Diplomats, by trade, are not naturally funny people.

And the lofty "permanent representatives," as the most senior U.N.-based ambassadors are called, are often among the least funny.

They can come across as a bit too earnest, overly confident, even pompous, and they are usually pitching a cause that doesn't translate well into snappy one-liners. While they may possess masterful negotiating skills they're rarely quick enough on their feet to parry a lethal jab from a hardened comic. And frankly, how does one offer up a riposte when the national honor has been mocked?

But every season, there they are, lining up for appearances on Comedy Central's The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, confident that they can take advantage of a massive audience that could never be reached through a U.N. press conference.

But they commit comedy at their own peril.

Ask Switzerland's U.N. ambassador Peter Maurer, who got skewered by the Daily Show's faux news reporter John Oliver over his country's neutrality during World War II. ("Mr. Ambassador, is that neutral anger, or real anger?") Or Nassir al-Nasser, Qatar's then U.N. ambassador, who got visibly tense when Oliver challenged his pronunciation of "Qatar" and asked him what his country was doing to de-stabilize the Middle East. ("I'll just pause now to gauge the tension. Yep, that's tense; that is very tense indeed.")

Then there's the big screen, where the South Park creators have made a habit of lampooning U.N. officials or diplomats, including Hans Blix, the former U.N. weapons inspectors, who was thrown into a shark tank by Kim Jong Il in Team America: World Police and torn to pieces for a laugh.

But you get the point.

No one is a choicer prey for a comic than a diplomat, particularly one that speaks with a foreign accent, represents a country with a funny name, and can't take a joke.

But not everyone falls victim.

Remember how the British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, playing Ali G coaxed the former Egyptian U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali -- "the geezer" he called him -- to say, and spell out, the French word for human excrement -- "merde." But Boutros Ghali prevailed by playing along, offering his opinion on the funniest language -- "maybe Arabic" -- and patiently explaining why Disneyland can't become a U.N. member: "it's not an independent state."

Susan Rice emerged relatively unscathed in her bout with Stephen Colbert, but not before he got in a zinger about the effort to contain Iran and North Korea's nuclear programs. "Excuse me for interrupting you, but I enjoy it," Colbert said. "Iran is still working toward a nuclear weapon. [North] Korea got their nuclear weapon. I'm just as scared of both of these people. How are we stopping them? I mean, I know sternly worded letters are the bread and butter of the U.N. But maybe we should start typing them in all caps to let them know that we are really angry."

Last week, the Palestinian U.N. envoy, Riyad Mansour, tried his hand at sitting with Oliver, in a skit entitled "Who wants to be a member of the U.N.?" Mansourplayed along with the jokeas Oliver set some "preconditions" for the interview. "First this entire interview must be conducted with the 1967 vocabulary. Is that groovy with you?"

"Groovy? It is agreeable with me. Yes," Responded Mansour.

It moved onto a negotiation over who would control the studio's thermostat. (Thanks to Mondoweiss for the transcript.)

John Oliver: "...is it hot in here?"

Riyad Mansour: "It's fine."

John: "So you're not hot? Because I'm definitely hot."

Riyad: "I am not."

John: "OK, look, Ambassador, I think before we do anything, we are gonna have to come to a provisional status agreement on the temperature in this room."

Riyad: "If you want to lower the temperature, it's fine with me."

John: "But who's going to control the thermostat?"

Riyad: "The thermostat ... should be shared by all of us."

John: "Don't even think about dividing this thermostat."

Riyad: "We will not divide the thermostat, but it should be accessed by all those who cherish it and think that it is a holy place that should be accessed to everyone."

John Oliver [voiceover]: "After three and a half hours of laborious negotiations, we finally came to an agreement."

John: "We agree that at an unspecified time in the future, we will announce a summit to discuss the possibility of discussing a negotiation towards an agreement on temperature. Yes?"

Riyad: "Yes."

John: "Shake hands for the camera. Thank you, Ambassador, this is a historic day."

Riyad: "Yes indeed."

So, how did Mansour fair for the first half of the program? He remained on message, keeping the focus on Palestine's bid for U.N. membership. And he didn't lose his temper. It helped that Oliver went a little easy on him, avoiding any awkward questions about suicide bombers or rockets from Gaza. So, let's see how he did in the game show portion of the interview.

John: "Hi Riyad where are you from, Riyad?

Riyad: "I'm from Palestine."

John: "Palestine? I've never heard of that. Ok, so question number one: What does U.N. stand for?

Riyad: [Long pause] "United Nations."

John: "That's correct. That's correct, Ryad, Congratulations. That's great. So, how do you think it's going so far?

Riyad: "We're doing good."

John: "Ok... It's the bonus round. You've come all this way. Now do you take what you've won so far ... or do you take what's inside the mystery box"

Riyad: "I take what's inside the mystery box."

John: "He's going to go for the mystery box. Ok good luck. [Opens box and removes a card with the verdict.]

John: "Riyad, oh I'm sorry it's a veto from the U.S."

Riyad: "If we're vetoed once well come back again."

John: "That's the spirit. He'll come back again, next time."

Indeed, if there's a comic willing to poke fun at him, he probably will.

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The International Criminal Court's 120 member states backed a General Assembly proposal this week that would restrict the U.N.'s ability to engage with Sudanese political leaders wanted by the Hague-based tribunal.

The initiative, which was tabled by Switzerland, faced initial resistance from troop contributors and traditional critics of the ICC, including the United States, China, Russia, Cuba, Iran, Pakistan, Sudan, and Thailand. The United States is in talks with the Swiss about a possible compromise.

It is also unpopular among U.N. peacekeeping officials and envoys, who feel they need flexibility to deal with the leadership in a country where the president, Omar al-Bashir, and a key official have been served arrest warrant by the ICC.

The initiative reflects mounting frustration by European governments and other ICC supporters that U.N. peacekeepers in Sudan have periodically provided support to alleged war criminals, including Ahmad Haroun, who was flown in U.N. aircraft last year to participate in peace talks in the disputed region of Abyei.

The U.N. defended the decision on the grounds that Haroun was the only government official capable of convincing members of the pro-government Miseriya tribe to pursue peace talks with the rival Ngok Dinka tribe. But the talks never resulted in a durable peace -- and last May, Sudanese government forces overran the town, driving the Ngok Dinka residents from their homes.

The U.N. "policies provide for sufficient flexibility by allowing contacts which are essential to the mission," said one U.N. diplomat, who has been critical of the United Nations. "But why did the U.N. transport Haroun to meet with tribal leaders? They claim only he had the authority to talk to tribal leaders and prevent them from resorting to violence. That's at best naïve, at worst a lie.... This meeting didn't prevent anything."

The latest move comes several weeks after the U.N. secretary general publicly instructed Ibrahim Gambari, the joint U.N. African Union representative in Darfur, Sudan, to limit his personal contacts with Bashir, who has been charged by the ICC with orchestrating genocide in Darfur.

On Jan. 20, Gambari, a former Nigerian diplomat who once served as the U.N. undersecretary general for political affairs, was photographed socializing with Sudan's Bashir at a wedding ceremony for the Chadian President Idriss Deby.

