, including property and financial assets, according to a study by the U.N. development research institute published on Tuesday.

While global income is distributed unequally, the spread of wealth is even more skewed, the study by the World Institute for Development Economics Research of the U.N. University said.

“Wealth is heavily concentrated in North America, Europe and high income Asia-Pacific countries. People in these countries collectively hold almost 90 percent of total world wealth,” the survey showed.

The Helsinki-based institute said its study was the first global research on the topic, for which there is only limited data.

“We’ve estimated that the richest 2 percent of adults own more than half of global wealth, while the bottom half own 1 percent,” said institute director Anthony Shorrocks. (more…)

WASHINGTON — Unable to win Senate confirmation, U.N. Ambassador John Bolton will step down when his temporary appointment expires within weeks, the White House said Monday.

Bolton’s nomination has languished in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for more than a year, blocked by Democrats and several Republicans. Sen. Lincoln Chafee, a moderate Republican who lost in the midterm elections Nov. 7 that swept Democrats to power in both houses of Congress, was adamantly opposed to Bolton.

Critics have questioned Bolton’s brusque style and whether he could be an effective public servant who could help bring reform to the U.N.

President Bush, in a statement, said he was “deeply disappointed that a handful of United States senators prevented Ambassador Bolton from receiving the up or down vote he deserved in the Senate.” (more…)

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Iraq was in the grip of a civil war as U.S. and Iraqi forces attacked insurgent bases in a bid to shore up the authority of a government itself riven by factional rivalries.

In Washington, outgoing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was revealed to have acknowledged in a memo just before he lost his job that U.S. strategy was not working and it might be better to reduce troop numbers.

President George W. Bush has repeatedly rejected recent assertions in the mainstream media that Iraq is now embroiled in a civil war. Annan’s remarks, to the BBC, might add to pressure for a swift change of policy.

“When we had the strife in Lebanon and other places, we called that a civil war — this is much worse,” Annan said. (more…)

Children have been subjected to rape and prostitution by United Nations peacekeepers in Haiti and Liberia, a BBC investigation has found.
Girls have told of regular encounters with soldiers where sex is demanded in return for food or money.

A senior official with the organisation has accepted the claims are credible.

The UN has faced several scandals involving its troops in recent years, including a DR Congo paedophile ring and prostitute trafficking in Kosovo.

The assistant secretary-general for peacekeeping operations acknowledges that sexual abuse is widespread. (more…)

The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously Tuesday to extend the mandate of the 160,000-member multinational force in Iraq.

The council acted quickly in response to a request from Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki who said a top government priority is to assume full responsibility for security and stability in the country but it needs more time.

The resolution, drafted by the United States, extends the mandate of the multinational force for one year starting on Dec. 31 and authorizes a review at the request of the Iraqi government or by June 15. (more…)

U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said Monday that Iraq is close to civil war, as the Bush administration stepped up diplomatic efforts to stabilize the war-torn country.

Annan talked to reporters in New York as members of the Iraq Study Group were to discuss recommendations for changes in U.S. war strategy. President Bush left for a NATO summit in Europe, but much attention was directed toward a meeting he’ll have later in the week with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in Amman, Jordan.

Asked by reporters at the U.N. if Iraq is in a civil war now, Annan replied, “I think given the developments on the ground, unless something is done drastically and urgently to arrest the deteriorating situation, we could be there. In fact we are almost there.” (more…)

BEIRUT, Lebanon — A U.N. agency said Saturday that Israel laid mines in Lebanon during this summer’s war between the Jewish state and the Lebanon-based Hezbollah group — the first time Israel has been accused of planting mines during the latest fighting.

The report by the U.N. Mine Action Coordination Center follows its investigation of a land mine explosion Friday that wounded two European disposal experts and a Lebanese medic.

The explosion was caused by an Israeli anti-personnel land mine placed in a mine field newly laid during the fighting in July and August, the center in south Lebanon said in a statement. (more…)

A U.N. envoy urged Iraq’s government on Saturday to halt a slide into civil war and stop the “cancer” of sectarianism from destroying the country, warning that the carnage of this week could tear Iraq apart.

The U.N.’s special representative for Iraq, Ashraf Qazi, said car bombs on Thursday that killed more than 200 people in a Shi’ite area of Baghdad and “blind acts of revenge” were part of a vicious cycle of sectarian violence “tearing apart the very political and social fabric of Iraq”.

“No country could tolerate such a cancer in its body politic,” Qazi said in a statement.

The Shi’ite-led government has called for calm, desperate to avert the sort of sharp escalation in violence that followed an attack on a Shi’ite shrine in Samarra in February. This time, many fear, such revenge attacks could push Iraq over the edge. (more…)

BAGHDAD — Iraqi deaths hit a new high in October and 100,000 people are fleeing abroad every month to escape worsening violence that is segregating the country on sectarian lines, a U.N. report said on Wednesday.

Painting a grim picture of a population caught in the cross-fire between insurgents, militias, criminal gangs and security forces, the bimonthly report put civilian deaths in October at 3,709 — 120 a day and up from 3,345 in September.

Under growing pressure from an impatient Bush administration to do more to curb the violence, the Iraqi government accused the United Nations of exaggerating the death toll to “mislead the world”. U.N. officials said they stood by their figures. (more…)