When I started this blog about three years ago I was hoping to contribute some insights into the inner workings of the United Nations, and maybe have a few laughs. I never thought I would help inspire a cocktail.

Allow me to introduce The Diplomatic Hangover:

Shake:

1 ½ oz Russian vodka

1 ¼ oz lemon grapefruit cordial

To make the cordial: 2 cups grapefruit juice; 2 cups lemon juice; 3 cups sugar in a container with zest from the lemons and grapefruits, rested for two days in a fridge. Will last about 1 week refrigerated.

(See full recipe, including French rosé and Kenya's Tusker Beer topping, here.)

Earlier this month, I wrote a story describing how the U.S. Ambassador for United Nations Management and Reform Joseph Torsella had scolded his diplomatic counterparts for excessive drinking during marathon budget negotiations in December.

The reaction -- which I detailed in a follow-up piece entitled "America's Diplomatic Hangover" -- was fierce.

The U.N.'s African diplomats -- who suspected Torsella was talking about them -- refused to participate in budget negotiations after normal working hours. (Though they have apparently relented, agreeing to hold weekend meetings).

Dominic Girard, a radio journalist for the Canadian Broadcasting Company, called me to say he was producing a pilot radio program, Sociable, which explores "how alcohol shapes society for bad, for good, for fun and for nought." He wanted to do a spot on the drinking habits of U.N. diplomats, so Girard invited Sociable's bartender in residence, Oliver Stern, to develop a drink to go with the program. (Yes, apparently such a job does exist, though I suspect he is unpaid. He is a managing partner at the Toronto Temperance Society, where he also tends bar.)

"I thought of diplomats coming from all corners of the world sharing their traditional celebratory drinks: vodka, wine and beer," Stern writes of his new drink. "When I mix hard spirits with beer and wine I normally end up having a hangover, hence the name and the cocktail."

Now that we have established the backstory, I think we need to look ahead.

Later this year, the U.N. will be reopening its famed delegate's lounge, and bar, following a major renovation by a Dutch design team, including the architect Rem Koolhaas* and designer Hella Jongerius. It would only be fitting if Mr. Stern's concoction could find its way onto the drink menu.

For those who wanted to keep a clear head, he has come up with an alcohol free alternative: "The Diplomatic Immunity."

So, Amb. Torsella, what will it be?

Follow me on Twitter @columlynch

(an earlier version misspelled Koolhaas. Turtle Bay regrets the error)

When France eventually ends its military operations in Mali, the French military intends to position a rapid reaction force somewhere in West Africa to support African peacekeepers facing serious challenges to their authority by Islamist insurgents, according to U.N.-based diplomats familiar with the plans.

French diplomats have begun detailing plans with the United Nations, the United States, and other key powers for a so-called "beyond the horizon" force that would be ready to carry out combat operations within Mali in the event that the Islamic fundamentalist rebels threaten to return en masse.

Paris has not informed its allies where this new force would be deployed, but diplomats said it would most likely be in Senegal, Niger, or Chad, where France maintains military bases.

France's U.N. ambassador Gerard Araud, meanwhile, has sought to assure his counterparts that Paris will not abruptly pull out of Mali in the coming weeks, saying that the French military presence will be phased out gradually to allow time for a new U.N. peacekeeping mission to get its bearings.

The French military intervened in Mali on Jan. 11, after a coalition of local and foreign insurgents, including members of al Qaeda's North African franchise, launched a military offensive in a series of strategic towns in central Mali, raising fears of a dash to the capital, Bamako, where thousands of French nationals reside. The French force, which has grown to more than 4,000 soldiers, has reclaimed control of several cities that had fallen under control of the insurgents, but sparks of fighting have continued, particularly in the strategic northern city of Gao.

The discussions over the new force mark the first step in an intensive French effort to craft a diplomatic and security strategy that will allow France to reduce its presence in Mali, while ensuring that U.N. blue helmets will be in a position to maintain security.

Paris is hoping to begin work as quickly as possible on a resolution that would formally establish a new African-led peacekeeping mission, responsible for maintaining security in several northern Malian towns and support political talks between the country's government in Bamako and insurgents, thus paving the ground for national elections. French officials are hoping to convene a Security Council meeting as early as Wednesday to begin the push for a new resolution.

But the French are facing a major hurdle from Mali's rulers, who came to power as a result of a military coup and who fear that a U.N. force would not only be too weak to confront their northern enemies, but prod them into yielded power to a newly elected government. Diplomats say work on a peacekeeping mission cannot proceed until the Malian leadership makes a formal, and unequivocal, request to the United Nations for troops.

U.N.-based sources said that they expect France, and possibly other Western governments, to contribute a small number of staff officers in the eventual U.N. mission's headquarters. But the vast majority of troops will come from the region. There are currently more than 5,000 African troops from Chad, Niger, and other West African countries in Mali. The African troops, which are currently supporting the French and Malian military campaign against the country's insurgency, are expected to serve in the new U.N. peacekeeping mission.

Follow me on Twitter @columlynch  

Two decades of U.N. condemnations, threats, and sanctions have not stopped North Korea's nuclear ambitions. So, what does the Security Council have left to throw at Pyongyang?

The U.N. Security Council first called on North Korea to rein in its nuclear ambitions in 1993; more than a decade later, in 2006, it imposed its first round of sanctions to compel Pyongyang to freeze its nuclear and ballistic missile tests.

The U.N. pressure campaign -- punctuated by perennial bouts of nuclear diplomacy with Pyongyang -- has left Democratic and Republican administrations with little to show for their efforts. During the Obama administration, the Security Council has expanded the sanctions and threatened four times to impose additional penalties on North Korea if it continues to flout international demands to halt its nuclear program.

Pyongyang demonstrated once again this week it has no intention to heed those threats. In a press statement issued shortly after North Korea set off its third nuclear test on Monday, Pyongyang responded to the chorus of international condemnation with the usual bluster: North Korea, the statement asserted, has been forced to develop a nuclear deterrent to counter what it calls a "hostile" U.S. campaign to threaten its existence, and deprive it of what it sees as its legitimate right to launch satellites into space.

"If the United States makes the situation complicated by remaining hostile through the end we will have no choice but to take serial measures with more intense second and third response," the statement warned. It added that the interdiction of North Korean vessels "will be instantly regarded as an act of war and will lead to our relentless retaliatory strikes on their bases."

Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, hit back, pledging a "swift, credible, and strong response by way of a Security Council resolution that further impedes the growth of DPRK's nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs and its abilities to engage in proliferation actions."

But Rice encountered immediate resistance from China during the council's closed door session on Tuesday. China's deputy U.N. envoy, Wang Min, said that Beijing was firmly opposed to North Korea's action and underscored the importance of a nuclear-free Korean peninsula. But he also sought to water down the council's response, initially arguing that the nuclear test posed no threat to international peace and security and needed to be addressed through dialogue with the government.