The Swiss are seeking to include the amendment in an annual General Assembly resolution that welcomes the establishment of the Hague-based court and calls on all U.N. members to support it.  On Monday, Switzerland introduced a draft amendment before the U.N. General Assembly that encouraged the U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to take steps to ensure that his U.N. special envoys and mediators "refrain from any action" that could undercut the authority of the Hague-based war crimes tribunal. The draft amendment is directed at U.N. personnel serving in peacekeeping operations, and calls on U.N. officials not to use any official "resources" that could undercut the ICC.

Here's the text of the amendment:

5bis. Requests the Secretary-General to ensure, consistent with the existing UN policies and pursuant to the Relationship Agreement, that United Nations field presences and representatives, especially peacekeeping operations, special political missions, special envoys, special representatives and mediators, refrain from any action, including the use of resources, that could undermine the efforts of the International Criminal Court, and requests the Secretary-General to submit a report on the application of such policies for the consideration of the General Assembly at its sixty-seventh session;

The U.N. currently has rules allowing its officials to engage in dealing with accused war criminals. In an internal memo, Patricia O'Brien, the U.N.'s lawyer, instructed officials to limit their conduct with accused war criminals to "what is strictly required for carrying out U.N. mandated activities." The memo, according to Human Rights Watch, which obtained a copy, states that "the presence of UN representatives in any ceremonial or similar occasion with [persons indicted by international criminal courts] should be avoided."

In the past year, Bashir has hosted a number of visits by top U.N. officials, including Hervé Ladsous, the U.N. chief peacekeeping official. Earlier this week, the U.N.'s top envoy to South Sudan, Hilde Johnson, held a meeting with Bashir to discuss Khartoum's troubled relationship with South Sudan. Johnson's meeting was aimed at encouraging the Sudanese government to help facilitate the return of more than 300,000 southerners seeking to return from the north to the south.

"The U.N. policy as it stands is already flexible and allows for unavoidable contacts with ICC indictees," Philippe Bolopion, the rights' group U.N. representative, told Turtle Bay. "It does not allow conducting business as usual with people who are the targets of ICC warrants."

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The United Nations, African governments, foreign aid donors, and relief agencies responded too slowly to the early warning signs that preceded the century's worst famine in East Africa last year, leading to the unnecessary deaths of thousands of civilians, according to a review by the aid agencies Oxfam International and Save the Children.

In a joint briefing paper, entitled A Dangerous Delay, the two aid agencies claimed that early warning systems in place in east Africa accurately predicted the possibility of a major food crisis as early as the summer of 2010, but that a full-scale humanitarian response was not mounted until after the U.N. declared famine in July, 2011.

"The emergency in the Horn of Africa in 2011 was no sudden onset crisis… There were indications that a crisis was coming from as early as August 2010," reads the report. "The scale of death and suffering, and the financial cost, could have been reduced if early warning systems had triggered an earlier, more substantial response."

The reports' authors say it is impossible to know how many people died during the 2011 famine, which struck communities in Kenya, Ethiopia, and Somalia. But it cited estimates suggesting that somewhere between 50,000 to 100,000 may have perished.

The failure to respond more swiftly to the unfolding humanitarian crisis is part of "systemic failure of the international system" to construct a safety net to protect vulnerable communities from drought, notes the report. It called for a more active role in preparing for a developing food crisis underway in the Sahel, with millions of people at risk of hunger in at least five countries. "Tragically, the 2011 crisis is not an isolated case," the report states. "The response to drought is invariably too little too late."

The U.S. Agency for International Aid (USAID) first published a paper in August 2010, warning that the weather phenomenon known as La Niña was likely to lead to a decline in rainfall during the subsequent two rainy seasons.

Faced with a total failure of the October-December rainy season, the Food Security and Nutrition Working Group for East Africa (FSNWG) set up a La Niña task force. In December 2010, it stated that "preemptive action is needed to protect livelihoods and avoid later costly lifesaving emergency interventions."

USAID's Famine Early Warning System Network, meanwhile, predicted on March 15, 2010, that there would be "localized famine conditions [in southern Somalia], including significantly increased child mortality… if the worst case scenario assumptions are realized." A "failure of the March or May rains is likely to result in a major crisis," USAID warned. "Yet this call was not adequately heeded," the report stated.

The report notes that responsibility for the slow response to the crisis in East Africa was shared by a range of local governments, foreign donors, policy makers, and humanitarian aid agencies. But it singled out the United Nations for moving too slowly to scale up their relief operations and failing to anticipate the impact that La Niña would have on rainfall. The World Food Program, it added, had major problems in meeting its food commitments in Kenya and in south central Somalia, where the Islamist insurgent group al-Shabab denied foreign relief agencies access to famine-stricken areas.

"The UN humanitarian appeal in November 2010 seriously underestimated the number of people in need of emergency aid," reads the report. One of the reasons, the report states, is that the U.N. carried out its needs assessment in September 2010 -- a month before the rainy season was to begin, and didn't take into account weather forecasts of abnormally low rainfall that occurred over subsequent months.

Also, U.N. appeals for funding for Somalia were based on the number of people the U.N. believed it could reach, not the number of people in need, "potentially giving a misleading picture of needs within the country…This was clearly a factor in the failure to scale up the response early on."

A spokeswoman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Amanda Pitt, said that many of the reports findings "echoed our own concerns," citing the U.N. appeals to governments to provide funding earlier and to be more flexible about how the funding is used. But she also said that the report failed to provide a more balanced account of constraints on U.N. relief experts, especially the challenges of delivering aid in a conflict zone in Somalia, where they faced the threat of violence from al-Shabab. "If we had better access we would have had a better early warning system," she said.

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The age of fiscal austerity has clearly bypassed Equatorial Guinea, an oil rich African country with a reputation for world-class corruption, crushing poverty for its people, and a multibillion dollar building spree for presidential palaces, guesthouses, and airports.

Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, Equatorial Guinea's president and Africa's longest lasting ruler, has now signed off on a $77 million contract to build a sparkling new presidential guesthouse, according to the Korean firm, SsangYong Engineering and Construction Co., Ltd, that won the bid to build it.

A rendering of the project, which will be called Mongomo Leader's Club, shows a contemporary glass building, with neatly landscaped grounds and palm trees in the background. It boasts 5-star amenities, including a private room for the president, a casino, and a beauty parlor. It was first reported by the Korea Times.

"Despite the small population of Equatorial Guinea, approximately 630 thousand people, more orders for high quality buildings from Equatorial Guinea will be expected in the near future considering the nation's abundant natural resources including natural gas and oil and its high Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita, 27 thousand dollars," the SsangYong press release reads.

The new building plan comes to light several months after Equatorial Guinea inaugurated the $830 million luxury Sipopo resort, which served as the venue for the African Union's 47th Summit in June. Obiang, who is serving as the A.U. president this year, presided over the gathering.

The resort includes an artificial beach that stretches a mile long, a heliport, an 18-hole golf course and the country's first spa, according to EGJustice, an anti-corruption and human rights group. There are also more than half a dozen other presidential palaces under construction or recently built, according to the group. Efforts to reach a spokesperson for Equatorial Guinea at the nation's U.N. mission were unsuccessful.

Although Equatorial Guinea is the third-largest oil producer in Africa and boasts per capita income equal to that of many wealthy European countries, Obiang rules a population of more than 650,000 that endures some of the worst quality of life indicators in the world.

Transparency International placed Equatorial Guinea 172 out of 182 countries on its government corruption index. The U.S. Justice Department, meanwhile, announced in October that it was attempting to seize more than $70 million in assets from Obiang's son, Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, also known as Teodorin, including a $30 million residence in Malibu, California.

