Free Republic

Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) on Tuesday slammed the administration’s handover of $500 million to the U.N. Green Climate Fund, asking a State Department official how the “handout to foreign bureaucrats” could be justified at a time when there were “real problems” that need to be addressed at home. Barrasso told Deputy Secretary for Management and Resources Heather Higginbottom he viewed the payment to the “new international climate change slush fund” — the first installment of a $3 billion pledge — as both a misuse of taxpayer dollars and a violation of legislation that prohibits federal agencies from spending federal funds...

The Obama administration sent the first $500 million to the United Nations' Green Climate Fund this week, thumbing its nose at Republican opponents who say taxpayers shouldn't be on the hook for the money. Critics of the U.S. participating in the fund came out against the president's actions Tuesday. "President Obama continues to prioritize his political interests over the interests of the American people," said Tom Pyle, president of the conservative American Energy Alliance. "The administration intends to funnel hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars into the U.N.'s climate slush fund while pursuing a domestic agenda that will raise energy...

With about 10 months left in office, President Barack Obama is considering unprecedented moves to implement a two-state solution, according to a Wall Street Journal report. Senior US officials revealed that the President is looking to initiate a final negotiated settlement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority using United Nations Security Council resolutions, a step that would obligate not only Israel and the Palestinian Authority, but effectively determine the direction of US policy for the president’s successor as well. The report comes ahead of Vice President Joe Biden’s visit to Israel on Tuesday, where he is scheduled to meet with...

A new U.N. report says 69 allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse were reported in 10 peacekeeping missions in 2015 and calls for on-site court-martials of alleged perpetrators and DNA testing to identify them. [...] The 69 allegations reported last year were a marked increase from the 52 in 2014, and higher than the 66 in 2013, the report said. Nearly one-third of the 2015 allegations - 22 - are from the U.N. mission in the Central African Republic, which has made headlines over reports of some peacekeepers sent to protect civilians instead trading sex for money and sexually abusing...

Last Sunday, U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions raised eyebrows when he came out and endorsed Donald Trump for President of the United States. (SNIP) The first time the two met face to face was at a Senate Subcommittee hearing back in 2005. Renovations to the United Nations building in New York City were being plagued by cost overruns, missed deadlines and incompetence, and Trump had decided to come to the United States Senate to offer his services free of charge to help get the project back on track. The U.N. wanted to renovate its headquarters in New York City and estimated...

A growing number of migrants worldwide are fleeing "sickening atrocities" and often encounter cruelty and xenophobia instead of compassion, the UN's rights chief said Monday. "Conflicts in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere have unleashed a toxic brew of malevolent forces, including the commission of sickening atrocities, and the emergence of human trafficking gangs," Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said. "These are the circumstances that migrants are increasingly fleeing. The trauma they have suffered is appalling, (and) they deserve the international community's sympathy and compassion," he told the opening of the UN Human Rights Council's main annual session in Geneva. Instead, they were...

A group of United Nations' member-states on Thursday elected the Assad regime to a leadership post of a special committee dealing with decolonization, sparking protests from a human rights group that had earlier urged U.N. secretary-general Ban Ki-moon to intervene. At a meeting in New York, the committee's newly-elected chairman, Venezuelan ambassador Rafael Ramirez, asked the member-states whether there were any objections to putting forward Syrian ambassador Bashar Ja'afari as its "rapporteur" for the coming year. Hearing no objectives, Ramirez declared Ja'afari -- as well as three nominated vice chairmen, the representatives of Cuba, Sierra Leone and Indonesia -- "elected...

Pachauri, who has headed TERI since 2001, is renowned internationally for his work on climate change, for which he shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore. He is facing charges of sexual harassment and stalking made last February by a 29-year-old female employee at TERI, who has since resigned from her position. Pachauri denied the allegations, but stepped down from his position at the IPCC. Last May, an internal committee at TERI found him guilty of sexually harassing the woman. But still, last week, TERI announced that he was promoted to the position of executive vice chairman, an...

Washington (CNN)Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz made an unusual suggestion for U.N. ambassador at a rally on Friday: "Duck Dynasty" star Phil Robertson. "How much would you pay to see the Russian ambassador's face when Phil says, 'What is wrong with you people?'" Cruz joked to an applauding crowd in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel Tuesday criticized an eastern European proposal to close the Balkans refugee route and vowed to push for a plan with Turkey to reduce the influx, at an EU summit. Merkel, under heavy pressure at home to reduce arrivals, supports a plan under which transit country Turkey would seal its borders and then fly refugees to Europe where they would be settled under an EU quota system. However, most countries in the European Union have shown little enthusiasm for the idea, and the so-called Visegrad Four - Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary - have openly...