Wang ultimately yielded on that point after Rice read out North Korea's statement to the council, in which she posed a simple question: How can North Korea's nuclear test, coupled with a threat to strike out at the United States, not constitute a threat to international peace and security?

But Wang secured a concession -- the removal of a provision underlining the council's intent to begin negotiation of a Security Council resolution under Chapter Seven -- that signaled China's ongoing reluctance to impose further sanctions on North Korea. (Chapter Seven is the provision in the U.N. Charter that it invokes for the imposition of sanctions). In its place, the council issued a statement pledging to consider "appropriate measures" in response to Pyongyang's action. Western diplomats noted that previous North Korean nuclear tests have resulted in Chapter Seven resolutions, and it would be unthinkable that a resolution adopted in response to the latest test would not be under Chapter Seven.

So what measures could the U.N. Security Council take, short of military action (which virtually no country advocates), to convince North Korea to halt its nuclear program?

North Korea is already perhaps the most isolated country in the world. Its trade is scrutinized at foreign ports. Ships carrying North Korean supplies are routinely boarded and searched. Its banks largely shy away from doing business in the world's main financial markets.

Rice provided few details, saying simply that the United States would seek to "tighten" and "augment" a set of existing sanctions aimed at limiting North Korea's capacity to develop its weapons programs. The U.S. envoy recalled that the Security Council had just warned Pyongyang last month that it would face "significant action" from the council if it launched a ballistic missile or tested a nuclear weapon. "And indeed, we will do so," she assured reporters.

Turtle Bay has compiled a list of possible sanctions targets:

• For a start, the U.N. Security Council could strengthen a set of financial sanctions that are designed to restrict North Korea's access to international financial markets. In January, the council adopted a resolution that calls on governments to "exercise enhanced vigilance" in preventing their nationals from engaging in financial transactions linked to North Korea's ballistic missile or nuclear program. Those provisions could be made mandatory.
• The Security Council sanctions are primarily targeted at North Korean ballistic missile and nuclear technology. Sanctions could be expanded to hit other segments of North Korea's already ailing economy. While this approach could increase economic pressure on the leadership in Pyongyang, it would likely contribute to even further hardship and suffering for ordinary North Koreans, with limited chance of changing government behavior. The North Korean leadership has been willing to allow its people to endure extreme hardship, and China would never assent to a sanctions strategy that threatened to tip North Korea into chaos, triggering a potential exodus of starving citizens across the border into China.
• Expand the category of goods that North Korea cannot trade. The U.N. Security Council has identified a long laundry list of dual-use industrial items -- from vacuum pumps to high grade maraging steel -- that can potentially be used in a ballistic missile program or in the construction of centrifuges. David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, said that the council could tighten the chokehold by expanding the prohibition on the range of prohibited items. "I think it works better to simply say all goods that could be used in a nuclear program are prohibited," Albright said. "It's easier to detect and enforce. And it will cause a lot more disruption in their supply chain."
• When the Security Council wants to ratchet up pressure on North Korea it has periodically added the names of individuals and companies to its sanctions black list. The North Koreans have sought to circumvent that move by creating front companies and changing the names of enterprises hit with financial sanctions. Expect to see the council add to that list.
• The U.N. Security Council has already imposed fairly comprehensive arms embargo on North Korea. But there is one glaring exemption: small arms. China has blocked previous efforts to include these weapons. Look for that exemption to come up for review.
• Infuriated by North Korea's 2006 nuclear and ballistic missile tests, Japan then quietly floated a proposal for a naval blockade on North Korea. The initiative never saw the light of day and is almost certainly not going to get past this time around. "It's a bridge too far," said one diplomat, explaining that virtually no one thinks it's sensible to cut off the already isolated government entirely, saying it could fuel mass starvation.
• The U.N. Security Council has already provided states with wide scope to search vessels transporting North Korean goods at port. The search and seizure provision has served to harass North Korean shippers, leading to the seizure of prohibited goods. The U.N. has not authorized states to board vessels in international waters -- a step that would bring the council into conflict with the seafaring protections contained in the Law of the Sea. And there is little chance that the council will push any further in that direction.

The 800-pound gorilla in the debate about the effectiveness of any sanctions is China. By the end of 2010, the last date for which there are records, China's trade with North Korea had boomed, surpassing $3.06 billion, up nearly 10 percent over 2008, according to figures cited by a U.N. panel monitoring enforcement of the North Korea sanctions.

A major share of North Korea's imports arrive via the Chinese port of Dalian, or across the border by land. George Lopez, a professor of peace studies at Notre Dame University and former member of a Security Council panel monitoring North Korea sanctions, said China could have a major impact on the sanctions if it enforced them more aggressively.

For instance, he said, they could conduct random inspections of goods entering the country, and they apply pressure on Chinese companies that trade with the north not to supply prohibited goods. Chinese banks, he added, could choose to clamp down on financial transactions by firms suspected of violating sanctions. But he said the United States may have to convince Beijing that it recognizes its interest in forestalling a collapse of the North Korean economy, and provide greater assurances that it has no intention to back the downfall of the regime in Pyongyang.

Follow me on Twitter @columlynch

The first phase of France's military offensive against Islamist insurgents in Mali will likely come to an end in the coming weeks or months, giving way to a more open-ended, nation-building exercise. It remains unclear what such a mission would look like, what it would do, and who would formally lead it. Though one thing appears all but certain: France is likely to be at the center.

In Paris and New York, peacekeeping and military planners have been seeking to fashion a plan that could ensure long-term stability in northern towns recently captured from militant Islamists by French and Malian forces, prod Bamako to negotiate a political settlement with the country's restive Tuaregs, and ultimately lay the groundwork for national elections.

So far, the United States, France, and Britain appear to be coalescing around a proposal to send U.N. peacekeepers to Mali to secure newly captured towns and to serve as a facilitator for future political talks. The proposal is likely to face some resistance from African powers, who will provide most of the troops for a peacekeeping mission, and who have demonstrated an increasing appetite for managing regional military and peacekeeping operations.

But the more immediate question is about France's intention. Paris has not decided what military and peacekeeping role it will play in the future, if any. Here's a series of options reportedly under consideration:

1. No French force remains in Mali. On the outer range of French planning, this contingency is probably the easiest option to eliminate. There are some 6,000 French nationals living in and around the capital of Bamako, and it was their fate that prodded French special forces into action in the first place. They're not likely to allow a repeat.

2. France could leave behind a battalion of up to 800 troops or so, kit them out with blue helmets, and have them provide the backbone of a future U.N. peacekeeping mission. The benefit of this strategy is that it would encourage other European powers -- who have advanced military capability and are comfortable serving under U.N. command -- to serve alongside the French and its African partners. France has played a similar role in the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Lebanon.

3. France could leave behind an independent contingent of  forces under French military command. They would serve as a guarantor for a separate U.N. peacekeeping mission, which would be comprised primarily of African peacekeepers. This is similar to the role it played in Ivory Coast, where French troops played a lead role in the military campaign to force former Ivoirian leader Laurent Gbagbo from power following his election defeat.

