At UN, Decline in War Deaths Proclaimed by "Human Security Report," But Drug War, Boko Haram, Ideology

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, March 3 -- Hours before a third UN Security Council meeting on Ukraine, Andrew Mack held a press conference about the new "Human Security Report." 

  Under a slide headed, "A Huge Decline in War Deaths," he distinguished the rising death counts in the "war on drugs" in Mexico and Central America.

  Inner City Press, after thanking Mack on behalf of the new Free UN Coalition for Access, asked Mack how accurate death counts are, given the lack of clarify in Syria, including in light of the contractor the UN chose to count. 

 The UN has now stopped counting, though Qatar at the Human Rights Council earlier on Monday used a figure of 150,000; eight days ago NBC's David Gregory said one million have been killed, before correcting himself and saying this included those displaced.

  Mack said he feels most data is credible, citing the previous Iraq Death count. To Inner City Press' follow up, Mack explained that beyond counting those with bullets in them, to include deaths from sickness one would have to have and use baseline statistics for comparison.

  Inner City Press asked Mack about Boko Haram in Nigeria. Mack said the top five "wars" involve "Islamic radicals" and then Western intervention to confront them. He said Al Qaeda "has no popular support" and can only overthrow "pathetic" states like Mali.

  But what about Ukraine? The Security Council is set to meet at 3:30 pm. Watch this site.

   

UN's Ban Has "No Idea" If Sexual Violence Increases, UK-Funded NGO Slams Kristof

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, October 10 -- The UN has a Sexual Violence and Conflict office, which Inner City Press questioned last month about UN Peacekeeping's under-performance in Walikale in the Democratic Republic of Congo. 

 But Wednesday at the UN a more fundamental critique was offered by Andrew Mack of the Human Security Report Project, which is funded by Sweden Switzerland and the UK, for now.

  Inner City Press asked Mack about the Sexual Violence office - should it be collecting more data?

  Mack said that when Secretary General Ban Ki-moon offers briefs to the Security Council on this topic, he has "absolutely no idea" if sexual violence is increasing or decreasing. Mack said there were moves in 2010 to start collecting such data, but nothing was done.

  Will the UN Security Council, on which the UK has a Permanent seat, take any action on this?

   Mack also criticized a op-ed in New York Times in 2008 by Nicholas Kristof saying the 75% of women in Liberia had been raped. Mack said Kristof "mis-read a report" - the figure Mack said for being a victim of sexual violence is 18%, which is high, but the same as in the US. Video here, from Minute 21:55.

   This is the same Kristof who recently wrote about the mistreatment of women by Bangladesh - only in terms of the Grameen Bank founder, whom he'd met at the Clinton Global Initiative, with no mention of Bangladesh saying that the plight of the Rohingya is "not our problem." And so it goes. Watch this site.