The Future of the UN

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Though the US wanted the final deadline for Saddam Hussein to avoid war by disarming to be Monday, the White House says it's not holding fast to the deadline or the need for a new resolution. Despite today's promise of -flexibility,- it's no secret that President Bush and his supporters are increasingly impatient with the United Nations. Critics fault the UN's reluctance to disarm Iraq by force as an institutional weakness that could be fatal. Supporters claim that the Security Council's success in delaying a US attack proves the UN's crucial role in world affairs. Is the UN becoming irrelevant or indispensable? We hear from a former US deputy ambassador to the UN, a senior advisor to the Secretary General, a senior fellow at the Brussels-based Centre for the New Europe, and the director of the World Policy Institute at the New School University in New York.

  • Making News: Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Clears Senate

    President Bush is applauding the Senate for its 64-to-33 passage of a measure banning the late-term procedure that opponents call -partial birth abortion.- Now it heads to the House, which is likely to send the measure on to the White House. Debra Rosenberg, who's following the story for Newsweek magazine, says abortion-rights advocates are already preparing their legal challenge.

  • Reporter's Notebook: Norman Mailer on the Prospects of War

    Norman Mailer has been a major figure in American literature, a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner and a controversial and outspoken voice in public affairs. The Naked and the Dead is based on Mailer's experiences in World War II. Why Are We in Vietnam, was about another war and a different generation. Mailer's latest book, The Spooky Art, is about writing, but he'd rather talk about foreign policy and possible war in Iraq.

Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 (SB 3)

United Nations

UN Security Council

Security Council Resolution 1441 (2002)

Security Council Resolution 687 (1991)

The Spooky Art (excerpt)

Credits

Host:

Warren Olney