Table of Contents 

• Yakkers Corner Podcast
• The Millennium Development Goals
• More about The Millennium Development Goals
• About Yakkers Corner Podcast
• This weeks Featured United Nation Organization
• About the United Nations
• The language of the United Nations
• Ban Ki-moon
• United Nations headquarters
• Human Rights Council
• UN Action to Counter Terrorism
• Featured Lens
• About Muriel Glasgow
• Information Links
• Blog Posts from Google
• Important Question, Needs Your Comment
• Books on the United Nations

Yakkers Corner Podcast 

With your host Muriel Glasgow

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The Millennium Development Goals 

What Are They

1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
2. Achieve universal primary education
3. Promote gender equality and empower women
4. Reduce child mortality
5. Improve maternal health
6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
7. Ensure environmental sustainability
8. Develop a global partnership for development

More about The Millennium Development Goals 

Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
Reduce by half the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day

Reduce by half the proportion of people who suffer from hunger

Achieve universal primary education
Ensure that all boys and girls complete a full course of primary schooling

Promote gender equality and empower women
Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education preferably by 2005, and at all levels by 2015

Reduce child mortality
Reduce by two thirds the mortality rate among children under five

Improve maternal health
Reduce by three quarters the maternal mortality ratio

Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
Halt and begin to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS

Halt and begin to reverse the incidence of malaria and other major diseases

Ensure environmental sustainability
Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes; reverse loss of environmental resources

Reduce by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water

Achieve significant improvement in lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers, by 2020

Develop a global partnership for development
Develop further an open trading and financial system that is rule-based, predictable and non-discriminatory, includes a commitment to good governance, development and poverty reduction- nationally and internationally

Address the least developed countries' special needs. This includes tariff- and quota-free access for their exports; enhanced debt relief for heavily indebted poor countries; cancellation of official bilateral debt; and more generous official development assistance for countries committed to poverty reduction

Address the special needs of landlocked and small island developing States

Deal comprehensively with developing countries' debt problems through national and international measures to make debt sustainable in the long term

In cooperation with the developing countries, develop decentand productive work for youth

In cooperation with pharmaceutical companies, provide access to affordable essential drugs in developing countries

In cooperation with the private sector, make available the benefits of new technologies- especially information and communications technologies

About Yakkers Corner Podcast 

with your host Muriel Glasgow

Welcome to the Yakkers' Corner where we Yak about development and humanitarian issues and promote the implementation of the UN and its Millennium Development Goals or MDGs - in other words, we yak about stories you would not hear on the broadcast media, stories that have a tremendous impact on people's lives and the sustainability of the planet...

This weeks Featured United Nation Organization 

The United Nations System-wide EARHTWATCH mechanism is a broad UN initiative to coordinate, harmonize and catalyze environmental observation activities among all UN agencies for integrated assessment purposes. Through Earthwatch, UN agencies work together on global environmental issues, by exchanging and sharing environmental data and information. UNEP provides the Earthwatch secretariat. Earthwatch was established at the 1972 UN Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm and reinforced by the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro and its Agenda-21 chapter on Information for Decision Making.

Click here for more information

About the United Nations 

The United Nations (UN) is an international organization whose stated aims are to facilitate cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress and human rights issues.

The United Nations was founded in 1945 to replace the League of Nations, in the hope that it would intervene in conflicts between nations and thereby avoid war. The organization began with fifty countries signing the United Nations Charter. The organization's structure still reflects in some ways the circumstances of its founding. The five permanent members of the UN Security Council, each of which has veto power on any Security Council resolution, are the main victors of World War II or their successor states: the People's Republic of China (which replaced the Republic of China in 1971); France; Russia (which replaced the Soviet Union in 1991); the United Kingdom; and the United States.

