Thalif Deen

Stories written by Thalif Deen
Thalif Deen, Senior Editor & Director, UN Bureau, Inter Press Service (IPS) news agency has been covering the United Nations since the late 1970s. Beginning with the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, he has covered virtually every major U.N. conference: on population, human rights, the environment, sustainable development, food security, humanitarian aid, arms control and nuclear disarmament. As the former UN Bureau Chief for IPS, he was cited twice for excellence in U.N. reporting at the annual awards presentation of the U.N. Correspondents' Association (UNCA). In November 2012, he was on the IPS team which won the prestigious gold medal for reporting on the global environment-- and in 2013, he shared the gold, this time with the UN Bureau Chief of Reuters news agency, for his reporting on the humanitarian and development work of the United Nations. A former information officer at the U.N. Secretariat, he served twice as a member of the Sri Lanka delegation to the UN General Assembly sessions. His track record includes a stint as deputy news editor of the Sri Lanka Daily News and senior editorial writer on the Hong Kong Standard. As military analyst, he was also Director, Foreign Military Markets at Defense Marketing Services; Senior Defense Analyst at Forecast International; and military editor Middle East/Africa at Jane’s Information Group. He was a longstanding columnist for the Sri Lanka Sunday Times, U.N. correspondent for Asiaweek, Hong Kong and Jane's Defence Weekly, London. A Fulbright scholar with a Master’s Degree (MSc) in Journalism from Columbia University, New York, he is co-author of the 1981 book on “How to Survive a Nuclear Disaster” and author of the 2021 book on the United Nations titled “No Comment – and Don’t Quote me on That”— and subtitled ‘from the Sublime to the Hilarious’, both of which are available on Amazon

POLITICS: Better Security ‘Indispensable’ for Afghan Vote – Annan

By Thalif Deen

With battle-scarred Iraq in shambles, the United States is now trying to showcase war-ravaged Afghanistan as a potentially vibrant multi-party democracy on the road to political success, say U.N. diplomats and Afghan experts.

POLITICS: 1,000 Billion Dollars for Weapons

By Thalif Deen

After declining in the post-cold war era of the early 1990s, global military spending is on the rise again - threatening to break the one trillion dollar barrier this year, according to a group of U.N.-appointed military experts.

POLITICS: 1,000 Billion Dollars for Weapons

By Thalif Deen

SUDAN: Hepatitis Threatens Hard-hit Darfur Refugees – Doctor

By Thalif Deen

A physician working for the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA) has returned from Sudan's troubled Darfur region with harrowing tales of women and children battling an outbreak of hepatitis in makeshift refugee camps with little or no clean water, health care and nutritious food.

POLITICS: Quick to Condemn, World Slow to Deliver Aid to Darfur

By Thalif Deen

Although quick to condemn brutalities in Sudan, the international community has been painfully slow to respond to a U.N. appeal for more aid and for troops to serve in a peacekeeping force in the western province of Darfur.

RIGHTS: U.N. Committee Silent on Anti-Terrorism Abuse

By Thalif Deen

Two leading human rights groups have criticised the U.N. Security Council's Counter-Terrorism Committee for refusing to castigate governments that crack down on human rights in the name of fighting terrorism.

IRAQ: U.N. Absence Could Jeopardise Fair Elections – Official

By Thalif Deen

The United Nations, which is supposed to prepare the groundwork for nation-wide elections in Iraq next January, is unlikely to send an electoral team to supervise the polls unless its workers are heavily protected in the violence-prone country, according to a report released Monday.

POLITICS: Iraq Avoids U.N. Dues by Crying Poverty

By Thalif Deen

Iraq's U.S.-installed interim government, which is planning to spend some two billion dollars on its military this year, has declared it is too poor to pay 14.6 million dollars it owes the United Nations.

POLITICS: U.N. Headquarters Staff Demand More Security

By Thalif Deen

A perceived terrorist threat against two U.N. sister institutions, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), in Washington DC, has prompted the 5,000-strong U.N. Staff Union to demand tighter security measures at U.N. headquarters in New York.

AFGHANISTAN: US, UK Subverting Relief Aid – Agencies

By Thalif Deen

The United States and Britain are being accused of undermining the work of international humanitarian organisations in Afghanistan by misusing aid to advance their military interests.

POLITICS: U.N. Holds Out Deadline to Stop Atrocities in Sudan

By Thalif Deen

The government of Sudan is being given a 30-day deadline to stop widespread atrocities and ethnic cleansing in Darfur province - or face possible economic and military sanctions by the United Nations.

POLITICS: U.N. Holds Out Deadline to Stop Atrocities in Sudan

By Thalif Deen

The Government of Sudan is being given a 30-day deadline to stop widespread atrocities and ethnic cleansing in Darfur province - or face possible economic and military sanctions by the United Nations.

POLITICS: No Offers of Troops to Protect U.N. Staff in Iraq

By Thalif Deen

The dramatic increase in kidnappings of foreign nationals in Iraq is threatening to undermine the creation of a new multinational security force aimed at protecting U.N. employees and humanitarian workers who are planning to return to the violence-ridden country.