"Although Equatorial Guinea has one of the highest per capita incomes in Africa, nearly 70 percent of the population live in deep poverty. Most of this per capita income goes to the president and his family and cronies," Britain's International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell told Parliament this week, according to Reuters. "It is quite simply a disgrace that the high level of oil wealth is stolen for the corrupt and personal use of an unaccountable and self-serving elite."

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Earlier this month, I reported a story about the U.N. removing three Somali regions from its list of famine-wracked areas. The news was not all good. More than 250,000 Somalis are still at risk of starvation and famine is expected to persist in other parts of the country until the end of the summer.

But the loosening of the grip of the famine -- caused by fresh rains and increased levels of humanitarian assistance in stricken areas -- is a good starting point to consider the region's vulnerability to future famines.

I reached out to Joseph Chamie, director of research at the Center for Migration Studies and the former director of the U.N. Population Division, to ask what degree population growth may have played a role in East Africa's famine. 

A lot, he says, noting that the Horn of Africa has seen a rapid spurt in population growth in recent decades that has correspondingly increased stress on local resources.

Somalia, for instance, has seen its population grow from 2 million in 1950 to 9 million in 2010; Ethiopia has seen its population increase from 18 million to 83 million during the same period.

"First, this is not the last famine in Africa. More famines should be expected in Africa in the coming years," says Chamie. "And some will be far worse than the current one in East Africa, bringing with it increased starvation and higher mortality rates, especially among children and the elderly."

The prospects for future famines are not limited to demographics.

Despite the uncertainty of predicting local or regional weather patterns, climate experts have raised concerns about the impact of global warming in the Horn of Africa, which potentially might bring about longer and more frequent droughts.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon once attributed the political unrest in Darfur, Sudan, in part to the struggle among communities for natural resources stretched by a warming climate. And competition for resources is likely to grow, according to U.N. projections, which show rapid population growth in the Horn of Africa over the next 40 years, including a tripling of population in Somalia. 

For Chamie, the projections forecast a greater human toll. "There are many reasons for this, including simply many more people, poverty, lack of social-economic development, no safety net for the starving, weak and often unresponsive government, [and] political/ethnic conflicts."

He says that "the provision of food and related aid is needed on an emergency basis, this is clearly not a solution. These countries will need to progress socially, economically and politically.  However, this will be a Herculean task for many of these failing states, which are experiencing rapid population growth and slow economic growth."

Climate scientists are concerned that a key expression of global warming -- extreme weather -- may inflict greater environmental pressure on the Horn of Africa. But they cannot link global warming directly to the ongoing famine.

The current drought has been caused by two successive seasons of extremely low rainfall, making 2010-2011 the driest or second-driest period since 1950, depending on various analysis.

Mean annual temperatures have increased by as much as 1.3 degree Celsius in Ethiopia, one of the worst-affected countries. The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change, the world's leading authority on global warming, has not established evidence of statistically significant trends in rain patterns in East Africa. But reports from the Kenya Food Security Group and pastoralist communities "show that drought related shocks used to occur every ten years, and they are now occurring every five years or less," notes an Oxfam briefing paper. "Borana communities in Ethiopia report that whereas droughts recorded every 6-8 years in the past, they now occur every 1-2 years."

But perhaps the key challenge for addressing the next major drought, notes Chamie, is money. "With the current global economic crisis, donor countries will find it increasingly difficult to continue to provide food, water, medicine, aid, etc. to the millions of people who will be in need," Chamie said. "As the famines become more frequent and commonly reported in the media, the willingness of the general public and elected officials in donor nations to contribute monies and aid will decrease, especially as they are likely to see no end to the assistance and dependency."

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A relative of Libya's former U.N. ambassador and intelligence chief Abuzed Omar Dorda appealed to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the U.N. Security Council president today to intercede with Libyan authorities to protect the detained former Libyan diplomat, saying he had been the target of an assassination attempt by his jailers.

Dorda had been a high-ranking official in Qaddafi's government, playing a role during his years at the United Nations in negotiating the deal that ended U.N. sanctions on Libya imposed after the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, and paving the way to a financial payout to relatives of the victims.

Dorda went on to become the director of Libya's external security organization. Earlier this year, the United States and the U.N. Security Council imposed a freeze on Dorda's financial assets and those of several other members of Qaddafi's inner circle.

Libyan authorities arrested Dorda about two months ago, Adel Khalifa Dorda, who is Dorda's son in law, wrote in a pair of letters to Ban and Security Council's Nigerian president, U. Joy Ogwu. Adel sent a copy of the letters to Turtle Bay after receiving my email through a mutual source.

"Most of you may have known and dealt with Mr. Dorda during his tenure as PR of Libya," the email read. "We kindly request your help in dealing with this issue so that we can spare his life and guarantee his safety. This is a humanitarian issue. On behalf of myself and his family, we appreciate any effort you put and thank you in advance."

A spokesman for Ban and Security Council diplomats could not confirm tonight whether the letter had actually been delivered to the U.N. chief or the Security Council president.

"Mr.  Dorda survived a murder attempt last night, 25 October, 2011, at the hands of his guards in the building where he was arrested," he wrote on behalf of the Dorda family. "He was thrown off the second floor leading to several broken bones and other serious injuries."

Adel said "authorities were forced to move Dorda to Maitiga hospital in Tripoli where as of now he is being held under extremely poor conditions. Dorda is not receiving the proper treatment duly and legally accorded a political prisoner, let alone that required under the terms of human rights and other international treaties."

Adel insisted that his father in law had never played any role in committing atrocities, saying he "had arranged his own surrender" in Libya because "he was confident he had not participated in any murders or arbitrary arrests. He was only serving his country in different positions and [was] very active in international diplomacy."

The request for help came hours after U.N. Special Representative for Libya Ian Martin expressed concern to the Security Council that Qaddafi and his son, Muatassim, had been mistreated and killed in a troubling circumstances that required investigation and cited other reports that forces on both sides engaged in war crimes during the final battle in Sirte.  Martin privately told Security Council members that he was seriously concerned about the treatment of detainees.

Full text of the letter below.

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His Excellency Mr. Ban Ki Moon

Secretary General

United Nations, NY

Your Excellency,

I am writing to bring to your attention an issue we deem important not only because it relates to a member of our family but as a human rights issue that concerns a former Permanent Representative to the United Nations who contributed to solving many human rights issues and guaranteeing these rights to many in his country and the world.

The case in question concerns Mr. Abuzed Omar Dorda, the former PR of Libya to the UN during the nineties. As you may know, Mr. Dorda has been arrested by the new Libyan Authorities for two months. He had arranged his own surrender as he was confident he had not participated in any murders or arbitrary arrests. He was only serving his country in different positions and very active in international diplomacy. He had a major role in solving many of the problems between the international community and Libya, most important of which was the Lockerbie issue. Many Permanent Representatives and UN officials who worked and dealt with him would attest to his responsible and genuine personality and efforts.

Mr.  Dorda survived a murder attempt last night, 25October, 2011, at the hands of his guards in the building where he was arrested. He was thrown off the second floor leading to several broken bones and other serious injuries. Authorities were forced to move Dorda to Maitiga hospital in Tripoli where as of now he is being held under extremely poor conditions. Dorda is not receiving the proper treatment duly and legally accorded a political prisoner, let alone that required under the terms of human rights and other international treaties. 