4. France could maintain a larger military force in Mali through a bilateral agreement with Bamako along the lines of its military presence in Chad, where French forces intervened in 1986 to protect  then President Hissene Habre, who had come under attack from Libya. The French operation -- dubbed Sparrowhawk -- has never formally ended, and a small force of French troops still maintains a presence.  This scenario, however, seems unlikely. French President Francois Hollande has voiced reluctance to keep boots on the ground and his U.N. envoy, Gerard Araud, has insisted that France is keen to end the military operation as soon as possible, though not sooner than necessary. At the moment, France has begun discussion with other key international and African powers about the prospects of presenting a U.N. Security Council resolution authorizing a new force.

The U.N. has had mixed feelings about France's approach to Mali. In December, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon expressed serious misgivings about the wisdom of France's initial plan to have African and European officers, and supported by the United Nations, back a campaign by the Malian army to retake the north by force from Islamist insurgents, saying that military force should only be used as a "last resort." Ban's hesitance reflected anxiety about the consequences of direct U.N. participation in a military operation against al Qaeda. While Ban has applauded the French military intervention as a necessary response to a sudden Islamist military advance towards the capital, Ban has resisted appeals for greater direct support for the mission.

"I am obliged to bring to the attention of the Security Council the assessment of the Secretariat that, if the United Nations were to provide logistics support to military forces engaged in an offensive operation, it would place civilian United Nations personnel at grave risk, and undermine their ability to carry out their current tasks," Ban wrote in a January 20 letter to the Security Council.

But the view inside the U.N. has not been monolithic.  The U.N.'s chief peacekeeper, Herve Ladsous, a former French diplomat, has pushed for greater involvement in the French-led military operation, primarily through the provision of logistical support for poorly equipped African troops. In the end, the Security Council will decide what role the U.N. will play in Mali. So far, that remains unclear.

Will, for instance, U.N. peacekeepers play any role in confronting the ongoing threat posed by terrorists? Will they be mandated to crack down on the illicit weapons and narcotics trade that fuels the insurgency in northern Mali? Will they be required to maintain law and order?

In the meantime, the U.N. Department of Peacekeeping has already begun its own contingency planning, focusing on three key options:

1. A full-fledged U.N. peacekeeping mission led by a U.N. special representative.  This is the preferred option for French, American, and British officials, as well as U.N. peacekeeping officials.  It provides the U.N. political leadership with full control over the mission and gives key Western powers, particularly in Europe, greater confidence to participate. But the vast majority of peacekeepers in the mission will come from Africa and leaders there will not want to cede decision-making to the United Nations.

2. A hybrid force. Facing demands by African leaders for a greater say in regional matters, the U.N. established a joint U.N.-African Union (AU) peacekeeping mission in Darfur, Sudan. This hybrid force established the notion of joint AU leadership in the mission. The force has been viewed as a model for the future within Africa, but it has been criticized as cumbersome and ineffectual by U.N. peacekeeping officials. France and Britain strongly oppose it.

3. A compromise option would involve splitting the mission into two. The United Nations would command a stabilization force in northern Mali, where most of the fighting has occurred. A second political mission in Bamako would be managed jointly by the AU and the U.N. It would help facilitate political talks between the Malian government and the country's ethnic minorities, particularly the northern Tuaregs, and pave the way for national elections.

As the key players consider the various options, a more strategic question will have to be addressed. What kind of Mali do the French and its African and U.N. partners want to leave behind? And do they have the capacity to make that happen?

"What we are looking for is a strategy that will not return Mali to the status quo ante," said one senior U.N. official. "We need to support the rule of law and transform the institutions so that this will be the last time blue helmets are needed in Mali."

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For starters, the new year will see diplomatic life return to the U.N.’s glistening, landmark headquarters, as the first phase of a $2 billion renovation comes to an end. Earlier this month, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon moved back into his old 38th floor office, and the U.N. Security Council chamber is set to reopen for business early this year. The U.N. press corps, meanwhile, is set to follow.

But the old, sloppy business of managing the world’s crises will remain. Long-festering diplomatic and military standoffs, from the Democratic Republic of Congo to Iran, will be at the top of the agenda for U.N. officials and foreign diplomats. A looming showdown with Islamic extremists, drought, and transnational crime will also tax U.N. military planners in Mali, where a U.N.-backed African peacekeeping mission is preparing for a long slog to restore stability.

In Syria, the potential collapse of President Bashar al-Assad’s government has fueled fears that U.N. blue helmets will be deployed to mitigate a conflict that they cannot contain and which threatens to wreak havoc across the Middle East.

So much for good news, then. With 2012 winding down, Turtle Bay looks at the people and the crises that will define the coming year at the United Nations.

SUSAN RICE

The end of 2012 has not been a particularly high point in the skyrocketing career of Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. 

Republican opposition blocked her quest to ascend to the position of secretary of state, and the U.S. envoy ended the year at the U.N. Correspondent’s Association awards dinner by saying there was no place she was happier to be than Turtle Bay. Behind her, all in good fun, an image of the U.S. State Department appeared on a giant screen.

But while Foggy Bottom is not in Rice’s immediate future, don’t count her out in 2013. Rice’s stoic withdrawal from consideration for the job -- she said a partisan battle over her nomination would distract from the country’s national security priorities -- has likely solidified her standing in the White House.

For the time being, Rice has said she will stay on at her U.N. job and her staff has told colleagues that they intend to remain in New York for several more months. If, as many anticipate, Rice winds up as President Barack Obama’s national security advisor, she may become one of the most powerful officials in that job since Henry Kissinger.

SYRIA

Syria has been on the backburner since last July, when Russia and China cast their third veto at the U.N. Security Council on a Western-backed resolution pressing Assad to yield power to a transitional government.

Earlier this month, rebel gains and high-level talks between the United States and Russia had raised the prospects that diplomatic efforts may return to the U.N. Security Council. Speaking from Damascus on Thursday, U.N.-Arab League Special Envoy Lakhdar Brahimi pressed the warring parties to agree to a national unity government. "If that is not possible, the other solution could be to go to the Security Council to issue a binding resolution to all," Brahimi added. But Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov provided a downbeat account of the diplomacy, telling reporters that there was "no possibility" of convincing President Assad to stand down.

Plans for a U.N. peacekeeping operation for Syria are in the works. The U.N. peacekeeping department has been developing plans for a mission of several thousand blue helmets to enforce a possible peace deal between Assad's government and the opposition. However, many U.N. officials fear that the time for such a peace accord may have passed and that such a mission will be utterly incapable of containing the sectarian violence that may spread across the country if peace efforts collapse. "People are talking about a divided Syria being split into a number of small states like Yugoslavia," Brahimi said Sunday. "This is not what is going to happen. What will happen is Somalization -- warlords."

RED LINES AND IRAN

The West’s nuclear standoff with Iran moved to the center of the foreign policy debate in the run up to the U.S. presidential election, but it has since fallen off the radar. That may not last long.

