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Critics are calling for the resignation of a U.N. investigator who supports Sept. 11 conspiracy theories and thinks the U.S. government may have planned the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Richard Falk, the special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, investigates alleged Israeli violations of human rights law for the U.N.’s Human Rights Council. But the former Princeton professor would also like to investigate whether “some sort of controlled explosion from within” destroyed the Twin Towers, he told FOXNews.com. “I do think there are questions that haven’t been answered, questions about the way...

A group comprising survivors and relatives of the victims of the massacre in Srebrenica have called on a court in The Hague to lift the United Nations' immunity. The six thousand Bosnians want to bring charges against the UN and the Netherlands for their role in the fall of the Muslim enclave. But that can only happen if the judge in The Hague makes legal proceedings against the UN possible. The judge will consider the request and deliver a ruling in mid-July. The Muslim enclave in Srebrenica fell on 11 July 1995 into the hands of Bosnian Serb troops who...

John McCain has proposed that the US should sponsor the creation of a new multilateral organization that includes the world’s legitimate democracies. This League of Democracies would act in the interest of freedom and liberty and would act when the UN gets bogged down in its impotence, especially on Iran and Darfur. Initially rejected, the idea has lately begun to appeal to other democracies, as the AP reports: Gaining ground this political season is a proposed League of Democracies designed to strengthen support for the next president’s overseas agenda and ensure a global leadership role for the United States. John...

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Humanitarian aid workers and United Nation peacekeepers are sexually abusing small children in several war-ravaged and food-poor countries, a leading European charity has said. Children as young as 6 have been forced to have sex with aid workers and peacekeepers in return for food and money, Save the Children UK said in a report released Tuesday. After interviewing hundreds of children, the charity said it found instances of rape, child prostitution, pornography, indecent sexual assault and trafficking of children for sex. "It is hard to imagine a more grotesque abuse of authority or flagrant violation of...

Hundreds of ethnic Albanians in Pristina, Kosovo's capital, have protested against Serbia's plans to hold elections in Kosovo on Sunday. The protesters said the United Nations' interim Kosovo mission (Unmik) and the Kosovo government were responsible for failing to use their powers to prevent the elections from going ahead. During Friday's protest, the demonstrators dumped rubbish in front of the UN mission and government buildings. Albin Kurti, leader of the Self-determination Youth Movement, said the rubbish symbolised what the protesters thought of the Unmik and government decision to ignore the polls. The Serbian government, which staunchly opposes Kosovo's move, is...

A new U.N. Human Rights Council official assigned to monitor Israel is calling for an official commission to study the role neoconservatives may have played in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

Global Poverty Act of 2007 - Directs the President, through the Secretary of State, to develop and implement a comprehensive strategy to further the U.S. foreign policy objective of promoting the reduction of global poverty, the elimination of extreme global poverty, and the achievement of the United Nations Millennium Development Goal of reducing by one-half the proportion of people worldwide who live on less than $1 per day.

Marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Sunday, the UN put on display an exhibit paying tribute to the Righteous of Albania who risked all to save Jewish lives during the Holocaust. The exhibit arrived at the UN from Yad Vashem, where it was on display for two months. While the Righteous of any nation indeed should be acknowledged and commemorated, the problem with the exhibit is its underlying agenda. Jews, along with the Albanian Righteous of WWII, are being used by the Albanians of today to advance a racially supremacist end game in the Balkans, where world wars start—and cost...

The State Department reacted angrily to the appearance of UN Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad on a panel at the Davos Economic Forum, along with two members of the Iranian government. The US restricts diplomatic contacts with Iran and requires prior approval for any such interaction. Apparently, Khalilzad took it upon himself to make that decision: An appearance by America's U.N. ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, on a World Economic Forum discussion panel — alongside two Iranian officials, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, and a close aide to President Ahmadinejad, Samare Hashemi — was unauthorized by the State Department and angered Secretary of State Rice,...

24 January 2008 One of Spain's most influential dailies says that Kosovo's independence is imminent, and wrong. "Kosovo will soon declare independence, with the backing of Germany and the United States, despite the fact that the border change was not in keeping with international law, nor EU practice, and Spain is not heard or listened to by anyone in the EU," ABC's said today in an editorial. "The creation of an independent state for Kosovo Albanians will set a precedent for many parts of Europe with minorities who, often without reason, consider themselves discriminated," the daily wrote. "The self-determination of...

