Free Republic

President Trump used his inaugural address at the United Nations on Monday to criticize the world body for not living up to its “potential” because of bureaucracy and urged member nations to reject “business as usual” and take “bold stands.” “In recent years, the United Nations has not reached its full potential because of bureaucracy and mismanagement, ” Trump said at the 72-year-old organization during a meeting on reforms. Despite a ballooning budget and a doubling of staff since 2000, Trump said, “We are not seeing the results in line with this investment” and encouraged UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to...

President Participates in the Reforming the UN: Management, Security, and Development Meeting

In the midst of the many crisis and challenges facing today’s world, MEPs have sounded off the urgent need of setting up a parliamentary assembly in the United Nations. “A United Nations Parliamentary assembly is a vital component to strengthen democratic legitimacy of the United Nations,” said center-left MEP Jo Leinen, during an international conference last week (17 October). Leinen and ALDE party leader Graham Watson have been on the forefront of such initiative since 2007. Since the 1990s there have been many calls to reform the UN, but there is little clarity or consensus on the way to change...

Brian Griffiths, Lord of Fforestfach and vice-chairman of Goldman Sachs International, says Pope Benedict's Caritas in Veritate offers the single best analysis of the current global economic crisis. The language may be dense, but the message is sufficiently rewarding. The encyclical analyses modern capitalism from an ethical and spiritual perspective as well as a technical one. As a result it makes the Government’s White Paper on financial reforms published two days later look embarrassingly one-dimensional and colourless.It is highly critical of today’s global economy but always positive. Its major concern is how to promote human development in the context of...

The Pope has called for the world economy to be restructured in line with the principles of "love, truth and charity" in a new encyclical issued today. He urges the reformation of the United Nations and economic institutions to address the global economic crisis, which he links to relativism, globalisation and the abuse of modern technologies. The encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, interpreted variously throughout the document as charity or love in truth, is Pope Benedict XVI's third but his first on social issues. It is timed to coincide with the G8 in Italy and is intended to bring objective moral...

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 19 (Reuters) - After a decade and a half of backroom argument, the world's nations launched full negotiations on Thursday to expand the powerful 15-nation U.N. Security Council to reflect present-day realities. .... The council, authorized by the U.N. charter to impose sanctions and dispatch peacekeeping forces, currently has five permanent veto-holding members -- the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China. It also has 10 members with no veto power who are elected on a regional basis for two-year terms before being replaced by others. The number was set in 1965, after standing at six since...

Former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan says 'radical' policy changes may be needed to create jobs. The worldwide economic recession has exposed a "crisis of global governance" that can only be addressed by the radical reform of the United Nations, former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Wednesday as the World Economic Forum got under way in Switzerland. "The current architecture of managing global affairs is broken and needs to be fixed," Annan said on the opening morning of the five-day annual meeting of global political and business leaders. "We have major new players coming on the scene and they need to...

Excerpt - UNITED NATIONS (AFP)--The U.N. General Assembly on Monday agreed to begin negotiations on expanding the membership of the powerful Security Council no later than next Feb. 28. After hours-long bargaining, the assembly adopted by consensus a resolution on Security Council enlargement on the last day of its 62nd session. ~ snip ~ It said the aim was to "garner the widest possible political acceptance by member states." ~ snip ~ During the transitional period, a number of configurations including a repartitioning of seats on a regional basis and the most delicate, the veto- wielding power of the five...

Miami, FL (AHN) - At a speaking engagement in Florida, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev took issue with Sen. John McCain's call for a new "League of Democracies" and said any move that undermines the United Nations is a "mistake." "Great powers set an example to the world and must give a chance to the United Nations to develop a new global system," Gorbachev said. "We must not, instead of the United Nations, propose NATO or some kind of a coalition of democratic countries, as suggested by Sen. McCain. I think that to replace the U.N. with that kind of...

The Prime Minister has called for a radical reform of international institutions ranging from the United Nations to the World Bank. In a speech to business leaders in the Indian capital New Delhi, Mr Brown said the UN Security Council should be expanded to include places for nations such as India, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) should have a new "early warning" role to head off crises such as Northern Rock. He also said the World Bank should focus more on increasing clean energy and the environment. He said: "To succeed now, the post-war rules of the game and...

The UN is the chief world producer of political and geopolitical lies.I am from France, a country where the UN is popular, where people were genuinely relieved when they heard about the 2006 UN-brokered cease-fire in Lebanon, where, in fact, most people think that the UN and its Secretary-General, Mr. Kofi Annan, are the very embodiment of international law, order, and decency. Of course, there are some reservations even in France about the UN. The French think that the U.S. exerts too much influence there and deters it from being effective much of the time. The French think that the...