On behalf of his family I kindly ask you to interfere directly as the Secretary General of the United Nations which he has long served, or through other humanitarian organizations, to guarantee his safety, security and freedom so he can get the proper treatment.

Sincerely Yours,

Adel Khalifa Dorda

26 October 2011

Equatorial Guinea's President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo lost his latest bid to establish a UNESCO life science prize in his own name, following protests by human rights advocates and anti-corruption groups that the government had squandered the country's oil-riches to fund the lavish lifestyle of his relatives.

Today, the EquatoGuinean leader offered his response, appointing his son Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, who has become an international symbol of the regimes excesses, as his country's envoy to UNESCO.

The younger Obiang, who goes by Teodorin and currently serves as Equatorial Guinea's minister for agriculture and forestry, has been the target of criminal investigations in France and Spain. Earlier this month, French authorities in Paris seized a fleet of luxury cars -- including Ferraris, Bugattis, and a Maserati -- belonging to the younger Obiang.

This morning, the U.S. Justice Department filed a notice in connection with a "claim for the forfeiture of more than $70 million in assets, including a mansion, jet and Michael Jackson memorabilia" belonging to Teodorin, according to a press release issued by the New York-based Human Rights Watch.  The forfeiture was first reported by Foreign Policy earlier this month.

According to the rights group and most analysts, Teodorin, who also serves as vice president of Equatorial Guinea's ruling party, is his fathers' presumed choice to succeed him as the country's leader. "He is known for his lavish, jet-setting lifestyle and love of luxury vehicles, which contrast sharply with the low living standards of the majority of the inhabitants of Equatorial Guinea," the report stated.

The Equatorial Guinean government has repeatedly denied the charges of corruption, saying the Obiang family is the target of an unfair smear campaign by foreign groups.

Kenneth Hurwitz, a senior legal officer for the Open Society's Justice Initiative, said he believes that the move to accredit the young Obiang at UNESCO is aimed at immunizing him from prosecution in a French court. "My take is this is an attempt to make a creditable claim of diplomatic immunity," Hurwitz told Turtle Bay.

As to the precedent, Hurwitz said that a French businessman, Pierre Falcone, had been assigned to UNESCO on behalf of the Angolan government while he faced charges of arms trafficking in violation of French law. Falcone was convicted in Oct. 2009 by a criminal court in Paris on charges relating to "illegal arms deals, tax fraud, money laundering, embezzlement and other crimes," but later acquitted on all charges relating to arms trading by the Paris Court of Appeals on April 29, 2011.

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Correction: This post has been edited to reflect inaccuracies relating to Pierre Falcone. 

At about this time last year, President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, of Equatorial Guinea, saw his ambition of sponsoring a UNESCO award for life sciences in his own name thwarted, a casualty of a well-organized international campaign by human rights advocates that embarrassed U.N. officials and member states into putting the plan into deep freeze.

But Obiang, who ascended this year to the presidency of the African Union, has thawed the bid, securing a statement from the African body backing the plan to set up the UNESCO-Obiang International Prize for Life Sciences, which would award $300,000 prizes to scientists who develop innovations that improve living standards in Africa.

A UNESCO committee was scheduled to deliberate on the plan this afternoon, but has deferred consideration until Tuesday.

The deliberations at UNESCO couldn't have come at a worse time for Obiang. On Wednesday night, French police seized at least 11 luxury supercars, including a Bugatti Veyron and Maserati MC12, from a Parisian residence owned by the Obiang family near the Arc de Triomphe, according to reports in the French press. The seizure grew out of a French criminal investigation that was opened as a result of a complaint by two anti-corruption groups, Association Sherpa and Transparency International France, that three African heads of state, including Obiang, had engaged in "unjust enrichment," according to the Open Society Justice Initiative, which has been tracking Obiang's financial holdings.

A French court, meanwhile, dismissed a liable suit by Obiang against another French non-profit organization, Terre Solidaire, which had accused the leaders of three African countries, including Obiang, of engaging in corruption.

The renewed effort to secure the UNESCO prize has been met with a strong response from a coalition of EquatoGuinean exiles, international human rights activists, including Human Rights Watch, and American lawmakers, who have accused Africa's longest ruling leader of corruption and human rights abuses. They have taken aim at UNESCO and the African Union.

"It will be a sad day for two vital global organizations -- UNESCO and the African Union -- if the little noted African Union courtesy resolution passed at last summer's AU summit saddles UNESCO's cultural and human rights mission to President Obiang's shameful record," said Ken Hurwitz, a senior legal officer for the Open Society's Justice Initiative.

Earlier this week, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Rep. Donald M. Payne (D-NJ) both wrote to the UNESCO executive director, Irina Bokova, to ask her to reject the prize. "I am writing to urge UNESCO to not award the Obiang Prize," Leahy wrote, noting that a $3 million contribution to the award fund is "likely...the product of corruption or theft from the public treasury."

"I join those who believe it would be a serious mistake for UNESCO to associate itself with a prize named for the leader of an authoritarian government widely criticized for corruption and human rights abuses," he added. "It would be very unfortunate if UNESCO were to compromise its reputation and leadership."

Equatorial Guinea's U.N. ambassador, Lino Sima Ekua Avomo, did not respond to a request for comment today, but the country has vigorously defended its record in the past, saying that it has not engaged in corruption or systematic human rights. Some EquatoGuinean officials told Turtle Bay that the allegations of corruption and repression by Obiang were "distortions" that would easily be corrected by traveling to his country to witness large-scale investment on behalf of the people.

"This president has invested enormously in improving infrastructure, the social services, the education system, the health system. It is this president that has moved the country from having a totally destroyed school system to now having a university that are graduating students," presidential advisor Agapito Mba Mokuy told me last year. Mokuy said that this is the first time an African government has funded a prize in the research sciences in UNESCO. "Some people may not be used to having African countries donating funds in science," he said. But he said the prize "is a very important gesture for the member states" at UNESCO, which overwhelmingly backed the award. "This is a humanitarian action on behalf of the president."

Critics say, however, that Obiang has used the vast wealth of Equatorial Guinea, one of Africa's largest oil-producing countries, to finance an extravagant lifestyle, including estates in the United States and Europe, for his relatives and closest allies.

"The small nation has one of the highest per capita income levels, however this wealth primarily goes to serve Obiang, his family and the ruling elites, and not to help the nearly 80 percent of the population living below the poverty line," Payne wrote on Thursday. "Instead of fighting infant mortality, Obiang's son, currently the agriculture minister in his father's government, commissioned a super yacht costing almost three times what the country spends annually on health and education."

UNESCO had initially agreed to establish the UNESCO-Obiang award in 2008 with the goal of "improving the quality of life." UNESCO's judges had actually even selected an award winner in a closed door meeting in May 2010, but a decision to award the prize was suspended in October, following a massive pressure campaign by anti-corruption and human rights groups.

The African Union summit, hosted by Obiang in the capital of Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, last May, issued a statement urging UNESCO to implement the decision to award the prize, noting that it is "the first African program prize in the history of UNESCO." Earlier this month, UNESCO's African member-states unanimously approved a statement calling for the implementation of the award.

UNESCO Executive Director Irina Bokova for the first time openly appealed to the EquatoGuinean leader to abandon his effort to establish the prize, the Associated Press reported from Paris. "As generous as he was in offering this prize, I think he should make the same proof of generosity" by withdrawing it, Bokova told foreign delegates at an executive board meeting.