Changing light bulbs not enough: Gore From correspondents in Davos January 25, 2008 05:23am Article from: Reuters CLIMATE campaigner Al Gore overnight urged world policymakers to change laws "not just light bulbs" in tackling global warming, and a UN official said world market turmoil must not be allowed to delay action. An annual meeting of world political and business leaders in Davos, Switzerland, this year has scheduled a record number of sessions and workshops on global warming. But a sharp downturn on markets and fears of recession have dominated discussion. "If we get distracted by the aberrations that you see...

OTTAWA - Canada has withdrawn its support for a UN anti-racism conference slated to take place in South Africa next year, the federal government announced Wednesday. The so-called Durban II conference "has gone completely off the rails" and Canada wants no part of it, said Jason Kenney, secretary of state for multiculturalism and Canadian identity. "Canada is interested in combating racism, not promoting it," Kenney told The Canadian Press. "We'll attend any conference that is opposed to racism and intolerance, not those that actually promote racism and intolerance. "Our considered judgment, having participated in the preparatory meetings, was that we...

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon named actor George Clooney, who has campaigned for refugees in Darfur, as a U.N. "messenger of peace" on Friday to promote the world body's peacekeeping efforts. Clooney is the ninth U.N. messenger -- people chosen from the fields of art, music, literature and sports who have agreed to help focus attention on the United Nations' work. U.N. spokeswoman Michele Montas said Clooney would have a special emphasis on peacekeeping. She said he had been "recognized for focusing public attention on crucial international political and social issues." Clooney, who is currently in Sudan, will...

A former congressman and delegate to the United Nations was indicted Wednesday as part of a terrorist fundraising ring that allegedly sent more than $130,000 to an al-Qaida and Taliban supporter who has threatened U.S. and international troops in Afghanistan.

It didn’t attract much notice, but the General Assembly of the United Nations ended the year by passing a disgusting resolution protecting Islam from criticism of its human rights violations. Lots of non-Muslims voted for it – a sign that more and more corrupt Third World governments are identifying with the ideology of Islam, even if they don't accept its doctrines. The resolution goes under the innocuous title "Combating defamation of religions" – but the text singles out "Islam and Muslims in particular". It expresses "deep concern that Islam is frequently and wrongly associated with human rights violations and terrorism".

He has fought against foes ranging from the Green Goblin to Doctor Octopus, but Spider-Man now faces an even more formidable challenge: improving the battered image of the United Nations. In a move reminiscent of storylines developed during the second world war, the UN is joining forces with Marvel Comics, creators of Spider-Man and the Incredible Hulk, to create a comic book showing the international body working with superheroes to solve bloody conflicts and rid the world of disease. The comic, initially to be distributed free to 1m US schoolchildren, will be set in a war-torn fictional country and feature...

"I’m no tech head, but I think I know a thing or three about the Internet and how it works. And as far as I can tell, it works pretty well. More than 1.4 billion people around the world seem to be emailing each other a lot, and those emails get delivered a lot faster and more reliably than “snail mail.” Lots of people are innovating around the Internet – voice calling over the Internet, e-commerce, blogs, education, employment, and healthcare services, music and video streaming and downloads, and such – and lots and lots of people are profiting from...

SYDNEY — Former chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix, here to receive the Sydney Peace Prize, believes the US plans to stay long in Iraq to guarantee the flow of oil supplies and to keep a close eye on neighboring Iran."One fear I would have is that the US has a hidden thought to remain in Iraq," Blix told the Australian radio."One reason why they wanted in was that they felt they must leave Saudi Arabia. After the Gulf War in 1991, they left their troops in Saudi Arabia to protect pipelines,". "And when they felt they could no longer...

CNSNews.com) - Tuesday will be a big day for Cuba when the overwhelming bulk of the world's nations side with it against the United States in the U.N. General Assembly in New York. Ahead of a vote on a resolution condemning the 45-year-old U.S. embargo on Cuba, the island's communist rulers and allies are confident that Washington will be more isolated than ever on the issue.