Publics around the world favor dramatic steps to strengthen the United Nations, including giving it the power to have its own standing peacekeeping force, to regulate the international arms trade and to investigate human rights abuses. Large majorities believe the United Nations Security Council should have the right to authorize military force to prevent nuclear proliferation, genocide and terrorism. However support is not as robust among the publics polled for accepting UN decisions that go against their countries’ preferences. These are some of the findings from a survey conducted by The Chicago Council on Global Affairs and WorldPublicOpinion.org, in cooperation...

Axis of Soros May 9, 2007; Page A16 Mark Malloch Brown spoke Monday to a crowded auditorium at the World Bank's headquarters, warning that the bank's mission was "hugely at risk" as long as Paul Wolfowitz remained its president. Only hours earlier, news leaked that a special committee investigating Mr. Wolfowitz had accused him of violating conflict-of-interest rules. A coincidence? We doubt it. Mr. Malloch Brown, remember, was until last year Kofi Annan's deputy at the United Nations. In that position, he distinguished himself by spinning away the $100 billion Oil for Food scandal as little more than a blip...

JOHANNESBURG, April 18 (Reuters) - During apartheid rule in South Africa, the country's liberation movement used the United Nations as a key battleground to win support for its struggle for democracy and human rights. But these days, South Africa's U.N. diplomats find the issues are rarely so clear cut. Post-apartheid South Africa has found itself in the firing line after a string of U.N. votes in which critics say it supported dictatorship and repression in countries ranging from Zimbabwe to Myanmar. It has also raised Western hackles by wanting to drop sanctions against Iran in the dispute over Tehran's nuclear...

Surprisingly, the New Delhi meting of foreign ministers of India, China and Russia did not draw a wider notice. It could be because a major focus of the three-way talks was trade and energy, not conflict resolution, though tricky issues like terrorism and West Asia were on their agenda. ... The New Delhi conclave provided a clue about the role that the trioka wants to play in the world when the three foreign ministers decided that they should meet more regularly. They were clear that ‘cooperation, rather than confrontation’ should govern the approach to regional and global affairs. And expectedly...

The UN's vaunted neutrality props up evil regimes. More than 170 political leaders from around the world recently met at the United Nations to consider what the New York Times called "the most sweeping institutional changes" in the organization's history. But this exercise was, predictably, hopeless. Although both detractors and defenders eagerly proposed "reforms," they skirted the UN's insuperable problem: its corrupt "ideal" of moral neutrality. The fundamental feature of the UN is its policy of opening membership non-judgmentally to all nations--whether free or oppressive, peaceful or belligerent. This is upheld as the UN's central virtue and a vital means...

UNITED NATIONS Secretary-General Kofi Annan has refused to fill out a newly minted U.N. financial disclosure form, rejecting advice of his inner circle that doing so would send a good signal as the U.N. seeks to counter allegations that it is closed to public scrutiny, U.N. officials said Thursday. The U.N. unveiled new rules last year that tightened staff financial disclosure requirements in effect since 1999. Annan is not required to fill out the form because he is technically not a staff member. Nonetheless, two U.N. officials told The Associated Press that several of Annan's top aides had recently urged...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The United States should give the United Nations until the end of the year to reform and then consider cutting back on its U.N. dues if the changes fall short, U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said on Monday. "Is good management and lack of corruption too much to ask for?" he asked, calling the United Nations "severely challenged from a management and accountability point of view." Bolton made his comments in response to a question after addressing a symposium on the future of the United Nations sponsored by the conservative Hudson Institute. The United States, one of...

Bolstered by the support of a second permanent U.N. Security Council member, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Monday took his campaign to win a seat on the council to Malaysia. He faces strong opposition from the United States. During a six-day visit to China, the populist leftist won Beijing's backing for Venezuela's bid to be elected onto the 15-member council in October. Russia earlier agreed to support Venezuela. Washington is adamantly opposed to the seat going to a country sympathetic to some of America's biggest foes, including Iran, North Korea and Cuba. The nuclear ambitions of Iran and North Korea...

Few political figures in recent history have so polarized opinion in Congress as John Bolton, the United States permanent representative to the United Nations. Faced with Senate gridlock, Bolton was sent by President Bush as a recess appointment to the United Nations last August. With Bolton’s recess appointment expiring when the new Congress convenes in January 2007, the President recently announced that he would again submit Bolton for confirmation. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee plans to vote on Bolton’s nomination in August, with a full vote of the Senate expected in September. Over the past year, Bolton has proven a...