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By Diane Forrest
One of my favorite action movies with George Clooney is the
Peacekeepers. It is a story about the
theft of a nuclear bomb, and the person who now has control of it has traveled
to New York in an attempt to blow up the United Nations building in retaliation
of the death of his wife and child.
Luckily that didn't happen, but that gave me some knowledge about the
United Nations, and what they do.
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According to Wikipedia, the United Nations was
established to replace the flawed League of Nations in 1945 in order to
maintain international peace and promote cooperation in solving international
economic, social and humanitarian problems. The earliest concrete plan for a
new world organization was begun under the aegis of the U.S. State Department
in 1939. Franklin D. Roosevelt first coined the term 'United Nations' as a term
to describe the Allied countries. The term was first officially used on 1 January
1942, when 26 governments signed the Atlantic Charter, pledging to continue the
war effort. On 25 April 1945, the UN Conference on International Organization
began in San Francisco, attended by 50 governments and a number of
non-governmental organizations involved in drafting the United Nations Charter.
The UN officially came into existence on 24 October 1945 upon ratification of
the Charter by the five then-permanent members of the Security Council—France,
the Republic of China, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United
States—and by a majority of the other 46 signatories. The first meetings of the
General Assembly, with 51 nations represented, and the Security Council, took
place in Westminster Central Hall in London in January 1946.
Out of the 196 countries in the world, there are only 3
that are not members of the UN. These
are Kosovo, Taiwan, and the Vatican City.
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Today is United Nations Day, and they are celebrating
with week-long activities. United
Nations Day is devoted to making known to peoples of the world the aims and
achievements of the United Nations Organization. United Nations Day is part of
United Nations Week, which runs from 20 to 26 October. United Nations Day has traditionally been
marked throughout the world with meetings, discussions and exhibits about the
achievements and goals of the organization. In 1971, the General Assembly
recommended that member states observe it as a public holiday.
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To learn more about the UN and what they do, visit this
site: http://www.un.org/en/members/index.shtml
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