The United Nations Corrupt,  Ineffective,  Dangerous

The UN had its chance to play an important role in what is now known as the global war on terrorism.  But the UN has proven on many occasions to be all talk and no action.  At least no effective, positive, productive action.  Sternly worded resolutions have no effect on heavily-armed dictators. As a sovereign nation, the U.S. does not need to ask permission or get a consensus from any other country or countries before defending itself; however, when time permits, most other countries expect to hear some justification when Country A bombs Country B. Lately the UN is famous for only one thing, and that is the Oil-for-Food scandal.  As more information is revealed about the scandal, it is beginning to appear that the UN is merely a conference of corrupt officials from corrupt little countries all over the world.  If that's the case, the UN cannot possibly accomplish anything that benefits everyone in the long run. The UN is dangerous because its ultimate goal is a single world-wide socialist government. Information about the United Nations gun control efforts -- that is, the elimination of private firearms ownership -- can be found on this page. The UN Earth Summit of 2002 is discussed on this page. The UN Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST) is discussed on this page. The United Nations IPCC Report on Global Warming is covered on this page. Information about the UN Climate Change Conference in Bali is on its own page. One World Government?  Globe may not be big enough.  Even Americans who don't come from the grassy-knoll tradition tend not to regard the United Nations with great confidence.  A Gallup poll earlier this year found that 65  percent of respondents thought it was doing a bad job, compared with 26 percent who think it is doing a good job.  Ban himself is not terribly nefarious, if only because he is unknown.  A Wall Street Journal poll found that 81 percent of those surveyed didn't know who he was. US sovereignty and the Climate Summit.  Not content with his humiliation at Copenhagen this past September, President Obama will be traveling again to the Danish capital in December to attend the U.N. COP15 Climate Change Conference.  This agreement would commit the United States to punitive and expensive greenhouse gas regulations dictated by the United Nations without recourse. The Myth of the World Community.  Americans have been imprinted as never before from a very early age with the idea that they are part of a global community, rather than merely one nation.  But behind the olive branches and the posters of smiling children, lies a very different truth entirely.  The entire notion that there is a world community is itself mostly a myth. There May Be No Coping with Copenhagen.  Obama's signature on a climate treaty in December could irretrievably compromise American sovereignty. The Editor says... It's not a treaty unless it is ratified by the Senate.  But now the bad news:  The Senate is full of socialists. Green world government.  Environmental alarmism is being exploited to chip away at national sovereignty.  The latest threat to American liberties may be found in the innocuous sounding Copenhagen Climate Treaty, which will be discussed at the United Nations climate-change conference in mid-December. ... The treaty's text is not yet finalized but its principles are aimed at regulating all economic activity in the name of climate security, with a side effect that billions of dollars would be transferred from productive countries to the unproductive. UN:  International Law has "Absolute Authority".  [Scroll down]  But that is not all.  In response to my question whether the United Nations' view of international law would trump a contrary decision by the highest court of a functioning democracy with an independent judiciary such as the United States, [Manfred] Nowak said that international law has "absolute priority."  His rationale was that a UN member state that voluntarily decides to sign and ratify a treaty is bound by the obligations of that treaty. Power Derives from Lawful Authority.  The President of the United States has no more legal right to sign a treaty that turns legislative, executive, and judicial functions of our national government over to the United Nations than he has to declare the United States an Islamic Republic and its people henceforward subject to Sharia.  Nevertheless, that would be the effect of the proposed United Nations Climate Change Treaty awaiting Mr. Obama's signature in Copenhagen this coming December. Politically correct counter-terrorism.  Do counter-terrorism measures targeting bombers who dress as women offend the rights of transexuals?  This is one of the pressing questions addressed in a new United Nations report on "Protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism."  The 23-page document is the ultimate politically correct guide to combating terrorism. The Copenhagen Climate Extortion.  If the upcoming Copenhagen climate change summit fails to result in substantive agreements, as increasingly seems likely, look for the global warming lobby to turn up the extortion heat. Agenda 21's New World Serfs.  Barack Obama is not only out to destroy America, but out to destroy the Free World.  So far nothing seems to be stopping him from getting on with his giddy path of destruction.  Barack Obama is the now the leading agent of a One World Government originated and manufactured down to the last detail by the United Nations. ... It's called UN Agenda 21 Sustainable Development, and just two of its cornerstones are the elimination of private property and vehicle ownership. Agenda 21:  The Death Knell of Liberty.  Liberty, after all, is an aberration in mankind's history — a light that has flared here and there over the centuries, only to dissolve back into the darkness.  America is barreling towards becoming a bit player on the world's stage, and its vaunted middle class — once the envy of the world — is on the verge of being eliminated.  For the good of the planet, for the good of Gaia. It's never been about global warming.  The whole global warming craze is a massive Ponzi scheme designed to separate wealthy nations from their wealth and pass it over to developing nations without them having to actually go through the process of creating and earning that wealth.  It's a gigantic global welfare scheme that if it comes to fruition, will equalize the wealth of all nations, making poor nations wealthier.  It will also make wealthy nations poorer. ... It's about the Third World fleecing the West without actually having to create that wealth for itself. 'Kick Me' — Again.  Contrary to the fanciful image the U.N. would like the world to believe, it is an elitist establishment of dictators and governmental panhandlers with their hands in the pockets of U.S. taxpayers.  It is also corrupt.  The U.N.'s Oil-for-Food Program provided, according to Paul Volcker's investigation, food "unfit for human consumption" while lining the pockets of the secretary general's son.  And U.N. "peacekeeping" troops in Africa are as much remembered for their rapes of young girls as for any peace they kept. The new world devised by Maurice Strong and George Soros.  Have you ever wondered how capitalism was pushed over the edge of the cliff just six weeks before the American presidential election? ... The story of the economic meltdown of 2008 begins and ends with the United Nations and its carefully managed One World Order.  Behind the curtain of this dark chapter in human misery are ogres Maurice Strong and George Soros.  It is both power lust and an all-consuming hatred of the United States of America that elevated this deadly duo to ogre status. Obama's UN lesson.  Six months ago, President Obama re versed his predecessor's boycott and accepted a seat for the United States on the vile UN Human Rights Council.  As UN Ambassador Susan Rice explained:  "We do not see any inherent benefit ... in being outside the tent and simply being critical without having significant influence."  So what exactly has Obama's "significant influence" managed to accomplish? Shamelessness at the UN.  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked the assembled representatives of the UN member states in New York this week, "Have you no shame?  No decency?"  The answer is no.  For in inviting once again holocaust-denier and Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to address the General Assembly, the majority of member states confirmed how greatly anti-Semitism is now institutionalized at the UN. Want Detente?  Be Careful What You Wish For.  As the dust settles with an eerie hazmat glitter on this year's opening of the United Nations General Assembly, I'm finally ready to give up on that Bush-coined phrase, "axis of evil."  It's not an axis anymore.  It's turning into a global conglomerate. World's cowards exposed.  It's amazing how simple moral clarity slices through the toxic drivel that has come to define the United Nations.  Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu strode into the world's billion-dollar debating society yesterday [9/24/2009] and, in calm, deliberate tones, reminded us all of the real purpose for the UN's existence — so long forgotten. Three Dangerous Stooges — Ahmadinejad, Chávez, and Qaddafi.  Last week, three dictators — from Iran, Libya, and Venezuela — delivered lunatic hate-speeches at the General Assembly of the United Nations. ... Take away oil and the money it garners — Iran, Libya, and Venezuela are all large petroleum exporters — and these strongmen would never receive high-profile television venues at the U.N. Oil props up all three economies, which have largely been wrecked by their own incompetence. What is the point of the United Nations?  So the circus has come to town again.  The unspeakable Gaddafi is given a reasonable 15 minutes to speak, and goes on for an hour and three quarters of clowning, tearing up the UN charter and talking complete nonsense about swine flu.  Well, you might say, that's what Gaddafi does.  But why do they let him? The UN loves Barack Obama because he is weak.  Barack Obama's Gallup approval rating of 52 percent may well be lower at this stage of his presidency than any US leader in recent times with the exception of Bill Clinton.  But he is still worshipped with messiah-like adoration at the United Nations, and is considerably more popular with many of the 192 members of the UN than he is with the American people. Barack at the UN:  Was this Obama's most naïve speech ever?  It's always a bad sign when a US president gets several rounds of heavy applause at the UN General Assembly, as Barack Obama did this morning in New York.  Needless to say, the loudest cheers from the gathering of world leaders came when he condemned the actions of a close US ally, Israel, in continuing to build settlements in the West Bank.  You can always rely on attacks on the Israelis to generate the biggest roars of approval at any meeting of the United Nations, and Obama dutifully obliged. And the Winner Is ... Moammar.  Each year we have one — some world leader becomes the stand-out speaker at the United Nations General Assembly for both his antics and his message:  Kruschev with his shoe; Arafat with his gun; Castro, Chavez, Ahmadinejad.  It never fails.  This year's winner is ... Moammar Qaddafi. 100 minutes in the life of Muammar Gaddafi.  [Scroll down]  "Terrorism is not just al-Qaida, it takes many forms."  In case the point was lost on anyone, he tore up his copy of the UN rule book.  Having thus abused and alienated 99.99% of the world's top diplomats, he suddenly changed tack, heaping praise and devotion on the one man he appears to respect.  "Now the black man doesn't have to sit in the back of the bus, the American people made him president and we are proud of that.  We would be happy if Obama stayed president of America forever." U.N. climate meeting was propaganda:  Czech president.  Czech President Vaclav Klaus sharply criticized a U.N. meeting on climate change on Tuesday [9/22/2009] at which U.S. President Barack Obama was among the top speakers, describing it as propagandistic and undignified.  "It was sad and it was frustrating," said Klaus, one of the world's most vocal skeptics on the topic of global warming. The U.N. Strikes Again.  Though the UN has a disturbing history of cozying up to thugs and tyrants — each dictator has an vote in the General Assembly equal to the United States — it is the international body's unrelenting obsession with Israel that reveals its moral bankruptcy. Some U.N. members are envious, arrogant beggars.  The diplomats representing the envious countries, some of them little more than tribes with flags and an embassy in a rooming house on a side street in Washington, have cooked up an interesting week to blunt the skepticism of a growing number of scientists who are finding the courage to say what they believed all along, even as Ban Ki-moon, the secretary-general of the United Nations, and others insist that time is running out to make the sun change its spots, the tides recede and the weather behave itself. Obama's "Progressives":  With the collapse of the former Soviet Union, many former communists became "environmentalists," often playing major roles in the many organizations serving that cause.  Among President Obama's ever-expanding circle of "czars" is Carol Browner, the former Clinton-era director of the Environmental Protection Agency (1993-2000), whose latest appointment also revealed that she served on the Commission for a Sustainable World Society, which is part of Socialist International.  Her association with the group has since been scrubbed from their website.  Most obvious and notorious is Van Jones, who has never made a secret of his political preference for communism and is Obama's new "Green Jobs" czar.  The links between the environmental movement and communist goals are numerous; it should not surprise anyone that the "global warming" hoax was birthed in the bowels of the United Nations. Obama to seal US-UN relationship.  Barack Obama will cement the new co-operative relationship between the US and the United Nations this month when he becomes the first American president to chair its 15-member Security Council.  The topic for the summit-level session of the council on September 24 is nuclear non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament — one of several global challenges that the US now wants to see addressed at a multinational level. Obama at the UN:  Hazards Large and Small.  President Obama's UN debut is fast approaching.  But as he looks forward to his makeover as global conciliator and potentate, all the signs point to a train wreck that has the potential of making health-care reform look easy.  Two problems are putting a wrench in his plans:  Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Libyan president Col. Moammar Qaddafi.  Both are coming to the UN's New York headquarters in less than two weeks with to-do lists that don't include improving Obama's poll numbers. UN wants new global currency to replace dollar.  The dollar should be replaced with a global currency, the United Nations has said, proposing the biggest overhaul of the world's monetary system since the Second World War. Where Did the American Flag Go?  The United States Mission to the United Nations has a new look online.  If you check out the redesigned site, you see it's decked out in United Nations blue, with the U.N. logo prominently displayed.  Fine, the U.N. logo is there.  But where is the United States flag? The UN speaks, and the world listens.  Are we nuts?  One of the wonders of the world is the reputation of the United Nations.  There are many people in many countries who believe (or claim to believe) that it can be relied on for fairness, honesty and competence.  Year after year it embarrasses itself through everything from deep bureaucratic corruption to utter failure in dealing with global crises like the genocide in Darfur.  Yet somehow its opinions and "facts" still carry weight. Varieties of Nothing.  On the international stage, the great arena for doing nothing is the United Nations. ... Had there been no United Nations, it would have been obvious to all and sundry that we were doing nothing — and that could have had dire political consequences at election time.  However, thanks to the United Nations, there is a place where political leaders can go to do nothing, with a flurry of highly visible activity — and the media will cover it in detail, with a straight face, so that people will think that something is actually being done. You can't spell unproductive without the letters "U" and "N"....  In essence, the new tough stand of the UN, orchestrated by the United States, has two parts.  In the first, we essentially reiterate what we've said in the past about interdicting shipments of weapons materials.  But this time, folks, we say it with feeling.  There is no commitment by anyone to actually stop or inspect North Korean ships and there is no UN mechanism obligating or even sanctioning the use of force. Obama's UN Gambit:  King of the Universe and the Polls.  Looking for a quick and easy boost in the polls, President Obama has decided to go to the one place where merit bears no relationship to adulation:  the United Nations.  On September 24, the president will take the unprecedented step of presiding over a meeting of the UN Security Council.  No American president has ever attempted to acquire the image of King of the Universe by officiating at a meeting of the UN's highest body. Obama's Titanic arrogance and the folly of ignoring the masses on 9/12.  Obama has now also undertaken another unprecedented political move.  This from The Financial Times:  "Obama will cement the New Cooperative relationship between the US and the United Nations when he becomes THE FIRST AMERICAN PRESIDENT to Chair the 15-member Security Council."  Apparently Obama will enlist the corrupt Third World cesspool and Dictators Club AKA the UN to "help" him with his plans.  It begs the question, what exactly DOES the Dear Leader have in store for us, and what will the "International Community" do to assist him? President Obama's big UN adventure.  President Obama's upcoming visit to the 64th UN General Assembly, which opened yesterday [9/15/2009], will be nothing if not entertaining.  Substantively, Obama should be delighted.  