UNITED NATIONS -- Former U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali has died, Venezuelan U.N. Ambassador Rafael Dario Ramirez Carreno, president of the U.N. Security Council for February, said on Tuesday. He was 93. An Egyptian, Boutros-Ghali served one five-year term as U.N. chief from 1992 to 1996. The 15-member Security Council observed a minute's silence. No further details on his death were immediately available. As the United Nations' first secretary-general from Africa, Boutros-Ghali associated himself with the famine in Somalia and organized the first massive U.N. relief operation in the Horn of Africa nation. But success eluded him there and elsewhere as...

The Obama administration has vowed to sign a United Nations global warming deal in April despite intense opposition from the Senate and a Supreme Court ruling derailing the government's green regulatory scheme. "We're going to go ahead and sign the agreement this year," Todd Stern, the U.S.'s climate envoy told reporters Tuesday, brushing aside questions about last week's Supreme Court ruling against the Environmental Protection Agency's key climate regulation.

Brazenly defying United Nations member governments from around the world, the UN decided to promote homosexuality, same-sex parenting, transgenderism, and other controversial agendas on a series of commemorative postage stamps. It is the next step in the UN's divisive "Free and Equal" campaign, which claims to have reached a billion people with its propaganda so far. Around the world, though, critics of the so-called LGBT agenda - Lesbian, "Gay," Bisexual, and Transgender - expressed outrage, slamming the UN and calling on pro-LGBT zealot Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon to apologize and even resign. The UN boss similarly came under fire just...

A government-owned Zimbabwe newspaper is claiming global warming caused $1.5 billion a year in damage . . . President for life Robert Mugabe wants the UN (meaning America) to provide $1.5 billion per year...Naturally he blames his country's problems on 'climate change.'

Homeland Security Secretary (DHS) Jeh Johnson said last week that the Obama administration is trying to make it easier for “individuals” from Central America to gain refugee status in the United States in response to the ongoing surge of unaccompanied alien children (UACs) and families entering the country illegally in recent years. (Snip) “We are expanding our Refugee Admissions Program to help vulnerable men, women and children in Central America who qualify as refugees,” Johnson said. “We are partnering with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and non-governmental organizations in the region to do this as soon as possible

Russia said on Saturday a Syria ceasefire plan was more likely to fail than succeed, as Syrian government forces backed by Russian air strikes took rebel ground near Aleppo and set their sights on the Islamic State stronghold of Raqqa province. International divisions over Syria surfaced anew at a Munich conference where Russia rejected French charges that it was bombing civilians, just a day after world powers agreed on the "cessation of hostilities" due to begin in a week's time. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry reiterated accusations that Russia was hitting "legitimate opposition groups" and civilians with its bombing...

Rafat Alian, the Jerusalem spokesperson of Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction, cited UN Director-General Ban Ki-Moon in justifying the attack on the Old City's Damascus Gate in which Hadar Cohen was murdered. [...] Alian said the "occupation" of the "Palestinian nation" demands a "natural response" - in a direct quote from Ban, who two weeks ago caused outrage by sympathizing with Palestinian terror and saying, "it is human nature to react to occupation." Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon wrote an official letter to Ban, demanding that he take back his statements that grant legitimacy to...

UN Director-General Ban Ki-Moon spoke at Park East Synagogue in New York on Saturday, in a speech for International Holocaust Remembrance Day - but he was met with boos in light of his recent virulently anti-Israeli statements. Two weeks ago on Tuesday Ban expressed sympathy for murderous Palestinian terrorism in Israel, saying, "it is human nature to react to occupation." The comment was met with outrage in Israel. In his speech at the synagogue Ban steered completely clear of Israel, instead only speaking about the universal messages from the Holocaust regarding the need to combat racism and violence. But the...

Jerusalem is bracing for a series of Palestinian statehood initiatives in various international forums, including resolutions at the United Nations Security Council, Israel's ambassador to the UN Danny Danon said Thursday. "The Palestinians are increasing their involvement and activity in the international arena in a bid to internationalize the conflict," he told The Times of Israel. There are several initiatives calling for the creation of a Palestinian state circulating among UN diplomats, and while they recently received less exposure due to the world's focus on fighting the Islamic State terror group, these resolutions are anything but forgotten, he indicated. ...

The United Nations Postal Administration on Thursday released six new postage stamps promoting equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. The colorfully designed stamps by artist and UNPA art director Sergio Baradat are also meant to celebrate the diversity of the gay community and marks the first time the global body's post office has issued stamps with an LGBT theme. The stamps were unveiled in a ceremony at the U.N. General Assembly building that included a performance by the New York Gay Men's Chorus. ...