We'll soon find out whether Obiang finally gets his prize. Stay tuned.

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On Tuesday, President Barack Obama and his coalition partners celebrated the down-fall of Muammar al-Qaddafi in a U.N. ceremony convened to bless the victory of the National Transitional Council (NTC), which raised its flag for the first time at U.N. headquarters.

Several countries which had opposed a military solution in Libya, principally China and South Africa, put the past behind them and announced they would now recognize the new government, congratulating their new leader Mustafa Abdel Jalil, who attended the event.

President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, of Equatorial Guinea, who replaced Qaddafi as Africa's longest-ruling leader, was also on hand. Obiang, who is serving as the African Union president, announced that the group had formally decided to recognize the new government of the NTC as Libya's lawful government.

But in a speech today before the U.N. General Assembly, Obiang launched a bitter attack against the West's invocation of human rights to intervene in African crises.

Obiang appeared to be referring to the U.N.-authorized military operation against Qaddafi's government and the French-backed U.N. operation that brought down Ivory Coast's longtime ruler Laurent Gbagbo.

"Africa, a continent whose nations and people have been exploited for centuries by foreign powers, is confronting a new version of neocolonialism of military intervention based on the principles of human rights and democratic liberty," he said. "Unfortunately, we see the United Nations being fraudulently used, under the pretext of humanitarian intervention, when such intervention has only served to violate more human rights of the people affected.'

Obiang also weighed in on the financial crisis, attributing it to the "irrationality of the current political, economic, and social order," which he claimed has become "disconnected from the social and humanitarian principles of equality, justice, and fairness."

Talk about irony: Critics, human rights groups, and journalists have long accused Obiang's government of becoming disconnected from the principles of equality, justice, and fairness at home. And yet Obiang reportedly has been seeking to re-launch his campaign to establish a UNESCO award in his own name.

Readers of Turtle Bay will recall the controversy surrounding Obiang's earlier attempt to fund a UNESCO life sciences award. The effort was blocked after human rights organizations and Equatoguinean exile groups protested the move, saying the Obiang family had engaged in serious human rights abuses and -- despite its standing as the Africa's third-largest oil producer -- invested scant amounts of money into programs for the poor. The government denied the charges.

Since, Obiang has hired a load of PR consultants to repair his image, and has taken to portraying Equatorial Guinea as a pillar of security in the region.

"There are signs that Equatorial Guinea is also laying the groundwork for a new bid to persuade a new slate of UNESCO board members that its president is indeed a man worth honoring," Kenneth Hurwitz, a senior legal officer at the Soros Foundation's Justice Initiative, wrote in a recent blog post. The campaign so far has included taking advantage of the country's current position holding the presidency of the African Union. Obiang secured a courtesy resolution of support from African Union heads of state when they met in Equatorial Guinea in July: the resolution urged UNESCO to implement its earlier decision to set up the prize, which would "contribute to research in the life sciences."

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With human rights groups now reporting that more than 150,000 people have been displaced in Sudan's South Kordofan as a result of government incursions, Thursday's Security Council briefing  on the situation by Ivan Simonovic, the U.N. assistant secretary general for human rights, will be expected to address questions about how best to protect civilians there, and whether the international presence needs to be bolstered.

"Tens of thousands of civilians in Southern Kordofan are in grave danger, and no one is on the ground to report on what is happening, much less do anything about it," said Daniel Bekele, Africa director at Human Rights Watch.

But, in making his briefing, it's not yet clear to what extent Simonovic will rely on the detailed reports about the attacks that have been drafted, though not yet officially endorsed, by U.N agencies -- reports that partly cast the peacekeeping presence in South Kordofan in an unflattering light. According to the reports, which have been obtained by Turtle Bay, Sudanese forces not only targeted U.N. peacekeepers -- those peacekeepers, in some cases, also enabled the attacks against the very civilians they were charged with protecting.

It was in June, as the world's attention was riveted to the birth of the independent nation of South Sudan, that Khartoum opened its new military front in northern Sudan, in the country's Nuba Mountains region.

On June 5, the Sudanese armed forces, and pro-government militias surrounded Kadugli, the capital of Southern Kordofan, triggering a resumption of fighting between government troops and Nuban members of the Sudanese People's Liberation Army. The Sudanese action was intended to force the thousands of local Nuban troops who once fought alongside Khartoum's domestic rivals to disarm or to depart for the south.

The chief obstacle to Sudan's military push was a force of nearly two-thousand Egyptian and Bangladeshi U.N. peacekeepers with a mandate to protect civilians. But internal U.N. documents illustrate how the Sudanese military quickly neutralized the U.N. blue helmets, seizing control of the U.N.-operated airport, cutting off humanitarian supplies and preventing U.N. staff from carrying out their work. Armed and uniformed Sudanese security personnel entered a U.N. safe area at will, checking the identities of frightened civilians who sought refuge there and intimidated them into leaving the area, despite the ostensible U.N. protection.

Even more alarmingly, Sudanese army troops and allied militias targeted Sudanese nationals working for the United Nations, summarily executing one and detaining others in the presence of peacekeepers, according to the internal U.N. accounts. In one incident, two days after the fighting began, government-backed militia members shot a national U.N. staff member in the legs as he sought sanctuary in a U.N. compound in Kadugli.

One internal report by the U.N.'s human rights office in Sudan "revealed that the SAF [Sudan Armed Forces], paramilitary forces and government security apparatus have engaged in violent and unlawful acts against UNMIS." They included "verified incidents of shelling in close proximity to UN property...summary execution of a U.N. national staff member; assaults on physical integrity of U.N. staff; arbitrary arrest and detention of U.N. Staff and associated human rights violations, including ill-treatment amounting to torture."

The report cited a June 16 episode in which U.N. military observers, seeking to verify the existence of alleged mass graves, "were arrested, stripped of their clothes, and believed that they were about to be executed when a senior SAF [Sudan Armed Forces] officer intervened." According to the account, a Sudanese army captain instructed four U.N. military observers "to line up and be killed. He removed the safety of his AK-47, and just as he was about to point the weapon towards the U.N. [military observers], a SAF Major entered the room and ordered him not to shoot." The captain obeyed his superior but warned the U.N. officials to leave Southern Kordofan. "If not we will kill you," he said. 

The leaked report, which was made available to Turtle Bay through the Washington Post, has already received extensive coverage in the press in recent weeks because it claimed that Sudan and pro-government militias may have committed war crimes and cited witness testimony suggesting the possibility of mass graves.

But there has been little focus on Sudan'sviolent crackdown on U.N. peacekeepers. So far, the mistreatment of U.N. blue helmets has provoked a relatively restrained response from top U.N. officials,who downplayed the report's finding as preliminary, or by the U.N. Security Council, which adopted a mild statement calling for a U.N. investigation, according to human rights advocates.

"For the Security Council to remain timid in the face of credible allegations of war crimes, mass graves, and torture of U.N. personnel is simply inexcusable," Philippe Bolopion, the U.N. representative for Human Rights Watch told Turtle Bay.

Ivan Simonovic, the U.N. Assistant Secretary General for Human Rights, meanwhile, told Turtle Bay that the United Nations takes the allegations of abuses seriously, and has called for further investigation to determine what crimes have been committed. But he stopped short of endorsing key recommendations in the draft human rights report, including a call for referring the crimes to the International Criminal Court prosecutor.