There are currently 192 United Nations member states, encompassing almost every recognized independent state. From its headquarters in New York City, the UN and its specialized agencies decide on substantive and administrative issues in regular meetings held throughout each year. The organization is divided into administrative bodies, including the General Assembly, Security Council, Economic and Social Council, Secretariat, and the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Additional bodies deal with the governance of all other UN System agencies, such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). The UN's most visible public figure is the Secretary-General. The current Secretary-General is Ban Ki-moon of South Korea, who assumed the post on 1 January 2007.

The language of the United Nations 

The UN has six official languages: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish. Five of the official languages were chosen when the UN was founded (the languages of the permanent members of the Security Council, plus Spanish, which was the official language of the largest number of nations at the time). Arabic was added in 1973; the number of Arabic-speaking member states had increased substantially since 1945, and the 1973 oil crisis provided the catalyst for the addition. The Secretariat uses two working languages, English and French.

The UN standard for English language documents (United Nations Editorial Manual) follows British usage and Oxford spelling. The UN standard for Chinese (Mandarin) changed when the Republic of China (Taiwan) was succeeded by the People's Republic of China in 1971. From 1945 until 1971 traditional characters were used, and since 1972 simplified characters have been used.

Ban Ki-moon 

Current Secretary-General of the United Nations

Ban Ki-moon (born June 13, 1944) is a South Korean diplomat.

Before becoming Secretary-General, Ban was a career diplomat in South Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and in the United Nations. He entered diplomatic service the year he graduated college, accepting his first post in New Delhi. In the foreign ministry he established a reputation for modesty and competence.

Ban was the Foreign Minister of the Republic of Korea from January 2004 to November 2006. In February 2006 he began to campaign for the office of Secretary-General. Ban was initially considered a long shot for the office. As foreign minister of Korea, however, he was able to travel to all the countries on the United Nations Security Council, a maneuver that turned him into the campaign's front runner.

On October 13, 2006, he was elected to be the eighth Secretary-General by the United Nations General Assembly. On January 1, 2007, he succeeded Kofi Annan, and passed several major reforms on peacekeeping and UN employment practices. Diplomatically, Ban has taken particularly strong views on global warming, pressing the issue repeatedly with U.S. President George W. Bush, and Darfur, where he helped persuade Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir to allow peacekeeping troops to enter Sudan.

United Nations headquarters 

The United Nations headquarters is a golden rectangled building in New York City. It is located in the Turtle Bay neighborhood, on the east side of Midtown Manhattan, on spacious grounds overlooking the East River. Though the building is in New York City, the land occupied by the United Nations Headquarters is considered international territory. FDR Drive passes underneath the Conference Building of the complex. There are also major UN agencies in Geneva, The Hague, Vienna, Montreal, Copenhagen, Bonn, and elsewhere.

Human Rights Council 

Source wikipedia.org

The purpose of the Human Rights Council is to address human rights violations. The Council is the successor to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, which was often criticised for the high-profile positions it gave to member states that did not guarantee the human rights of their own citizens.

The United Nations General Assembly established the Human Rights Council on 15 March 2006. The council has 47 members distributed by region, which each serve three year terms, and may not serve three consecutive terms. A candidate to the body must be approved by a majority of the General Assembly. In addition, the council has strict rules for membership, including a universal human rights review. While some members with questionable human rights records have been elected, it is fewer than before with the increased focus on each member state's human rights record.

UN Action to Counter Terrorism 

Terrorism has been on the agenda of the United Nations for decades. Thirteen international conventions have been elaborated within the framework of the United Nations system relating to specific terrorist activities. Member States through the General Assembly have been increasingly coordinating their counter-terrorism efforts and continuing their legal norm setting work. The Security Council has also been active in countering terrorism through resolutions and by establishing several subsidiary bodies. At the same time a number of programmes, offices and agencies of the United Nations system have been engaged in specific operational actions against terrorism further assisting Member States in their efforts. <<--Read More-->>

Featured Lens 

Good Politics - Political Fact or Myth?

