The UN is a sick joke

[styky]

EU should ‘undermine national homogeneity’ says UN migration chief
http://junkscience.com/2012/06/21/eu-sh ... ion-chief/

[styky]

Having trouble meeting people? UN says Canada’s laws on free association ‘harsh’

Tristin Hopper Jun 21, 2012 – 10:45 PM ET | Last Updated: Jun 22, 2012 11:44 AM ET
For the second time in a week, a United Nations official has listed Canada alongside illiberal regimes as a prominent violator of basic rights and freedoms.

Speaking on Wednesday before the UN’s human rights council, UN special rapporteur Maina Kiai listed Canada — along with Belarus, Ethiopia, the Russian Federation and Jordan — as countries where “the laws are particularly harsh in terms of restricting the freedom of association.” Mr. Kiai was specifically referring to Quebec’s recently passed Bill 78. The law — passed last month in response to unruly, ongoing street marches protesting tuition increases — requires demonstrators to give police eight hours’ notice before a protest.

Mr. Kiai also levelled criticism on the Swiss Canton of Geneva, where the UN’s human rights body is located. In March, following a referendum, Geneva enacted a law imposing fines of up to $107,000 on organizers who allow their protests to descend into violence.

The risk to freedom of expression “cuts right across the world and there’s no country exempt from them,” said Mr. Kiai, adding that “there’s no way I will pick and choose which countries I will pay attention to.”
If the brutal and oppressive regime of Belarus dictator Alexander Lukashenko is equal to Canadian and Swiss democracy, people may conclude that maybe he’s not so bad after all

The comments came just two days after Navi Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, addressing the same council, called the Quebec bill an “alarming” move to restrict freedom of assembly. That prompted condemnation from Quebec premier Jean Charest and Federal Foreign Minister John Baird. “Quebec is a very democratic place, subject to the rule of law,” said Mr. Baird, noting that Bill 78 can be challenged before a court.

By failing to do her “due diligence” on the Quebec situation, Ms. Pillay “wasted a valuable opportunity to further focus on true human rights abuses,” Elissa Golberg, Canada’s Ambassador to the UN in Geneva, told the UN Human Rights Council on Monday.

“Too often at the UN, a doctrine of political correctness compounded by pressure from powerful blocs of states leads to jaywalkers being treated the same as rapists and murderers,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, in a statement Thursday.

Targeting Quebec’s protest laws do not promote higher human rights standards, but the “opposite,” said the Montreal-born Mr. Neuer. “If the brutal and oppressive regime of Belarus dictator Alexander Lukashenko is equal to Canadian and Swiss democracy, people may conclude that maybe he’s not so bad after all,” he said.

Both Mr. Kiai and Ms. Pillay’s comments were made before a human rights council notorious for a rotating membership that includes prominent human rights abusers such as China, Cuba and Saudi Arabia. Since its creation in 2006, the Council has directed more than half of its resolutions against Israel.

In May, the same UN Council sponsored a Canadian visit by Olivier De Schutter, the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food. After an eleven-day tour of Canada — his first to a developed country — Mr. De Schutter said Canada should drop its “self-righteous” attitude and own up to a severe food insecurity problem.

Speaking to Postmedia, the special rapporteur also blasted Canada’s “appallingly poor” record of taking UN human-rights bodies seriously.
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/06/21 ... ion-harsh/

[WestViking]

Speaking on Wednesday before the UN’s human rights council, UN special rapporteur Maina Kiai listed Canada — along with Belarus, Ethiopia, the Russian Federation and Jordan — as countries where “the laws are particularly harsh in terms of restricting the freedom of association.” Mr. Kiai was specifically referring to Quebec’s recently passed Bill 78. The law — passed last month in response to unruly, ongoing street marches protesting tuition increases — requires demonstrators to give police eight hours’ notice before a protest.

Kiss my ass.

[Edward Kennedy]

Speaking on Wednesday before the UN’s human rights council, UN special rapporteur Maina Kiai listed Canada — along with Belarus, Ethiopia, the Russian Federation and Jordan — as countries where “the laws are particularly harsh in terms of restricting the freedom of association.” Mr. Kiai was specifically referring to Quebec’s recently passed Bill 78. The law — passed last month in response to unruly, ongoing street marches protesting tuition increases — requires demonstrators to give police eight hours’ notice before a protest.

Kiss my ass.

Get in line, I am already standing with my pants down waiting for these idiots to kiss mine and I demand a deep french kiss.

[Dogpatch]

Ladies and Gentlemen, your United Nations

Stephen Taylor
June 20, 2012

One month ago, a wayward bureaucrat (or rapporteur as he is styled) found himself in Canada and decided to tear a strip off our country on the topic of food security in Canada. Yes, while Canada sends billions of food aid to developing countries, the UN came to criticize Canada for how available food is to poor and aboriginal communities. Canada is 6th on the human development index, and while poverty and famine grip other regions such as the horn of Africa, the scant resources of the UN were used to study Canada.

