Free Republic

(Reuters) - Moves by some U.S. states to legalize marijuana are not in line with international drugs conventions, the U.N. anti-narcotics chief said on Wednesday, adding he would discuss the issue in Washington next week. Residents of Oregon, Alaska, and the U.S. capital voted this month to allow the use of marijuana, boosting the legalization movement as cannabis usage is increasingly recognized by the American mainstream. "I don't see how (the new laws) can be compatible with existing conventions," Yury Fedotov, executive director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), told reporters. Asked whether there was anything...

The U.S. has already signaled that Iran's UN envoy pick is a no-go - and for VERY good reason. At the same time we are being entangled in these disputes; we do so and are to some degree continuing this because the UN is on U.S. grounds. The statement "get the U.S. out of the UN and the UN out of the U.S." has been oft-repeated...so here is a possible solution - with one caveat. The UN is moved to neutral territory (if at all possible), so we don't have to shell out a significant chunk for its operating expenses....

U.N. to Celebrate ‘World Toilet Day’ The United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution to mark "World Toilet Day." The day will be celebrated November 19.

(Reuters) - Hours after U.S. President Barack Obama was re-elected, the United States backed a U.N. committee's call on Wednesday to renew debate over a draft international treaty to regulate the $70 billion global conventional arms trade. U.N. delegates and gun control activists have complained that talks collapsed in July largely because Obama feared attacks from Republican rival Mitt Romney if his administration was seen as supporting the pact, a charge Washington denies. The month-long talks at U.N. headquarters broke off after the United States - along with Russia and other major arms producers - said it had problems with...

United Nations-affiliated election monitors from Europe and central Asia will be at polling places around the U.S. looking for voter suppression activities by conservative groups, aconcern raised by civil-rights groups during a meeting this week. The intervention has drawn criticism from a prominent conservative-leaning group combating election fraud. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), a United Nations partner on democratization and human rights projects, will deploy 44 observers around the county on Election Day to monitor an array of activities, including potential disputes at polling places. Liberal-leaning civil rights groups met with representatives from the OSCE this...

WASHINGTON — The world's leaders are gathering in New York, but President Barack Obama has no plans to meet privately with any of them. He will make time for "The View," a freewheeling TV talk show more likely to reach voters than Obama would with the diplomacy he is skipping at the United Nations. Just six weeks until the election, the realities and priorities of campaign politics hang prominently over Obama's final turn on the world stage before facing voters. Unlike his predecessors, he is skipping the face-to-face meetings with counterparts where much of the U.N. works gets done, leaving...

Alarming, not because you or I take this stooge seriously but because lots of dopey liberals do, and not just here in the U.S. At a moment when the left’s dimmer lights are taking a second look at blasphemy laws, it’s repulsive that a guy charged with defending human rights would equivocate on speech. But not surprising: The Organization of the Islamic Conference has used the UN for years as a platform to push anti-blasphemy resolutions. That’s textbook Islamism, exploiting an ostensibly liberal institution to advance illiberal goals. Say what you want about Ban, but he’s speaking for an awful...

The United Nations is putting the finishing touches on an Arms Trade Treaty that transcends borders and may even trample our Constitutional right to bear arms. Every indication is that the president will sign it. Like the New Start and Law of the Sea treaties before it, as well as the Kyoto Protocol and Agenda 21, the Arms Trade Treaty being finalized at the U.N. this month is one of those feel-good, can't-we-all-get-along pieces of parchment whose net effect is to accomplish little except to eat away at American sovereignty and freedom.

The NGO Major Group Organizing Partners have finalized their key document for the Rio+20 Summit. “TheFutureWeWant” outlines the common vision for “sustainable development” throughout the planet sought by those nongovernmental organizations - mostly social and environmental activist groups. There are many noble sentiments in its 283 statements. There also is much that raises serious concerns. “Sustainable,” “sustainability” and “sustainable development” appear in the text an astounding 390 times. Like “abracadabra,” these amorphous words are supposed to transform even corrupt societies into Gardens of Eden under United Nations auspices. They will use less, pollute less, be sustainable, get along and save...

