Free Republic

"Art and music don't have boundaries," United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon tells THR about Brett Ratner and James Packer's upcoming TV miniseries (production is slated to start in early 2017) that will center on a different historic crisis each season. Brett Ratner stood on a gold curtain-lined stage built for a Rat Pack-inspired jazz band in the backyard of his Hilhaven Lodge estate just before 9 p.m. Aug. 10 and began with an admission. He had invited several hundred friends and colleagues — among them Warner Bros. chairman and CEO Kevin Tsujihara, CBS Corp. chairman Leslie Moonves, Viacom's Shari Redstone,...

Billionaire philanthropist and former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg has a new job — as global ambassador for the U.N. health agency with a mandate to help reduce deaths from prevalent diseases, traffic accidents, tobacco, alcohol and obesity. World Health Organization Director General Margaret Chan cited Bloomberg’s longtime support for its efforts to control smoking and tobacco use, improve road safety and prevent drowning in announcing Wednesday that he will be the agency’s Global Ambassador for Non-communicable Diseases. She said Bloomberg will help mobilize national and local political leaders, donors and the private sector to prevent and treat non-communicable diseases...

The Obama administration is demanding that Congress immediately approve new tax funding for Zika research, but has so far failed to mention that Obama already diverted $500 million worth of infectious disease research funds to illegally finance the United Nations “climate” bureaucracy's slush fund. In the meantime, to deal with the alleged budget shortfall caused by the previous illegal diversion of funds, the White House has diverted tax money from other programs to pay for Zika research. But the supposed problem is entirely self-inflicted. In March, after Congress refused to approve funding for the UN's global-warming agenda — funding that...

Lakhdar Brahimi and Mary Robinson call on the successful candidate for UN Secretary-General to serve one seven year term, to ensure their strength and independence. Writing in an opinion piece published around the world, they also urge P5 members to recognise that merit must trump all other considerations.

Investigators discovered this month that at least four U.N. peacekeepers in the Central African Republic allegedly paid girls as little as 50 cents in exchange for sex. The most recent allegations involve at least four peacekeepers who are accused of paying girls as young as 13 for sex at a camp for the internally displaced next to the international airport in Bangui, the capital. The site, known as M’poko camp, is home to 20,000 people, mostly Christians. It is a vast agglomeration of white tents surrounding old, decaying airplanes, just yards from the airport runway. The United Nations was also...

Why is the headquarters of the United Nations still in New York? If it is removed, Sudanese President Omar al Bashir, who canceled plans to attend in 2013, can attend meetings of the U.N. General Assembly. So far he has been denied a U.S. visa because he has been indicted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes he allegedly committed in the Darfur region of Sudan, where 300,000 were killed and two million were displaced. For the benefit of Bashir and the other numerous dictators, tyrants, and ruthless violators of human rights, it is incumbent on well meaning people...

The top echelons of the global establishment seem to be going all in for a corrupt communist — and they don't care who knows it. One of the world's most powerful so-called “banksters,” Baron Eric de Rothschild of the unfathomably wealthy Rothschild banking dynasty, publicly announced his support for Bulgarian communist operative Irina Bokova and her scandal-plagued campaign to lead the United Nations. The implications of the developments are massive and shed a great deal light on the establishment itself. Basically, the establishment insiders' insider is boldly declaring, at a critical time, his support for Bokova's campaign, which has been...

(Washington) – The United States should help Jordan transfer an estimated 70,000 Syrians stuck in appalling conditions at its northeastern border to a safe location, Human Rights Watch said in a letter to President Barack Obama that was released today. The United States should also step up its efforts to resettle Syrians who are living in Jordan and other neighboring countries. “It is critically important to help Jordan find a solution to move these highly vulnerable people to a safe place where they can be screened for security concerns and protection needs,” said Bill Frelick, refugee rights director at Human...

“The Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice has provided oversight and recommendations for improvement of police services in a number of cities with consent decrees. This is one of the most effective ways to reduce discrimination in law enforcement and it needs to be beefed up and increased to cover as many of the 18,000-plus local law enforcement jurisdictions.” That was United Nations Rapporteur Maina Kai on July 27, a representative of the U.N. Human Rights Council, who on the tail-end of touring the U.S., endorsed a little-known and yet highly controversial practice by the Justice Department to...

Around the announcement of the arbitration tribunal over the South China Sea, Australia was one of the most delirious countries. Canberra immediately supported the arbitration result and claimed China “must” abide by it, and also signed a joint declaration with the US and Japan. Australia has inked a free trade agreement with China, its biggest trading partner, which makes its move of disturbing the South China Sea waters surprising to many. Australia is a unique country with an inglorious history. It was at first an offshore prison of the UK and then became its colony, a source of raw materials,...

