After the heady and often dizzying political changes optimistically described as the Arab Spring, many of these same Middle Eastern states may be heading for what sadly looks like an Arab Winter.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has warned that the Islamic Republic of Iran is developing the scientific technology needed to create a nuclear weapon.

Norway, Australia, the Netherlands, and the United States are among the best places to live according to the Human Development Report 2011, the U.N.'s annual rankings of states based on health, wealth, education and gender. Rounding out the top ten include New Zealand, Canada, Ireland, Lichtenstein, Germany and Sweden.

There's rarely good news from North Korea. The quaintly titled Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) is facing a worsening humanitarian crisis, while at the same time the government is heightening political repression, and the communist rulers are vaingloriously pursuing their nuclear weapons program.

The four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are stalking Somalia and riding further a field into the impoverished the Horn of Africa.

In a rare use of a double veto, both China and Russia shot down a weak Western-backed draft resolution urging human rights in Syria. By failing to adopt a resolution condemning “grave and systematic human rights abuses” by the Damascus rulers, the U.N. Security Council again stumbled on the road to Damascus.

A seamless political thread running through the current U.N. General Assembly debate has been that of the Arab Spring, the movement which shifted the political sands throughout the Middle East. Yet, among the often self-congratulatory messages praising the Arab Spring, some former Eastern Bloc states have offered sage sociopolitical advice on how to manage the transitions from dictatorship to democracy.

Even by the politically paranoid standards of his past speeches, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's address to the U.N. General Assembly, brought the term bizarre to a whole new level.

Amid the arrival of presidents, prime ministers and kings, the 66th annual session of the United Nations (U.N.) General Assembly debate will open in New York, Sept. 21st.

New York — On a picture-perfect September day in 2001, the Grim Reaper visited New York to spread carnage and to shock and stun the very foundations of American society.