An extraordinary communication from the United States to UN representatives around the world has been leaked to Greenpeace. (Full text of the leaked document here). In it, the United States warns that the simple act of support for a General Assembly meeting to discuss the war will be considered "unhelpful and directed against the United States." They further threaten that invoking the Uniting for Peace resolution will be "harmful to the UN."
Greenpeace has been actively lobbying at the United Nations against the war, and many delegates have expressed both publicly and privately their distaste for what they see as US attempts to "strongarm" the world community to do as it is told. One delegate was so incensed with the memo circulated by the US that he leaked the full document.
The Uniting for Peace resolution, which the US is trying to head off, has a long history of stopping conflict. Ironically, it has most often been invoked by the US to overcome vetoes by the Soviet Union during the cold war. Under its terms, the full 191 member United Nations General Assembly can gather to make recommendations for restoring the peace when the Security Council is deadlocked or unable to take action. Somewhat hilariously, one of the reasons the US says the General Assembly should not take up the issue of war in Iraq is that the "Security Council remains seized of this matter." Seized is certainly the correct term: the engine of peace is simply not turning.
There are those who say that the United Nations has been harmed by the Security Council debate on Iraq and the US coalition action without authorisation. However, it can also be said that the UN showed extraordinary strength in withstanding the pressure to rubber-stamp an illegal invasion. The only course of action open now to the global community is to demand the immediate end of hostilities and a return to UN-sanctioned disarmament measures. It's the right thing to do for world peace, it's the right thing to do for the future of the United Nations.
In the past two weeks, Greenpeace Cyberactivists have been part of the global outcry for an emergency session of the UN. We've sent a record 60,000 appeals to United Nations representatives calling for the General Assembly to denounce the war in Iraq and to call for an immediate cease-fire. And despite the fierce US pressure, it looks like our global demand will be met.
A press announcement by the Arab League Monday confirms that they will be invoking the "Uniting for Peace" resolution to bring all 191 member nations of the UN together. "The point of the request is to save the lives of Iraqi civilians," one Arab diplomat said to the Associated Press. "We will ask for a cease-fire and a return to peaceful disarmament in Iraq."
Dozens of other nations have already gone on record saying they will support the call for an emergency session. We urge the General Assembly to meet swiftly and give shape to the global voices that are demanding an end to this illegal war.
Posted by Brian Stefans at April 04, 2003 12:36 PM | TrackBackThis variable is then used in various lines of code, holding values given it by variable assignments along the way. In the course of its life, a variable can hold any number of variables and be used in any number of different ways. This flexibility is built on the precept we just learned: a variable is really just a block of bits, and those bits can hold whatever data the program needs to remember. They can hold enough data to remember an integer from as low as -2,147,483,647 up to 2,147,483,647 (one less than plus or minus 2^31). They can remember one character of writing. They can keep a decimal number with a huge amount of precision and a giant range. They can hold a time accurate to the second in a range of centuries. A few bits is not to be scoffed at.
Posted by: Ralph on January 19, 2004 12:05 AMWhen Batman went home at the end of a night spent fighting crime, he put on a suit and tie and became Bruce Wayne. When Clark Kent saw a news story getting too hot, a phone booth hid his change into Superman. When you're programming, all the variables you juggle around are doing similar tricks as they present one face to you and a totally different one to the machine.
Posted by: Dionisius on January 19, 2004 12:06 AMFor this program, it was a bit of overkill. It's a lot of overkill, actually. There's usually no need to store integers in the Heap, unless you're making a whole lot of them. But even in this simpler form, it gives us a little bit more flexibility than we had before, in that we can create and destroy variables as we need, without having to worry about the Stack. It also demonstrates a new variable type, the pointer, which you will use extensively throughout your programming. And it is a pattern that is ubiquitous in Cocoa, so it is a pattern you will need to understand, even though Cocoa makes it much more transparent than it is here.
Posted by: Dorothy on January 19, 2004 12:06 AMThis code should compile and run just fine, and you should see no changes in how the program works. So why did we do all of that?
Posted by: Edwin on January 19, 2004 12:06 AMWhen compared to the Stack, the Heap is a simple thing to understand. All the memory that's left over is "in the Heap" (excepting some special cases and some reserve). There is little structure, but in return for this freedom of movement you must create and destroy any boundaries you need. And it is always possible that the heap might simply not have enough space for you.
Posted by: James on January 19, 2004 12:07 AM