Today, we learned of the head of the UN’s Health Agency’s trip to North Korea where she praised that country for its health system and said that it should be the “envy” of the developing world,

“Based on what I have seen, I can tell you they have something that most other developing countries would envy,” [the head of the UN's health agency] told journalists, despite reports of renewed famine in parts of the country.

“To give you a couple of examples, DPRK has no lack of doctors and nurses, as we see in other developing countries, most of their doctors and nurse have migrated,” the director general of the World Health Organisation said.

She also highlighted its “very elaborate health infrastructure” extending to a district network of household doctors, she added.

Chan visited the closed communist nation Monday through Wednesday at the regime’s invitation.

She met senior ministers and visited health facilities in the capital Pyongyang, as well as a rural hospital about an hour’s drive away.

Her visit to Pyongyang came amid reports of a severe food crisis in North Korea.

Good Friends, a Seoul-based welfare group with contacts in the North, said in February that 2,000 people had starved to death there this winter.

A growing number of North Koreans have fled their homeland, which has relied on outside aid to help feed its people since a famine in the 1990s killed hundreds of thousands.

Her visit to Pyongyang came amid reports of a severe food crisis in North Korea.

Good Friends, a Seoul-based welfare group with contacts in the North, said in February that 2,000 people had starved to death there this winter.

A growing number of North Koreans have fled their homeland, which has relied on outside aid to help feed its people since a famine in the 1990s killed hundreds of thousands.

Read more at http://www.stephentaylor.ca/2012/06/lad ... d-nations/

----------------

[styky]

Conrad Black: The end of Canada’s love affair with the UN

Conrad Black Jun 30, 2012 – 8:00 AM ET | Last Updated: Jun 29, 2012 5:00 PM ET
It is disappointing that the recent outrageous criticism of Quebec by the United Nations Human Rights Council has not led to a serious debate in Canada about the country’s almost slavish veneration of the United Nations. The basic problem with the UN is that almost no one has used it for what it was ostensibly intended for: To produce equitable co-operation, or at least civilized exchanges, between all the countries of the world. It was devised by Franklin D. Roosevelt to help convince his previously isolationist countrymen that the world was less dangerous than they feared, and to disguise through international organizations and U.S.-directed collegiality the blunt fact that the United States effectively ruled the world except for what was under direct occupation by Stalin’s Red Army..................http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/201 ... th-the-un/

[mindyrbusiness]

U.N. confirms Saudi dissident, his group off al Qaeda list


By Louis Charbonneau

UNITED NATIONS | Mon Jul 2, 2012 11:01am EDT

(Reuters) - A U.N. Security Council committee has removed Saudi dissident Saad al-Faqih and his Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia (MIRA) from the U.N. al Qaeda sanctions list, Germany's U.N. envoy confirmed on Monday.

Reuters reported on Sunday that the decision to de-list Faqih came after the 15-nation council's al Qaeda sanctions committee failed to reach a consensus to override the al Qaeda-sanctions-list ombudsman, who had recommended removing Faqih from the U.N. blacklist.

"After thorough consideration by the Committee the entries in the Al Qaeda Sanctions List related to Mr. Saad Rashed Mohammed al-Faqih and (his group) were removed from the Al Qaeda Sanctions List today," German U.N. Ambassador Peter Wittig said in a statement.

"The key question the Committee has to consider is whether there is sufficient information to provide a reasonable and credible basis for concluding that an individual, group, undertaking, or entity is associated with al Qaeda," said Wittig, who chairs the al Qaeda sanctions committee.

A U.N. diplomat told Reuters on condition of anonymity that Faqih "may not be a saint but he doesn't belong on this list."

Faqih's and his group's removal from the list took effect at midnight on Monday, diplomats said.

Faqih told Reuters in London it had been "a laborious battle" to get him off the list.

"All that has happened in the last eight years is that an innocent, peaceful activist, acting within the law, has been a victim of a conspiracy by tyrants in the Gulf supported by superpowers," he said.

Formerly a professor of medicine at a Saudi university, the exiled dissident has long insisted that he and his group are committed to peace. Faqih is an outspoken critic of the Saudi leadership.

Prior to Faqih's de-listing, there were 252 individuals and 69 entities or groups on the U.N. al Qaeda sanctions list, including Faqih. All individuals on the list are subject to asset freezes and an international travel ban.

Britain, Faqih's current host, was one of only four council members that supported the recommendation of the al Qaeda sanctions committee ombudsman, Kimberly Prost of Canada, that Faqih be taken off the blacklist, despite strong objections from Riyadh, diplomats said on condition of anonymity.