President Obama has decided to seek a new United Nations Security Council resolution that would call for an end to nuclear testing, a move that leading lawmakers are calling an end run around Congress. Top administration officials, including Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, briefed lawmakers and congressional staffers this week about President Obama’s decision to push for the U.N. action this September, to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which was adopted in September 1996 but was never ratified by the Senate. National Security Council spokesperson Ned Price told me that the administration still would like...

The Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice has provided oversight and recommendations for improvement of police services in a number of cities with consent decrees. This is one of the most effective ways to reduce discrimination in law enforcement and it needs to be beefed up and increased to cover as many of the 18,000-plus local law enforcement jurisdictions.” That was United Nations Rapporteur Maina Kai on July 27, a representative of the U.N. Human Rights Council, who on the tail-end of touring the U.S., endorsed a little-known and yet highly controversial practice by the Justice Department to...

A leader of the Druze population of the Golan Heights disputed the assertion of a United Nations committee that accused Israel of imposing economic and social hardships on his community. Dulan abu-Saleh, the mayor of Majdal Shams, the largest Druze town in the Golan, told Makor Rishon that the U.N. Economic and Social Council’s recent statement on the area was “a total joke,” the daily reported Friday. Unlike other Druze populations in Israel serve in the Israel Defense Forces, the Golan’s Druze population of some 20,000 has been careful not to align itself publicly with the Jewish state, which annexed...

A United Nations human rights expert is recommending changes in the way protests are handled in the United States, saying the process of issuing permits for demonstrations is “arbitrary” and could easily lead to discrimination against certain groups. Maina Kiai of Kenya, U.N. special rapporteur on freedom of peaceful assembly and of association, offered preliminary findings Wednesday from his visits this month to seven U.S. cities — including the sites of this year’s Democratic and Republican political conventions — to investigate how the U.S. upholds its citizens’ rights of assembly and association. Kiai’s full report to the United Nations will...

As the United Nations continues to drown in mega-scandals ranging from the systematic rape of children by UN “peace” troops to the vicious persecution of the whistleblowers who expose UN crimes, the global outfit's own inspectors have revealed that the prevailing approach to fraud within much of the UN is to basically ignore it. Indeed, many UN entities “continue to remain in a state of near denial with regard to fraud,” the investigators reported. The findings of the UN Joint Inspection Unit (JIU) highlighting widespread fraud, corruption, and impunity across the UN system, among other problems, represent another devastating blow...

Donald Trump, regarding the United Nations' remodeling plan: Senator, congratulations. You've got a mess on your hands. The Senate International Security Subcommittee, chaired by Oklahoma Republican Tom Coburn, was holding a hearing yesterday into the proposed $1.5 billion refurbish project of the United Nations building. One of the star witnesses was The Donald. Just on pure theater, it was fun to watch. In case you missed it, here's Trump's testimony. It's long, but I promise you it's worth it:

MISSOULA – U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy ... Putnam said he’s attended several Oath Keepers rallies in the past, including three in Portland, Oregon and several at a memorial on the highway outside Burns, Oregon where LaVoy Finicum was killed by law enforcement in a standoff following the armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife refuge. ... Jason Van Tatenhove, a Eureka-area man who serves as the national media director for the Oath Keepers, said he had doubts about the performance of Robertson’s federal public defense attorney, Michael Donahoe, saying he had refused, for example, to push to get an...

Under the guise of fighting “violence against children,” the Obama administration has joined forces with socalist foreign regimes and various United Nations agencies in a “global partnership” to wage war on parental rights. The controversial worldwide initiative, which aims to criminalize spanking and smacking as disciplinary tools, among other things, is part of the UN's Agenda 2030, also known as the “Sustainable Development Goals.” Essentially, the UN is betting that framing the assault on families as a bid to end “violence against children” — something nobody in their right mind would oppose — will make it easier to pursue the...

Be forewarned. This photo (immediately below) speaks volumes about this papacy and its collaborators. Know them by the radical company they keep. Clout affords him heightened access to the Pope, as he sits prominently at the speaker’s dais when Pope Francis addresses the Pontifical Academy’s Human Trafficking Judicial Conference in early June 2016. He smiles and listens as Francis acknowledges and thanks “a number of prestigious external collaborators—to whom I offer my heartfelt thanks—have engaged in important activities in defense of human dignity and freedom in our day.” He nods knowingly because he ranks foremost as the Pope’s ‘prestigious external...

The international arbitration tribunal, constituted under Annex VII to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (“UNCLOS”), issued its final Award on July 12th in the so-called “compulsory” arbitration instituted by the Republic of the Philippines against the People’s Republic of China. The Philippines had sought rulings on a number of issues, including the source of the parties’ rights and obligations in the South China Sea and the effect of UNCLOS on China’s claims to historic rights within its claimed ‘nine-dash line.’ The tribunal’s decision found in the Philippines’ favor on these two key issues, and most...