Susan E. Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said Friday that the United States is "deeply concerned about alarming and credible allegations of violence committed by Sudan Armed Forces and aligned groups in Southern Kordofan," including "acts of extreme cruelty and abuse against civilians" that "may" constitute crimes against humanity.

Rice condemned what she described as the deliberate targeting of civilians, including U.N. humanitarian personnel, and expressed support for an investigation into the allegations by the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights. "The United States will not tolerate impunity for such acts of violence," she said in a statement.

The situation in South Kordofan bears some similarities with Darfur, where Sudanese forces, backed by Arab militias, have 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 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 the Sudan's Nubans has become a growing source of concern among human rights observers. 

A landmark 2005 peace deal ending Sudan's bloody civil war between the North and South Sudan paved the way for the south's independence last month, but it never resolved the fate of their Nuban allies, who will remain subject to northern rule. A provision in the 2005 called for the troops from Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile States to serve alongside Sudanese armed forces as part of a Joint Integrated Unit.

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. A recent election consolidated Khartoum's political dominance over Southern Kordofan. In May, Khartoum moved to dissolve the joint unit and ordered the Nuban forces to either turn over their weapons and submit to northern rule or move to the south.

As fighting erupted between the two sides in Kadugli, the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Sudan (UNMIS), established a safe area, known as the "protective perimeter," around the U.N. base, providing a refuge for thousands of displaced civilians, relief workers and U.N. personnel.

The Egyptian contingent that headed the effort has come under criticism for allowing armed Sudanese forces to breach the perimeter in an attempt to identify and arrest suspected sympathizers with the south.

The most serious incident documented by U.N. human rights monitors occurred on June 8, when Sudanese army troops dragged a UN contractor, reportedly an active SPLM member, from a vehicle in front of a U.N. compound in Kadugli, "while U.N. peacekeepers could not intervene. He was taken around the corner of the compound and gunshots were heard. Later he was discovered dead by UNMIS personnel and [displaced civilians]."

The U.N.'s top peacekeeping official, Alain Le Roy, challenged the veracity of those accounts. "I have read that some people were extracted from this area were killed in front of the peacekeepers," Le Roy told reporters on July 13. "That is completely wrong; that is completely wrong."

"It is clear that some civilians have been killed but not of course in our site and not in the vicinity, not in the safe area close to our camp. Our peacekeepers, our Egyptian peacekeepers, our Bangladeshi peacekeepers have been protecting them from the beginning until today."

Le Roy confirmed that Nuban civilians were being targeted in the region but that the U.N. mission was powerless to respond.  "It is clear that civilians are being killed," he said. But "we don't have freedom of movement because there is heavy fighting in South Kordofan." The situation has only worsened since July 9, South Sudan's independence day, when the U.N.'s mandate in the north expired.

But the internal U.N. reporting paints a different picture.

On June 8, U.N. human rights observers witnessed four armed men, including two from the Central Reserve police, entering the U.N. safe area "without any intervention from the [UN] peacekeepers guarding the premises," according to the U.N. rights report. "Eyewitnesses interviewed reported that the armed men abducted three IDPs [internally displaced persons] from the vicinity of UNMIS Protective Perimeter on suspicion that they were supporters of the SPLM [Sudanese People's Liberation Movement]."

A second internal situation report, obtained by Turtle Bay, also cited concerns about "the uncontrolled movement of armed civilians and uniformed personnel" within the U.N. safe area."There is concern about the entering of SAF [Sudan Armed Forces] and [pro-government militia] into the UNMIS Protective Perimeter asking for what appeared to have been ‘identity checks."

U.N. human rights monitors "interviewed a boy who had narrowly escaped abduction himself and learned of the abduction of a 17-year-old girl from just outside [Protective Perimeter] on the morning 19 June by two Arab militia members, who came upon them while washing clothes and fetching water," according to one incident in the report.

In another incident, Sudanese military personnel stopped a U.N. truck near a U.N. compound in Kadugli and pulled off three displaced civilians who had helped load supplies on to the truck. The three men were beaten in front of U.N. staff and then abducted . One U.N. staff member who sought to stop them was threatened by gunpoint to back down. The three individuals were never seen again.

Sudanese security forces, disguised as Sudanese Red Crescent workers, also breached the safe area.  "On 20 June UNMIS Human Rights in Kadugli verified that National Security Service (NSS) donning Sudan Red Crescent (SRC) aprons were posing as Sudanese Red Crescent workers ordering [internally displaced people] to evacuate the U.N. Protective Permiter (PP)." The security agents insisted that "they congregate at Kadugli Stadium with promises of an address from the governor and humanitarian aid and threats of forceful removal if they failed to comply."

The strategy appeared to work. By late that afternoon, "approximately 75 percent of the more than 11,000 IDPS had vacated the [Protective Perimeter], mostly women, children and the elderly.... [U.N. human rights monitors are] concerned that coercing IDPs to leave UNMIS PP and have them sent to the stadium or school compounds may pose [a] security danger to them." 

Egypt's U.N. ambassador, Maged Abdelaziz, defended the Egyptian troops' conduct, saying they had faithfully fulfilled their obligation to protect civilians in Kadugli. Abdelaziz said that while it was impossible for the peacekeepers to interrogate civilians entering the safe area to determine whether it had been infiltrated by Sudanese agents or anti-government partisans he insisted that armed personnel were barred from entry."We checked with our forces on the ground and they said this never happened," he told Turtle Bay.

"The Egyptian forces have been implementing all commitments with regard to the protection of civilians. Any civilian that went to the Egyptian forces and asked for shelter received it," Abdelaziz said. "We drew some criticism from NGOs [non-governmental-organizations] who discovered people being protected were part of the military forces. But how do you distinguish between [unarmed] combatants and non-combatants. It's a peacekeeping mission not an interrogation mission."

U.N. peacekeepers have come under mounting pressure to protect civilians from imminent threat of violence in its most complex missions.

But what about looting, plundering and burning of civilian property, acts which sometimes serve as a symbols and facilitators of ethnic cleansing. U.N. officials say not necessarily; that responsibility rests principally in the hands of the local authorities.

Last month, Sudanese forces and local Arab militia seized control of the town of Abyei, Sudan, driving tens of thousands civilians out of town. Thousands of nomadic herdsman from the Arab Misseriya tribe followed suit, stealing every moveable possession they could get their hands on and burning what they couldn't take. U.N. human rights officials in Sudan expressed concerns that their action may constitute ethnic cleansing.

The dispute in Abyei has been at the center of a political struggle over rights to resources and the delineation of borders between northern Sudan and southern Sudan, as the south prepares to declare independence on July 9. But it has a volatile ethnic dimension, pitting the areas black Ngok Dinka residents, allied with the south, against pro-government nomadic  Misseriya. The two sides are bitterly divided over everything from voting rights, access to grazing areas and water.

Internal U.N. accounts of what happened last month in Abyei show that Sudan's armed forces stood by as its comrades in arms began the looting. For its part, a United Nations peacekeeping contingent in Abyei, which retreated to its barracks in the first days of the assault, subsequently limited its role to monitoring the mayhem on the streets of Abyei, but not intervening to stop it.