There are renewed prospects for continued U.S.-backed talks with Iran over its nuclear program, but no clear indications that a deal is in the making. In the absence of a peace deal, Obama will face growing pressure to draw a clear line in the sand. In his address to the U.N. General Assembly in September, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu drew his own crude red line on a cartoon drawing of an Iranian nuclear bomb. Netanyahu predicted that line would be crossed some time in spring or summer 2013 -- if Obama doesn’t solve the problem by then, the Israelis may decide their only option is to launch a unilateral strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

THE DRONE WARS

The battle between America’s drone warriors and U.N. human rights advocates is primed to flare up in 2013. In October, Ben Emmerson, the U.N. special rapporteur for counterterrorism and human rights, announced plans to establish a new office in Geneva early next year to investigate alleged killing of civilians in drone attacks.

Emmerson’s effort could hardly be more timely. In addition to well-known drone operations in Pakistan and Yemen, the United States has expanded its drone operations in Africa: Through its airbase in Djibouti, drones are now helping combat warlords and Islamic extremists from Somalia to Mali -- and even in the Central African Republic, the chief operations center for Joseph Kony and his Lord's Resistance Army. Emmerson has been a sharp critic of the Obama administration, denouncing efforts by U.S. officials to "provide a legal justification for the drone program of targeted killings in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia."

NORTH KOREA

In response to North Korea’s Dec. 12 launch of a ballistic missile into space, the U.N. Security Council passed a statement condemning Pyongyang’s action as a "clear violation" of past U.N. resolutions.

But a stronger response is on the horizon. In April, after North Korea conducted a failed ballistic missile test, the council threatened to take unspecified action against Pyongyang if the regime conducted another missile launch or nuclear test. It did. So now what? The council put off action until the new year, leaving it to the United States, which favors additional sanctions, and China, which opposes them, to try to reach an agreement. "I don’t know if the United States will manage to turn around Beijing on this one," one council diplomat told me, adding that Chinese U.N. envoy Li Baodong made it "pretty clear a resolution wouldn’t fly."

But some diplomats remain hopeful that the United States can still persuade China to back a tougher response. "To be honest, we don’t have a clear indication how this will play out. But I’m not so pessimistic," said another diplomat. "We need to send the correct message to the new leader of DPRK."

MALI

Just before Christmas, the U.N. Security Council authorized the creation of a new African peacekeeping force to help restore democratic rule in Mali, rebuild the nation's military, and help the Malians retake a huge swath of northern territory that is now under the control of a collection of Islamic extremist groups. While it is unlikely that the force will be deployed before next September or October of next year, 2013 will mark a major turning point in U.S. and U.N. involvement in the Sahel, where a dangerous mix of drought, hunger, international crime, and terrorism threatens the stability of the region.

PALESTINE

Last month, the U.N. General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to recognize Palestine as a "non-member observer state," setting the stage for a confrontation with Israel and Washington -- and providing the backdrop for renewed Israeli settlement expansion in the West Bank.

Fearful that the deepening dispute will deal a mortal blow to the prospects for a viable Palestinian state, European governments have been pleading with the Obama administration to announce a major new peace initiative following Israeli elections next month. At the United Nations, meanwhile, pressure is building on Israel to halt its latest settlement plans. Earlier this month, representatives from 14 of the council's 15 members, including four European powers, issued statements denouncing Israel's settlements as a threat to a two-state solution.

THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO

Congolese mutineers, known as the M23 movement, routed the national army in eastern Congo in November, seizing the regional capital of Goma. That forced the Congolese government to enter into peace talks with the group's leaders, which includes Bosco Ntaganda, a man wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court.

But this isn’t just a domestic conflict: A U.N. panel known as the Group of Experts has issued numerous reports contending that Rwanda, and to a lesser degree Uganda, have sponsored, equipped, trained, and commanded the mutineers. Efforts to criticize Rwanda -- which will join the Security Council in January for a two-year term – have been stymied by the United States, and further attempts to pressure it to rein in its alleged Congolese proxies appear unlikely as long as Kigali holds a seat in the council. For the time being, African governments operating from the Ugandan capital of Kampala will take the lead in negotiating a peace deal between the M23 and the Congolese government.

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The U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, and his predecessor, Kofi Annan, have toiled in the cause of peace in Syria this year. So it's perhaps not a surprise that they would be nominated for an international peace prize. But this is one award they will not likely be bragging about if they win.

"It's not like you would campaign for this," quipped one U.N. official. "At least I hope no one is campaigning for this."

The organizers of the Confucius Peace Prize this weekend announced the nomination of the U.N. luminaries, along with Microsoft chairman Bill Gates and several others for a prize that awarded last year to Russian President Vladimir Putin -- in recognition of his opposition to the NATO-led bombing campaign in Libya, and which praised his military campaigns in Chechnya and Georgia.

"These were righteous wars," the Confucius Peace Prize committee co-founder and president, Qiao Damo, told the New York Times last year. Human rights advocates have differed, accusing Putin's forces and proxies of engaging in large-scale rights abuses.

The Chinese prize was established as Beijing's answer to the decision to honor Liu Xiaobo, the jailed pro-democracy dissident, in 2010 with the Nobel Peace Prize.

The selection of Liu infuriated the Chinese government, and prompted a Chinese banker, Liu Zhiqin, to propose that China establish the Confucius Peace Prize to counteract what he characterized as the West's anti-Chinese bias and to highlight China's "views on peace and human rights."

"The Nobel Peace prize won Liu Xiaobo while losing the trust of 1.3 billion Chinese people," Liu Zhiqin wrote in a November 2010 opinion piece. "They support a criminal while creating 1.3 billion 'dissidents' that are dissatisfied with the Nobel Committee, which is definitely a bad decision."

The effort to establish the prize's legitimacy has been rocky.

The committee's first award recipient, Lien Chan, a Taiwanese politician who promoted improved ties between China and Taiwan, did not show up at the awards ceremony, saying he'd never heard of the award, and even Putin's press office told reporters they didn't know much about the report, according to the New York Times.

The Chinese government meanwhile criticized the committee organizers for suggesting they were linked to the Chinese Ministry of Culture. But the prize lives on.

This year' s other nominees include Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, Chinese social activist Wang Dingguo, Peking University Prof. Tang Yijie, Chinese rice researcher Yuan Longping.

A spokesman for Ban, Farhan Haq, said that any decision on whether Ban or Annan would accept the prize, if awarded, is hypothetical since the winner has not been announced. But he says that secretaries general frequently do accept awards on the behalf of the United Nations, donating cash awards to humanitarian causes.

But Ban and Annan still face stiff competition from another nominee -- China's choice to inherit the title of Tibet's spiritual leader, known as the 11th Panchen Lama, when the current Dalai Lama dies. The Dalai Lama anointed another heir back in 1995, a six-year old boy who was subsequently taken into "protective custody" by the Chinese government and never seen in public again.

