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LONDON - The Former US ambassador to the UN says a military action against Iran is dangerous and risky yet it has to be on the table as a last resort, PressTV reported. "I don't think anybody views the use of military force against Iran's nuclear program as an attractive option. I think it's dangerous, risky, and not something that you would look at except as a last resort," John Bolton said in an exclusive talk with al-Jazeera on Thursday. "Five years of European diplomatic efforts have failed and left us with very few alternatives. That's why I think the...

The creation of UNAIDS, the joint United Nations programme on HIV and AIDS, was justified by the proposition that HIV is exceptional. The foundations of exceptionalism were laid when the "rights" arguments of gay men succeeded in making HIV a special case that demanded confidentiality and informed consent and discouraged routine testing and tracing of contacts, contrary to proved experience in public health.1 But exceptionalism grew—to encompass HIV as a disease of poverty, a developmental catastrophe, and an emergency demanding special measures, requiring multisectoral interventions beyond the leadership of the World Health Organization. The exceptionality argument was used to raise...

UNITED NATIONS, Jun 30 (IPS) - After a two-week fact-finding tour of U.S. prison and detention facilities, a UN human rights investigator has blasted the administration of President George W. Bush for a rash of shortcomings in the country's flawed justice system and continued violations of the rule of law. Philip Alston, United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions, addresses a press conference concerning his findings during a country-wide visit to the United States © UN / Devra BerkowitzPhilip Alston, United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions, addresses a press conference concerning his findings during...

Every attempt so far to get emissions under control turns out to be about money. Let's examine an important question. Are the major schemes created by global politicians to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, ostensibly to combat global warming, effective? The answer is no, because they aren't about addressing global warming. They're about making more money for governments and large corporations. Let's start with the Kyoto accord. Will it be effective in lowering global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions? No. It wasn't meant to be. Kyoto, a United Nations treaty, exempts the developing world -- 143 of 180 nations which ratified it...

I got a letter from Kofi Anan (sic)! I'm so excited! And I just can't hide it! Kofi Anan (sic) really loves me. And he wants me to be rich!DATE:26-2-2008 Attention: How are you today? Hope all is well with you and family?,You may not understand why this mail came to you. We have been having a meeting for the passed 7 months which ended 2 days ago with the then secretary to the UNITED NATIONS. This email is to all the people that have been scammed in any part of the world, the UNITED NATIONA have agreed to compensate...

The Global Poverty Act of 2007 (S.2433) is coming up for a Senate vote sometime after the July 4 recess, according the office of Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison. Once Harry Reid and the Democrat leadership put it on the calendar, we could have as little as a week to prepare for the vote. The bill is sponsored in the Senate by Barack Obama. If passed, it will cost taxpayers $845,000,000,000 over the next 13 years, in addition to our current foreign aid expenditures. And the best part is that it will be administered in conjunction with...brace yourselves...the United Nations. The...

The buzz circulating now is that IAEA Director Mohammed ElBaradei said on al-Arabiya that Iran could be months away from producing a nuclear weapon, as noted by AllahPundit at Hot Air and Jeff Stein at Congressional Quarterly. Hot Air actually nails it in interpreting that ElBaradei is not so much making a statement about the state of the Iranian nuclear-weapons program as he is projecting himself and the IAEA as the world's only line of defense against a nuclear-armed Iran. Frankly, there is no substantiative historical reason to place faith in such a claim. What's more, just about all analyses...

The Democrats have been saying for some time that Barack Obama will restore our reputation in the eyes of the world, and I have been wracking my brain trying to figure out what went wrong in the first place. The world hates us. We know this, because our own media inform us of it regularly through polls, editorials, and documentaries. Because of our actions, our policies, over the years, we have built up a reservoir of resentment worldwide that only Obama can sooth. You know, I think they are right. Let's look at the sins we've committed with an eye...