A source provided Turtle Bay with copies of two confidential U.N. reports after I posted a photograph of a U.N. peacekeeping contingent patrolling the streets of Abyei, Sudan, last month while several men carted off household items on the side of the road. At the time, I said it was unclear from the picture whether the men were fleeing violence or looting belongings of local residents in plain site of the Zambian blue helmets. The source said the reports demonstrate that the UN passively allowed the looting to occur. 

According to the internal account, the Sudanese army  attacked Abyei  on the night of May 21, quickly seizing control of the town, though most of the population had already fled south by the time they arrived.  By nightfall, the Sudanese military had deployed 15 tanks in a town that had been abandoned by fleeing residents.   Sudanese aircraft bombarded the Bantom bridge, south of Abyei, in an attempt to bar civilians from returning or to prevent rival troops from south Sudan from mounting a counterattack.

Over the following days, as the Sudanese army looked on, elements of Sudan's Popular   Defense Force(PDF) and the Misseriya systematically plundered the town. 

"There are reports of PDF(popular defense forces) and Misseriya elements looting the shops and burning down the tukuls(and smoke could be seen from the UNMIS compound)," according to a May 22 report from the office of the UN resident coordinator. "These were allegedly fighting along side SAF. The Misseriya/PDF elements could also be seen carrying away the loot, both on foot and using vehicles. SAF did not intervene to stop the looting."

The U.N. has acknowledged that the Zambian peacekeeping contingent had not responded adequately to the attacks on civilians and property.  They have sent a contingent of Indian peacekeepers to Abyei to reinforce the Zambians. The United States, meanwhile, is pressing for the adoption of a U.N. Security Council resolution that would approve the deployment of several thousands Ethiopian troops in Abyei to help restore calm.

The Sudanese government, which signed a peace deal last week allowing Ethiopian blue helmets to replace its troops, opened a new military front in neighboring South Kordofan, where church leaders and human rights organization have accused the government of displacing more than 70,000 Nubans in a military campaign.

But U.N. officials say the Zambian's failure to act was mitigated by the fact that they were confronted with a force with overwhelming military superiority and that their compound had been hit during the attack. Some officials dispute claims saying that the looting and burning in Abyei were hallmarks of ethnic cleansing, saying they were more consistent with a history of reprisals and countereprisals between competing African tribes in the region.

"The [U.N.] Force commander advised that they saw SAF[the Sudanese Armed Forces] build up and attack coming but they were unable to stop it. There had however been assurance by SAF that the UN would not be targeted," according to the May 22 report by the U.N.'s resident coordinator's office. "Although UN was not being targeted by SAF there were 5 shells that landed in the UNMIS compound, one of them burning a WFP[World Food Program] vehicle. Two (2) Egyptians were also injured but are out of danger."

When the U.N. resumed its patrols of Abyei in the days following the initial assault, they encountered a scene of chaos, with 2,000 to 5,000 Misseriya men roaming the streets of Abyei, carting away chairs, bed frames, mattresses and anything else they could find. They also  threatened to seize the Zambians armored personnel vehicles unless the UN agreed to pay three years rent for the base.

"The remainder of the looted items that have not yet been taken away from Abyei town are by the roadside awaiting transportation to the northern areas," according to a May 26 update by the resident coordinators office. "One of the UNMO[UN Military Observers] road patrols that went out this morning(26 May) observed at least 14 big trucks that were loading looted items. Sporadic and aimless shooting also continues but to a relatively lesser scale and...burning of tukuls(dwellings) still continues."

By that point, according to the May 26 report, the UN's mission in Abyei had become decreasingly relevant: "It can now be confirmed that there will not be any need for humanitarian assistance within Abyei town(for now) as there are currently no civilians."

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First the good news: U.S. President Barack Obama is more than twice as popular in Egypt as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadenijad.

Now, the bad news: the American president's standing has never been worse in Egypt, plummeting since 2008, when he received a 25 percent favorability rating, to 12 percent in 2011.  Even Osama Bin Laden, the late al Qaeda leader, was more popular this year, with a 21 percent favorability ranking. The Iranian leader fared worse, dropping from 21 percent favorability rating in 2008 to a miserable 5 percent.

The findings are drawn from a public poll of Egyptian views in the aftermath of the public uprising that brought about the resignation of Egypt's fallen leader Hosni Mubarak. The poll was commissioned by the International Peace Institute, a New York-based think tank with close ties to the United Nations and Arab governments.

The poll seeks to capture the mood of the country in the lead up to the Egypt's first post-Mubarak election, and to handicap the presidential campaign. It shows that Egyptians currently fret over issues like the economy, stability, and government corruption more than they  worry about the course of the country's democratic transition.

According to the poll, conducted by Charney Research and based on interviews with 800 Egyptians, Amr Moussa, the outgoing Arab League chief, has emerged as an early frontrunner. Thirty-two percent of respondents say they would vote for Moussa, who once served as Mubarak's foreign minister.

Essam Sharraf, an engineering professor who is serving as the country's interim prime minister, finished second with 16 percent of votes ( though his favorability ranking is higher than Moussa's). And Mohammed Tantawi, the army chief, finished third with 8 percent of those questioned saying they would vote for him. Mohammed El Baradei, the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency who emerged from retirement to serve as Egypt's best known pro-democracy advocate, finished seventh, with only 2 percent of respondents pledging to vote for him.

The poll shows that the Egyptian army, which refused orders to fire on public demonstrators during the country's popular uprising, remains "extremely popular" with 90 percent of Egyptian respondents expressing a favorable view. Egypt's various secular parties also did well, garning 25 precent of respondents' votes, while Islamist parties gained 19 percent. The best-known political parties, the New Wafd Party and the Muslim Brotherhood, received respectively 40 percent and 31 percent favorability ratings.  The Brotherhood's unfavorability rating, at 29 percent, was 10 points higher.

"The military right now is riding a wave of popularity because it is seen as playing two key roles [in Egypt's popular revolution]," Craig Charney, the pollster, told Turtle Bay. "It delivered the coup de grace to Mubarak and did it in a way that maintained a substantial degree of stability."

Charney said that the findings also demonstrated that fears of a religious take over by Islamists are overblown. "The much feared green-tide just isn't there, with the Muslim Brotherhood receiving 12 percent while the Salafists for all their sound and fury came away with only 4 percent," Charney said.

While an exiled Egyptian national, Ayman al Zawahiri, has been selected as the new leader of Al Qaeda, the poll suggested that the terror organization would have been better at influencing events in Egypt under the leadership of their late Saudi leader, Osama Bin laden, who was killed by elite U.S. commandos in Pakistan.

According to the poll, bin Laden's favorability ratings rose from 18 percent of those questioned in 2008 to 21 percent in 2011. In contrast, Zawahiri scored a favorability rating of only 11 percent this year.

Charney said that while other polls have found somewhat higher support for President Obama's response to the Egyptian uprising, he has suffered from a generally dim view of American policy throughout the region.

"Despite President Obama's words and measures in support of Egypt's revolution, he only narrowly edges out the leaders of al Qaeda and Iran in popular regard there," Charney said in a statement. "But our findings do clearly show that Egyptians have little regard for the likes of al-Zawahiri and Ahmadinejad."

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During a visit to Washington last week, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppé sounded determined to force a divided U.N. Security Council to vote on a resolution condemning Syria's crackdown on anti-government protesters, saying the need to show resolve in the face of Syrian repression was worth the risk of provoking a likely Russian veto.

Following a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary R. Clinton, Juppé told reporters in Washington that he believed that Russia might back down if the allies could muster a significant majority -- say, 11 yes votes in the 15-nation council -- raising the political costs of obstruction.