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Last week, the foreign policy punditry, myself included, had declared the U.N. role in Syria all but dead.

But of course no U.N. diplomatic initiative ever truly dies.

Ban Ki-moon has vowed to conduct a global search for a new envoy to replace the joint U.N.- Arab League envoy Kofi Annan, who announced he would step down later this month, saying it was impossible to compel the combatants in Syria to put down their guns while the Security Council's big powers squabbled over competing strategies.

France's top diplomat Laurent Fabius today announced he is organizing a Security Council meeting for foreign ministers on August 30 on the grounds that the 15-nation body "cannot remain silent in the face of the tragedy playing out in Syria," according to a statement released today by the French Foreign Ministry.

So, it should come as no shock to learn that the United Nations leadership is scrambling to convince the United States, Britain, and France, to allow the U.N. to maintain a presence in Syria after the mandate for the monitoring mission expires on August 19. The United States has argued that it's unconscionable for the U.N. monitors to remain in Syria to enforce a non-existent cease-fire agreement. They are like "sitting ducks," Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, recently told the council.

But the United Nations is reluctant to be seen abandoning the Syrians in their hour of need. The U.N. chief is expected to present the Security Council on August 16 with a plan to maintain a presence in Damascus beyond the end of the month.

Russia and China have called for keeping the U.N. mission in Syria as it is, saying it has kept the council informed about events on the ground and maintained an open line of communications with the warring factions. "Some useful work is being done by this mission," Vitaly Churkin, Russia's U.N. ambassador told reporters last week. "It's is not obvious at all what the strategy might be behind the call to terminate the mission.

Iran, meanwhile, appeared to be looking to the U.N. mission for help in securing the release of more than 40 Iranian hostages, though U.N. officials said the monitors were playing no such role.

Any new U.N. mission, which may or may not require a new Security Council mandate, would help coordinate the U.N.'s ongoing humanitarian activities in Syria, but more importantly, it would devote its attention to maintaining contact with combatants on both sides.

Responsibility for managing the mission may be transferred from the U.N. peacekeeping to the department of political affairs, which is headed by a former U.S. State Department official, Jeffrey Feltman.

The current chief of peacekeeping, Herve Ladsous, signaled the U.N.'s intention to remain in Syria in a closed-door briefing to the Security Council last week. He said that the U.N. was still playing a role in aiding the efforts of U.N. relief organizations and that it was maintaining contacts with the key warring factions.

For the moment, the discussions about the fate of the mission have naturally been overtaken by events on the ground in Aleppo, where the Syrian government has launched a ground offensive aimed at rooting out rebel forces.

Zalmay Khalilzad, a former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq, and the United Nations, wrote in the Washington Post today that the U.N. would be needed in Syria once the fighting ends.

"Washington should remain open to an active U.N. role in finalizing a transitional road map once the conditions for a new order are in place," Khalilzad wrote in a piece that urged the United States to arm the rebels while encouraging a military coup. "The United Nations has played such a role in post-Taliban Afghanistan, among other places, where U.N. special representatives catalyzed a process to establish an interim regime, draft a constitution and hold elections."

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On March 6, one week after Kofi Annan was appointed U.N.-Arab League special envoy for Syria, columnist Benny Avni wrote an item in the New York Sun suggesting that U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon had been forced to "swallow" his predecessor's appointment.

The assertion seemed plausible enough. And the buzz around U.N. diplomatic circles was that Ban had been instructed to hire Annan.

Ban had long lived in the shadow of his predecessor, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who had traditionally received much better press than Ban. In fact, Ban often seemed reluctant to tap the services of top officials closely identified with Annan, including the man who is now one of Annan's top Syria deputies, Jean-Marie Guehenno, who was passed over for the top peacekeeping job in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

But Ban's top aides categorically and energetically denied the story, insisting that it was Ban himself who had decided to choose Annan. "Benny got it wrong!" one top Ban aide told me.

Challenged by the U.N. brass, Avni agreed to add a sentence reflecting the U.N.'s claim that appointment was Ban's idea, and a clarification: "This article was corrected from an earlier edition to more accurately describe the origin of Mr. Annan's mission."

Perhaps Avni was being a bit too accommodating.

This is what Annan himself had to say about his selection in his upcoming memoir, Interventions: A Life in War and Peace.

"In February 2012, while I was reviewing the final drafts of this book at home in Geneva, I received a call from my successor Secretary General Ban Ki Moon. He wanted to know if I would accept a request, conveyed to him by a group of foreign ministers, to take on the role of the international community's envoy for the crisis in Syria."

Sounds like Benny may not have got it so wrong after all.

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With the violence in Syria returning to levels that have surpassed the rate of killing that preceded the U.N-Arab League brokered cease-fire on April 12, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has proposed a series of options for remaking the U.N. Supervisory Mission in Syria (UNSMIS).

The options -- contained in a report to the U.N. Security Council -- range from withdrawing the mission of 300 unarmed observers to reinforcing it with an armed protection force. But the option clearly favored by U.N. planners calls for a shift from a monitoring mission to a "mediation operation" after the mission's current mandate expires on July 20.

The report reflected deep pessimism in U.N. circles about the prospects for the Syrian government, which is blamed for starting the violence, and the armed opposition putting down their weapons and pursuing a negotiated settlement to the crisis.

"I am deeply troubled by the dangerous trajectory of the conflict and the destructive dynamics at play on the ground. The peaceful popular uprising that started sixteen months ago has transformed into a violent confrontation between the Government and armed opposition groups," Ban wrote. "Syria is now engulfed by violence and at risk of becoming a theater for full-blown civil war, with grave implications for the people of Syria and for people in the region."

According to the proposal, the U.N. would relocate its operation to Damascus, scale back its monitoring patrols, and reinforce its stable of political affairs officers and human rights experts who would intensify their contacts with government and opposition leaders in an effort to start political talks between the warring parties. The report also notes that U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan will travel to Damascus and key capital from the "action group" to prod concerned states into backing political negotiations.

If progress is made, and an enforceable cease-fire is achieved, then the U.N. would quickly restart its patrols with the aim of monitoring enforcement of the cease-fire. Here is the key passage of options outlined in Ban's 25 page report:

Read on

Since his first days in office, Ban Ki-moon has lived under the shadow of his predecessor, Kofi Annan, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate who was dubbed the "secular pope" and viewed by many U.N. boosters as the organization's moral compass.

Ban, by contrast, was the guy engaging in secret talks with unsavory dictators and autocrats in places like Burma, or holding his tongue in the face of  atrocities in Sri Lanka and Sudan. But in Syria, Ban has abandoned his traditional preference for quiet diplomacy, berating the Syrian leadership in a series of scathing statements.

Ban recently told reporters at a luncheon that he had essentially stopped trying to speak directly to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, saying that he had effectively broken every promise he had made to the U.N. chief. Throughout the crisis, Ban has made it clear again and again that the Syria regime is to blame for stoking the country's popular unrest.