Whether out of hubris or principle, or both, the United States has not understood its support for international law and institutions to imply a surrender of its own commitment to self-government. As the international system became more powerful, and international law diverged from U.S. law, the United States inevitably began to show unilateralist tendencies -- not simply out of self-interest but because the United States is committed to democratic self-government. The continental European democracies, with their monarchical histories, their lingering aristocratic cultures, and their tendency to favor centralized, bureaucratic governance, have always been considerably less democratic... The American and French...

Toddlers are to be taught about human rights and respecting different cultures in a scheme condemned as an "absurd" waste of time. Nurseries across the country are adopting the project, which will see teachers explaining to children as young as three that people across the world live different lives but everyone has a right to food, water and shelter. Staff will also be expected to ensure that children are treated as independent human beings, and have the "right" to choose their toys or have a drink of water whenever they want. It is an extension of a Unicef scheme already...

The United Nations High Level Meeting on HIV/AIDS took place at UN headquarters in New York this week to review progress made in fighting the global AIDS pandemic. The two-day meeting, which brought together members of government and civil society, was punctuated throughout by calls to end stigmatization and discrimination against people living with HIV/AIDS by expanding rights for "sexual minorities" and "commercial sex workers," including decriminalization of sodomy and prostitution. At the opening panel discussion, a representative from UNAIDS, a joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS, asserted that the international community "must move beyond the classical understanding" to include sexual...

Welcome to a world where criticism of militant Islam could land you in court or worse. In Vancouver, Canada's venerable Maclean's magazine awaits a hate-speech verdict from a human-rights tribunal for publishing a chapter from syndicated columnist Mark Steyn's best-selling book "America Alone." The accusers charge the author and publisher with "Islamophobia." Last week, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, secretary general of the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), warned a gathering in Kuala Lumpur that "mere condemnation or distancing from the acts of the perpetrators of Islamophobia" would not suffice. He recommended that Western countries restrict freedom of expression and demanded...

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...

The United Nations, a body devoted to peaceful resolutions to conflict across the world, may regret appointing the actress Angelina Jolie as one of its Goodwill Ambassadors. In an interview in the current issue of Entertainment Weekly to promote her latest film Wanted, in which she plays a hired killer, she says that she advocates political assassination in extreme cases, a complete no-no as far as the UN is concerned. "I am a strong believer that without justice there is no peace," she says. "I'm somebody who's very curious about the International Criminal Court and supportive of following through on...

The UN Human Rights Council said the UK must "consider holding a referendum on the desirability or otherwise of a written constitution, preferably republican". The council has 29 members including Saudi Arabia, Cuba and Sri Lanka. It was the Sri Lankan envoy who raised concerns over the British monarchy. The resulting report said Britain should have a referendum on the monarchy and the need for a written constitution with a bill of rights.

Earlier this year, the 57 Muslim nations of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) made an attempt to impose an "Islamic Blasphemy Law" as the Universal Standard, a law which would promote the death penalty for those who blaspheme against the Prophet Muhammad. Professor Dr. Ekmeleddin Insanoglu, the Turkish Secretary-General of the OIC (including supposed moderate Turkey), issued the above frightening statement on February 15, 2008, partly in response to the re-publication of those now infamous Danish cartoons.

Last week’s unopposed election of Nicaraguan Reverend Miguel D’Escoto Brockmann as the next President of the 192-member United Nations General Assembly will further undermine the standing of the UN in the eyes of the American public. D’Escoto served as foreign minister of Nicaragua during the Sandinista dictatorship of Daniel Ortega in the 1980s and is known for his extreme, stridently anti-American views. In a June 2004 radio interview with Democracy Now, the Los Angeles-born Roman Catholic priest referred to former President Reagan as “the butcher of my people”, who was “responsible for the deaths of some 50,000 Nicaraguans,” and a...