A confluence of recent events has brought to fruition his campaign promises to launch diplomacy with our adversaries:  Negotiations without preconditions are blooming everywhere.  Whether these negotiations will benefit the United States is, of course, a different question. Does 'King of the World' need a birth certificate?  Diplomatic Immunity, which could only have originated at the UN, has created virtual untouchables.  According to ReaderÕs Digest, ÒThe UN rarely gets much done, but somehow its officials are still too busy to park legally.  Between 1997 and the end of 2002, foreign diplomats racked up more than 150,000 unpaid parking tickets -- totaling a staggering $17 million.  But thanks to diplomatic immunity, the city has no power to collect. The Plan For Socialist World Government.  While meaningless United Nations hand-wringing over the North Korean nuclear weapons program garnered the headlines, the world body is moving ahead with a global conference to lay the groundwork for world government financed by global taxes.  The communist head of the U.N. General Assembly is leading the effort, but he is getting crucial support from "progressive" economists who advise the Obama Administration and the Democratic Party. UN Turns off Lights, Pretends to Sleep.  Wherever you turn today, the free world is allowing bad actors to define the rules of the game and call the shots.  In Latin America, Hugo Chavez signs off on Manuel Zelaya's assault on Honduran democracy and the American administration concurs.  In the Middle East, the Iranian regime murders civil protesters and tells us to butt out, so we do.  In the Pacific, Kim Jong Il says that a sneeze will be considered an act of war, so the UN pinches its nose. UN boss Ban Ki-Moon 'passive, throws fits'.  A senior Norwegian diplomat has slammed Ban Ki-Moon as lacking leadership, ineffectual and prone to angry outbursts, a daily reported today [8/19/2009], just two weeks ahead of the UN chief's visit to Oslo. Still Going Nowhere Man.  A brutally frank memo from a high-ranking Norwegian diplomat to the United Nations leaked this week, ripping Ban Ki-moon's performance to shreds.  The evidence against the U.N.'s feckless leader is mounting. Experts:  UN program to save children didn't work.  The U.N. unveiled a multimillion dollar strategy a dozen years ago to save children worldwide, but a new study has found the program had surprisingly little effect in Bangladesh, one of the world's poorest countries. Why Should WE Pay For Free Health Insurance for Illegal Aliens?  [Scroll down]  There is no getting around the mounting evidence that the liberal Democrats in our Congress are no longer serving the American people; they are instead assisting Obama in his quest to destroy this country and deliver it into the hands of the corrupt and incompetent United Nations.  There is some indication in polls that even the real American Democrats are in agreement with that.  They now have the votes necessary to carry out just about any vicious and damaging plan they wish and with the concurrent approval and shepherding from the White House, it can be a done deal. Obama:  U.S. to sign U.N. disabilities rights pact.  Marking the 19th anniversary of a landmark U.S. law barring discrimination against people with disabilities, President Obama said Friday [7/24/2009] that the United States will sign a United Nations treaty urging countries around the world to do the same.  Obama said he had instructed U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice to sign the document next week, joining 140 other nations. Pope Endorses "World Political Authority".  Some in the media are calling it just a statement about "economic justice."  But Pope Benedict XVI's "Charity in Truth" statement, also known as an encyclical, is a radical document that puts the Roman Catholic Church firmly on the side of an emerging world government. Who Will Investigate the U.N.-Vatican Connection?  There is a Pulitzer Prize waiting for the reporter who can figure out why the [Pope] has emerged as an advocate of one of the most corrupt and non-Christian organizations on the face of the earth — the United Nations.  The U.N. has been rocked by scandals involving U.N. "peacekeepers" who sexually abuse women and children, the failure to protect populations in danger of genocide, and financial corruption.  It is an anti-American institution founded by a Soviet spy that is currently headed by a Communist Catholic Priest, U.N. General Assembly President Miguel D'Escoto, who recently gave a speech at a U.N. financial conference on the need to protect "Mother Earth." Obama's EPA Ignores Inconvenient Truths.  John Hinderaker of Poweline has alerted everyone to the release of the suppressed EPA Carlin/Davidson report along with incriminating emails by the Competitive Enterprise Institute.  President Obama and his administration have again been appropriately exposed.  Obama's intent can no longer be in question, and his deceptive activities are instructive as to the role the United Nations will play in his plan to address the use of American wealth. U.N. to Emerge as Global IRS.  While our media sleep, the United Nations is proceeding, with President Obama's acquiescence, to implement a global plan to create a new international socialist order financed by global taxes on the American people.  The Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and its Impact on Development that begins on Wednesday [6/24/2009] will consider adoption of a document calling for "new voluntary and innovative sources of financing initiatives to provide additional stable sources of development finance..."  This is U.N.-speak for global taxes.  They are anything but "voluntary" for the people forced to pay them. Communist U.N. Boss Praises "Mother Earth".  Our media haven't found much time to cover the U.N. Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis underway at the world organization's headquarters in New York.  But the Obama White House is working hand-in-glove with a Communist Catholic Priest who gave a bizarre speech on Wednesday devoted to saving "Mother Earth" from evil capitalists. The U.N. bows to the anti-insecticide lobby. Malaria, Politics and DDT.  In 2006, after 25 years and 50 million preventable deaths, the World Health Organization reversed course and endorsed widespread use of the insecticide DDT to combat malaria.  So much for that.  Earlier this month, the U.N. agency quietly reverted to promoting less effective methods for attacking the disease.  The result is a victory for politics over public health, and millions of the world's poor will suffer as a result.  The U.N. now plans to advocate for drastic reductions in the use of DDT, which kills or repels the mosquitoes that spread malaria. Did someone mention DDT? $196 billion; little proof UN health programs work.  In the last two decades, the world has spent more than $196 billion trying to save people from death and disease in poor countries.  But just what the world's gotten for its money isn't clear, according to two studies published Friday in the medical journal Lancet.  Millions of people are now protected against diseases like yellow fever, sleeping under anti-malaria bed nets and taking AIDS drugs.  Much beyond that, it's tough to gauge the effectiveness of pricey programs led by the United Nations and its partners, and in some cases, big spending may even be counterproductive, the studies say. A Closer Look at Climate Change.  The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is widely regarded in the media as the ultimate authority on climate change. ... The sponsors of the IPCC, the United Nations, and liberal American politicians all share the goal of reducing Americans' wealth by capping our consumption of energy with a binding international climate change treaty.  They are willing to resort to scientific fraud to further their goal. Putting Our Faith in the UN Cesspool.  The keystone to Barack Obama's foreign policy is a revived faith in international institutions such as the United Nations and deference to the opinion of the same.  But despite the seeming popularity of this policy, reasons for disgust at the current state of the UN and its agencies continues to build up. U.N. Red and U.S. "Progressives" Plan Socialist World Government.  While meaningless United Nations hand-wringing over the North Korean nuclear weapons program garners the headlines, the world body is moving ahead with a global conference to lay the groundwork for world government financed by global taxes.  The communist head of the U.N. General Assembly is leading the effort, but he is getting crucial support from "progressive" economists who advise the Obama Administration and the Democratic Party. U.N. environment chief urges global ban on plastic bags.  Single-use plastic bags, a staple of American life, have got to go, the United Nations' top environmental official said Monday. ... [A total] ban is already being tested in China, where retailers giving out thin bags can be fined up to $1,464. ... In the United States, only San Francisco has completely banned plastic bags. The Editor says... Hmmm...  Do the governments of San Francisco and China have a lot in common? 'Hebrew book-burning' minister Farouk Hosni is front-runner to head Unesco.  An Egyptian Cabinet minister who offered to burn Hebrew books last year enters the final straight as favourite for leadership of Unesco today in the face of fierce opposition from Jewish groups and intellectuals in Europe.  Farouk Hosni, 71, an artist who has served as Culture Minister for 21 years, apologised this week for his book-burning call and is still deemed front-runner among seven contenders for the post of director-general of the Paris-based UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation. Obama Endorses Soros Plan to Loot America.  At the G 20 summit in London, President Barack Obama won rave reviews from reporters, many of whom clamored like school kids for the chance to ask him a question at his news conference, but the official conference document proves that plans are being made for what can only be described as the further looting of American taxpayers in order to feed unaccountable and corrupt global entities.  This is not "global cooperation," as so many in the media described it, but a massive new expansion of the power and authority of international agencies and institutions such as the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. IMF role grows with crisis.  Japan was the first wealthy country to write a $100 billion check to the IMF.  The United States and the European Union subsequently pledged $100 billion each as well.  The principal beneficiary of this unprecedented funding will be the IMF.  Its primary lending program will grow by $500 billion, tripling in size from $250 billion to $750 billion.  As recently as last June, the IMF had less than $20 billion in loans outstanding. The UN's Platform for Racism.  On the eve of the United Nations World Conference on Racism, Navi Pillay, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, delivered a sharp warning about the problem of racially motivated hate speech. ... "Hate speech and racist insults will be banned at the UN conference against racism and intolerance." Hate speech and racist insults, of course, were not banned — they were exalted.  On Monday [4/20/2009], the day after Pillay's vacuous pledge, the United Nations offered a prime-time platform to the Holocaust-denying Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. United Nations building receives makeover money.  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced Tuesday [4/21/2009] that the United Nations Plaza Federal Building has received $121 million of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding to modernize and renovate the structure, which will be used as a General Services Administration regional headquarters. Durban II Circus.  Like any good circus, the Durban II show shocked right from the beginning.  The first representative to speak on racism was the world's most prominent Holocaust denier and anti-Semite, Pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran. Internationalizing Blasphemy.  The UN's defining role is as enabler of repression and prejudice.  Whether protecting Sudanese butchers on behalf of Chinese autocrats, or Iranian theocrats on behalf of Russian autocrats, the UN has inverted the definition of human rights with stunning finality.  One can argue about the restorative ideological pendulum that swings inside the United States.  But the UN only moves in one direction  — anti-Western — by small steps and great leaps. America slides into the sewer.  While American Jews and many Israelis still have their heads stuck firmly in the sand about Obama, there is huge and growing concern in more informed Israeli governmental circles that Israel faces the most unfriendly or even hostile President that anyone can recall — and this at a time when the drums of Iranian genocide are beating ever more loudly.  Such concern has been deepened by his decision at the weekend to 'help plan' the 'Durban 2' UN conference.  This event ... is a re-run of the UN's anti-Jew hate-fest that was held a few days before 9/11 under the grotesque misnomer of a human rights conference. Obama throws Durban II under the bus — finally.  The UN Conference on racism is a thinly disguised conclave that will bash Israel and the US.  That the Obama administration insisted on taking a part in planning this insult to both countries revealed either a naivete breathtaking in its scope or just plain idiocy. "Conspiracy Theorists" Not So Crazy After All.  There is a certain satisfying sense of vindication when the labelers finally admit that maybe you weren't really crazy after all.  Maybe your warnings about the dangers of the steady transfers of power and money to an ever-proliferating international bureaucracy weren't so far out.  Maybe the United Nations really is being built into an all-powerful world government.  And — maybe we should finally get concerned about all of that! In Bed With The Dregs.  The UN Human Rights Council might well be the most vile of all the world body's panels.  So why does the Obama administration want in?  UN Ambassador Susan Rice announced this week that the United States will seek a seat on the 47-member body — which is dominated by such human-rights exemplars as China, Cuba, Egypt, Russia and Saudi Arabia — when elections are held next month. Bad company:  U.S. is foolishly joining UN council of hatemongers.  President Obama has decided that the U.S. should seek a seat on the United Nations Human Rights Council under the thinking that America will use its presence to redeem this determinedly irredeemable outfit.  We'll refrain from declaring that he's doomed to fail.  Suffice it to say, Obama and Secretary of State Clinton are putting the U.S. at risk of legitimizing the group's odious workings.  That must not happen. The suicide of American sovereignty.  As London locks down in feverish anticipation of the arrival of The One, Commentary publishes an important essay by John Bolton on an academic paper articulating what he correctly perceives to be the underlying rationale for Obama's foreign policy — nothing less than the ending of American sovereignty.  The progressive classes in Britain and Europe have signed up to this idea for years.  Dubbed 'transnational progressivism', it is based on the belief that the nation state is in and of itself the cause of all the ills of the world, from prejudice to war. O's Unrequited UN Love Affair:  The United Nations "can be an extraordinarily constructive, important partner in bringing about peace and stability and security to people around the world":  So said President Obama last Tuesday [3/10/2009], with Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon at his side.  The day after Obama praise on the UN, Ban returned the favor by complaining to Congress members that the United States is a "deadbeat" that doesn't pay its UN bills. Let's Become "Deadbeat" on the UN.  Only in the alternate reality that prevails at the United Nations can its greatest contributor be considered a "deadbeat."  United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon tarred the United States with that pejorative during a meeting with Congressional leaders on March 11. ... This seems like cold gratitude for the immense contribution the United States has made to the ineffective world body.  The U.S. has been the largest financial contributor to the UN every year since its creation in 1945. Time for Obama to stop stalling about UN's hateful anti-hate conference.  Under the growing threat of a boycott by the United States and European countries, negotiators planning the U.N.'s Durban II "anti-racism" conference made a new move in Geneva Tuesday. ... The draft jettisons much of the extra baggage Islamic states had piled on throughout the 10-month drafting process (for the sole purpose of "compromising" at the end).  The improvements, however, do not meet the minimal conditions that the Obama administration delineated for U.S. participation.  It is time to end the equivocation and get out. Obama Endorses U.N. Declaration Calling for Decriminalization of Homosexuality.  The Obama administration on Wednesday [3/18/2009] formally endorsed a U.N. statement calling for the worldwide decriminalization of homosexuality, a measure that former President George W. Bush had refused to sign.  The move was the administration's latest in reversing Bush-era decisions that have been heavily criticized by human rights and other groups.  The United States was the only western nation not to sign onto the declaration when it came up at the U.N. General Assembly in December. The Coming War on Sovereignty.  While the term "sovereignty" has acquired many, often inconsistent, definitions, Americans have historically understood it to mean our collective right to govern ourselves within our Constitutional framework.  Today's liberal elite, by contrast, sees sovereignty as something much more abstract and less tangible, and thus a prize of less value to individual citizens than it once might have been. The United Nations Loves Hillary and Bill.  The Clintons' books are sold at the UN bookstore. Obama Skipping Durban II — That's One Step Forward.  Yes, here's a chance to applaud Obama for taking a step in the right direction.  In the UN arena, such good news is rare enough that I'm tempted to leave it there. ... But let's also beware the danger here of one step forward, two steps back. Totalitarianism at the U.N.:  Last Wednesday, CNN's Kitty Pilgrim reported that a coalition of 57 Islamic nations will introduce a U.N. anti-blasphemy resolution soon, perhaps as early as this month.  