Convicted of genocide, Bosnian Serb military chief Ratko Mladic sentenced to life in prison
Mladic, 75, was found guilty of commanding forces responsible for crimes including the worst atrocities of the war — the deadly three-year siege of the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, and the 1995 massacre of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the eastern enclave of Srebrenica, which was Europe’s worst mass killing since World War II.
Good.
Richard Fernandez — “I guess the UN will have to find itself a new Goodwill Ambassador.“
US Vice President Mike Pence is promising the US will bypass the United Nations and give aid directly to beleaguered Christian communities in Iraq, vowing the days of minimal support filtering down to persecuted believers ‘are over’.
In a snub to the UN’s humanitarian programme the US State Department will no longer fund their ‘ineffective’ relief efforts, the Vice President said, and will now funnel support straight to faith-based organisations after claims from religious leaders in the Middle East that bilateral aid failed to reach people on the ground.
US and Israel quit UNESCO. I’ll quote the relevant portion buried deep by the BBC;
Hours after the US announced its withdrawal, the Israelis joined in, with Prime Minister Netanyahu saying he had instructed his foreign ministry to begin preparations to leave.
As well as accusing Unesco of bias, the US state department said it was also concerned about mounting financial arrears at the agency and said it should be reformed.
The decision follows a string of Unesco decisions that have drawn criticism from the US and Israel.
Donald Trump, Sept.19th – “The Iran deal was one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States have ever implemented. Frankly that deal is an embarrassment to the United States.”
France 24, Sept. 21st — France’s President Emmanuel Macron declared Wednesday that the Iran nuclear deal is no longer a sufficient safeguard against the growing power that Tehran wields in its region.
UN: we condemn DPRK in the strongest terms
Trump: I will fucking nuke them back to the stone age
UN: OK, maybe not in the strongest terms— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) September 19, 2017
Loud murmurs filled the UN General Assembly hall in New York when Trump issued his sternest warning yet to despot Kim whose ballistic missile launches and nuclear tests have rattled the globe.
Unless North Korea backs down, Republican firebrand said: “We will have no choice than to totally destroy North Korea.”
“Rocket man is on a suicide mission for himself and his regime.”
Trump's UN speech
NoKo #RocketMan is on a suicide mission for himself & for his regime.-@realDonaldTrump#UNGA #MAGApic.twitter.com/eVqtUwTnSK— CC (@ChristiChat) September 19, 2017
Flashback: A Realistic Plan For World Peace
Lebanese air-lift act II will continue after this short intermission.
New act: This provision is repealed. Applicants are no longer required to intend to continue to live in Canada once granted citizenship. This provides more flexibility to Canadians who may need to live outside of Canada for work or personal reasons.
Where every culture is equal, except your own;
Indigenous advocates from around the world are calling on a UN committee to make appropriating Indigenous cultures illegal — and to do it quickly.
Delegates from 189 countries, including Canada, are in Geneva this week as part of a specialized international committee within the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), a United Nations agency.
Since it began in 2001, the committee has been working on creating and finishing three pieces of international law that would expand intellectual-property regulations to protect things like Indigenous designs, dances, words and traditional medicines.
h/t A Deplorable Sewer Rat
Left: UNRWA photo, Jan. 27. 2015, of girl in Syria
Right: Same UNRWA photo, May 29, 2017, but now she's "Aya from Gaza" oppressed by Israel pic.twitter.com/RwMJwwXvpM— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) June 2, 2017
For more than a year, a United Nations agency in Geneva has been helping North Korea prepare an international patent application for production of sodium cyanide — a chemical used to make the nerve gas Tabun — which has been on a list of materials banned from shipment to that country by the U.N. Security Council since 2006.
The World Intellectual Property Organization, or WIPO, has made no mention of the application to the Security Council committee monitoring North Korea sanctions, nor to the U.N. Panel of Experts that reports sanctions violations to the committee, even while concerns about North Korean weapons of mass destruction, and the willingness to use them, have been on a steep upward spiral.
#Venezuela
Protesters killed: 37
Injured: 700
Political prisoners: 114@UN_HRC reaction:
Urgent sessions: 0
Resolutions: 0
Inquiries: 0— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) May 10, 2017
U.N. Elects Saudi Arabia to Women’s Rights Commission, For 2018-2022 Term.
The State Department said on Monday it was ending U.S. funding for the United Nations Population Fund, the international body’s agency focused on family planning as well as maternal and child health in more than 150 countries.
In a letter to U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker, the State Department said it was dropping the funding because the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA) “supports, or participates in the management of, a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization.”
The cut marks U.S. President Donald Trump’s first move to curtail funding for the United Nations and is likely to raise further questions about how deep those cuts will eventually go throughout the organization, where the United States is the top donor.
After years of being shuttled to the back of the proverbial bus, folks in the Jewish community, plus all who value freedom and decency, are breathing sighs of sweet relief. Say what you will about the administration of President Trump, its insiders have the Jewish state’s back.
With Haley’s ascent to the top of this country’s diplomatic heap, high-ranking UN officials and ambassadors are shaking in their Italian loafers.
President Trump’s administration has told the State Department to cut more than 50 percent of U.S. funding to United Nations programs, Foreign Policy reported.
The push for the drastic reductions comes as the White House is scheduled to release its 2018 topline budget proposal Thursday, which is expected to include a 37 percent cut to the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development budgets.
It’s not clear if Trump’s budget plan, from the Office of Management and Budget, would reflect the full extent of Trump’s proposed cuts to the U.N.
[…] Richard Gowan, a U.N. expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said the alterations would spark “chaos” if true.
“[It would] leave a gaping hole that other big donors would struggle to fill,” he told FP, pointing to how the U.S. provided $1.5 billion of the U.N. refugee agency’s $4 billion budget last year.
Oh boo hoo.
“You’re going to see a change in the way we do business,” Ms. Haley said. “Our goal with the administration is to show value at the U.N., and the way we’ll show value is to show our strength, show our voice, have the backs of our allies and make sure our allies have our back as well.”
“For those who don’t have our back,” she added, “we’re taking names; we will make points to respond to that accordingly.”
All the right people are beginning to ask:
Congress is already setting the stage to cut off U.S. funding to the United Nations in the wake of a contested vote last week in which the Obama administration permitted an anti-Israel resolution to win overwhelming approval, according to congressional leaders, who told the Washington Free Beacon that the current administration is already plotting to take further action against the Jewish state before vacating office.
Other punitive actions by Congress could include expelling Palestinian diplomats from U.S. soil and scaling back ties with foreign nations that voted in favor of the controversial measure, according to multiple sources who spoke to the Free Beacon about the situation both on and off the record.
More.