Council diplomats said the United States was among the 11 council members that supported the Saudis and opposed taking Faqih off the blacklist. A spokesman for Saudi Arabia's U.N. mission did not respond to a request for comment.

The other three countries supporting Prost's recommendation for removal from the al Qaeda blacklist, the envoys said, were Germany, South Africa and Guatemala.

(Additional reporting by William Maclean in London; Editing by Will Dunham)
World

[styky]

Analysis: Can Canada fix the UN, and should it even try?

Lee Berthiaume, Postmedia News Jul 2, 2012 – 1:41 PM ET
OTTAWA — Conservative backbench MP Larry Miller was already upset when a high-ranking United Nations food official recently came to Canada and harangued Canadians over their “self-righteous” attitude.

But when, soon after, a UN committee blasted the federal government’s policy of deporting alleged war criminals, Miller decided “it was the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

His subsequent call for the Conservative government to review this country’s membership in the UN sparked an instant reaction, with some wondering aloud whether Canada would be better off leaving the world organization altogether.

So, would it?.....................http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/07/02 ... -even-try/

[Edward Kennedy]

Dump them and maybe other nations would follow. Take the saved money to pay the debt.

[styky]

Ottawa’s anger at the UN boiling over

Lee Berthiaume Postmedia News

OTTAWA – Conservative backbench MP Larry Miller was already upset when a high-ranking United Nations food official recently came to Canada and harangued Canadians over their “self-righteous” attitude.

But when, soon after, a UN committee blasted Ottawa’s policy of deporting alleged war criminals, Miller decided “it was the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

His subsequent call for the Conservative government to review this country’s membership in the UN sparked an instant reaction, with some wondering aloud whether Canada would be better off leaving the world organization altogether.

Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Ott ... z1zZSqwDqm

[styky]

State Department investigating UN agency for computer shipments to Iran and North Korea

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/07/05 ... z1zlhUvUcp

[Dogpatch]

h/t Blazing cat Fur

Censorship at the U.N.

Posted by Bruce Bawer Bio ↓ on Jul 5th, 2012

The United Nations never ceases to impress. As noted here recently, Thor Halvorssen of the Human Rights Foundation appeared before the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva on June 28. Halvorssen offered a few frank, bracing words about the state of human rights in Venezuela under Hugo Chavez, and expressly argued that Chavez’s government, which is seeking a seat on the council, has no right to such a seat. For good measure, Halvorssen pointed out how disgraceful it is that another tyrannical Latin American government, that of Cuba, currently sits on the council.

The result, as also noted here, was an explosion of righteous indignation on the part of some of the council’s least worthy members – China, Russia, and, especially, Cuba, whose representative was so quick to rise to his feet in outrage that he knocked his chair over. The message sent out by him, and by his Chinese and Russian friends, in response to Halvorssen’s dose of truth-telling was clear: it’s one thing to engage in vague, pretty talk about human rights, but it’s another thing to point fingers and name names.
Read more at http://frontpagemag.com/2012/bruce-bawe ... t-the-u-n/

[Dogpatch]

The UN just gets weirder every day

UN Watch Exclusive Report:
Syria Running for the U.N. Human Rights Council, Says U.S.

U.S.-Sponsored Resolution Slams Syrian Candidacy

By Hillel Neuer

GENEVA - In the past decade, the U.N. Human Rights Council elected Col. Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya as chair, hailed Sri Lanka’s “promotion and protection of all human rights” after its army had killed thousands of civilians, and convened an emergency session to lament the death of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, founder of the Hamas terrorist organization.

Even so, historians will now have to decide whether the U.N.’s flagship human rights body is about to sink to a new low.

According to a U.S.-sponsored and EU-backed draft resolution that was debated today during informal meetings at the council in Geneva, the murderous regime of Bashar al-Assad is a declared candidate for a seat on the 47-nation U.N. body, in elections to be held next year at the 193-member General Assembly.

As part of the U.N.’s 53-nation Asian group, Syria’s candidacy would be virtually assured of victory due to the prevalent system of fixed slates, whereby regional groups orchestrate uncontested elections, naming only as many candidates as allotted seats.
Read more at http://www.unwatch.org/cms.asp?id=32803 ... n_id=63111

h/t Blazing Cat Fur

[chainrock]

"Frechette (former UN deputy secretary-general Louise Frechette) said the UN reflects the reality of the world as it is now, one where the West is no longer all-powerful and can’t dictate the way things should be.

Canada can rail against that, it can complain or walk away from the UN, but it will not change that reality, she said.
"

Which is why we should get out of that organization. Perhaps it is time to form a United Western Democratic Nations organization.

[Edward Kennedy]

Louise Frechette can sit on a cactus and rotate.