The image of UN Security Council as an impartial agency to bring peace to the world has been shattered by the American practice of imposing its decisions on the world body. The United States is obviously itching for an attack on Iran over the nuclear issue, ignoring President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s offer to accept the supervision of International Atomic Energy Agency over his country’s nuclear program. The new French President Nicole Sarkozy said, in an apparent bid to proclaim his loyalty to President Bush, that possession of nuclear weapons by Iran was unacceptable. This, according to him, meant a clear threat...

Hey everybody, it's October 24...that means it's United Nations Day!!! Let's all go out and wish our neighbors a happy UN Day.

A second former employee of the U.N. anti-poverty agency is seeking whistleblower protection from the U.N. Ethics Office, claiming he was fired in retaliation for raising complaints to his superiors, his legal adviser said Thursday. Mathieu Credo Koumoin, a native of the Ivory Coast who worked for the U.N. Development Program in West Africa, sent a letter to U.N. ethics chief Robert Benson on Tuesday, asking him to review his case under the U.N.'s new whistleblower protection rules, said his counsel, Jeanne-Marie Col. The request comes weeks after Artjon Shkurtaj, the former operations officer for UNDP in North Korea, also...

Per FR policy, hosted.ap.org is link only. STORY

GENEVA, Switzerland (AP) -- Members of the U.N.'s new human rights watchdog formally agreed Tuesday to continue their scrutiny of Israel while halting investigations into Cuba and Belarus — a move that immediately drew fire from Canada and the United States. The decision was part of a package of reforms adopted by the members of the Human Rights Council to change how it conducts its work, including how and when to launch investigations into some of the world's worst rights offenders. The council, which was formed last year to replace the discredited U.N. Human Rights Commission, passed the compromise package...

Pakistani UN peacekeeping troops have traded in gold and sold weapons to Congolese militia groups they were meant to disarm, the BBC has learnt.(sic) These militia groups were guilty of some of the worst human rights abuses during the Democratic Republic of Congo's long civil war. The trading went on in 2005. A UN investigative team sent to gather evidence was obstructed and threatened. The team's report was buried by the UN itself to "avoid political fallout". These events took place in and around the mining town of Mongbwalu, in north-eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. The Pakistani battalion of the...

TEHRAN (Fars News Agency)- A prominent Iranian lawmaker stressed that the Untied States is not a proper host for the United Nations Organization and called on all member states to demand a transfer of the UN headquarters from New York. Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of an open session of the Islamic Consultative Assembly here on Sunday, chairman of the Iranian parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Alaoddin Boroujerdi said, "As the articles of association of the UN state that the United Nations' permanent headquarters is located in New York, transfer of the headquarters requires rectification of the...

The U.N. Human Rights Council has failed to criticize egregious human rights violations since it replaced a discredited U.N. rights body last year, two watchdog groups said Monday. The two groups, U.N. Watch and Freedom House, released reports charging that rights violators such as Cuba, Saudi Arabia and China have shielded themselves -- and countries such as Sudan and Zimbabwe -- from criticism as members of the new group. The groups said the U.N. General Assembly is also expected to select several other countries with poor rights records to become new members of the body this month. The groups named...

Mr. President, Six decades ago, in the aftermath of the Nazi horrors, Eleanor Roosevelt, Réné Cassin and other eminent figures gathered here, on the banks of Lake Geneva, to reaffirm the principle of human dignity. They created the Commission on Human Rights. Today, we ask: What has become of their noble dream? In this session we see the answer. Faced with compelling reports from around the world of torture, persecution, and violence against women, what has the Council pronounced, and what has it decided? Nothing. Its response has been silence. Its response has been indifference. Its response has been criminal....

A new report from the U.N. Children's Fund says the United States and Britain are the worst countries in the industrialized world in which to be a child. UNICEF says an examination of 40 factors, such as poverty, deprivation, happiness, relationships, and risky or bad behavior puts the United States and Britain at the bottom of a list of 21 economically developed nations.

AID workers have described how they watched helplessly as Sudanese police officers dragged a United Nations worker from an aid agency compound in Darfur and subjected her to a vicious sexual attack. Staff said they feared for their lives when police raided their compound in Nyala, dragging one European woman into the street by her hair and beating several other staff before arresting a total of 20 UN, aid agency and African Union staff. The attack, the latest in a series of assaults on international aid workers, has forced relief agencies to consider pulling out of the troubled region. The...

