Free Republic

GENEVA, Switzerland (AP) -- The European Union, heavily outnumbered by African and Asian members on the U.N. Human Rights Council, on Thursday defended a new accord governing the body that has been severely criticized by the United States. The EU said it, too, regretted that Israel will be regularly singled out by the council and that special investigations of Cuba and Belarus were halted. But it said it accepted the accord as a "necessary compromise" in the hope that the council will have enough good features to be effective as a defender of human rights. The council was created in...