If enacted, the resolution would require all member states to prevent defamation of Islam. ... Of course, the Islamic nations cannot succeed in getting the U.N. to adopt a binding resolution that Christopher Hitchens has rightly called "totalitarianism defined" and "a rape and butchery of the First Amendment of our Constitution."  Therefore, we can, if we so choose, continue to ignore the antics taking place at the so-called Parliament of Man. Islamic Nations Seek Legally Binding Way to Counter Religious 'Defamation'.  As support wanes for its campaign to secure controversial but non-binding "defamation of religion" resolutions at the United Nations, the Islamic bloc is pushing ahead with an alternative route — one that would carry the weight of international law. United States rejoins U.N. rights council.  The United States returned Wednesday to the U.N. Human Rights Council, a body it left nine months ago saying it was biased against Israel and had failed to confront notorious rights abusers.  The United States informed the council it will resume participating in meetings as an active observer.  Observer status means the United States can engage in debate but not vote. The Obama Administration Double-Deals On Israel.  Barack Obama just added double-dealing to his foreign policy repertoire.  On Friday [2/27/2009], administration officials led many Jewish leaders to believe that the president had decided to boycott the United Nation's "anti-racism" conference known as Durban II.  At the same time, however, human rights organizations were being led to believe that the administration was not pulling out and was looking for a way to "re-engage." Ban Ki-moon's bigotry:  During his 2007 Mideast visit ... he laid a wreath of white flowers on the grave of serial killer Yasir Arafat and met with the parents of young Palestinians serving time in prison for terrorism.  He did not lay wreaths on the graves of Arafat's victims, nor did he meet with their families.  If Ban Ki-moon is not infected by the world's most ancient form of bigotry, what other explanation is there for his behavior? A $300 Million Throwaway.  Last May the United Nations broke ground on a $300 million, 175,000-square-foot building on the North Lawn of its property on the East River, to house the Security Council, the U.N. conference organizations, the General Assembly and the organization's eclectic art collection.  Yet that new structure, designed by HLW Architects LLP, is scheduled to disappear in as little as five years. UN ordered to pay legal fees of oil-for-food chief.  The U.N.'s highest internal judicial body has ordered the United Nations to pay legal fees to the former chief of its oil-for-food program, who has been accused of accepting money to illegally influence the $64 billion humanitarian program in Iraq.  The program was the biggest humanitarian program in U.N. history, but a U.N.-sanctioned investigation found widespread corruption, involving thousands of parties, that bilked the humanitarian program of $1.8 billion. The U.S. Votes 'Present' at the U.N..  Last week, the United Nations Security Council adopted a British resolution calling for a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip.  Resolution 1860 was a slap at Israel's self-defense, but, unusually, the United States abstained on the vote.  That's no way to lead.  If Washington concluded that a harsh resolution on Gaza was warranted, the proper course was to vote for it. U.N. Follies:  At what point do we realize that the United Nations causes (or, at least, tolerates and foments) far more trouble in the world than it prevents?  When do we decide to reclaim that very valuable hunk of real estate on Manhattan and tell this fetid collection of tyrants and parasites to shove off?  When do we work on a new international body, composed of actual democracies and genuinely interested in human rights and freedom? Off the Table.  Islam was born as a religion spread through violence.  There is a direct line from the prophet Muhammad to today's Islamic terrorists, whose latest deadly attacks wreaked havoc in Mumbai, India.  The ongoing effort in the United Nations and the politically correct media to disassociate Islam from terrorism is a sham. United Nations forbids defaming religion, specifically Islam.  In a 83-to-53 vote, with 42 abstentions, the U.N. General Assembly urges nations to provide "adequate protections" in their laws or constitutions against "acts of hatred, discrimination, intimidation and coercion resulting from defamation of religions and incitement to religious hatred in general."  Only Islam and Muslims are specifically named in this resolution against religious defamation sponsored by Uganda — on behalf of the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference — with co-sponsors Belarus and Venezuela. The U.N.'s Global Warming Muzzle.  When the United Nations insists that man-made global warming is now proved beyond doubt, it's practicing one of the few things it has proved itself good at:  censorship of dissenting viewpoints. Obama Nominees Signal Radical Pro-U.N. Agenda.  [Scroll down]  [Ed] Rollins replied, in part:  "I think that's one of the greatest compliments to him, is that he's not afraid of smart, strong people around him."  This is what passes for media scrutiny of Obama's foreign policy picks.  In fact, there is much to question.  Two nominees in particular — Senator Hillary Clinton and Susan Rice — were close associates of Brookings Institution president Strobe Talbott, an advocate of world government who was named as a trusted contact of the Russian Intelligence service while he was in the Clinton Administration. Your U.N. at Work:  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. At the U.N., Many Hope for an Obama Win.  There are no "Obama 2008" buttons, banners or T-shirts visible here at U.N. headquarters, but it might be difficult to find a sliver of territory in the United States more enthusiastic over the prospect of the Illinois senator winning the White House. The U.N.'s Candidate.  The definition of socialism includes government ownership and control of the means of production, and the Obama administration is prepared to sign agreements and carry out policies that in effect will do just that.  The U.N. couldn't be happier.  An informal survey of U.N. officials by the Washington Post found overwhelming support for the former Illinois state senator. Obama & the U.N.:  One of the biggest winners of a Barack Obama victory on Election Day [was] the United Nations. And the biggest losers [were] Americans, who inevitably [will] come under the fat thumb of Turtle Bay.  Topping an agenda that will subject U.S. interests to U.N. whimsy is the world body's business-killing climate-control campaign.  The operative word here is "control," which is precisely what the U.N. hopes to achieve over the U.S. U.N.American Agenda.  Nobody is happier about the election of Barack Obama to the Presidency of the United States than the folks at the United Nations. ... The U.N. is an uncomplicated place.  Every sick, unsatiated tyrant, European has-been, or miserable wretch brainwashed about the Great Satan wants to take America down — unless they are able to immigrate of course. Mixing It Up With Left-Wingers.  If I had to describe liberals in a single word it would probably be "feminine."  In most cases, I wouldn't regard that word as a pejorative.  In its best sense, it conveys sensitivity and an emphasis on the emotional.  As it relates to liberals, it simply means that feelings trump everything else.  So it is that liberals love the idea of the U.N., excited by the notion of a lot of nations sitting down and talking out their problems, as if to a marriage counselor.  Unfortunately, when dealing with evil nations with evil intentions, the U.N. is nothing better than a bad joke. 'Defamation' of Islam Resolution Set to Pass, but Losing Ground.  A United Nations committee has passed a controversial "defamation of religions" draft resolution but, amid freedom of expression concerns, the measure looks set to get less support when it comes to a final vote next month, than in previous years.  Monday's vote in the General Assembly's Third Committee, which deals with social, cultural, and humanitarian issues, saw more countries either abstain or oppose the resolution than vote in favor — an indication, critics say, that the push back against the Islamic bloc-driven campaign is gaining traction. Congresswoman Confident Obama Will Fund UNFPA, Which Supports China's Coercive Abortion Program.  Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) said she is confident that President-elect Barack Obama will reverse the Bush administration's decision six years ago to stop the $40 million in annual funding to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) because of its support of China's one-child policy — a policy that includes coercive abortion. 'One-Child' Expert Urges Investigation Before UNFPA Funding Resumes.  An American expert on China's "one-child" population control policy is urging President Obama to delay restoring funding to the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA) pending an independent investigation into whether U.S. taxpayers' money will support coerced abortions in China. UN unveils new ceiling with price tag that soars.  A $23 million ceiling painting featuring hundreds of dangling icicle shapes that has been criticized for its hefty price tag was unveiled Tuesday [11/18/2008] at the United Nations.  The 16,000-square-foot (1,500-square-meter) elliptical dome full of bright colors and torn aluminum took over a year to produce. U.S. Expected to Reverse Course on United Nations.  The United States' relationship with the United Nations faces a major change under the next administration.  Those advocating greater U.S. engagement with the world body are lining up with advice for President-elect Barack Obama. The U.N.'s Man of Mystery:  Often described as an "international man of mystery," [Maurice] Strong during his long, globe-trotting career has been one of the most influential architects of the opaque cross-border bureaucracy that is today's United Nations.  He is probably best known as godfather of the U.N.'s 1997 Kyoto treaty, and as a former U.N. top adviser who in that same year received a check for almost $1 million, bankrolled by the U.N.-sanctioned regime of Saddam Hussein.  (Mr. Strong told me that at the time he did not know the money came from Baghdad.) U.N.'s Anti-Poverty Program Wants Unlimited Spending Power.  The United Nations Development Program, the U.N.'s anti-poverty agency, which systematically ignored its own financial rules and regulations while funneling millions of dollars to North Korea, wants to give its chief operating officer the right to make out discretionary checks of unlimited amounts, without normal budgetary approval.  That's up from the current limit of $50,000 which can be dispersed without regulatory oversight. Moral Poverty at the UN:  The United Nations' World Food Summit held in Rome in 2002 to discuss how to cut world hunger in half by 2015 came under heavy criticism for the lavish feasts held during that conference. … The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization, which planned this year's food summit, provided political cover for two of the cruelest dictators in the world today. The new world devised by Maurice Strong and George Soros.  In spite of the hype coming out of the Office of the President-elect, Obama is merely a fop for the global elite.  He is their, and not the people's true agent of change.  The January 20 inauguration with its promise of 5 million observers in Washington, D.C. will be the extravaganza of a lifetime, deepening recession notwithstanding.  It is Obama's job to demoralize the 58 million people who did not buy into his campaign and for all of those who do not want One World Order.  Starring among all the glitterati at the Inauguration Ball, Barack and Michelle are like the stick figures from a kindergartener's drawing, for this is an emperor who truly has no clothes. UN-American.  Certain institutions can bring out the worst in people.  For the professional peddlers of anti-Americanism, haters of free enterprise, and true believers in global government, there is only one place that it really pays to perform:  the United Nations.  The U.N. headquarters, in Manhattan, has become the venue of choice for "diplomats" and foreign leaders to condemn America, our values and our virtues.  Since the 1960s, star billing has been promised to any dictator or despot who takes to this "world stage" for the purpose of denigrating the United States and our bounty, wealth and power. The U.N. Monkeys Around.  There is a concerted advocacy campaign underway across several disciplines aimed at knocking human beings off our pedestal of moral exceptionalism and redefining us as merely another animal in the forest. … The point of this ideological drive is to degrade our perceived self-worth so much that we will readily sacrifice human prosperity and welfare "to save the planet" or "for the animals," while undercutting the power of theistic religion in general, and Judeo-Christian moral teaching in particular, to influence public policies. U.S. Must Give U.N. the Boot.  I've demanded it before, to no avail.  Now, the U.S. should again consider getting out of the U.N., and the U.N. out of the U.S.  What better timing than in a transitional election year?  Nothing of lasting importance ever happens at the U.N. Why throw good money after bad?  The straw that broke this camel's back has been the U.N. refusal (or inability) to do anything about the brutal dictatorship in Zimbabwe…. Dems Endorse Expansion of U.N. Power.  Our media are running stories about the planks in the new 2008 Democratic Party platform but they've missed a big one — expansion of the power of the United Nations, and especially more U.S. involvement in U.N.-authorized military operations.  In another bow to the world organization, the platform indirectly endorses Senator Barack Obama's controversial pro-U.N. Global Poverty Act.  "It is time to make the U.N. Millennium Development Goals, which aim to cut extreme poverty in half by 2015, America's goals as well," the document says.  It leaves out the estimated cost — $845 billion over 13 years. The Editor asks... What is "extreme" poverty, and how do you cut it in half?  More importantly, what part of the US Constitution authorizes the eradication of poverty in other countries? How to Account for the United Nations?  In February 2007, Mayor Michael Bloomberg — worried by a statement issued by the Secretary General's office speculating that if the United Nations couldn't expand its historic New York headquarters, it might look for a permanent home elsewhere — met with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to argue for keeping the UN in Gotham.  Losing the UN would be a "disaster," Bloomberg said…. U.N. Thugs.  Support for Israel has never ranked high on the United Nations' agenda.  And the upcoming World Conference Against Racism, scheduled for early 2009 in Geneva, Switzerland, presents a valid case.  Many observers are concerned that the UN-sponsored event will simply serve as yet another a platform to launch attacks against Israel — as the previous world anti-racism conference did in Durban, South Africa, seven years ago. Former Ambassador Bolton shows U.N. no quarter in speech at PU.  In a Monday [10/13/2008] speech at Princeton University, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton offered an unsparing critique of his former workplace and rejected the notion that the United States must adjust its practices to suit the U.N.'s views. Iran and Iceland Fail to Win U.N. Security Council Seats.  Iran, a country under U.N. sanctions, and Iceland, which has been battered by the recent credit crisis, failed Friday to win nonpermanent seats on the powerful U.N. Security Council.  Austria and Turkey beat Iceland in the battle for the two nonpermanent European seats on the 15-member council in voting at a meeting of the U.N. General Assembly while Iran lost out to Japan for the council's Asian seat. 'We Inturrupt This Program'.  Some of the monks wept as they told the foreigners their stories.  They said they'd been held in the temple for weeks while the Tibetan capital was jolted by the violent protests that had finally made the world news.  Naturally the UN's "Human Rights" Council — long dominated by exemplars of freedom like Cuba, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Vietnam and Zimbabwe — declined to debate the Chinese clampdown on the demonstrations. So Popular and So Spineless.  Welcome to a world of too much Russian and Chinese power.  I am neither a Russia-basher nor a China-basher.  But there was something truly filthy about Russia's and China's vetoes of the American-led U.N. Security Council effort to impose targeted sanctions on Robert Mugabe's ruling clique in Zimbabwe. The UN fails again. Zimbabwe says sanctions failure a victory over racism.  Zimbabwe on Saturday [7/12/2008] welcomed the failure of a Western-backed U.N. Security Council resolution to impose sanctions over its violent presidential elections, calling it a victory over racism and meddling in its affairs.  Russia and China on Friday vetoed the resolution, which would have imposed an arms embargo on the southern African country and financial and travel restrictions on President Robert Mugabe and 13 other officials. More information about Zimbabwe. U.N. says poor nations need $130B for climate change.  The U.N. climate change organization has said the world's poor countries will need $130 billion a year by 2030 to help them adapt to global warming and curb their carbon emissions. ... The figures were presented Thursday [12/4/2008] during a conference of 190 nations on a new climate treaty. World Environment Day calls for end to CO2 addiction.  The United Nations urged the world on Thursday [6/4/2008] to kick the habit of producing carbon dioxide, saying everyone must act to fight climate change.  U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said global warming was becoming the era's defining issue and would hurt rich and poor. The Editor says... It's only natural that he would say such a thing, since he has so much to gain.  