The controversy over requiring voters to provide photo IDs has reached the world stage. The United Nations Human Rights Council is investigating the issue of American election laws at its gathering on minority rights in Geneva, Switzerland.. This, despite the fact that some members of the council have only in the past several years allowed women to vote, and one member, Saudi Arabia, still bars women from the voting booth completely. Officials from the NAACP are presenting their case against U.S. voter ID laws, arguing to the international diplomats that the requirements disenfranchise voters and suppress the minority vote. Eight...

Who the hell does the UN think they are telling the state of Texas how to go about their business? "Hey UN, get the hell out of my country!"

It may not come as surprising news to many of you that the United Nations doesn’t approve of our Second Amendment. Not one bit. And they very much hope to do something about it with help from some powerful American friends. Under the guise of a proposed global “Small Arms Treaty” premised to fight “terrorism”, “insurgency” and “international crime syndicates” you can be quite certain that an even more insidious threat is being targeted – our Constitutional right for law-abiding citizens to own and bear arms.

The former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter has been convicted of unlawful contact with a minor for exchanging explicit messages in an online chat room with someone he believed to be a 15-year-old girl. Ritter, 49, exchanged messages with a detective posing as an underage girl and masturbated, even after the undercover officer stressed during the chat that he was a minor, Pennsylvania prosecutors said. A jury found Ritter guilty of a total of six counts including indecent exposure and criminal attempt to corrupt a minor.

The 1648 Treaty of Westphalia established the principle that nation states could run their internal affairs as they pleased – it was no longer acceptable for Catholic states to invade Protestant states because they didn’t like their religion (or vice versa). Westphalianism proved a vital organizing principle for the next 300 years, allowing significant periods of peace to appear between all the wars – and thus mankind’s greatest boon, the Industrial Revolution to become established. We now appear to be abandoning that principle – and the economic and political implications of doing so are dire. The Westphalia principle always had...

In this never ending war with Islam, Shariah loving Muslims have stepped it up a notch....let me change that. They have taken a giant step forward with their brazen demands to dominate non-Muslims whether we like it or not. The Anjem Choudary/NY Islamic Thinkers Society led Shariah4America movement, is calling for the United Nations to be turned into a massive New York Sharia Court! International Shari'ah Court of Justice (New York) With the uprising against tyranny and oppression gathering pace in the Middle East, each deposed dictator raises more questions about the puppeteers who kept them in power for the...

US President Barack Obama's Republican foes on Tuesday launched a fresh campaign for reform at the United Nations, with a key leader urging Washington to withhold contributions as leverage. Republican Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the new House Foreign Affairs Committee chair, said the United States contributed more than six billion dollars in 2009 only to see a bloated, inefficient and corrupt body. "We should be conditioning our contributions on 'reform first, pay later," an absent Ros-Lehtinen said in a statement read out by Representative Jean Schmidt, who addressed a committee hearing on UN reform.

A key House Republican is quickly pressing forward with her goals to scale back U.S. funding for the United Nations. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told The Hill that oversight would be a key function of the panel, particularly funding to the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) that is "a waste of taxpayer dollars."

William Scott Ritter Jr., a former United Nations weapons inspector who gained renown for his criticism of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, contends his online sexual encounters with teenage girls were only fantasy. Nearly two years ago, Ritter, of Delmar, watched his computer screen reveal that an anonymous person who had been exchanging sexually charged messages with him for 80 minutes was not a 15-year-old girl. It was a cop from a small town in northeast Pennsylvania, alone in his station house and trolling the Internet for suspected child predators. Ryan Venneman, a detective for the Barrett Township...

WikiLeaks sparks push for tighter controls. The United Nations is considering whether to set up an inter-governmental working group to harmonise global efforts by policy makers to regulate the internet. Establishment of such a group has the backing of several countries, spearheaded by Brazil. At a meeting in New York on Wednesday, representatives from Brazil called for an international body made up of Government representatives that would to attempt to create global standards for policing the internet - specifically in reaction to challenges such as WikiLeaks.

The power hungry tyrants learnt from Copenhagen. They realized that they have a far better chance of success by underselling the expectations and sliding in long impenetrable documents in front of underling bureaucrats. Due to the importance of this I have reproduced Christopher Monckton’s words in full as reported at SPPI (see below). The UN wants nothing less than 1.5% of our GDP. That’s $212 billion from the USA every year ($2700 per family of 4). That’s $32 billion from the UK every year ($2000 per family of 4).That’s $13 billion from Australia every year ($2400 per family of...