On Tuesday morning, Juppé offered his strongest hint that France and its Western allies, including the United States, may be preparing to back down and withdraw the text. In response to questions from the French National Assembly, Juppé acknowledged that Western powers have been unable to overcome misgivings about a resolution on Syria from key council members, including the BRICS members Brazil, Russia, India and China, and South Africa. Lebanon, the council's lone Arab country, is expected to vote against the resolution.

The United States had initially cautioned its European partners against forcing a showdown in the council that would simply highly its deep divisions over Syria, providing a political boost to President Bashar al-Assad's government. But Britain, France, and other European governments argued it would be unconscionable for the council to remain silent in the face of mounting atrocities in Syria.

The BRICS have countered that the United States and its European allies overstepped the Security Council's mandate, contained in resolution 1973, authorizing the use of force to protect civilians in Libya. They say that the Western coalition has effectively entered a civil war on behalf of the rebels and that their true aim is the overthrow of Moammar al-Qaddafi's regime.

"We strongly believe that the resolution is being abused for regime change, political assassinations and foreign military occupation," South African President Jacob Zuma told the South African parliament this week.

The Europeans believe they have secured nine votes, the bare minimum required for adoptioin of the Syria resolution in the Security Council. But they have held out hope that they could convince the Russians to back down if they could only secure another couple of votes, thereby isolating Moscow and Beijing, which is expected to back the Russian position. But a week of diplomatic outreach has failed to turn a single vote.

"At the Security Council -- despite all the efforts that we're making, in particular with the British and the Americans -- we still haven't achieved our goal," Juppé said. "Indeed, China and Russia are threatening -- on the grounds of principle -- to exercise their right of veto. We will take the risk of putting a draft resolution condemning the Syrian regime to a vote if we reach a sufficient majority. Currently, we probably have nine votes at the Security Council. We still need to persuade South Africa, India and Brazil; we're working on this every day. I think that if we were able to achieve 11 votes, we would put this draft resolution to a vote and everyone would have to assume their responsibilities; we'd then see if China and Russia would go so far as to veto the resolution."

European governments have directed their lobbying efforts at Brazil and South Africa in the hopes that they could somehow peel them away from the Russian camp. French ambassador Gerard Araud pressed Brazil this week to reconsider its stance in a newspaper interview in the Brazilian paper O Estado De Sao Paolo. "The Security Council's credibility and that of its members is at stake, as it is their mandate is to protect international peace and security," Araud said. "We've been discsuing this text for two weeks. In that time 400 people, including women and children, have died, sometimes under torture. Let's be clear: Inaction on the part of the Security Council is not an option. We must all rally together and we're counting on Brazil."

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Last week, the U.N.'s human rights office in Sudan produced an internal memo concluding that last month's Sudanese military "attack and occupation" of the disputed town of Abyei "is tantamount to ethnic cleansing," according to a copy of the confidential memo obtained by Turtle Bay.

The memo said that the nature of the attack and forced displacement of tens of thousands of black ethnic Ngok Dinka, including the destruction of their homes and the seizure of their property by ethnic Arab Misseriya tribes, made the prospects for their return dim. The action, it said, would also complicate international efforts to resolve an ongoing dispute over Abyei's chances for independence.

"By destroying their homes, looting their properties and inspiring fear and terror, over 30,000 Ngok Dinkas have been forcefully displaced from their ancestral homes, leaving the Abyei area now more or less homogenously occupied by the Misseriya," the report stated. "The likelihood of all the Ngok Dinkas returning to Abyei is limited.… The Government of Sudan must be held accountable."

But the U.N. has since backed off the claim that ethnic cleansing had occurred. A revised, softened version of the memo, according to a report in the Associated Press, only claimed that the Sudanese Armed Forces' "occupation" of Abyei might result in ethnic cleansing. "The SAF attack and occupation of Abyei and the resultant displacement of over 30,000 Ngok Dinkas from Abyei could lead to ethnic cleansing, if conditions for the return of the displaced Ngok Dinka residents are not created," according to the report.

The watered-down language followed assurances by Sudan that it would help pave the way for the return of nearly 80,000 Ngok Dinka residents, including 30,000 inside the town of Abyei, according to U.N. officials. There was also a question about whether thousands of nomadic ethnic Arab Misseriya who joined Sudanese forces in looting and burning homes in Abyei really intended to stay in Abyei. Traditionally, the Misseriya have only entered the region temporarily to graze their cattle during the dry season.

Speaking at a press conference at U.N. headquarters today, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki moon said that Khartoum pledged to pave the way for thousands of residents to ultimately return to their homes in Abyei. He endorsdd the U.N.'s softer line on characterizing the Sudanese attack, saying it is “far too early to claim that ethnic cleansing is taking place."

The five-page memo, which was written by the human rights section of the U.N. Mission in Sudan, said the latest flare-up of violence in Abyei started on May 19 in the town of Dokura, when forces of the Sudanese People's Liberation Army (SPLA) allegedly opened fire on a U.N.-escorted convoy composed of troops from the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), killing two Sudanese soldiers and blowing up a U.N. truck.

Fearing reprisals, most of the areas' civilians, primarily Ngok Dinkas, fled en masse toward the southern town of Agok, leaving behind an unknown number of civilians and groups of armed youth seeking to defend their towns. U.N. ground patrols and aerial surveillance showed that Abyei was "virtually empty and deserted" by the time Sudanese forces seized the town but that "a number of the Abyei residents were killed during the attack as evidenced by dead bodies that were seen lying around in Abyei." In the end, Sudanese forces and their allies burned as many as 20 percent of the homes in Abyei to the ground.

Two days later, the Sudanese army responded with a massive military assault, bombing and shelling SPLA positions in the Abyei region, including the villages of Todach, Tajalei, Noong, Leu, Makir Abior, Awolnom, and Marial Achack. Days later, the Sudanese army blew up the Banton Bridge on the River Kiir, south of Abyei, undermining the ability of most locals who fled south from the violence to return.

"On the night of 21 May 2011, SAF attacked and took control of Abyei, amidst artillery shelling, armored tank firing, mortar shelling, and machine gun fire," according to the memo. "There was heavy fighting, especially around UNMIS compound, presumably between the SAF and South Sudan Police Services (SSPS) and possibly armed Ngok youths. UNMIS was accidentally shelled five times. Four of the shells exploded resulting in minor injuries to 2 Egyptian TCC soldiers and the destruction of one UNWFP vehicle. It took a direct hit and burned."

The following day, pro-Khartoum militia from the Misseriya tribe and forces of the People's Defense Forces moved into Abyei. "They began moving from tukul [dwelling] to tukul, and allegedly killed residents trapped therein, mostly Ngok Dinkas. An elderly woman who took refuge in the UN camp, in an interview, stated that her 37 year [old] son … was murdered.… Another woman also sheltered at UNMIS claimed that she was raped."

The Sudanese Armed Forces commander, Brig. Gen. Azdeen Osman, prevented U.N. peacekeepers from entering the town of Abyei until nearly four days after the attack began, citing security concerns.

"The Abyei attack, from all indications is not a retaliatory and offensive action occasioned" by the SPLA's May 19 attack, according to the memo. "Rather, the attack and occupation of Abyei by SAF was part of a deliberate plan by the north conceived long before the Dokura incident."

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