In reality, carbon dioxide is not addictive inasmuch as it is not something habitually consumed.  Inflammatory rhetoric can only go so far — I hope everyone recognizes this as unmitigated propaganda. This sums up the global warming issue pretty well... Baby, Baby It's a Cold World.  Global warming has nothing to do with climate or science.  What it is all about is the great, historic class struggle between working people and the ruling classes.  Global warming is a great excuse for a massive expansion of government power.  That, not science, is why the overlords, from the New York Times to the United Nations to Al Gore, so heartily embrace it.  The U.N. thinks global warming is a perfect reason for the U.N. to be transformed into a world government. More information about global warming. U.N. thermostat to be set higher.  Everyone complains about climate change, and the United Nations is finally doing something about it — on Friday [8/1/2008], the temperature inside U.N. headquarters in New York will rise by 5 degrees.  Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations' self-professed environmental secretary-general, ordered the "In-House Climate Change Initiative" to save energy, cut carbon emissions and try to mitigate climate change. Obama Supports Global Tax From United Nations.  Barack Obama and his liberal allies such as Senator Biden have signed on to a bill that would allow the U.N. to tax America (and Americans) an estimated $845 billion over the next 13 years.  Obama's plan represents perhaps the greatest affront to our national sovereignty since the War of 1812. Global Taxes and Global TV Now on the Agenda.  President Obama's pick for Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner, is being urged to lay the foundation for "global governance" by considering "international taxation" measures to loot more money from U.S. taxpayers. Progressives Back Obama Push for Global Tax.  While policymakers debate a few million dollars for ACORN and a few hundred billion dollars more for health care reform, those committed to one-world government are moving ahead with plans for a global tax that could extract trillions of dollars out of Americans' already depleted IRAs and stock holdings.  One can't exclude the possibility of such a tax being slipped into a health care or cap-and-trade bill that the Congress or the public could not have time to read before passage. The UN Stops Pretending.  Several years ago, when the notoriously anti-Israel United Nations Human Rights Committee was replaced by the Human Rights Council, there were some who actually harbored hopes that the Jewish state might get a bit more of a fair shake.  That that was just wishful naivete became painfully evident this month when the "human rights" apparatus in Turtle Bay and its Geneva outpost (where the Council sits) revealed its true colors by selecting two outspoken Israel-bashers to serve in significant positions. Human-rights farce:  The U.N. Human Rights Council was supposed to improve upon the general discredit of its predecessor, the U.N. Commission on Human Rights.  Instead, two years after its creation, it continues much the same: Verbiage in homage to human rights is issued at great length while the council excuses the world's worst human-rights abusers.  It then proceeds to target Western countries which mostly uphold human rights. Religious speech debated.  Late last week, I attended a Capitol Hill briefing about an obscure United Nations resolution on "defamation of religions" that some call the "soft jihad." … The chief topic of discussion was a U.N. Commission on Human Rights resolution, backed by the Organization of the Islamic Conference, that addresses "the campaign to defame religions and the ethnic and religious profiling of Muslim minorities" since Sept. 11, 2001.  Freedom of expression, the resolution says, would be "subject to limitations" to guard the "respect of the rights and reputations of others; protection of national security or of public order, public health or morals and respect for religions and beliefs." U.N. Urged to Stop 'Defamation of Islam' Campaign.  Tens of thousands of people have signed a petition urging top United Nations officials to oppose a drive by Islamic governments to outlaw the ?defamation? of Islam.  Critics say the move is aimed at shutting down legitimate debate and restricting the freedom to share other faiths. U.N. scheme to make Christians criminals.  Dozens of nations dominated by Islam are pressing the United Nations to adopt an anti-"defamation" plan that would make Christians criminals under international law, according to a United States organization that has launched a campaign to defend freedom of religion worldwide. United Nations Assaults Free Speech — Moves To Protect Islam.  The United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) is an Islam-Marxist-dominated entity that is working to criminalize or suppress any public criticism of Islam around the world.  In a recently-concluded session, the Council ruled that any criticism of Islam in the Council proceedings was to be off limits. Religious "Defamation" on Agenda at UN Rights Session.  The United Nations' Human Rights Council kicks off a new session in Geneva on Monday [9/8/2008], and a controversial push by Islamic states to outlaw religious "defamation" is high on the agenda.  In recent months, debate has swirled over efforts to limit freedom of expression in the context of religious discussion.  That debate is now moving beyond a small group of concerned non-governmental and legal organizations to a wider audience. Worldwide Hate Speech Laws?  Especially since 9/11, Islam has been publicly scrutinized, criticized, and sometimes ridiculed in the West to an extent never seen (or permitted) in Muslim lands.  Many Muslims feel deeply offended by this, as well as troubled by the violent responses the criticism has sometimes drawn from Muslims — riots, death threats, even murders.  Their leaders' solution is to try to halt the cycle by demanding an end to criticism of Islam, even in private speech.  For the past decade, the Saudi-based Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) has pushed the U.N. to adopt a universal ban on defaming Islam.  This measure would aim to curb the freedom not only of Danish cartoonists but also of scholars, writers, dissidents, religious reformers, human rights activists, and anyone at all anywhere in the world who criticizes Islam. The Editor says... Even if I end up in the United Nations Sharia prison camp, I will not stop telling others the truth about Islam.  Silencing me will not change the facts.  Ten thousand years from now, we'll all know whether Islam had any merits. Move the Useless Notion to Canada.  The United Nations has become a useless notion occupying valuable real estate on the East River.  Why do we put up with this consortium of petty dictators and corrupt oligarchies?  The recent election of the new president of the General Assembly confirms my suspicion that to achieve success in the United Nations, one must hate the United States. The Editor says... Why not move the UN to Venezuela, Nicaragua or Iran?  Maybe the problems in Zimbabwe would get some attention if the UN moved there. Simply UN-bearable:  Taking [insolence] 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 is nudging Hitler in hell and grinning.  Its oil-for-food program ensured Saddam Hussein and his psychopathic spawn never ran short of high-performance automobiles or fresh porn during the international embargo against Iraqi oil. UN-Believable.  When the so-called mainstream media don't want you to know something, they simply spike the story — meaning they just don't cover it. … First there's the strange case of Doudou Diene, the United Nations "Special Rapporteur" on "contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance."  He's really a lawyer from Senegal, traveling first-class on a U.N. ticket, and he arrived in the U.S. May 19 for a three-week "fact-finding trip." The United Nations Will Investigate America for Racism.  As an African American politician is set to assume for the first time in the country's history the leadership of a major political party, a Geneva-based United Nations human rights investigator plans to come here next week to investigate whether racism plays a role in the presidential campaign, according to a statement released yesterday [5/16/2008]. The Editor says... Racism has nothing to do with my opposition to Barack Obama.  I don't care if he's black, but I do care if he's a Socialist, or a Marxist, or worse.  Will the UN investigate Jeremiah Wright's all-black church and Obama's membership in it?  And what if racism does "play a role" in politics?  What is the UN going to do about it? Theater of the Absurd:  We're under investigation — by the U.N..  While hundreds of thousands are dying due to the callous indifference of the military junta in Burma and millions are fleeing oppression and hunger in Robert Mugabe's brutal Zimbabwe, the U.N.'s farcical Human Rights Council (HRC) is focusing its attention elsewhere — the United States, the freest nation on the face of the earth. UN Hatemongers to Investigate U.S. "Racism".  The United Nations Special Rapporteur on "contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance", Dr. Doudou Diéne, has been invited by the U.S. government … to gather first-hand information on racism in America. … This unwelcome visitor is hardly an objective reporter or impartial judge of racial conditions anywhere. … His cultural and religious biases have led to his obsession with Islamophobia, which he has called "the most serious form of religious defamation." Texas still plans to execute killer despite U.N. order.  Texas will go ahead with the scheduled Aug. 5 execution of Houston rapist-killer Jose Medellin despite Wednesday's United Nations world court order for a stay, a spokesman for Gov. Rick Perry said. General Assembly Approves UN Budget.  The General Assembly approved a two-year U.N. budget of $4.17 billion Saturday [11/22/2007], with the United States casting the only "no" vote because of objections to funding for a follow-up to a conference it considered anti-Israel. In Burma, a U.N. Promise Not Kept.  Who steps in when government abuses or neglects its people?  Nearly three years ago, the United Nations announced an answer to that question:  It would.  At a summit celebrating the organization's 60th birthday, 171 nations agreed that they would intervene, forcefully if necessary, if a state failed to protect its own people. Kick Burma Out of the U.N..  The United Nations this week said the refusal of Burma's government to allow workers into the country's devastated agricultural region was unprecedented in the history of humanitarian relief.  The human catastrophe produced by Burma's refusal to permit aid in the wake of Cyclone Nargis has stunned the senses of a world that has watched this spectacle for a week. [Why expel only Burma?  What's the difference between Burma and Zimbabwe, or Cuba, or North Korea?] Expenses At U.N. Balloon 25 Percent.  Despite long-standing efforts by successive U.S. administrations to rein in U.N. spending, the United Nations this month presented its top donors with a request for nearly $1.1 billion in additional funds over the next two years — boosting current U.N. expenses by 25 percent and marking the global body's highest-ever administrative budget, according to internal U.N. memos. U.N. headquarters renovation launched in New York.  Officials in blue U.N. hard hats broke ground on Monday for a temporary building at the United Nations, launching a $1.9 billion renovation project to make U.N. headquarters safer, more comfortable and greener. UN breaks ground for headquarters overhaul, greening.  The renovation will take at least five years to complete, which will mean the relocation of most of the 4,500 UN personnel to office spaces already rented in New York City.  The costs will be 1.8 billion dollars, supported by UN members as long-term, low interest loans.  It will involve the relocation of hundreds of journalists from world media covering the UN to temporary space office within the compound, unlike UN staff who will have to work in buildings away from the headquarters. Democrats eye restoring funds to U.N. agency.  Congress may have found a way to fund the U.N. Population Fund for the first time in seven years, with many lawmakers anticipating that the next U.S. president may have a different view of an organization accused by conservatives of abetting coerced abortion in the developing world.  The House Appropriations state, foreign operations and related programs subcommittee last week appropriated $60 million for the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA) as part of a $600 million package for international family planning and reproductive health for fiscal 2009. U.N. food program seeks $500M.  A United Nations food program has issued an emergency appeal for donations as the amount of food aid sent abroad from the United States is plunging.  The World Food Program, which feeds about 73 million people worldwide, is seeking funding to close a $500 million gap caused by global spikes in food and fuel prices, the United Nations said in a release issued in New York. U.N. Reformer (Really).  More than one American has tried to make the United Nations live up to its original ideals — Pat Moynihan, Jeane Kirkpatrick, John Bolton.  We'd add to that distinguished list the name of Mark Wallace, an ambassador to the U.S. mission at Turtle Bay who resigned yesterday having tried for two years to make the U.N. a more transparent place. Ex-U.N. official sentenced to 8 years for corruption.  A former U.N. procurement official was sentenced to 8 years and one month in prison on Tuesday for helping a friend secure at least $50 million in contracts in return for financial favors including a luxury apartment. UNHRC appointment infuriates Israel.  The United Nations Human Rights Council on Wednesday [3/26/2008] appointed American Jewish law professor Richard A. Falk — who has compared Israel to the Nazis — as special investigator on Israeli actions in the territories for a six-year term. U.S., Israel wary of second U.N. anti-racism event.  The U.N. 2001 anti-racism conference in Durban, South Africa, provoked a walkout by the United States and Israel, with both nations saying it had been overtaken by anti-Semitism and some in Congress claiming it had cemented the world body's shame in the eyes of America. Waste, Fraud and UN Headquarters:  The UN is embarking on a multi-billion construction project and the timing could not be better for those who like to waste taxpayer dollars. … The project is the renovation of the United Nations headquarters in New York City and the building is a metaphor for the UN itself.  It is outdated, falling apart, and no longer useful.  It has never had a major renovation, is full of asbestos, and is energy inefficient.  And while it won't pass a fire inspection, it is one of the only buildings in New York where smokers are still allowed to light up. The Oil Connection:  It's interesting that Hillary Clinton not only was behind the formation of the oil-for-food program, but that it was a direct contact with an agent of Saddam that accomplished the task.  So, fast forward a few years.  Baghdad has fallen, the doors have been kicked open, and the oil-for-food program has become the oil-for-food scandal.  What seems amazing now is not only the extent of the corruption, but how little most Americans even know about it.  The left is often proud of its hatred for Enron and the $1.5 billion in corruption it represents.  Rightly so — but they so easily excuse nearly 40 billion in corruption in a single UN program. Volvo to Pay $19.6M in Oil-For-Food Case.  AB Volvo will return nearly $9 million in profits that two of its subsidiaries made under the oil-for-food program in Iraq plus pay fines totaling $11 million in order to avoid prosecution, the truck maker said Thursday.  The company said it has entered agreements with the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice, resolving issues related to the oil-for-food program. Iraq lodges $10bn lawsuit over 'Oil-for-Food scam'.  The Iraqi Government is suing dozens of companies for $10 billion (£5 billion) after they allegedly defrauded the country's citizens out of food and medical provisions during Saddam Hussein's rule.  Iraq has hired Maney and Purrington, a law firm from Texas, to sue 70 corporations such as Chevron, the oil company, GlaxoSmithKline, the drugs group, BNP Paribas, the French bank, and Chrsyler, the car manufacturer, for allegedly paying bribes to the dictator to secure business contracts under the United Nations Oil-for-Food programme. Comrade Sid:  spy who siphoned off $500 million from Iraq Oil-for-Food deal.  A UN official who held a pivotal post in the Oil-for-Food programme for Iraq has been exposed by a defector as a Russian spy who diverted almost half a billion dollars to top Russian officials in "one of the richest heists in world history". Crying Wolfowitz while the United Nations bankrolls dictators.  For two of Paul Wolfowitz's most prominent critics, Mark Malloch Brown and Ad Melkert, the war over the World Bank presidency could not have come at a better time.  Whatever else the ousting of Wolfowitz has achieved, it has done plenty to distract from the North Korea Cash-for-Kim scandal that just four months ago was threatening to engulf the United Nations agency piloted for the past eight years first by Malloch Brown and now largely by Melkert. UNder the Law.  In what surely qualifies as the single-most-promising United Nations reform effort to date, federal prosecutors in New York, jointly with the New York District Attorney, have just announced the indictment of the man who ran the U.N.'s former Oil-for-Food program:  Benon Sevan.  Charged with conspiring to commit fraud and taking close to $160,000 in bribes related to Oil-for-Food deals, Sevan, if convicted, could face a prison sentence of up to 50 years. Americans Pay for Emerging World Government.  In its new Human Development Report calling for another $86 billion in aid to the rest of the world, supposedly to fight the effects of climate change, the United Nations acts distressed that people in "rich" countries like the U.S. don't take the theory of man-made global warming more seriously.  