The U.N. plans to examine Prince William County's aggressive crackdown on illegal immigrants during a visit next week. Jorge Bustamante, the United Nation's special rapporteur on migrants' rights, plans to receive briefings on local enforcement measures, and meet with local officials. County Chairman Corey Stewart said he is willing to meet with Bustamante, but sharply rebuked the international body for what he called an anti-American agenda. But the UN should not have a role, said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies. "Our immigration policy is not a subject for the U.N. or any foreign institution, pure...

Remember, we just TRIPLED our funding for fighting the global AIDS epidemic, to $50 billion over 5 years. Fifty billion dollars we don’t have, for what experts are now calling a myth: The threat of a global AIDS epidemic is over, the World Health Organisation’s top HIV expert has admitted. Kevin De Cock, who has spent most of his career leading the battle against the disease, said the understanding of the threat posed by the virus had changed. Rather than being a risk to populations anywhere, the threat is largely confined to gay men, drug addicts and prostitutes and their...

LONDON, June 9 - The World Bank on Monday priced a $25 million bond linked to United Nations-approved carbon emission offset credits, the market's first such bond, lead manager Daiwa Securities SMBC Europe said. Payments on the bond are linked to Certified Emissions Reduction credits , which are issued under the Clean Development Mechanism, a trading scheme that allows rich nations to invest in clean energy projects in developing countries. Trade in CERs, which holders can either sell for profit or use to meet emissions targets under the Kyoto Protocol, more than doubled to $13 billion last year, according to...

The General Assembly of the United Nations voted this week to elect Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann as its new president. Readers with a long memory will recall Father D'Escoto (he's a Catholic priest) as Nicaragua's foreign minister during the Sandinista regime of the 1980s. He's also the winner of the 1985 Lenin Prize. Only at the U.N. does that count as a recommendation.continued

It’s like some surreal scene directly from the pages of an Ayn Rand novel. These are the knuckleheads that created the hunger problem. People like Robert Mugabe, who took the breadbasket of Southern Africa and turned it into a disaster area. He is in attendance, and has actually blamed the West for his country’s food shortages.

Fascism is alive and well right here in New York City. Home base is Conference Room 1 of United Nations headquarters, where the UN Committee on Non-governmental Organizations is now in session. There are more than 3,000 non-governmental organizations, or NGOs, that are officially accredited by the UN's central processing body. Representing a range of people and interests from around the globe, these groups can enter UN premises, get access to meetings and decision-makers and speak at UN bodies like the Human Rights Council. Now, the UN is on a warpath against one particular NGO. It is poised tomorrow to...

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...

Posted on Sat, May. 31, 2008 Special Report By Chris Mondics INQUIRER STAFF WRITER DOBOJ, Bosnia - For years, Saudi Arabia flatly denied it had provided money and logistical support for Islamist militant groups that attacked Western targets. But that assertion is disputed by a former al-Qaeda commander who testified in a United Nations war-crimes trial that his unit was funded by the Saudi High Commission for Relief of Bosnia and Herzegovina, a government charity. Ali Ahmed Ali Hamad, the former al-Qaeda fighter, gave the same account to The Inquirer in an interview in this struggling city in the central...

An international watchdog must be set up urgently to investigate widespread cases of child sex abuse by aid workers and peacekeepers, a British charity said today. Save the Children demanded action after its research found that starving and desperate youngsters as young as six were being coerced to sell sex for food, money, soap and even mobile phones in war zones and disaster areas. Hundreds of young people from Ivory Coast, Southern Sudan and Haiti were involved in the research behind the conclusions. One of them was 'Elizabeth', who was 12-years-old when she was snatched from the roadside early one...

YANGON, Myanmar - Myanmar's military government is forcing cyclone victims out of refugee camps and "dumping" them near their devastated villages with virtually no aid supplies, U.N. and church officials said Friday. Eight camps set up by the junta for homeless victims in the Irrawaddy delta town of Bogalay were "totally empty" as the clear-out continued, said Teh Tai Ring of UNICEF, speaking at a meeting of U.N. and private aid agency workers discussing water and sanitation issues. "The government is moving people unannounced," he said, adding that authorities were "dumping people in the approximate location of the villages, basically...