Burma's military leaders LONDON, UK (ANS) -- A shocking new report about a range of tactics used by the military regime in Burma to suppress Christianity is about to be released in London. Called “Carrying the Cross: The military regime’s campaign of restriction, discrimination and persecution against Christians in Burma” it cites a document, allegedly from the Ministry of Religious Affairs, which has been widely circulated in Rangoon with the headline “Programme to destroy the Christian religion in Burma.” It begins: “There shall be no home where the Christian religion is practised.” The report will be launched at a...

The richest 2% of the world's population owns more than half of the world's household wealth.... ...The research indicates that assets of just $2,200 per adult place a household in the top half of the world's wealthiest. To be among the richest 10% of adults in the world, just $61,000 in assets is needed. If you have more than $500,000, you're part of the richest 1%, the United Nations study says. Indeed, 37 million people now belong in that category.... ...Half the world, nearly 3 billion people, live on less than $2 a day. The three richest people in the...

The UN on Sunday criticized the decision to sentence Saddam Hussein to death, calling upon local authorities to refuse the to hang the ex-leader. UN Human Rights Commission head Louise Arbour said that the "appeal process is reliable and a vital part of the fair judicial procedure." Army Radio reported. She said that "the results of the appeal will what they will be," and Arbour expressed hope that the Iraqi government would suspend its death sentence.

September 28, 2006 -- A Kosovo Albanian drug-boss, Princ Dobrosi, says that he is a friend of a Pakistani-born al Qaeda leader Arfan Qaeder Bhatti who was recently arrested in Norway on charges of planning to terrorize Israeli and American embassies in Oslo, Norway. Kosovo Albanian Princ Dobrosi, left, escorted by police in this 2000 file photo. According to a Czech daily Mlada fronta Dnes, Bhatti has solicited operational help from a Kosovo Albanian drug-boss Princ Dobrosi in order to plan attacks on the Czhech capital, Prague. "We got acquainted in the Ringerike prison in Norway a few years ago,"...

Clinton’s Kosovo Whopper By Cliff Kincaid September 28, 2006 Of all the whoppers told by former President Clinton in his Chris Wallace interview, perhaps the most outrageous was his claim that he was involved in “trying to stop a genocide in Kosovo…” In fact, Clinton’s bombing of the former Yugoslavia killed more people than died in this “genocide.” And his policy benefited Osama bin Laden and the global Jihad. In the year before the bombing, some 2,000 people had been killed in a civil war in Kosovo. A conservative estimate is that 6,000 were killed by U.S. and NATO bombs....

Should the U.S. Stop Funding The U.N.? Yes No Not Sure

Reader Scot Silverstein alerts us to the rally for Israel outside the United Nations earlier this week: Some 35,000 people rallied across from the United Nations to protest Ahmadinejad’s presence at the world body. The crowd also wanted to show solidarity for Israel and implore the United Nations to enforce Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended Israel’s war this summer with Hezbollah and calls for the release of three Israeli soldiers taken hostage by Hamas and Hezbollah. Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Presidents Conference, referred to Ahmadinejad’s Tuesday night speech to the General Assembly, in which he portrayed...

War In The Middle East: U.N. peacekeepers may have done more than just look the other way as Hezbollah created its armed state within a state. The blue helmets may have served as Hezbollah's military intelligence. Real-time battlefield intelligence is a keystone of 21st century warfare, especially when you're up against a terrorist enemy that has had six years to construct hardened underground bunkers and tunnels from which to fight while not having to obey the rules of war. The situation gets complicated and your task becomes harder when that real-time intelligence is being provided to that enemy, Hezbollah, by...

FOR years the United Nations attempted to cover up perverted and outrageous behaviour by uniformed and civilian personnel who have served in East Timor since 1999. But as a new wave of more than 2000 UN-employed police and staff prepare to travel to the capital Dili, Sukehiro Hasegawa, the top UN official in East Timor, has acknowledged for the first time that the UN system failed to bring anyone to justice for crimes that included sex abuse of children and bestiality. Dr Hasegawa declared that the UN's Integrated Mission in East Timor (UNMIT), which became operational on Monday, would enforce...