Its answer — and this is actually spelled out in the report — is that too much "editorial balance" in the media has prevented "informed debate" about the need for "urgent action" in the form of higher taxes on energy. Blue Helmet Bigotry:  As predictable as the sun rising in the east, the United Nations has voted to assault religious liberty.  Islam, however, is to be protected from criticism since Muslims are said to be under vicious attack in the West.  The offending resolution, which denounces the "defamation of religions," had its genesis in the UN Human Rights Council, created in 2006 to replace the long-discredited Commission on Human Rights. Your U.N. at Work.  The public housing in question includes the notorious 1930s-era St. Bernard complex, which was already in a bad state before Katrina hit and an even worse state after it.  The local housing authority intends to replace the complex with mixed-income housing developments, and in the meantime is granting housing vouchers to former tenants.  But some of the new housing will be offered at — horrors! — a "market rate," to which the U.N. naturally objects.  We don't remember the U.N.'s human-rights czars being quite so vocal when Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe evicted 200,000 people from their homes in 2005. UN Enters the War on Terror — On Whose Side?  After years of speaking out of both sides of its mouth on the issue of terrorism, the United Nations has finally staked out a clear position:  Any negative portrayal of Islam will not be tolerated.  The General Assembly has just passed a resolution entitled "Combating Defamation of Religions" which deals exclusively with perceived slights committed against the Islamic faith. UN tells Kosovo to fly a new flag.  Kosovo must give up the black-on-red, double-headed eagle of the Albanian national flag and reflect the multi-ethnicity of the region.  The province, most of whose population is ethnic Albanian, has used the flag since NATO drove out Serb forces in 1999. UN celebrates disability treaty.  The UN is celebrating the coming into force of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) — a landmark agreement that aims to give the world's 650m disabled people full equality. Repairs would empty U.N..  Authorities are considering emptying the massive U.N. headquarters building for at least three years to get a long-delayed renovation project back on track and on budget, according to people who have been briefed on the plan.  Member states' deliberations and security considerations have left the $1.8 billion renovation a year behind schedule, with every month adding roughly $10 million to the overall cost of the project. The Editor says... Here's a better idea:  Spend that $1.8 billion moving the UN to Paris or Cairo or Havana. Battle for Arctic oil hinges on UN panel.  As Canada unveils plans for a military base and Russia drops a titanium flag on the seabed, lawyers say the real centre of action is an obscure United Nations-hosted body known as the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf. U.N. May Give Black Gold at North Pole to Russia.  The failure by the U.S. State Department to cite historical evidence that American explorers actually discovered the North Pole, in the wake of Russian claims to the oil-rich region, has had the desired effect.  Our media are declaring that the matter has to be resolved by the United Nations.  One writer, Eric Margolis, even proposes that the U.N. take complete control of the region. The U.N.'s Human-Rights Sham:  The removal of the diseased commission two years ago was heralded by U.N. officials as "the dawn of a new era."  Its replacement was designed to have stricter standards for membership, and rules to prevent politicized voting.  But such safeguards were neutered by the time the new Human Rights Council was approved, and the results are that the council is no better than its predecessor. Free Press Stifled at United Nations, Reporters Say.  Reporters covering the United Nations complain that the organization, whose Universal Declaration of Human Rights calls for freedom of the press, has been trying to stifle reporters covering the U.N. itself.  This month, for example, U.N. officials reportedly seized videotapes from journalists who recorded the site of a U.N. helicopter crash in Nepal. In addition, the group Reporters Without Borders says the U.N. yielded to pressure from certain member countries in refusing to recognize "Freedom of Expression Day." The UN Climate Change Conference in Bali This entire section has been moved to a page of its own. Playing on both sides of the fence: It's an endless cycle!  The conflict in Darfur is either the cause or the effect of climate change, or maybe it's both!  It just depends on where you get your information. Darfur conflict hurting environment.  Decades of drought helped trigger Darfur's violence as rival groups fought over scarce water and arable land.  Now, experts fear the war and its refugee crisis are making the environment even worse, leaving the land increasingly uninhabitable and intensifying tensions with no end to the drought in sight. Climate change behind Darfur killing:  UN's Ban.  UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said that the slaughter in Darfur was triggered by global climate change and that more such conflicts may be on the horizon, in an article published Saturday.  "The Darfur conflict began as an ecological crisis, arising at least in part from climate change," Ban said in a Washington Post opinion column. A Disarming Election:  Iran and Syria lead the U.N. Disarmament Commission.  On April 9, 2007 there was a United Nations believe-it-or-not moment extraordinaire.  At the same time that Iran's President Ahmadinejad declared his country was now capable of industrial-scale uranium enrichment, the U.N. reelected Iran as a vice chairman of the U.N. Disarmament Commission.  Yes Ripley, the very U.N. body charged with promoting nuclear nonproliferation installed in a senior position the state that the Security Council recently declared violated its nonproliferation resolutions. The Last Best Dope of Mankind.  And you thought the United Nations had a serious double-speak problem before?  Look at what happened yesterday, as the world body was forced to backtrack from an official transcript that sent alarm bells ringing around the world.  The document, released Tuesday [10/16/2007], quoted Syria's U.N. ambassador as confirming that the site attacked by Israeli jets last month was, in fact, a nuclear facility. Iran, Syria, Zimbabwe:  are you laughing yet?.  If you randomly drew 100 names from the phone book, those people would be a better guide to how to draw the many debatable and contentious rights-respecting lines that need drawing than anything likely to emerge from the UN or "the international community". 10 More Differences Between Liberals And Conservatives.  Conservatives believe that the United Nations is a corrupt, anti-American, anti-Semitic talking shop that is largely hostile to American interests and is too incompetent to be much of use in areas where it's not. Congo ruler runs up £207,000 hotel bill.  In two short visits to New York last year the leader of one of Africa's poorest countries spent $400,000 (£207,000) on hotel bills as members of his entourage drank Cristal champagne and charged tens of thousands of dollars of room service to accounts paid by the Republic of Congo's mission to the United Nations. Editor's note: This "Congo ruler" link goes to a 404 page.  Thanks to a reader by the name of Muscle Daddy for reporting the broken link.  The only other source for the story (that I have found so far) is this site, which requires registration to read the whole article.  (Not recommended.) U.N. worker charged in immigration scam.  A United Nations employee was arrested Monday on charges that he and two others used U.N. stationery in a visa fraud scheme, prosecutors said.  Vyacheslav Manokhin, a U.N. employee based in Manhattan, was accused of helping numerous non-U.S. citizens enter the country illegally by providing fraudulent documents so they could obtain visas to attend conferences that either did not exist or which they did not attend. Despair at UN over selection of 'faceless' Ban Ki-moon as general secretary.  Senior officials at the United Nations expressed despair yesterday at the prospect of Kofi Annan being succeeded as secretary general by Ban Ki-moon, the South Korean foreign minister.  "The mood among staff is glum," one of the officials said.  "We are not very excited about the outcome." UN is rotten to the core.  United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan is a prime example, I wrote last week, of Peter's Principle — "an individual in a hierarchical organization rises to the level of his incompetence" — at work.  Now, just weeks before his departure from the United Nations, Annan revealed how utterly depraved his politics are when he stated in a BBC interview Iraq is now worse than it was under Saddam Hussein.  Annan is of course the ethically void Secretary-General under whose watch the Oil-for-Food program, with Iraq's old regime, turned out to be the worst financial scam in the history of the United Nations. U.N. Oil-For-Food Sentence Reduced.  A judge has reduced the sentence of South Korean businessman Tongsun Park, who accepted more than $2.5 million to secretly work on Iraq's behalf to influence the United Nations oil-for-food program. Obama's Iraqi Oil for Food connection.  Rezko's relationship with Barack Obama goes back to at least 1990, when Obama's law firm did work relating to a Rezko housing development.  Rezko was a key early-money fund raiser in Obama's state Senate campaigns and his failed run at the US Congress.  In June 2005, when the mansion was purchased, Rezko was widely known to be under federal investigation.  Rezko also is a key fundraiser for Illinois Democratic Governor Rod Blagojevich. Former Russian Spy Says Government Stole $500 Million From U.N.'s Oil-For-Food Program in Iraq.  Sergei Tretyakov, who defected to the United States in 2000 as a double agent, says he oversaw an operation that helped Saddam's regime manipulate the price of Iraqi oil sold under the program — and allow Russia to skim profits.  Tretyakov, former deputy head of intelligence at Russia's U.N. mission from 1995 to 2000, names some names, but sticks mainly to code names. UN denies helping Zimbabwe diamond smuggling.  The United Nations said today an independent probe was being conducted into whether UN vehicles were used to smuggle diamonds from a mine in Zimbabwe.  Spokeswoman Michele Montas confirmed that Larry Johnson, the deputy legal counsel, had received a letter alleging that at least one vehicle from the UN Development Fund (UNDP) was involved in the smuggling. The case of Sanjaya Bahel: Former U.N. official convicted.  A former United Nations official was convicted Thursday of charges that he helped a friend secure $100 million in U.N. contracts in exchange for a huge discount on two luxury Manhattan apartments and cash. U.N. sees failings in probe of graft.  U.N. officials acknowledge their internal investigation failed to produce evidence against a U.N. procurement officer who was convicted of taking kickbacks in federal court last week, and say U.N. oversight procedures still must be improved. 'UN is human rights nightmare'.  The UN's Human Rights Commission has been told it is a hypocritical and prejudiced body which does nothing to help millions of people in need, due to its obsessive focus on demonizing Israel.  In a speech given during a session of the Human Rights Commission on March 23rd, Hillel Neuer, Director of UN Watch, delivered a scathing attack on the commission's track record, describing it as a "human rights nightmare." Texas oilman Wyatt sentenced in corruption scandal.  Texas oilman Oscar Wyatt Jr. was sentenced to a year in prison Tuesday [11/27/2007] for his role in corrupting the UN oil-for-food program, winning leniency from a judge who cited his military service during World War II and his many good deeds during his lifetime. Update: Oscar Wyatt reports to prison in Beaumont.  Houston oilman Oscar Wyatt began his one-year prison sentence shortly before noon today when he reported to a federal prison in Beaumont. … Wyatt pleaded guilty on Oct. 1 to a single count of conspiring to make illegal payments for Iraqi oil under the United Nations' Oil-for-Food program.  The minimum security federal prison in Beaumont, part of a federal prison complex, is the closest to Wyatt's Houston home. The Editor says... Having lived in Beaumont for most of the 1970s, I can tell you that Beaumont is a great place for a prison.  A prison would be an improvement in almost any area of the city, even if only as a reminder to all who pass by, that plenty of prison space is available. El Paso Corp. settles oil-for-food scam case.  Houston pipeline giant El Paso Corp. will pay more than $7.7 million to settle claims that it helped the former Iraqi regime receive millions in kickbacks through a U.N.-sponsored humanitarian program. Houston men plead guilty in oil-for-food case.  Houston oilman David Chalmers, accused of funneling illegal payments to Saddam Hussein's regime at at time when Iraq was the target of strict economic sanctions, pleaded guilty today to a conspiracy charge. Wyatt Pleads Guilty in Oil-For-Food Case.  Texas oilman Oscar Wyatt Jr. pleaded guilty Monday to a federal conspiracy charge, abruptly ending his trial by admitting he approved a $200,000 payment directly to an Iraqi bank account knowing it violated the rules of the U.N. oil-for-food program.  Under the plea agreement, Wyatt, 83, will be sentenced to 18 to 24 months in prison and forfeit $11 million. Iraq's oil-for-food scandal perpetrators go unpunished.  Slightly more than a year after a United Nations inquiry discovered a staggering level of graft by officials and corporations worldwide in buying cheap oil and selling goods to Iraq experts warn the great majority of alleged perpetrators are escaping scot-free. Oil for Hussein.  As front pages report every bit of bad news on the Iraqi war front in bold type, newspapers are giving precious little ink to what could be the biggest kickback scheme in world history.  Call it:  How Saddam Hussein siphoned $10.1 billion for his regime — thanks to the United Nations. Annan orders probe of U.N. office.  U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, reacting to an article in The Washington Times, asked U.N. investigators yesterday [12/13/2006] to look into claims of fraud, favoritism and intimidation inside the U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Annan laments oil-for-food charges mar his legacy.  Secretary-General Kofi Annan lamented on Tuesday [12/19/2006] that his 10 years as U.N. leader may end up being remembered only for the oil-for-food program for Iraq, saying blame for a financial scandal was misdirected.  One of his top regrets as secretary-general, he said, was that the allegations of U.N. mismanagement of the $64 billion Iraqi humanitarian program had been "exploited to undermine the organisation." What Is Annanism?  Just as with other such ethicists as a lip-biting Bill Clinton or creased-browed Jimmy Carter, [Kofi] Annan is as publicly acclaimed as he is privately ignored.  We like such itinerant moralists — more when they are off the job than on, and always in retrospect rather than contemporaneously.  As we watch them hedge, we somehow feel apologetic rather than outraged over their latest deception. Uganda terrorizes its own citizens under the auspices of UN gun control mandate.  For months now, Ugandan army troops have been garrisoned in the northeast part of the country under orders to disarm the local populace ... But in its effort to "disarm," the Ugandan army, supported by tanks and helicopter gunships, is burning down villages, sexually torturing men, raping women, and plundering what few possessions the tribespeople own.  Tens of thousands of victims have been turned into refugees. The United Nations abortion dilemma:  Let's briefly review two contradictory United Nations (U.N.) talking points.  (1) Abortion is a matter of "women's rights;"  (2) Killing a "girl child" in the womb is "the most extreme form of violence against women."  To hold both of these beliefs at the same time means to live with constant cognitive dissonance.  It doesn't take a genius to realize that the U.N. is on the horns of a dilemma; that is, the two alternatives are mutually exclusive. U.S. women doing fine without International Violence Against Women Act.  Feminists have cooked up a new plan to raid the U.S. Treasury for more feminist pork.  They want Congress to pass the International Violence Against Women Act. … Who better to introduce the act than Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., the leading advocate of ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women?  Biden never saw a U.N. treaty or a radical feminist spending bill that he didn't like. Re-brand global warming as economic woe:  U.N. draft.  A fight against global warming could work better if viewed as part of the world's economic problems and not a purely environmental headache, a draft United Nations report says.  The report, due for release in Bangkok on May 4, says economic policies for everything from forestry to insurance can have big spinoffs in limiting greenhouse gas emissions. Media Promote Global Warming Fraud.  On the matter of global intervention to stop global warming, there seems to be no need for scientific evidence to justify what is shaping up as a global carbon tax of 35 cents a gallon of gas on the American people.  Our media want the public to believe that the same organization that gave us the oil-for-food scandal can be trusted on its dire predictions of calamity from alleged man-made global warming. Scandal number N+1 United Nations Dictator's Program:  Saddam Hussein managed to pull off the $100 billion Oil for Food scam right under the noses of the United Nations officials charged with administering it.  Now another dictator with nuclear ambitions has succeeded in a similar trick, this time manipulating the United Nations Development Program in North Korea. Scandal number N+2 Mystery Surfaces Over Apartment of Kofi Annan.  The apartment was where Mr. Annan and his wife lived before 1997, when he became secretary-general.  The Roosevelt Island home is part of an estate of low-rent state-regulated housing.  For years, the Annans saved considerable sums by occupying an apartment meant to help financially strapped low- to moderate-income New York families. Kofi Annan Sidesteps Questions About Roosevelt Island Apartment.  