The United Nation's Human Rights Council has launched a witch-hunt against the United States.  The charge is racism against Muslims.  And the United Nations' so-called Human Rights Council has put its top attack dog on the case. His name is Doudou Diène.  He's from Senegal -- a country that is no stranger to legitimate accusations of human rights violations -- and he's in the United States right now, as you read this alert, building a venomous case to present America as a human rights violator to the entire world! But Doudou Diène's mission likely has a purpose infinitely more sinister,...

Washington, DC — When the so-called mainstream media doesn’t want you to know something they simply spike the story – meaning they just don’t cover it. That’s what’s happened to the good news from Iraq. American Heroes in flak jackets and helmets and their Iraqi counterparts are asserting rule of law for millions of grateful Iraqi civilians once tyrannized by Al Qaeda terrorists and Shiite militias. In short, we are winning. That’s the good news that isn’t news. Then there is the bad news that isn’t news. This includes stories about the United Nations interfering in U.S. domestic politics; Iranian...

UNITED NATIONS (AFP) - The United Nations on Thursday feted 60 years of peacekeeping around the world, with its overstretched "blue helmets" in high demand but somewhat tarnished by sex abuse and corruption scandals. "Today, we have more than 110,000 men and deployed in conflict zones around the world," UN chief Ban Ki-moon said in a message to mark International Day of Peacekeepers. "They come from nearly 120 countries, an all-time high, reflecting confidence in United Nations peacekeeping," he said. And Jean-Marie Guehenno, the Frenchman who has led the UN peacekeeping department (DPKO) for the past eight years, also paid...

BELGRADE, Serbia - A United Nations report released Thursday says the Balkans, a region once known as a hotbed of crime and violence, has become one of the safest zones in Europe. "The vicious circle of political instability leading to crime, and vice versa, that plagued the Balkans in the 1990s has been broken," said Antonio Maria Costa, head of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, which compiled the report. However, Costa warned in the report's summary that the region remains vulnerable because of enduring connections between business, politics and organized crime. The region includes 10 countries: Albania,...

The multibillion-dollar procurement business of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the U.N.’s flagship anti-poverty agency, is a gigantic shambles, according to UNDP’s own investigators. Moreover, UNDP’s management has privately acknowledged that fact and is scrambling to fix the mess — even as it loudly denied concerns of a procurement scandal that have been raised by FOX News, among others. In a confidential report obtained by FOX News, UNDP’s auditors have described the UNDP procurement organization that is spending well over $2 billion annually as: — overwhelmed by its caseload at headquarters and in the field, while procurement ballooned from...

Billions of pounds are being wasted in paying industries in developing countries to reduce climate change emissions, according to two analyses of the UN's carbon offsetting programme. Leading academics and watchdog groups allege that the UN's main offset fund is being routinely abused by chemical, wind, gas and hydro companies who are claiming emission reduction credits for projects that should not qualify. The result is that no genuine pollution cuts are being made, undermining assurances by the UK government and others that carbon markets are dramatically reducing greenhouse gases, the researchers say.

Bangkok - The United Nations will send nearly a quarter of a million condoms into cyclone-hit Myanmar to help needy survivors with no access to contraceptives, a UN official says. So far, the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) said it had sent 72 800 condoms to survivors struggling to maintain their family planning after the storm hit in early May. A total of 218 400 condoms would be delivered, UNFPA aid advisor Chaiyos Kunanusont said. "We don't want regular use of contraception disrupted. An emergency usually damages the health system, so people don't have access to condoms and contraceptives," said Chaiyos.