The UN mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUC) is investigating new allegations implicating UN peacekeepers in the "sexual exploitation of minors," it has said. "MONUC has received allegations about the existence of a major prostitution ring involving minors, close to a large concentration of Congolese soldiers and Blue Helmets (UN forces) in South Kivu, (in the) northeast of the Democratic Republic of Congo," the UN mission said in a statement Thursday. The statement did not mention the nationalities of the peacekeepers implicated, but the spokeswoman, Sylvie van den Wildenberg, said the region had UN troops from India, Pakistan,...

Last Updated: Friday, 18 August 2006, 11:35 GMT 12:35 UK E-mail this to a friend Printable version Israel alarm at UN force members

UN ambulance picking up fighters in Gaza Strip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqGjz7iJTns&">

The forward suite aboard Air Force One is a hushed and dimly lit space, a private sanctuary where the president can sleep, exercise and lead the free world from 30,000 feet. At the start of an eight-hour flight en route to Germany and a world summit in Russia, President Bush is deep inside his own head as he paces up and down the long hallway that leads from his study to his conference room. While Washington was sleeping the night before, yet another corner of the Middle East had erupted into violence, after Hizbullah launched a deadly ambush on an...

IsraelNN.com) The United Nations Security Council is to vote on a resolution condemning Israel for its retaliation in the Gaza region following heavy Kassam rocket attacks. A close vote is expected. The United States wants to postpone the vote until after the weekend, but Qatar wants a vote Thursday night. The United States is lobbying the council's 15 member nations to vote against the motion, while Qatar is pressing for its passage. A two-thirds majority is required to pass the resolution. France said it will vote for it.

Iraq will ask the United Nations to end immunity from local law for U.S. troops, the human rights minister said on Monday, as the military named five soldiers charged in a rape-murder case that has outraged Iraqis. In an interview a week after Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki demanded a review of foreign troops' immunity, Wigdan Michael said work on it was now under way and a request could be ready by next month to go to the U.N. Security Council, under whose mandate U.S.-led forces are in control of Iraq. "We're very serious about this," she said, blaming a lack...

They’ve gathered in New York City, the best and brightest minds in the global gun ban movement. Oh, they don’t want you to think for a second that they’re actually interested in your guns. Kofi Annan as much as said so yesterday, when he told the attendees of the Small Arms Review Conference, “This Review Conference is not negotiating a ‘global gun ban’, nor do we wish to deny law-abiding citizens their right to bear arms in accordance with their national laws.� Got it, gun owners? There’s nothing to fear from the UN when it comes to your guns. It’s...

The fall of Somalia’s Capital City of Mogadishu is a symbolic victory for the forces of Osama Bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda Terrorist Organization and is yet another setback for the United Nations. The Islamic rebels, who have been links to Al-Qaeda, seized the city in early June following months of heavy fighting between the city’s rival clans. For Bin Laden and his radical followers this victory can only be compared to the Israeli capture of East Jerusalem during the 1967 Six Day War. Bin Laden has quoted in saying, “That it was Al-Qaeda inspired rebels that caused the United States and...

GUN violence is a global epidemic that kills an estimated 1000 people a day and stronger international controls on the sale and movement of arms are needed, a report released today said. "If 1000 people a day were dying of avian flu, the world would sit up and take notice," said the report, published by IANSA, a group of agencies including Amnesty International and Oxfam. The report was released ahead of the United Nations Small Arms Review Conference, a summit of world leaders to discuss arms legislation that is held every five years and meets in New York next month....

The Russian Government had a spy inside the US military command who passed information to Saddam Hussein on America’s war plan in the opening days of the invasion of Iraq, the Pentagon announced yesterday. The explosive revelation was based on Iraqi documents captured since the fall of the dictator and were set last night to trigger a major diplomatic incident between Washington and Moscow. The Russian spy, who was not named, passed detailed information on US troop movements through the Russian Ambassador in Baghdad, who sent the information to Saddam’s personal secretary. The first document is a handwritten account of...

NEW YORK, United States, March 8, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) There is a new desperation at the UN to secure international recognition of abortion as a human right, as abortion advocates increasingly anticipate that Roe vs. Wade will be overturned in the United States, says Dr. Janice Shaw Crouse of Concerned Women of America.Dr. Crouse is reporting on the 50th Commission on the Status of Women, held at the U.N. headquarters in New York, February 27 to March 10.Writing for The Beverly LaHaye Institute, CWA's think tank, Dr. Crouse said abortion advocates with the Commission are resorting to complex language games in...