In his last U.N. press conference, Secretary-General Annan yesterday [12/19/2006] sidestepped a question about how the lease of a sought-after low-income residence he once lived in came to be held by a member of his family. Scandal number N+3 U.N. Official Uses Two Birthdates.  Kamil Idris, has for almost 24 years been using two different birthdates, nine years apart.  In recently amending the discrepancy, Idris has changed his current age in U.N. records from 61 to 52.  That would be bizarre in any context, but it is an alarming discovery at the World Intellectual Property Organization, or WIPO, a U.N. agency with an annual budget of more than $200 million that is supposed to be one of the world's great bastions of accurate record-keeping. Scandal number N+4 Head of UN patent agency to quit after row over alleged falsified documents.  The head of the U.N. patent agency is to leave his post a year early, officials said Thursday [12/6/2007].  Kamil Idris, who was due to step down from his post as director-general of the World Intellectual Property Organization in 2009, had faced pressure to resign after using an apparently false birth date to get jobs and win promotions. Scandal number N+5 Bribery, bid-rigging found in U.N. peacekeeping contracts.  A United Nations task force has uncovered a pervasive pattern of corruption and mismanagement involving hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts for fuel, food, construction and other materials used by U.N. peacekeeping operations, which are in the midst of their largest expansion in 15 years. Scandal number N+6 U.N.'s World Food Program Sitting on Cash Stockpile.  Just weeks before it announced the onset of a global food crisis and the urgent need for donors to provide at least $775 million in additional funding, the World Food Program was sitting on a cash and near-cash stockpile of more than $1.22 billion. Scandal number N+7 Scandal Central:  UN Corruption Seethes On.  The United Nations likes to sell itself as a mentor of good governance.  But the recent deep-sixing of a damning in-house report suggests it might more honestly advertise itself as an example of how to foster bad governance — and get away with it.  The report in question, labeled "strictly confidential," centers on alleged transgressions by longtime UN staffer Guido Bertucci, the director of — what else? — the UN good-governance office, the Division of Public Administration and Development Management. Scandal number N+8 Silent Scandals:  In just the last month, an unusual number of what were formerly regarded as scandals went unnoticed and largely unreported by the old media, to wit: ... A report detailing how UN workers are actually stealing food from the starving people for whom it was intended and selling it on the black market was merely a blip on the radar.  The UN said it had no idea that the food wasn't getting to the starving people of Somalia until shown pictures of UN-packaged goods on sale. Journalist Who Exposes U.N. Corruption Disappears From Google.  How big do you have to be to earn the wrath of the United Nations and Internet giant Google?  If you're journalist Matthew Lee, all it takes are some critical articles and a scrappy little Web site.  Lee is the editor-in-chief, Webmaster and pretty much the only reporter for Inner City Press, a pint-sized Internet news operation that's taken on Goliath-sized entities like Citigroup since 1987. Requiem for a welterweight:  The concern swirls around this heavily subsidized Roosevelt Island apartment, which was passed on to his brother and his family after the dapper little mouthpiece moved into his UN supplied multi-million dollar mansion, where we contribute some 40% of its operating costs, all courtesy of the monies we shovel into the slavering maw of that failing body of abject sycophants, bandits, and tin pot tyrants.  And the main question centers on whether Kobina Annan, some sort of an ambassador to Ghana, and his wife, will remain on our public dole forever. Kofi and U.N. 'Ideals'.  When Mr. Annan was named Secretary General 10 years ago, he did so as the U.S.-backed candidate of reform. Jesse Helms, then-chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told Mr. Annan that "if you choose to be an agent of real and deep-seated change, you will find many supporters — and even allies — here in the U.S. Congress."  Senator Helms's expectations were not met.  Seven years later — thanks to U.S. military action that Mr. Annan did everything in his power to prevent — we learned that he had presided over the greatest bribery scheme in history, known as Oil for Food. United Nation's Chief Kofi Annan's Legacy of Failure:  United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan delivered his swan song last week at the Truman Presidential Library in Missouri.  It was a thinly veiled parting shot at U.S. foreign policy delivered by an embittered U.N. leader seething with self-righteous indignation and resentment.  Annan's Missouri speech will go down in history as one of the most blatant assaults on a U.S. administration by a serving U.N. official. UNder strain:  In recent years, the United Nations has often gone out of its way to avoid getting involved in the world's trouble spots.  It ignored genocide in Darfur.  Pulled out of Iraq in 2003.  Done nothing to stem Iran's nuclear ambitions.  Can an organization this compromised do much to improve things? Should America Pull out of the United Nations?  I once worked at the United Nations and have vowed that someday I will write about what a soul-scorching experience it was — especially for someone who was and still is a white Jewish-American feminist and Zionist.  I had to absorb the most virulent, almost surreal hatred because of who I am and for the views that I hold.  This happened long before I was perceived to have crossed any political aisle. General Assembly OKs U.N. Renovation.  The General Assembly finally gave a green light to start a $1.9 billion renovation of the U.N.'s landmark headquarters in New York after years of delays, a move welcomed Saturday [12/23/2006] by outgoing Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Answer Chavez.  America has seen this before, seen Krushchev bang his shoe on the table and say "We will bury you."  We grew up watching our flag being burned on TV.  So it's tempting to think this is part of a meaningless continuum.  But the temperature of the world is very high, and maybe we're not stuck in a continuum but barreling down a dark corridor.  The problem with heated words now is that it's not the old world anymore.  In the old world, incompetent governments dragged cannons through the mud to set up a ragged front.  Now every nut and nation wants, has or is trying to develop nukes. Tolerating the intolerable.  Last week the impotence of the world Jewish community was on display for all to see.  For all the talk of how the Jews control the media, the banks and the American government, a man whose declared intention it is to wipe Israel off the map was treated as an international dignitary in the city that contains more Jews than any other on earth. ... So now the world Jewish community must contend with the sad truth that 60 years after the Holocaust, a man can declare himself the new exterminator of the Jews and still be treated with respect. United Nations 'army' proposed.  International rapid reaction force could be deployed within 48 hours of a UN green light. UN Labels on US Parks.  U.N. designations such as "World Heritage Site" and "Biosphere Reserve" are being placed on dozens of U.S parks and monuments, including Independence Hall, the Statue of Liberty and Yellowstone National Park. And That's the Way It Is.  To my great surprise, I received a form letter from Walter Cronkite inviting me to contribute to the Campaign for Global Change, sponsored by the World Federalist Association.  Walter Cronkite has long since identified himself as a liberal, but I didn't know until this letter that he was so committed to plunging America into world government. Video:  Hillary Clinton and Walter Cronkite at the World Federalist Association meeting, 1999, where Mr. Crokite was awarded the Norman Cousins Global Governance Award. The Editor says... This is a rather alarming piece of video, in which Walter Crokite mocks the idea of a world government ruled by Jesus Christ, and then actually says, "Join me.  I'm glad to sit here at the right hand of Satan." More information about Walter Crokite. Throw the U.N. on the Ash Heap of History.  In his book, "The U.N. Exposed:  How the United Nations Sabotages America's Security", Eric Shawn, a senior correspondent and anchor for the Fox News Channel, takes the reader behind the scenes to reveal an utterly corrupt international institution.  Like its predecessor, the League of Nations, the U.N. has demonstrated the maniacal insanity of expecting nations to cooperate with one another for any other reason than self-interest. The Curse of Wilson:  [President] Bush is embracing the international system, which liberals consider to be Woodrow Wilson's gift to mankind.  Wilson was the guiding spirit of the Treaty of Versailles and the League of Nations. … Of the many bad habits Woodrow Wilson bequeathed to America, one of the worst was his penchant for talking about countries as if they were people. UN — The last refuge of scoundrels.  Ah, the UN.  We've gone from a relatively well functioning operation under Trygvie Lie and Dag Hammarskjold to the finest of charades under Boutros Boutros Ghalli. Last chance for UN.  As the United Nations looks for its next secretary-general to replace Kofi Annan at the end of the year, the organisation is rocked by failures and scandals.  One of the UN's core goals is to protect human rights.  And yet the UN Commission on Human Rights has dictators and tyrants deciding on its membership. Kofi's Biggest Regret:  Saddam's Rape Rooms Are Closed.  This isn't exactly the way he put it, but the fact that Kofi Annan's "biggest regret" upon leaving the United Nations is that he didn't prevent our "invasion" of Iraq, amounts to the same thing. Plunder Down Under:  At United Nations headquarters, Secretary General Kofi Annan likes to imply that the Oil-for-Food era is over ("If there was a scandal" was his locution earlier this year).  But Down Under, that landmark U.N. scam is right now all over the headlines.  On Monday [11/27/2006], Australia's Cole commission released the findings of its year-long inquiry into some $220 million in kickbacks allegedly paid by the Australian Wheat Board (AWB) to Saddam Hussein's U.N.-sanctioned regime under Oil-for-Food. Kofi Annan's Last Cover-up:  The fact is that if Mr. Annan departs Turtle Bay without having made his financial disclosure form public, the public will have reason to wonder.  His term at the United Nations will be remembered only for the oil-for-food scandal, the sex-for-food scandal in the Congo, the massacres at Rwanda, Cambodia, and Srebrenica, and inaction in the face of the genocide in Darfur — and establishing that deception, secrecy, and patronage cannot be pierced by the reforms by which he sought to rescue his reputation. Update: Kofi Annan's Cover-Up.  It was big news in the Washington Times, and the paper deserves credit for covering this important development.  Despite claims about being more open, honest and reform-minded, the United Nations will NOT be releasing the financial disclosure form filed by Secretary-General Kofi Annan.  The cover-up continues. The Status of United Nations Reform:  Sixty years ago, the United Nations was founded to maintain international peace and security, promote self-determination and basic human rights, and protect fundamental freedoms.  Sadly, weaknesses in the organization have prevented it from fully realizing these high aspirations.  An accretion of outdated or duplicative mandates, insufficient transparency and accountability, and the resistance of member states to reform have resulted in a system that is bureaucratic, costly, cumbersome, lacking in oversight, and often incapable of fulfilling the responsibilities placed upon it. Send Out the Clowns.  From the rostrum of the U.N. General Assembly in New York, Hugo Ch&aacuate;vez declared that Bush is the devil.  The lectern still smelled like sulfur, the odor left by the U.S. president, he observed. … Not everything that Ch&aacuate;vez said should be dismissed, however.  Surprisingly, amid that torrent of claptrap, he proposed a luminous initiative that should be immediately considered:  Take the United Nations out of New York and move it to the Third World.  Bravo! Indicting the United Nations:  Largely unnoticed is the xenophobia that exists on a daily basis at the United Nations.  While the UN constantly hectors the US to send money that constitutes 25% of its budget, Americans hold only 7.2% of its more than 56,000 jobs.  A study by the General Accounting Office determined that, at the senior, decision-making level, only 2,076 Americans, 9.5%, hold such positions.  This prejudice exists throughout the UN's operations.  The World Food Program, for which the US provides more than half of its funding, is staffed by 90% of non-American personnel who, every year, find it difficult to account for tons of food that simply goes missing. Welcome Back to the 1950s.  With the United Nations, specifically its Security Council, demonstrating anew that it won't or can't do much about the North Korean nuclear threat, it's back to when deterrence was the only weapon left to us:  Mutually assured destruction.  Or Mini-MAD, if you prefer.  That's where we are, thanks to the Security Council, which bypassed a meaningful arms embargo proposal from the Bush administration in favor of toothless resolution 1718, which tries to gum North Korean madman Kim Jong-il into submission. Kofi's successor:  Kofi Annan, the United Nations Secretary-General, steps down in December, and the race to succeed him is still wide open.  The process of choosing his successor is anything but clear: by tradition a candidate "emerges" from discussion in the Security Council, and the name is then put to the General Assembly for approval.  In practice, the successful contender is chosen after heated wrangling, horse trading and threats by the veto-wielding members to block anyone they do not like. Annan's Ugly Exit.  Outgoing U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan traveled to the Harry Truman Library yesterday [12/11/2006] to deliver his valedictory.  It was yet another sanctimonious broadside against the Bush administration. Annan's dishonor:  You have to wonder what Annan would have said in 1945 when [President] Truman ordered nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki instead of waiting on the possibility Japan's militarists might surrender.  Clearly, Annan, quite undiplomatically, was trying to score cheap political points while molesting American history. Kofi's Classless Exit:  Departing U.N. chief Kofi Annan has much to answer for during his tenure, including his own possibly criminal behavior.  Instead, in one of his final speeches, he lets loose a flood of bile, mostly aimed at the U.S.  First in an op-ed in the Washington Post and later in a farewell speech, Annan laid out his case for what ails the world.  And for the most part, it can be boiled down to five simple words:  the United States of America. Annan Slammed for Speech Critical of US.  Drawing a cold response from conservatives, outgoing U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan Monday [12/11/2006] took a swipe at U.S. military actions abroad and rebuked the Bush administration for abuses during the post-9/11 campaign against Islamist terrorists. White House Considers Appointing Pro-U.N. Activist as Ambassador to the United Nations.  Various reports indicate that liberal Republican Richard S. Williamson is in the running for the post of U.S. Ambassador to the U.N.  Williamson, a former U.S. deputy ambassador at the U.N., is also a former board member of the pro-U.N. lobby group, the U.N. Association, and favors "alternative financing mechanisms" for the world body.  This is a euphemism for global taxes. Shocking Truth Uncovered About U.N. Taxation Plan:  From September 14-16, 2005, the U.N. is holding a "high-level plenary meeting" of the U.N. General Assembly to "review progress in fulfillment of commitments" contained in the U.N. Millennium Declaration.  The end result will be more pressure on the U.S. for tens of billions of dollars in more foreign aid.  In fact, U.N. pressure is building for imposing global taxes on the U.S. The Bush Record on the U.N.:  Increased funding of the U.N. (U.S. contributions to the U.N. System from risen from $3.1 billion in fiscal year 2001 to $5.3 billion in fiscal year 2005).  Supports ratification of the Law of the Sea Treaty.  Supported Ban Ki-moon, the South Korean foreign minister, as new U.N. Secretary-General, despite his support for global taxes.  Ordered Texas courts to comply with an International Court of Justice ruling in a death penalty case.  Renewed membership in UNESCO, at a cost of $67 million a year. New U.N. Secretary-General in Early Flap.  New U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon ran into trouble on his first day of work Tuesday [1/2/2007] over Saddam Hussein's execution when he failed to state the United Nations' opposition to the death penalty and said capital punishment should be a decision of individual countries. United Nations' Credibility on the Line.  If the United Nations is going to be an effective broker for peace and conduit for diplomacy, it must itself be above reproach.  The United Nation's track record with regard to Israel, specifically, is unbalanced at best; anti-Semitic at worst.  In just a single session of the UN General Assembly, it passed 21 individual resolutions criticizing Israel. Last stand for U.N. in Sudan.  Finally, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan pulled the world's attention back to the crisis during a summit this week in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.  As part of his legacy Annan would undoubtedly like to see an end to the warfare.  But the United Nations has been feckless and impotent as this fearsome genocide churns on endlessly. The UN's Dictator Tour 2006:  Not the least unfortunate aspect of the United Nations is its habit of providing Third World despots with a prominent pulpit to speechify against the agency's principal sponsor:  the United States. What really smells at the U.N.:  That dynamic duo of demagoguery — Presidents Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran — visited the United Nations earlier this month.  