The U.N.'s diplomatic role in Syria has so far failed to bring an end to the Syrian crisis, and Ban's public criticism of Assad has likely limited to own ability to play a role in mediating the crisis. But it has nevertheless had the effect of elevating Ban's profile as a champion of popular rights while exposing Annan to criticism that he has placed unreasonable hopes in his ability to bring the Syrian leader into line.

Human Rights advocacy groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have recognized and applauded Ban for his public diplomacy on Syria, saying that he has finally come around to recognizing the value of using his position on the world stage as a bully pulpit, at least in the case of Syria.

"Many rights advocates despaired when they saw the statements he made defending states rights to the death penalty on his first day in office," Jose Luis Diaz, Amnesty International's U.N. representative told Turtle Bay. "But his statements on Syria, for example, or his position on the rights of LGBT [Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender] persons, are good examples of the leadership we all expect from the U.N. secretary general. We'd like to see him use his moral and legal bully pulpit across the board. I hope that now that he's been given a second term he'll feel freer to speak out on all kinds of abuses, whoever commits or backs them"

Stephen Schlesinger, who has written extensively about the United Nations, last year described Ban's first term as "lackluster and ineffectual." But he said that Ban's public support for popular uprisings during the Arab Spring have "changed my mind about Ban. I think he has been far more outspoken and assertive in his role. He has started to sound like the old Kofi Annan."

Schlesinger and other U.N. experts, however, have defended Annan as exhibiting courage in accepting a meditation role carried little hope of success and posed threat to his reputation. And they say it is only natural that the role of diplomatic mediator requires making politically unpalatable comprises.

"It is the job of secretary general to be the bad cop and the mediator to be the good cop," said Bruce Jones, director of the Center for International Cooperation at New York University, and a former aide to Annan. "Kofi has put himself into a position that has some reputational risks. But I would find if unfortunate if Kofi gets blamed because every other solution is horrible one and this is a situation where you want to overturn every last pebble" to find a diplomatic solution to the crisis.

By most accounts, Annan has been dealt a pretty weak diplomatic hand.

U.S. and European-led diplomatic efforts to impose U.N. sanctions on Damascus to pressure the government to reform have been blocked by Russia and China. The United States, Britain, France, and Turkey appear unprepared to use force to drive Assad from power. Security Council diplomats, meanwhile appear increasingly concerned that Assad may weather the crisis, ensuring a central role in the country's future.

Still, Annan could hardly have been blind to the risks of deploying a small group of unarmed U.N. monitors in a conflict zone to enforce a cease-fire that few outsiders believe will stick. As the head of the U.N. peacekeeping department through much of the 1990s, Annan played a key role in running failed U.N. operations in Rwanda and Bosnia.

In November 1999, Annan published a review of the U.N. role in failing to stop mass killings outside the Bosnian village of Srebrenica, the worst atrocity in Europe since the Holocaust, that concluded that the U.N. leadership had to learn to resist the political pressure to send U.N. blue helmets into harms way when there was no peace to keep.

"Peacekeepers must never again be deployed into an environment in which there is no ceasefire or peace agreement," Annan wrote, criticizing the U.N. Security Council for not authorizing "more decisive and forceful action to prevent the unfolding horror."

"Many of the errors the United Nations made flowed from a single and no doubt well-intentioned effort: we tried to keep the peace and apply the rules of peacekeeping when there was no peace to keep," he added. "The cardinal lesson of Srebrenica is that a deliberate and systematic attempt to terrorize, expel or murder an entire people must be met decisively with all necessary means, and with the political will to carry the policy through to its logical conclusion."

The experience resulted in the U.N. turning to major world or regional powers to enforce peace in trouble spots like East Timor, where Australian soldiers imposed a cease-fire, and Sierra Leone, where British forces intervened to put down a rebellion. At the same time, the U.N. developed its own peacekeeping strategy -- known as "robust peacekeeping" -- which involved the limited use of lethal force in places like Congo and Haiti to put down challenges to its authority by armed groups.

Those lessons have not been applied in Syria, however, where the U.N.'s big powers have been unable to reach agreement on a plan to compel Assad to end a bloody crackdown that has left as many as 10,000 people dead. Annan, meanwhile, has openly opposed  calls by Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and a number of American lawmakers to arm Syria's divided opposition.

"The U.N. supervision mission is possibly the only remaining chance to stabilize the country," Annan told reporters in Geneva earlier this month. "And I'm sure I'm not telling you any secret when I tell you that there is a profound concern that the country could otherwise descend into full civil war and the implications of that are quite frightening. We cannot allow that to happen."

Indeed, if he succeeds in stopping that from happening, Ban may wind up back in Annan's shadow.

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As the late Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi's forces prepared to crush the Libyan uprising last summer in Benghazi, Britain, France, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, the United States, and other allies moved quickly to reinforce the beleaguered rebel forces.

With military supplies, training, advice -- and of course the backing of NATO war planes -- this coalition of governments provided critical support to change the course of the conflict, ultimately leading to Qaddafi's downfall.

The U.N. Security Council's arms embargo was primarily intended to constrain Qaddafi's capacity to use its massive oil wealth to import new stocks of weapons and foreign mercenaries to help put down the rebellion. But it also placed restraints on the supply of weapons to the rebels, prompting the Security Council to later introduce an exemption -- providing significant cover for governments seeking to arm the rebels.

A new report by a U.N. panel of experts responsible for monitoring the arms embargo in Libya sought to itemize a list of military supplies -- everything from sandbags to shouldered propelled rockets -- that flowed into Libya after the U.N. Security Council imposed an arms embargo on Libya in February 2011. The list, however, is incomplete because NATO and some of the insurgents' chief military backers, including Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, have refused to provide a full account of their contributions.

The report identified numerous attempts by the Qaddafi regime "to secure arms deals and use mercenaries from neighboring countries," citing reports in the Globe and Mail about a July 2011 visit to Beijing by Libyan officials seeking to purchase military supplies from three Chinese arms manufacturers. (China denied that the talks led to any deals.) The panel also cited reports that much of Libya's military capacity had been reconstituted after 2004, following years of Western and U.N. sanctions, with the aid of Western European countries and ex-Soviet states (The panel also noted that is conducting an ongoing investigation into Qaddafi's use of mercenaries, adding that so far it had found "no conclusive evidence.")

But the 78-page report provides insights into how the international community combined diplomatic pressure, military airpower, and clandestine arms deliveries, to topple a regime. It would not be surprising if some of those countries considering backing the Syrian campaign to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad in Syria are drawing from the same playbook.

The United States

Though U.S. airpower proved decisive in crippling Qaddafi's defenses, the United States maintains that it provided only non-lethal military support to the rebels. The report notes that on February 6, the United States provided the panel with a list of its contributions, including 8,000 uniforms, 8,000 boots, 5,825 load-bearing vests, 2,850 bullet proof vests, 1,975 military helmets, and "items for defensive positions (sandbags, Hescos...)."

