This is a list of links to Barbara Crossette's column on UN Wire. It was originally on the Politics and Policy blog but Blogger's permalinks seem to keep messing up so I'm putting them here.

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Barbara Crossette: The UN Beat

Is anybody in UN HQ or Congress reading Barbara Crossette's columns in UN Wire? As a former reporter for the NY Times covering the UN, Crossette has a unique perspective on the goings on at 1st Ave. and 46th St. Her columns for UN Wire have shed light on the nitty-gritty details of everyday work both at UN Headquarters and in the field. The question is: are the key decision makers (the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Kofi Annan, etc.) taking any of this seriously? Ideological positions aside, everybody agrees that the UN is an imperfect organization even on a practical, managerial level. And everybody agrees that the UN can use all the reform it can get. Kofi Annan certainly wants to help - he was first elected as Secretary-General as a reformer. But absent a commitment from top administrators and the member states (particularly the US as a major contributor), the UN will remain the glorified debating society as it's ridiculed in such rags as National Review or Weekly Standard. This is where Crossette comes in. Her "UN Notebook" column could potentially spur renewed interest in UN reform both in the US and elsewhere. It just needs wider dissemination to get the ball rolling, I think. We're talking about regular dispatches with compelling writing from an alumna of the NY Times. Sadly, not even UN Wire has a complete archive of Crossette's work in one place.

So, as a public service, here are Crossette's articles for UN Wire, beginning with her first UN Notebook column from January 2003 through July:

Jan. 21, 2003 U.S. Out Of Race For First ICC Judges
Feb. 3. 2003 Keeping the Security Council Door Ajar
Mar. 3, 2003 Village In Vietnam A Test Case For U.N. Development Work
Apr. 7, 2003 Last Chance For Khmer Rouge Trials?
May 5, 2003 Nation-Building, U.N. Style
May 19, 2003 Candidates To Succeed Annan Beginning To Emerge
Jun. 2, 2003 What The U.N. Can - And Can't - Do In Iraq
Jun. 9, 2003 Peacekeeping's Unsavory Side
Jun. 16, 2003 Fixing The Security Council
Jun. 23, 2003 AIDS, Other Trends Give New Prominence To U.N. Population Division
Jun. 30, 2003 U.N. Still Battered By U.S. Action On Iraq
Jul. 7, 2003 A New Step For The U.N. -- An Ombudsman
Jul. 14, 2003 Guess Who's Sustaining Iraq
Jul. 21, 2003 Academic Council On U.N. System Leaves U.S. For Canada
Jul. 28, 2003 Ahead Of Information Summit, U.N. Should Examine Itself

Now go read and be informed.

UPDATE: Aug. 4, 2003 Equal Rights For Homosexuals Contentious At U.N.
Aug. 11, 2003 Bush Close To Backing $1 Billion Loan To U.N.
Aug. 18, 2003 The Wrong Kind Of American Exceptionalism
Sep. 2, 2003 UNICEF In The Crosshairs
Sep. 8, 2003 Human Rights At U.N. Obscured By The Shadow Of Politics
Sep. 15, 2003 German Teacher Provides Much-Needed Guide To The U.N.
Sep. 22, 2003 For Countries Big And Small, A Diplomatic Marathon
Sep. 29, 2003 Fighting AIDS By Changing Attitudes In Africa
Oct. 6, 2003 Testing The U.N. In Afghanistan, With Iraq In Mind
Oct. 14, 2003 U.S. Rebuffs To Neighbors Should Raise Concerns
Oct. 20, 2003 AIDS, Asian Values And States Of Denial
Oct. 27, 2003 U.N. And U.S. In Iraq: Nobody Won This Round
Nov. 3, 2003 Leveraging Private Money For The United Nations
Nov. 10, 2003 A New-Look Security Council: What Makes a Winner?
Nov. 17, 2003 Oil for Food: A Great Experiment Ends
Nov. 24, 2003 Saving Congo, One Woman At A Time
Dec. 1, 2003 Sixteen Wise People And The Future Of The U.N.
Dec. 8, 2003 Too Soon To Count The U.N. In On Iraq
Dec. 15, 2003 Book On U.N. Creation A Welcome Reminder Of Early Lessons
Dec. 29, 2003 Refugees In Limbo Where The U.N. Isn't Welcome
Jan. 5, 2004 IAEA Chief Out Front On Arms Control
Jan. 12, 2004 Breathing New Life Into An Old Federation
Jan. 20, 2004 Challenging Year For U.N. Brings Renewed Media Attention
Jan. 26, 2004 Much Of World's Conflict Fueled By Small Arms
Feb. 2, 2004 Those U.N. Inspectors Were Not Wrong About Iraq
Feb. 9, 2004 The Cost Of U.N. Whistleblowing
Feb. 17, 2004 As Chile Reaches High Development Level, U.N. Shifts Strategy
Feb. 23, 2004 Saving The U.N. From Utah
Mar. 1, 2004 Arab Women Leaders Exerting Growing Influence At U.N.
Mar. 8, 2004 Putting ECOSOC Back In The Loop
Mar. 15, 2004 Afghanistan Prepares To Choose A Government
Mar. 22, 2004 Banker Plans To Put U.N. Show On The Road
Mar. 29, 2004 Sri Lanka On The Edge Again
Apr. 5, 2004 The U.N.'s Real Blunder In Iraq
Apr. 12, 2004 Corruption's Threat To Democracy
Apr. 19, 2004 Oil-For-Food: Where Was The Security Council?
Apr. 26, 2004 Losing Faith In Democracy: A Warning From Latin America
May 3, 2004 Reducing Poverty Takes More Than Just Money
May 10, 2004 No Simple Place To Pin Blame For Iraq Oil-For-Food Problems
May 17, 2004 Millions Of People Worldwide On The Move
May 24, 2004 A University In A Class By Itself
Jun. 1, 2004 Low-Tech Solutions Often Key To Third World Problems
Jun. 7, 2004 McAskie One Of U.N.'s Few Women Special Representatives
Jun. 14, 2004 When Peacekeeping Turns To Despair
Jun. 21, 2004 Changing Mindsets And Fortunes In the Poorest Nations
Jun. 28, 2004 Out Of School And Cleaning Toilets: Kids In Domestic Servitude
Jul. 6, 2004 Fighting World Poverty: Count The U.S. Out
Jul. 12, 2004 Blunt Approach Needed To Tackle India's AIDS Crisis
Jul. 19, 2004 The U.N.'s Top Envoy Speaks Out, But Who's Listening?
Jul. 26, 2004 Lessons The U.N. And U.S. Have Learned In Iraq

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