Their outrageous addresses before the U.N. brings to mind the definition of "demagogue" proffered by H.L. Mencken.  He said a demagogue was "one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots."  Thus, any reasonable person who failed to walk out of the U.N. as these two leaders babbled on deserve the label of "idiot." U.N. Approves Global Taxes to Fight AIDS .  There was a minor media breakthrough on this matter, with the New York Times noting, "A group of countries led by France plan to raise at least $300 million next year, mostly through taxes on airline tickets, to help pay for the treatment of children with AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria, a senior French official said yesterday. … The Times was careful not to describe these as international or global taxes.  But the taxes are designed to go for global purposes and finance international agencies. United Nations' AIDS programme under fire.  Authors accuse agency of putting politics before health. HillaryCare for the World:  The World Health Organization (WHO) is a United Nations body created, in the words of its constitution, to "promote and protect the health of all peoples." Chaos, conflict, tyranny:  would we do better without the UN?  It is funny that the acronym for the United Nations is UN.  It always makes me think of negatives.  Unhelpful.  Unrealistic.  Unproductive.  Unhappy. … Despite all this, most people still tend to assume that the UN is the best place to look for a solution to this latest crisis in the Middle East. U.N. Stands for "UnNecessary".  You might be asking, "What do 'occupying forces' have to do with issues of disability?"  The answer is, "Absolutely nothing!"  But Middle East Arab countries were willing to trade off their so-called "pro-life stand" in order to see language referring to Israel and the United States in a negative light. The U.N.'s Masquerade:  The problem with the president's warning is that the United Nations has been one of the chief obstacles to effective action in Darfur.  Its failure to stop the killing offers another case study in the U.N.'s debilitating mix of pomposity, cynicism, and moral bewilderment. An unmitigated disaster.  There is a good reason that Hizbullah chief Hassan Nasrallah has accepted UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which sets the terms for a cease-fire between his jihad army and the State of Israel.  The resolution represents a near-total victory for Hizbullah and its state sponsors Iran and Syria, and an unprecedented defeat for Israel and its ally the United States. The UN Terrorist Enablers Council:  So the top honcho at the UN wants yet another cease-fire in the Middle East?  How brilliant!  Now why didn't anyone else think of that before?  Syndicated columnist and economist Thomas Sowell said in a column Thursday: "… There have been more cease-fires in the Middle East than anywhere else.  If cease-fires actually promoted peace, the Middle East would be the most peaceful region on the face of the earth instead of the most violent." New Report Details U.N. Fall from Grace.  A new study released by The National Center for Public Policy Research details an embarrassing and alarming number of serious controversies involving the United Nations and argues for meaningful reform. Support for United Nations Justifiably Weakened by Financial, Sex and Human Rights Scandals.  The esteem in which the American public holds the U.N. is sinking.  In the opinion of an increasing number of Americans, the U.N. not only assaults U.S. national sovereignty but also is a corrupt and incompetent organization.  A June 2005 survey by pollster Scott Rasmussen found 42 percent of Americans held an unfavorable view of the U.N. U.N. Investigated Over 300 for Sex Abuse.  The United Nations has investigated more than 300 members of U.N. peacekeeping missions for alleged sexual exploitation and abuse during the past three years and more than half were fired or sent home, according to a senior U.N. official. Call for ban on 'defamation of Islam'.  Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf today called for a ban on the "defamation of Islam" in a speech to the UN General Assembly in which he took a veiled swipe at Pope Benedict XVI for his remarks linking the Muslim faith to violence. The UN is barking but the US can bite.  If Iran is going to worry about the prospect of sanctions, it should be those that the US is drawing up on its own, not anything trickling out of the UN.  There are hints that the US may enforce its current sanctions laws against foreign companies dealing with Iran far more aggressively than it has yet done — and Congress may tighten the laws further.  That could hurt Iran and companies dealing with it more than anything the UN laboriously does. The Great U.N. Delusion:  If religion is the opiate of the masses, then the United Nations is the opiate of the elites.  Global U.N. worship is based on an odd mix of delusion and realpolitik.  To self-described internationalists, the U.N. is supposed to be a counterweight to America's "unipolar" dominance.  In the wake of the U.S.-led victory in the Cold War, America greeted an ungrateful world eager to see the remaining superpower counterbalanced by, well, something.  And the U.N. was the only viable candidate. Kick U.N. out of New York City.  Given the pathetic record of the United Nations over the last 60 years, Bush should tell Kofi Annan and his band of thieves that he is throwing the full weight of his administration behind a plan to remove the United Nations from its New York City digs and withdraw U.S. funding of this corrupt, anti-American, anti-Semitic organization of terrorist sympathizers.  Give them until, say, the end of next year to clear out. Pull Canada out of the UN.  Because of the tragic deaths of a Canadian peacekeeper in a UN bunker near the border, everyone now knows that, in fact, the UN has been there for years — since 1978, in fact.  It didn't stop terrorist attacks on Israel in the past, it isn't stopping the war today, and it won't do anything in the future, either. Gender Equality Gobbledygook: One would think that the just-released 148-page United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) report, "The State of the World's Children 2007" — with its exclusive focus on gender equality — was produced by leftists and feminists.  Instead, it is the product of Ann M. Veneman, the Executive Director of UNICEF and a Bush appointee who promised to bring back a sane perspective on children's issues. … The 148-page UNICEF report is all about the left's "women's agenda," albeit papered over with slogans such as "a world fit for women is a world fit for children."  We expected more of a Bush appointee who was supposed to bring a whiff of reality to UNICEF.  As a result, once again we have to ask, "Can anything good come out of Turtle Bay?" Feminist Scheme for U.N. Reform:  Thank goodness the membership of the new Human Rights Council includes such upholders of individual freedoms and civil liberties as Cuba, China, and Russia.  Of course we're all supposed to stand up, applaud, and send in our check.  Just for the record, U.S. taxpayers pay $420 million a year to the United Nations for "assessed" dues, plus billions more in "voluntary" contributions to the overall U.N. system. Feckless UN:  Suppose the UN were to support Mr. Anan's proposal?  What is a "stabilization" force?  By definition a stabilization force is a small contingent of so-called peace-keepers, embarked upon its mission after fighting has ceased.  We saw in the Balkans that those peace-keepers easily become hostages for an aggressor preparing to resume military hostilities.  Or worse, as we saw in Africa and the Balkans, peace-keepers become sexual predators exploiting the plight of displaced populations. Fox News Vs. the U.N., Part Two.  After the U.N.'s number two man delivered a hysterical broadside at Fox News and Rush Limbaugh for being critical of the world body, Eric Shawn of Fox News did a story noting the involvement of convicted inside trader and left-wing anti-Bush eccentric billionaire George Soros in the pro-U.N. event which featured U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Mark Malloch Brown.  Soros is a big U.N. backer and even helps underwrite the awards given out by the U.N. Correspondents Association. UN Bashing is Hardly Enough.  During its six decades, the overall record of the United Nations has been so rife with failure, corruption and incompetence — to say nothing of poor judgment, rudeness and condescension, as exemplified by [deputy secretary-general Mark] Malloch Brown — that it deserves to be disdained. Oil-for-Food scandal aired in court.  A South Korean acting as a go-between with Boutros Boutros Ghali, the UN Secretary-General at the time, asked for $10 million from Iraq to "take care of some people" before the creation of the UN Oil-for-Food programme, a court in New York has been told.  Iraq set aside $15 million for the alleged bribery scheme and sent $3 million in cash to New York in the year that the UN's largest humanitarian programme was set up, the court was told. Update: South Korean convicted in oil-for-food case.  A U.S. federal court jury found South Korean lobbyist Tongsun Park guilty of acting as an unregistered foreign agent for Iraq and money-laundering on Thursday [7/13/2006] for his role in the U.N. oil-for-food scandal. U.N. fails to make oil-for-food reforms, according to an investigator.  The United Nations has failed to take on board some of the key recommendations of an investigation into corruption in its oil-for-food programme in Iraq, an investigator told Reuters on Thursday [9/7/2006]. Exposing the U.N. Oil-for-Food Scandal.  As U.S. News and World Report senior writer Michael Barone explained:  "The U.N. Oil for Food program, we learn from the reporting of Claudia Rosett in The Wall Street Journal, was a rip-off on the order of $21 billion — with money intended for hungry Iraqis going instead to Saddam Hussein and his henchmen, to bribed French and Russian businesses and, evidently, to the U.N.'s own man in charge, Benon Savan." Editor's Note: The article above includes links to numerous other articles about the Oil for Food scandal. The United Nations in your wallet.  In spite of some pretty torrid scandals in recent years, the United Nations is far from finished.  In fact, Kofi Annan, Secretary General of the U.N., is leading the gambit for perhaps its biggest power-grab yet — independent tax-raising powers or globo-taxation. Cashless Society "Inevitable;" a Boost to Globalist Taxers?  Money won't be around anymore in just a few years, according to trend watchers.  And the same globalist taxers that are already trying to confiscate your hard-earned money can't wait for the cashless era to begin. The UN Plan for Global Migration:  The dream of a New World Order was born long before socialist visionaries (including Franklin Roosevelt and the leaders of the Federal Council of Churches) enthroned Communist Alger Hiss as the first head of the United Nations. U.S. probe targets U.N. department.  "U.N. resources are unnecessarily vulnerable to mismanagement, waste, fraud and abuse," the GAO report says, "because the procurement process is improperly managed; has not committed to maintaining a professional, trained work force; and has failed to adopt a full range of ethical guidelines." The Doomsday clock.  Thirty days.  That's how long the UN Security Council gave Iran last week to stop trying to enrich uranium, which could be used for an atomic bomb.  And if Iran doesn't politely withdraw its application to join the nuclear club by the time the clock runs out, well, the UN will just have to meet again.  Doesn't sound like much of a threat, does it? Australian PM Denies Knowledge of Oil-for-Food Bribery Claims.  Called to answer questions about alleged bribes paid by Australia's wheat export body to the regime of Saddam Hussein, Prime Minister John Howard on Thursday become the country's first political leader to testify before a commission of inquiry in more than two decades. Possible Saddam-Al Qaeda Link Seen in U.N. Oil-for-Food Program.  Did Saddam Hussein use any of his ill-gotten billions filched from the United Nations Oil-for-Food program to help fund Al Qaeda?  Investigations have shown that the former Iraqi dictator grafted and smuggled more than $10 billion from the program that for seven years prior to Saddam's overthrow was meant to bring humanitarian aid to ordinary Iraqis. Cash-for-Kofi:  Despite frequent declarations of reform, it seems that United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has learned nothing from the U.N.'s Oil-for-Food scandal, in which Saddam Hussein's billions corrupted the U.N.'s entire Iraq embargo bureaucracy. Earlier this month, Annan accepted from the ruler of Dubai an environmental prize of $500,000 — a fat sum that represents the latest in a long series of glaring conflicts of interest. Environmental advocate arrived in private jet.  The head of the UN's environmental program opted for one of the least environmentally friendly modes of transport to get to this week's conference in Tromsø.  He claims he had no choice. The United States of America Should Withdraw From the United Nations.  The United Nations, founded in 1948, is not simply incapable of stopping wars and genocides, it is so utterly corrupt that it needs to be eliminated entirely in the hope that the many other existing international organizations, treaties, unilateral and bilateral relations can be allowed to do what it will not and cannot. Congress Passes Ron Paul's Amendment to Reject UN Taxes.  The US House of Representatives today [6/15/2005] unanimously passed legislation introduced by Congressman Ron Paul that ensures no Americans will be forced to pay taxes to the United Nations.  Under Paul's amendment to a State Department funding bill, no US taxpayer dollars may be used to develop, implement, or impose any tax on American citizens to raise revenue for the UN. Citizen Distraction:  Who's the terrorist of the day?  The US was close to a civil tax revolt against the 16th amendment to the Constitution when all this occurred.  Now who's watching taxes when anthrax is loose?  Who's watching the government land grabs now that they're watching out for a plague?  Citizen Distraction.  It's a great game of domestic subjugation of citizens while they're distracted by mass scare tactics that do not warrant all the media attention causing the scares.  And where major media is, there's something behind that curtain they don't want us to see.  It might be the UN flag. How Communism and The U.N. Set Out to Destroy America:  Any limit on UN jurisdiction was deliberately camouflaged by another public relations campaign that painted the organization as a world body of great benevolence that must secure the approval of its members.  It is unclear if our World Heritage Sites, which put American land in the hands of and under the control of the United Nations, are examples of such benevolence. Kofi Annan Aide Shredded Thousands of Documents.  The destruction of highly sensitive documents by Kofi Annan's chief aide is a massive obstruction of justice that demands major congressional investigation.  It gives the impression of a huge cover-up at the very heart of the United Nations, and casts a dark cloud over the credibility of the UN secretary-general.  It projects an image of impunity, arrogance and unaccountability on the part of the leadership of the United Nations. How the Oil for Food scandal unfolded.  Around four days after the Iraqi army invaded Kuwait in August 1990, the UN imposed economic sanctions prohibiting member states from trading in Iraqi commodities or products.  These remained in place until 2003.  In April 1995, the UN agreed to let the Iraq government sell oil, with all funds to be deposited into an escrow bank account monitored by the UN to be used for buying humanitarian goods — dubbed Oil for Food. Oil for kickbacks.  An investigation of the United Nations' Oil for Food program concluded that thousands of companies and individuals, including several in Houston, paid kickbacks to Saddam Hussein so they could purchase underpriced Iraqi oil or sell goods to Iraq while sanctions were in place.  The investigation rightly faults the United Nations and Secretary-General Kofi Annan for not controlling or preventing the corruption.  However, the Oil for Food program was doomed to corruption the moment Saddam was allowed to select the oil buyers and goods sellers. No Rush to Examine Oil-For-Food Documents.  In a secret and secure location, a set of computers holds the hundreds of thousands of files that document how companies and individuals from some 40 countries exploited the U.N. oil-for-food program in league with Saddam Hussein. Don't Shred on Me.  The most urgent implication of Mr. Volcker's incomplete findings is that his huge and expensively assembled archives must be preserved intact well beyond the Dec. 31 deadline by which Mr. Volcker now plans to start disposing of them.  Above all, they must not be handed back to the U.N., where too much related to the corrupt Oil for Food program has already vanished — including, to a fascinating extent, Secretary-General Kofi Annan's own powers of recollection. More oil-for-food probes may be launched.  Swiss authorities may launch criminal investigations into the conduct of several dozen companies in connection with the United Nations' oil-for-food program in Iraq, officials said Wednesday [11/16/2005]. Oil-for-Food panel to keep records an extra month.  The U.N.-appointed panel investigating the scandal-tainted, oil-for-food program for Iraq said on Wednesday [11/16/2005] it would stay open an extra month to help prosecutors build cases against corrupt companies and officials. France implicated in oil-for-food.  French authorities reportedly knew of fraud being committed by government officials involved in the oil-for-food program. … A series of investigations in France and in the United States have implicated French politicians and businessmen in a web of kickbacks connected to the oil-for-food program. Probe to blow the lid off massive U.N. scandal.  Documents prove oil-for-food corruption involving world leaders. Woes beyond oil-for-food.  