...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing...
chief Nabil al-Arabi is to head to New York later this week for talks on Syria with UN chief
the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon... of whom it can be said to his credit that he is not Kofi Annan...
, a League official said on Monday.
"Arabi's four-day visit, starting on Thursday, will focus on the Syrian crisis and on efforts to convince the UN Security Council of the need for an urgent solution," the official added.
Arab ministers at a meeting on Saturday in Doha urged the United Nations
...a formerly good idea gone bad...
to refer joint envoy Kofi Annan
...Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh and so far the worst Secretary-General of the UN. Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize for something or other that probably sounded good at the time. In December 2004, reports surfaced that Kofi's son Kojo received payments from the Swiss company Cotecna, which had won a lucrative contract under the UN Oil-for-Food Program. Kofi Annan called for an investigation to look into the allegations, which stirred up the expected cesspool but couldn't seem to come up with enough evidence to indict Kofi himself, or even Kojo...'s six-point peace plan for Syria to Chapter VII, without explicitly calling for military action.
Chapter VII outlines action the UN Security Council might take, including military force, in response to threats to international peace, breaches of the peace and acts of aggression.
The Council "must honour its responsibilities, in accordance with the UN Charter, and take the necessary measures to guarantee the full and immediate implementation of the Annan plan, in a limited time frame," the ministers said.