UN Hatemongers to Investigate U.S. "Racism"   By Joseph KleinFrontPageMagazine.com | Monday, May 19, 2008 The United Nations Special Rapporteur on “contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance”, Dr. Doudou Diène, has been invited by the U.S. government for a three week visit this month and next to the cities of Washington, New York, Chicago, Omaha, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Miami, and San Juan in Puerto Rico. The stated purpose is for Diène to gather first-hand information on racism in America. He is scheduled to hold meetings with governmental representatives, both at national and local levels,...

GENEVA (Reuters) - A special U.N. human rights investigator will visit the United States this month to probe racism, an issue that has forced its way into the race to secure the Democratic Party's presidential nomination. The United Nations said Doudou Diene would meet federal and local officials, as well as lawmakers and judicial authorities during the May 19-June 6 visit. "The special rapporteur will...gather first-hand information on issues related to racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance," a U.N. statement said on Friday. His three-week visit, at U.S. government invitation, will cover eight cities -- Washington D.C., New York,...

The United Nations has taken it upon itself to investigate the American presidential campaign. Why does the UN have such an interest in our election? Because since Barack Obama is black and will be the Democrat nominee, the United Nations wants to investigate whether racism plays a role in the presidential campaign. Excuse me, but just when did the UN get the authority to become involved in our national elections? Will this be enough to generate a groundswell of opinion against this rancid organization? Probably not, and that's sad. It's time for the UN to go .. go anywhere but...

The Netherlands will not accept it if there are any attempts to call Israel a racist state at a UN conference in the South African city of Durban next year. Interior Minister Maxime Verhagen said this at a meeting at the Centre for Information and Documentation on Israel to mark the state's sixtieth anniversary. The last conference in Durban in 2001 failed because a number of Arab countries wanted to label Israel a racist country. Israeli and Jewish organisations were excluded from preparatory meetings and anti-Semitic cartoons were circulated while other organisations failed to take any action to stop it....

Again today, the New York Times demonstrates that the MSM isn't opposed to America's invasion of foreign countries. There's really only one precondition: the national security interests of the United States must not be at stake. Thus it is that the NYT op-ed page today runs Aid at the Point of a Gun by Robert D. Kaplan, a national correspondent for The Atlantic and a fellow at the Center for a New American Security. The gist is that while it could bring ongoing obligations, the armed invasion of Myanmar for purposes of bringing aid to the cyclone victims is justifiable...

HARARE (AFP) - The UN warned on Tuesday that post-election violence in Zimbabwe was rising to near crisis levels ahead of a planned presidential run-off, with opposition supporters bearing the brunt of attacks. As opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai prepared to return home to contest the election against President Robert Mugabe, his hopes the ballot would be held later this month in a peaceful atmosphere appeared to be wishful thinking. With Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change claiming 32 of its supporters have been killed since voting on March 29, the United Nations resident representative in Zimbabwe said most of the violence...

According to my esteemed colleague Rick Bell, the United Nations is making Premier Ed Stelmach grumpy. And who can blame him? The UN is threatening Canada and, by extension, Alberta. The threat is they won't let us trade carbon internationally because we apparently missed a reporting deadline. Taking crap from the UN is hard at the best of times, given it's the most monumentally corrupt and ineffective political body since the court of Louis XVI. It elects representatives from some of the world's most vicious, totalitarian governments to its human rights council, where they issue proclamations so anti-Semitic Joseph Goebbels...

UNITED NATIONS - U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Monday he is moving "at full speed" pushing efforts to tackle the world food crisis. Ban said he will hold the first meeting of his recently formed United Nations task force on food next Monday. He also said he is sending invitations to all world leaders to join him at a high-level meeting to work out a strategy for addressing food shortages and soaring prices. The conference, organized by the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization, will be June 3-5 in Rome. "This crisis did not come out of the blue," Ban told...