So, up at the United Nations, Benon Sevan is out and John Bolton is in.  That's one small step for rooting out corruption; one giant leap for American interests. Our man at the U.N.:  The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is scheduled this morning [7/27/2006] to consider yet again one of President Bush's most inspired nominations — the appointment of John Bolton to the post of U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations. The Anatomy of a Smear:  The U.N. Correspondents Association (UNCA), with few exceptions, is a lapdog of the world organization and its anti-American majority.  But Warren Hoge's July 23 hit-piece on U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton represented a new low.  Hoge, a member of UNCA who covers the U.N. for the New York Times, resorted to using anonymous sources to smear Bolton. Bravo for Bolton.  Perhaps the best reason to support John Bolton's confirmation as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations is that his approach to foreign policy is radically different from John Kerry's, as shown by their exchange during Mr. Bolton's confirmation hearings.  It is a shame anyone missed this delicious slap-down. Oil for Food comes to Reston.  The U.N. oil-for-food program's many threads continue to unravel, and the latest leads to the Washington area. New York prosecutors announced [10/20/2005] that Reston-based Midway Trading, an oil-trading company, told the New York State Supreme Court that it gave $440,000 to the Saddam Hussein's regime in connection with the U.N. oil-for-food program. UN team links more oil cash to Galloway wife's bank account.  George Galloway faced new questions last night after a UN inquiry tracked additional payments of Iraqi oil money into his wife's bank account. George Galloway and the Oil-for-Food Scandal:  Time for U.S. and British Inquiries.  The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI) today [10/25/2005] unveiled new evidence on British Member of Parliament George Galloway's involvement in the Iraqi Oil-for-Food scandal. I would have said "canned". Kofi must be sacked.  World leaders will assemble in New York this week to talk about the urgent task of reforming the UN.  Unfortunately, it is likely that talk is all they will do:  there is no sign that they will be able to agree on any of the concrete reforms that the UN so desperately needs. U.N. Procurement Scandal:  The Case of the Official Who Never Was.  Trouble in the United Nations Procurement Division is now well established as the world organization's successor scandal to Oil-for-Food. UN Allows Corruption While Children Starve.  American taxpayers entrust billions of dollars in aid each year to the United Nations and its various agencies that are supposed to alleviate [poverty and starvation], but the organization wants even more.  What is worse, is that the UN is mired in corruption and beleaguered by poor management. Oil-for-Food Report Shows the Limits of UN Ability.  The latest news from Paul Volcker's Independent Inquiry Committee reveals what independent observers of the United Nations have long understood — that there are "serious instances of illicit, unethical, and corrupt behavior within the United Nations," and there was "wholesale corruption" within the Oil-for-Food program. Beware of the "Tranzis".  Maybe [Heather] Locklear could play the part of Claudia Rosett, who, almost alone among the fearlessly non-partisan band of investigative journalists, delved deeply into the sleazy details of the oil-for-food program when the establishment media were dismissing it as a storm in an oil can. This was the most glaring scandal of all.  The US Congress is incensed about a scandal.  From 1996 to 2003 the UN's oil-for-food program allegedly enabled Saddam Hussein to misappropriate hundreds of millions of dollars.  Certain UN officials – particularly Benon Sevan, the man in charge of the program – are alleged to have pocketed large kickbacks.  It is also claimed that foreign politicians took similar advantage of the system.  These are serious accusations that warrant detailed investigation. Of what use is the United Nations?  Sometimes, it seems the answer is:  none at all.  The U.N. Oil for Food program, we learn from the reporting of Claudia Rosett in The Wall Street Journal, was a rip-off on the order of $21 billion — with money intended for hungry Iraqis going instead to Saddam Hussein and his henchmen, to bribed French and Russian businesses and, evidently, to the U.N.'s own man in charge, Benon Savan. Oil-for-Food Revisited:  The U.N. Should Not Pay Benon Sevan's Legal Fees.  According to media reports, the United Nations' own internal judicial body, the Administrative Tribunal (UNAT), has ordered the U.N. to pay "all reasonable legal fees" to Benon Sevan, the disgraced former chief of the disastrous Iraqi Oil-for-Food Program.  Sevan's lawyers are seeking 880,300 U.S. dollars plus interest from the United Nations. Hungry for answers:  If you leave a fox in charge of the henhouse, don't expect many eggs.  That nicely sums up the United Nations Oil-for-Food program.  It was supposed to feed starving people in Iraq.  Instead, a handful of corrupt bureaucrats in Baghdad and at the U.N. were in charge of the program and pocketed billions of dollars, while innocent Iraqis starved to death. The UN's Claim to Moral Authority.  Back in 2001, the United States was voted off the UN's Human Rights Commission for the first time since its inception in 1947.  When that happened, a variety of reasons were given as to why such a vote occurred:  the U.S. opposed the Kyoto treaty on climate change; the U.S. insisted upon creating a missile defense system; the U.S. had the death penalty; the U.S. imposed trade sanctions on Iraq after the Gulf War.  The countries voting against the U.S. deemed these actions to be human rights violations. Senator raps U.N. "brainwashing" on climate.  The U.S. Senate's most vocal global warming skeptic, James Inhofe, on Thursday [11/16/2006] dismissed a U.N. meeting on climate change as a "brainwashing" session.  Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican who will step down as chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee in January, told a news conference, "The idea that the science (on global warming) is settled is altogether wrong." What the United Nations Stands For:  The U.N. does not stand for freedom and peace. The U.N. stands for moral equivalency: for pretending that free countries and violent dictatorships are one and the same.  Allowed to lead us, the U.N. will be the death of us all. Refusing to Fund Forced Abortions is Controversial?  On July 16, 2004, President Bush for the third straight year steadfastly declined to make Americans complicit in China's coercive abortive practices.  Despite opposition from abortion organizations and media, the Bush administration withheld taxpayer funds from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) because it is connected to China's population control programs. Loving Thy Enemy:  When will most of us wake up to the fact that the U.N. (and groups like it) are not on our side?  Everything they do supports the opposite of freedom, individual rights, and rational values.  Never has this been clearer than now.  The very idea of U.N. people inspecting American facilities to make sure we treat these war criminals "humanely" is incomprehensible.  Now, when freedom and civilization need advocates of individual rights more than ever, the U.N. places the personal comforts of terrorists on an even (or greater) level with the pursuit of justice and safety. Next scandal: Overheads take up to 1/3 of tsunami funds.  Up to about a third of the $590 million U.N. fund spent for the Indian Ocean tsunami relief may have gone to pay for overhead.  The Financial Times says its two-month investigation showed the money appears to have been spent on administration, staff and related costs.  The $590 million was part of the United Nation's $1.1 billion disaster flash appeal. Tsunami aid 'spent on politics'.  Three years after Australians donated $400 million to rebuild Asian lives devastated by the 2004 tsunami, aid groups are under attack for spending much of the money on social and political engineering.  A survey by The Australian of the contributions by non-government organisations to the relief effort found the donations had been spent on politically correct projects promoting left-wing Western values over traditional Asian culture. The U.N.'s Distortion of Rights:  The "positive rights" championed by the U.N. Declaration are neither positive nor rights.  They mandate a profound negative — the initiation of force against the individual — and they are the enemies of genuine rights. International Coalition Against Terrorism is a Terrible Idea:  There may be instances when some of its closest allies (certainly the United Kingdom and perhaps even other NATO allies) will join its military operations, but the price of entry must be unreserved support for America's political and military objectives to eradicate terrorism. What the Constitution giveth, the UN taketh away:  The United Nations in their infinite arrogance, and self-assured pomposity have once again found a way to attempt to determine American domestic policy. Also of interest: It's time to evict the U.N.  My wife would like to see us kick the United Nations out of the United States.  I, for one, think it's a swell idea.  What's more, I'm certain that most New Yorkers feel the same.  After all, for the past 58 years, the gang of scofflaws have taken advantage of their diplomatic immunity to be the worst kind of guests.  Double-parking is the least of it. Bush Supports Incompetent Annan.  The United States expressed confidence in Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Thursday [12/9/2004] and said he should remain at the helm of the United Nations, an abrupt turnaround from its refusal to back him last week after a U.S. senator called for his resignation. A Crude Fraud.  The first interim report on the oil-for-food scandal is out, and it isn't pretty.  It implicates a top U.N. official, and Secretary-General Kofi Annan has yet to be cleared. U.N. Suspends Two Officials– With Pay! – in the Oil-for-Food Scandal.  The United Nations has suspended the former head of the oil-for-food aid program in Iraq and another senior official who helped select the program's contractors.  The move comes after an interim report by an independent commission on Thursday [2/3/2005] that severely criticized the conduct of both men. Oil For Food Foolery:  Senate hearings in mid-November 2004 revealed that Iraq's Saddam Hussein skimmed over $21 billion from the UN "oil-for-food" program that was supposed to feed and provide medicine for the Iraqi people — and used the money to bribe UN and European officials. U.N. follies.  Is the United Nations attempting self-parody?  How else to explain the announcement that a panel has been elected to decide which complaints will be heard by the U.N. Human Rights Commission at its annual meeting in Geneva this spring — and that three of the five members are Cuba, Zimbabwe and Saudi Arabia? Fears of top UN role for Zimbabwe.  Western countries are concerned about the expected appointment of Zimbabwe to head a key UN body, the Commission on Sustainable Development. Millions missing, but UN ignores Zimbabwe's quiet genocide.  Suffer the little children is a phrase never far from your mind in today's Zimbabwe.  The horde of painfully thin street kids milling around you at traffic lights is almost the least of it:  in a population now down to 11 million or less, there are an estimated 1.3 million orphans.  Go to one of the overflowing cemeteries in Bulawayo or Beit Bridge, and you are struck by the long lines of tiny graves for babies and toddlers.  Hyena attacks on humans, previously unheard of, are increasingly common. Did someone mention Zimbabwe? Get Out Of The U.N., Start Over.  The U.N. is involved in a huge scandal which has the potential to escalate beyond anything we have known to date.  At a minimum U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan presided over the misappropriations of billions of dollars in the oil-for-food program designed to help poor Iraqis.  Instead, the money never reached the poor.  It was used to finance new weapons programs for Saddam Hussein, weapons which were manufactured by those who opposed U.S. intervention in Iraq, namely France, Germany and Russia. The high price of Kofi: U.S. out of U.N. - now!  The United Nations does not serve the interests of the United States or the objectives of democracies.  The oil-for-food scandal, in which billions of dollars were misappropriated in Iraq, exposed a corrupt bureaucracy, rotting from the head. Condi's First Test:  The Oil-for-Food Scandal.  Although the Iraqi elections on January 30 [2005] will top her incoming agenda, the first real indicator of Condi Rice's tenure as Secretary of State will be how she handles something most in her new department would rather ignore:  the United Nations' oil-for-food scandal. Just scrap it and start over.  In wine, the experts say, vintage is everything.  If that's the case, 2004 has turned out to be a very bad year for the United Nations.  But the United Nations' vinegar may yet prove to be a very good thing for the rest of us — particularly if the decision is made to break open the casks, pour out the putrid contents and start over.  Humor:   U.N. Money-for-Peace Scam May Force Annan to Resign.  U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan today vigorously denied allegations that he has overseen a complex, fraudulent scheme to pilfer billions of dollars from 191 nations under the guise of providing "global peace services." Dare We Surrender America's Future to the UN?  The future of the United States of America cannot be surrendered to the United Nations. The United Nations:  A Totalitarian Appeasing Debating Society.  The United States provides 22 percent of the U.N.'s general operating budget.  By contrast, France, Great Britain, China and Russia combined contribute less than 15 percent.  However, as members of the Security Council, each of those nations enjoys veto power over the U.S. The United Nations has sovereign control ( = ownership) of Yellowstone Park. The United Nations Versus The United States:  According to this author, the UN intends to secure the power to tax all financial transactions and control the taxation policies of all nations; the UN intends to exercise power over land use throughout the world; the UN already has control over major U.S. historical sites and natural wonders including the Statute of Liberty and Yellowstone National Park; the UN intends to restrict gun ownership worldwide. Kiss your rights goodbye?  Will the International Criminal Court have the ability to preempt and eliminate the hard-won rights of U.S. citizens?  A treaty signed by former-President Clinton -- that is now being reviewed by President Bush -- could easily lead to the destruction of U.S. sovereignty and constitutionally guaranteed protections, warns one veteran U.S. congressman. The UN:  United in Opposition to the US.  United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan continues to claim that only the UN can grant legitimacy to the United States' successful war to topple Saddam Hussein.  Rationally, that claim can be viewed as little more than a pathetic, baseless whine from those clinging to a dying dream of global power. Role of the UN:  Globalism is out of control and it's far passed time for the United States to secede from the United Nations in its present form unless we intend to ultimately surrender our national sovereignty and be ruled by an omnipotent world government. Perpetual War:  President Bush did not seek the expected congressional declaration of war as required by the U.S. Constitution.  Instead, our commander in chief sought permission and approval from the United Nations.  Dragging its feet, the U.N. Security Council finally passed Resolution 1373, authorizing America to fight the "war on terrorism." The UN Is NOT Your Friend:  Behind the mask of peace, brotherhood, and universal understanding, the United Nations promotes terror and tyranny in order to achieve its real objective:  world government. Conservatives Bristle at 'United Nations Day':  According to a proclamation released by the White House Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2001, was recognized as United Nations Day, a day to celebrate the U.S. relationship with the U.N.  But not everyone was celebrating, especially some conservatives who believe that in light of U.N. treatment of the U.S., America should sever all ties with the organization. The Immorality of a Self-Defense Consensus:  Do people who value life, liberty, and the pursuit of prosperity understand that they have a right to defend themselves against people who want to kill them?  If the answer is yes, then a powerful, free country defends itself.  If no, then it seeks consensus, at first with allies and then with enemies, and it proceeds only with their agreement.  So far, America has taken the latter path. Related material:  Environmentalism:  A Globalist Tool for Tyranny.  There are plenty of good reasons for a freedom loving people to steer clear of the United Nations, one of the chief ones being the fanatical zeal with which the UN and Friends grasp hold of every worry and woe, make it their own, blow it out of proportion, and insist that they and only they can provide a solution, a solution which must be imposed by force upon the world. Environmentalism:  A Globalist Tool for Tyranny.  There are plenty of good reasons for a freedom loving people to steer clear of the United Nations, one of the chief ones being the fanatical zeal with which the UN and Friends grasp hold of every worry and woe, make it their own, blow it out of proportion, and insist that they and only they can provide a solution, a solution which must be imposed by force upon the world. Daniel New's essay on UN world government. Get Ready to Fork Over Your Money to the U.N.  America's Survival Inc. argues that we do not owe any money to the U.N. in the first place. Thank Clinton for New UNESCO Fiasco:  Blame Bill Clinton for America's return to UNESCO, the anti-American, corruption-riddled U.N. agency that is allegedly for education, culture, science and communication. Back to the Home page

Document location http://www.akdart.com/un.html Updated November 17, 2009. Page design by Andrew K. Dart  ©2009