Italy

The Italian government notified the panel on February 14 that it supplied 10 military trainers, 10,000 uniforms, 5,400 helmets and 2,800 leather boots.

United Kingdom.

On February 9, the United Kingdom informed the panel that it supplies the rebels with 6,000 sets of body armor and no more than 20 military personnel. The British action, according to the report, was intended to "provide a military assistance team to the Libyan authorities for the purpose of providing operational assistance, training and mentoring on security issues, including reform of the armed services, counter-terrorism and counterinsurgency."

France

In April 2011, the French government notified the United Nations that it had sent a small team of military advisors to Libya to provide the National Transitional Council with "support and advice on ways to organize its internal structure, manage its resources and improve its communications." In June, it went further, notifying the UN that it had "airdropped self-defence weapons for the civilian populations that had been victims of attacks by Libyan armed forces." The panel's report contains no detailed list of these contributions as the French asked it to keep the details confidential.

Albania

The panel said that it has obtained information that several flights operating from Tirana, Albania, transported military materiel to Benghazi over a three day period in September, 2011. The case remains under investigation.

Sudan

One of the more tantalizing revelations in the panel report is the suggestion that Darfuri rebel groups, including members of the Zaghawa tribe and fighters from the Justice and Equality Movement, may have backed Qaddafi's counterinsurgency campaign. The panel said that while it was not able to "definitely corroborate" numerous reports of the military role in the conflict, ‘the accumulative strength of intelligence gives substantial credibility to these findings." No to be outdone, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, extended overflight rights over Sudanese territory to NATO, according to senior U.N. diplomats, and allegedly supplied arms to the insurgents, according to the panel. The panel cited claims by the Benghazi rebel defense ministry that Sudan provided "small arms and light weapons such as rocket-propelled grenades," and transported other supplies to Bengazhi on two Ilyushin-76 aircraft. "According to media reports, on 26 October, the President of the Sudan, Omar Al-Bashir, gave a speech in Kasala in which he acknowledged weapons deliveries from the Sudan to Libya and that the weapons had reached revolutionaries in Misratah, Al-Jabal Al-Gharabi and Zawiya." The Sudanese government did not reply to the panel's request for information.

Qatar

In March 2011, Qatar notified the United Nations that it would participate in NATO enforcement of the U.N.-authorized no-fly zone over Libya, contributing "a number of military aircraft, military transport aircraft and helicopters." Qatar categorically denied media reports that "it had supplied the revolutionaries with arms and ammunition," saying only that it had "sent a limited number of military personnel to provide military consultations to the revolutionaries, defend Libyan civilians and protect aid convoys." The only weapons and ammunition it had furnished was for the use of Qatari military advisors in self-defense.

But the Qatari contention had one big hole in it. In July, 2011, a Swiss television station discovered spent Swiss ammunition used by the Libyan revolutionaries. The Swiss ammo had been exported to the Qatar armed forces in 2009 by a Swiss arms company, FGS Frex, and made its way to Libya. Confronted by Swiss authorities, who noted that Qatar was prohibited from re-exporting the ammunition, the Qatari ambassador appeared to have confirmed its role in the supply of ammunition. "The ambassador of Qatar explained to the Swiss representatives that the ‘transfer of the aforementioned ammunition to the Libyan opposition was a misadventure in the course of his country's support of the NATO operation in Libya.' He reassured the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs that ‘Qatar took the appropriate measures to prevent similar errors in the future.'"

The United Arab Emirates

The panel provided few details about alleged arms transfers by the United Arab Emirates, partly because it is conducting an ongoing investigation into the matter, and partly because the Gulf state refused to provide the panel with a list of its contributions. On March 25, "the United Arab Emirates notified the [UN] Secretary General that it would participate, within the framework of the international coalition, by providing military aircraft. No notification was given regarding transfers of weapons or ammunition or provision of military personnel." The panel visited the UAE to inquire about its role in arming and advising the Libyan insurgents. The government insisted that it had acted in conformity with UN resolutions and under the umbrella of the NATO operation" to protect civilians. "They did not provide more precise information and said that NATO would be in a better position to answer those questions."

NATO

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization's role in Libya was decisive in crippling Qaddafi's military defenses and providing support for insurgent offensive operations. While its air campaign is not the subject of the panel's inquiry, the report notes that it wrote to NATO "asking it to provide a detailed list of military materiel, including weapons and ammunition, sent by Qatar and the United Arab Emirates or any other country that participated in the NATO operation and information regarding the number and roles of military personnel sent by those countries to Libya since the imposition of the embargo. While NATO acknowledged the receipt of the panel's request for information on 25 January 2012, no answer has been provided to date."

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Mukesh Kapila, a former U.N. envoy to Sudan who was among the first to raise the alarm over atrocities in Darfur, recently returned to Sudan, sneaking into the Nuba Mountains to assess humanitarian conditions in a province that has seen violence and been cut off from international assistance.

The Nuba Mountains have been the center of fighting between Sudanese forces and rebels allied with newly independent South Sudan. Sudan's government in Khartoum, which launched a major offensive aimed at crushing the rebellion, has refused to allow U.N. humanitarian aid workers into the region to witness what is happening and assist hundreds of thousands facing looming famine.

Kapila and other Sudan peace activists, including film star George Clooney, have traveled to the Nuba mountains in recent weeks to raise awareness about the plight of the Nubans, and pressed government officials to take dramatic steps to avert hunger.

"People are living on rats, wild flowers, and fruits," Kapila said in a telephone interview with Turtle Bay. Kapila, who was representing the advocacy group Aegis Trust, made the case that the situation has grown so desire that foreign donors need to bypass the United Nations delivery system and provide direct assistance to local groups, some of which have links to the rebels, to stave off a massive humanitarian calamity. If some aid is diverted to armed fighters challenging the government so be it.

"In my view, cross-border operations are necessary," Kapila said. "Those who don't want to do it don't have the moral high ground to stand in the way.

The United States has warned that the country this month will reach a phase four-level food emergency, one stage short of full-out famine, without a major relief effort. And American officials have been quietly building up food stocks in the area and are considering the prospects of supporting cross-border aid distribution operations that are opposed by the Sudanese government, according to senior U.N. officials and private aid groups.The move follows an increasing push by a group of seven human rights advocacy groups, including the Enough Project and United to End Genocide, which appealed to Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, last month to support cross-border aid. "Counter-intuitively, sending aid into Sudan by any means necessary -- backed by heavy press for humanitarian corridors -- might be the best way to compel the regime to lift its aid embargo," Enough Project founder John Prendergast and Clooney wrote in December.

Officials say that Rice is sympathetic to the argument for cross-border operations, which were used to stave off hunger in the Nuba Mountains during the 1990s. The relief assistance then was channeled through several Norwegian and American relief organizations with operations in the area.