Jeane Kirkpatrick was frequently asked why the U.S. didn’t simply withdraw from the U.N., and her answer was, “Because it’s more trouble than it’s worth.” The fact is that the U.N., at times, can be an effective instrument of American foreign policy. Of course, to say this is heretical to the real devotees of the U.N., for whom the U.N. shouldn’t be an instrument of anyone’s foreign policy. But the fact is that everybody who participates in the U.N.—all of the 192 member governments, all of the non-governmental organizations, and all of the civil servants in the U.N. secretariats—try to...

As Israel celebrates its 60th birthday, the world should recognize the enormous gifts the Jewish state has given the world. Israel has exported more lifesaving medical technology to the far-flung corners of the earth than any nation of comparable size. It has done more to protect the environment, to promote literature, music, the arts and sciences, to spread agricultural advances and to fight terrorism within the rule of law. Israel has created a legal system that is the envy of the world, with a Supreme Court that is open to all with few, if any, restrictions on its jurisdiction. As...

JERUSALEM (CNN) -- One person was killed and three were wounded Wednesday in an Israeli airstrike targeting a metal shop in Rafah, according to Palestinian security and medical sources. Israel Defense Forces confirmed the airstrike. The person killed was the deputy commander of the Islamic Jihad military wing, according to the Palestinian sources, who said he also served as a school headmaster at a United Nations Relief and Works Agency school. UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunnes said he could not immediately confirm that the person was employed by the United Nations, and added that staff members who bring politics into U.N....

London - The United Nations has covered up crimes by UN troops in the Democratic Republic of Congo. This is a claim made by the BBC, which says that it has confidential sources within the UN. The BBC says that in 2007, the UN conducted an investigation into accusations that some of its Indian and Pakistani peacekeepers had smuggled gold and ivory and sold arms to Congolese militias. The UN concluded that a peacekeeper had smuggled gold but that there was no evidence of arms trading. But the BBC is now reporting that the UN employees who conducted the investigation...

IF FURTHER PROOF BE needed of the terminal decline of the United Nations as a world body that purports to advance human rights, look no further than the recent appointments of Richard Falk and Jean Ziegler by the UN's Human Rights Council (HRC). Both appointments should be of major concern to U.S. leaders disturbed by the UN's increasing failure in the arena of human rights and the blatant and widespread anti-American and anti-Israeli bias among key UN human rights officials. Richard Falk, the Emeritus Milbank Professor of International Law and Practice at Princeton, is an outspoken, zealous critic of Israel...

President Robert Mugabe devoted his first major speech since the unresolved election three weeks ago to denouncing whites and former colonial ruler Britain, an attempt to convince Zimbabweans their political and economic troubles stem from abroad. The scene at the official 28th Independence Day celebration Friday had all the pomp of old, with air force jets sweeping overhead and Mugabe, bedecked in sash and medals, striding past soldiers at attention. But any private observances by ordinary Zimbabweans were likely muted _ prices for food, gasoline and drinks have more than doubled just in the past week amid an economic meltdown...

We know most of our readers need no further proof that inter -nationalist organizations such as the Commonwealth, the United Nations and the African Union (AU) are nothing more than toothless debating societies. But those few who need more convincing need look no further than Zimbabwe. Robert Mugabe is stealing last month's elections in plain sight, and not one of the major talk-shops is lifting a finger to stop him. Sunday will mark three weeks since Zimbabweans voted for a parliament and president, and still the official results have not been released. The country's national election commission, appointed by Mr....

MYFOXNY.COM -- The NYPD's Harbor Unit, patrolling the East River near the United Nations as a part of security operations for the Pope's visit, rescued an apparently sick beaver from the water. The ever-vigilant harbor cops spotted the animal, which appeared to be having trouble breathing and struggled to swim, not far from the U.N., where the Pope was speaking. >>VIDEO: SCUBA COPS BRING BEAVER ASHORE >>VIDEO: OFFICER DESCRIBES BEAVER RESCUE Police Officer John Angus caught the beaver in a safety noose, pulled it aboard, and placed it in a bucket with water. Officers brought the beaver to shore for...