We hear more and more about voter apathy in the United States. We who claim to be the leaders of the world in democracy have lost something precious. The enthusiastic exercise of our right to a voice has somehow gotten lost in the shuffle. We hav...

Presidential Race 2008

2008 Presidential Race is heating up. McCain is the Republican Presidential Candidate. Obama and Clinton are running neck to neck for the Democrats. Obama is in the lead. Democrat party leaders are calling for Clinton to conceded. She says she in the...

About Muriel Glasgow 

Host of the Yakkers Corner

Living and loving life - Spent over three decades in the United Nations, living and working in many countries. Have a deep appreciation for different cultures, for how much we can learn from each other, while understanding and acknowledging that there is really no dominant culture...

Interests
Singing
writing lyrics
writing poems
golf
hiking
reading
learning languages
networking
blogging

Favorite Movies
The Secret Movie
Gandhi
MLK
movies from Bolliwood
African movies

Favorite Music
Indian
African
Arabic

Favorite Books
Power VS Force
The Law of Attraction
Ask and it is Given
the Science of Being Rich
The Science of Being Well

Information Links 

UN Millennium Goals

The eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) - which range from halving extreme poverty to halting the spread of HIV/AIDS and providing universal primary education, all by the target date of 2015 - form a blueprint agreed to by all the world's countries and all the world's leading development institutions. They have galvanized unprecedented efforts to meet the needs of the world's poorest.

Millennium Campaign

We are the first generation that can eradicate Poverty

United Nations Development Programme

The MDGs represent a global partnership that has grown from the commitments and targets established at the world summits of the 1990s. Responding to the world's main development challenges and to the calls of civil society, the MDGs promote poverty reduction, education, maternal health, gender equality, and aim at combating child mortality, AIDS and other diseases.

UN Millennium Project

The Millennium Project was commissioned by the United Nations Secretary-General in 2002 to develop a concrete action plan for the world to achieve the Millennium Development Goals and to reverse the grinding poverty, hunger and disease affecting billions of people.

The Millennium Development Goals

A billion people worldwide still survive on less than a dollar a day.

Could you?

A4ID (Advocates for Internationl Develpment)

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), were agreed by world leaders at the UN Millennium Summit in order to set time-bound and measurable goals and targets for combating poverty, hunger, disease, illiteracy, environmental degradation and discrimination against women.

UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme)

Mission:
To provide leadership and encourage partnership in caring for the environment by inspiring, informing, and enabling nations and peoples to improve their quality of life without compromising that of future generations.

Blog Posts from Google 

The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society won consultative status at the ...

The Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations, a body of the UN Economic and Social Council, decid...

Myanmar cyclone "air bridge" to end next month

By Thin Lei Win BANGKOK, July 24 (Reuters) - Aid agencies in cyclone-hit Myanmar will have to charte...

Panel urges UN to consider anti-terrorism agency

UNITED NATIONS (AP) ? A Swiss-led, five-nation panel proposed Thursday that the United Nations ass...

Important Question, Needs Your Comment 

Which Millennium Goal do you think is the most important?

Books on the United Nations 

Outrage: How Illegal Immigration, the United Nations, Congressional Ripoffs, Student Loan Overcharges, Tobacco Companies, Trade Protection, and Drug Companies Are Ripping Us Off . . . And

by Dick Morris, Eileen Mcgann

Amazon Price: $17.79 (as of 07/25/2008)

An Insider's Guide to the UN

by Linda Fasulo

Amazon Price: $10.88 (as of 07/25/2008)

The Parliament of Man: The Past, Present, and Future of the United Nations (Vintage)

by Paul Kennedy

Amazon Price: $10.85 (as of 07/25/2008)

Making War and Building Peace: United Nations Peace Operations

by Michael W. Doyle, Nicholas Sambanis

Amazon Price: $24.32 (as of 07/25/2008)

The U.N. Exposed: How the United Nations Sabotages America's Security and Fails the World

by Eric Shawn

Amazon Price: $5.99 (as of 07/25/2008)