Princeton Lyman, the U.S.'s special envoy for Sudan, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee today that while the United States would prefer the U.N. secure Khartoum's consent for aid deliveries it is considering doing it without it. "Should Khartoum agree to allow access to international humanitarian organizations across the lines of fighting, there must be swift progress on implementation. If necessary, we will examine ways to provide indirect support to Sudanese humanitarian actors to reach the most vulnerable. We have monitoring and accountability tools to make sure that civilians would be the beneficiaries of these activities. Nevertheless, an international program, as proposed by the U.N. and its partners, is the best means to reach the most people and we continue to urge the government to approve it."

But the proposal has faced stiff resistance from the U.N.'s chief humanitarian relief agencies, including the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, and several humanitarian relief groups with operations in Sudan. They fear that the effort would provoke the government into moving against relief agencies, and would undermine the chief principle of humanitarian neutrality.

"I've made it clear on many occasions that I do not support cross-border operations unless they are agreed by both governments, the governments of Sudan and South Sudan," said Valerie Amos, the U.N. humanitarian relief coordinator. "And indeed the government of Sudan have said that they would see any kind of cross-border operation as a hostile act."

Amos said that she has proposed that the Sudanese government allow international relief workers to have "cross line" access to displaced civilians in rebel-controlled areas of South Kordofan by crossing through government-controlled territory, not through the border. The anti-government rebels, known as the Sudanese People's Liberation Army (North), have agreed to the plan, but Khartoum has not provided a response.

The Sudanese government kicked the United Nations out of the Nuba Mountains last summer, arguing that their services were no longer needed following the end of the countries' decades-long civil war.

A landmark 2005 peace deal ending Sudan's bloody civil war between north and south paved the way for the latter's independence, but it never resolved the fate of their Nuban allies, who remain subject to northern rule.

The local forces were supposes to disarm following a "popular consultation" that was intended to determine the regions relationship with Khartoum. But the rival forces were never integrated, and the popular consultation never took place.

In May, Khartoum ordered the Nuban forces to either turn over their weapons and submit to northern rule or move to the south. A month later, as the world's attention was focused on South Sudan's independence, Khartoum opened its new military front in the Sudanese territory of South Kordofan, in the country's Nuba Mountains region.

The situation in South Kordofan bears some similarities with Darfur, where Sudanese forces, backed by Arab militias, mounted a brutal counterinsurgency campaign -- including large-scale killings and massive displacement of civilians -- against the region's restive tribes. In one ominous twist, South Kordofan's new governor, Ahmed Haroun, a member of Sudan's ruling National Congress Party, is wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of committing war crimes against Darfurians.

However, the local forces in South Kordofan are far more heavily armed than their Darfurian counterparts and have exercised control over a large swath of the territory. Sudanese officials charge the Nubans with precipitating the latest round of violence by reinforcing their military presence in recent months and refusing to meet their obligation under previous agreements to disarm and attacking local security outposts.

The fate of Sudan's Nubans has become a growing source of concern among human rights observers. Kapila, who traveled to the Nuban Mountains with a rebel escort, said he witnessed a veritable wasteland.

"What did I see?" he asked. "Basically, as you drive in, you see totally deserted countryside, burnt village after burnt village after burnt village."

The few remaining locals, he said, are terrorized by daily bombings from government Antonov airplanes. In the town of Taroji, he saw two churches hit by overhead bombs, while a local mosque was left untouched. He saw boxes of Mark 4 anti-personnel mines (bearing Farsi writing, and thus apparently of Iranian origin), that had been seized by anti-government forces when they captured the town last month. Spent munitions of Chinese, Russian, Ukrainian, and even U.S. origin were found in towns that faced attacks by government forces.

In the town of Dar, in the Nuba Mountains, he encountered a group of woman collecting water at a pump when an Antonov began its approach, forcing the women to flee to a nearby hill where they sought refugee in hidden nooks, crannies, and caves.

"I was totally paralyzed because I'm not used to Antonovs flying over my head," he said. "These Antonov bombers go around terrorizing the population almost every day."

Kapila said that anti-government forces of the Sudan People's Liberation Army (North), also known as the ninth division, have gradually expanded their control of territory, providing an opening for the delivery of aid from South Sudan.

"These people are being cleared away," Kapila said. If we don't act fast, he added, "we will end up with a situation where Khartoum will delay assistance until it has cleansed the area. The same thing happened in Darfur."

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U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is planning to ask his predecessor, Kofi Annan, to serve as his new U.N. envoy to Syria, turning to a high-profile diplomat with extensive experience in the region, and a history of dealings with President Bashar al-Assad, to help halt the spiraling violence in Syria.

If he accepts, it would be Annan's first major diplomatic troubleshooting effort since 2008, when he led an African Union mediation effort aimed at ending a post-election civil war in Kenya. Annan received international plaudits for his success in persuading the Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga to form a coalition government.

A Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Annan earned a reputation as a forceful proponent of human rights, promoting the doctrine that states have a responsibility to protect their own citizens, and building up the U.N.'s institutional capacity to monitor rights violations in peacekeeping missions. But he is also associated with some of the U.N.'s greatest human rights failures, including leading the U.N. peacekeeper department at a time when the U.N. failed to intervene to halt mass atrocities in Srebrenica and Rwanda.

The U.N. General Assembly adopted a resolution last week condemning Syria's violent crackdown on anti-government demonstrators and asking the United Nations chief to appoint a special envoy to support an Arab League initiative for a political transition in Syria to a government of national unity.

Ban will be in London tomorrow, but is expected to announce the new appointment as a high-level diplomatic meeting takes place in Tunis, where top Western and Arab diplomats, including U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, are set to discuss Syria's future. The selection of Annan sends "a clear message that this is at the top of the international communities agenda," said one council diplomat. "He's clearly a politica heavyweight."

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The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously yesterday to end the NATO-led no-fly zone over Libya, marking the conclusion of a controversial military conflict that deeply divided the 15-nation security body, but ended with the collapse of one of the world's most reviled dictatorships.

Yesterday's action came one week after Africa's longest ruling leader, Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi, was killed in the custody of militia fighting under the banner of the National Transitional Council. The Security Council decided to terminate by Oct. 31 a U.N. mandate which has permitted foreign forces to enforce a no-fly zone and to use military force to protect civilians during the past seven months.

Following the vote, U.S. ambassador Susan Rice hailed the council's role in halting Qaddafi's crackdown on civilians and unmitigated success.

"For the United Nations Security Council, this closes what I think history will judge to be a proud chapter in the Security Council's history," she told reporters. The council, she added, "acted promptly and effectively to prevent mass slaughter in Benghazi and other parts of the east, and to effectively protect civilians over the course of the last many months."

The council's decision ended months of acrimonious debate. China, Brazil, Russia, and India -- who joined Germany in abstaining on the vote authorizing the use of force -- had sharply criticized the NATO-led military coalition, saying its role in aiding the rebel campaign exceeded the Security Council mandate to use force only for the protection of civilians.

In the end, however, those governments gave their approval to a resolution that welcomed the "positive developments in Libya which will improve the prospects for a democratic, peaceful and prosperous future" for the North African country.

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