Category Archives: United Nations

Iran has doubled uranium enrichment machines – report

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Guardian:

IAEA quarterly report shows Tehran is increasing stockpile of potent nuclear material at underground Fordow bunker

Satellite photo of what is believed to be a uranium-enrichment facility near Qom

Satellite photo of what is believed to be a uranium-enrichment facility near Qom. Photograph: Digital Globe/Reuters

Iran has doubled the number of uranium enrichment machines it has in an underground bunker, a UN report said on Thursday, showing Tehran continued to defy western pressure to stop its atomic work.

In the weeks and months when Israeli politicians increased their talk of air strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites, the Islamic republic was rapidly increasing the enrichment capacity of its Fordow site, buried deep underground to withstand any such hit.

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UN staff jailed in Burma

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The Guardian:

Two United Nations workers sentenced for alleged involvement in ethnic violence between Buddhists and Muslims in June

  • Associated Press in Yangon
  • guardian.co.uk,
Burma communal violence

Firemen tackle blazes during fighting between Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims in June. Photograph: Staff/Reuters

A court in Burma has sentenced two United Nations workers to prison terms for their alleged involvement in a spate of bloody communal violence in the west of the country in June.

The punishments were handed down on Friday in the Rakhine state town of Maungdaw, said Aye Win, a UN spokesman based in Burma. One of those sentenced was an employee of the UN refugee agency and the other the UN World Food Programme.

A spokesperson for the world body’s refugee agency in Bangkok, Vivian Tan, called the verdicts “very disappointing”.

Tan said a third aid worker employed by another unidentified humanitarian group working with the UN was also convicted.

UN officials said they had no details on the official charges.

The Burma independent newspaper Weekly Eleven reported that the staff members – all believed to be from the local Muslim community – were charged with crimes including promoting hatred between Buddhists and Muslims and participation in arson attacks. The paper cited anonymous court sources in its report, and said the sentences ranged from two to six years.

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Iran has ‘sanitised’ military base, IAEA may find inspection ‘pointless’: Western diplomats

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VIENNA: Iran has “sanitized” to such an extent a military base where nuclear weapons research allegedly took place that the UN atomic watchdog may say next week there is now little point inspecting it, Western diplomats told AFP.

The International Atomic Energy Agency has been pushing Iran to allow access to Parchin, most recently at a failed meeting in Vienna on Friday, where it suspects explosives testing consistent with nuclear bomb research occurred.

Iran, subject to unprecedented Western sanctions and amid heightened speculation of Israeli military action, denies seeking or ever having sought nuclear weapons but has so far blocked the IAEA’s requests to see the site.

Western nations have accused Iran of bulldozing parts of the sprawling base near Tehran and the IAEA said in May that activities spotted there by satellite “could hamper the agency’s ability to undertake effective verification.”

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Slavery in 2012

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UNESCO actually appears todo something useful, makes little attempt to advertise it but the MSM would have ignored it anyway.

I guess it would be islamophobia to say “slavery is encompassed by the Islamic faith” and is still widely practiced in the islamic world. even in London muslims have been caught owning them.

But reality is nothing is being done, there are more people in slavery now than at any other time in human history, the vast majority in islamic countries or owned by muslims.

today from UNPO…

UNPO General Secretary’s Statement on the International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and of its Abolition

 

UNPO General Secretary Marino Busdachin’s Statement on the 2012 UNESCO International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and of its Abolition.

Brussels, 23 August 2012 – On the occasion of the 2012 UNESCO International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and of its Abolition, the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO) joins in the commemoration of those who suffered as a result of their enslavement, and to draw awareness to those whose lives continue to reflect the tragedy of the slave trade today.   Today’s Day of Remembrance aims to collectively consider the historic roots and causes that led to the slave trade, its effects, and present an opportunity for UNESCO Member States to promote intercultural dialogue, and in UNESCO’s words, ‘further the values of tolerance, respect, acceptance and appreciation of the equal dignity of human beings.’

‘Today is an opportunity to not only consider the historical origins of the slave trade, but also to shed light on its legacy today and conditions that have remained unchanged,’ stated UNPO General Secretary, Marino Busdachin, who noted that ‘we cannot let today pass without drawing attention to the current situation of Biram Ould Abeid, president of the ‘Initiative de Résurgence du Mouvement Abolitionniste de Mauritanie’ (IRA), who remains imprisoned for his anti-slavery activism in Mauritania, along with six fellow activists. I urge the Mauritanian authorities in the strongest of terms to release Ould Abeid and his fellow activists, and to take active measures to finally end the practice of slavery in Mauritania.’

Biram Ould Abeid was arrested in May 2012, following his act of burning several pages of a Malikite theological book, according to which slavery is encompassed by the Islamic faith. The aim of Mr. Abeid was to draw attention to how slavery continues to be embedded in Mauritanian society at a cultural and religious level. Although Mauritania abolished slavery in 1981, it was not until 2007 that legislation officially criminalising slave owners was passed. However to date, the Mauritanian judiciary have only prosecuted one case, and an estimated 10% to 20% of Mauritania’s 3.4 million population remain enslaved.

In light of this, the Mauritanian authorities must implement its anti-slavery legislation in order to bring an end to contemporary forms of slavery, and to release Biram Ould Abeid and his fellow activists from prison. Furthermore, Mauritania, as a UNESCO Member State, should use the International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and of its Abolition to encourage all Mauritanians to consider the historical causes of slavery in Mauritania and the legacy it continues to have today.

Note to Editors:

Contemporary slaves carry a value of $90 which is a historic low. Two hundred years ago, a slave cost approximately $40,000 in values adjusted for today according to commentary by CNN.

UN Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Slavery, Gulnara Shahinian noted that in Mauritania slavery ‘… victims said that they were utterly deprived of their basic human rights. Having no alternative, they voluntarily stay or after fleeing, return back to slavery. This perpetuates the vicious circle of slavery for men, women and children.’

For more information on the situation of Biram Ould Abeid, please click here

for the rest at UNPO http://www.unpo.org/article/14744

Kofi Annan Resigns

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NY SUN

“Here is a man who, by his own account, came to America nearly 50 years ago to study in Minnesota. He then spent something like 44 years in or close to the United Nations, rising to the top of an organization that has been funded, through thick and thin, by the ordinary American taxpayer, who underwrites the United Nations to the tune of $5.3 billion a year. Mr. Annan was given the leadership of the world body with the backing of America and, despite the eruption on his watch of the worst scandals in the history of the world body, was kept in office by the acquiescence of America. Our taxpayers have helped underwrite a luxurious residence for him. He won the Nobel Prize for work funded by America. Yet he has chosen to depart his office with a bitter diatribe directed at the very country at whose table he for so long supped.”

* * *

Those are the words with which these columns remarked on Kofi Annan’s last departure from a United Nations assignment. That was back in 2006, when he finished his term as secretary general. The question that is raised by his resignation this morning as the special envoy on Syria for the United Nations and the Arab League — one could just say the United Nations, for short — is a moment to ask the question: What in the world was the United States doing countenancing his return in the first place?

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UN Watch: Syrians slaughtered while UN condemns Israel. Again. Several times.

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As Syrians continue to be slaughtered, the U.N. is once again too busy condemning Israel to respond to those pleading for help in Aleppo and elsewhere.

The world body’s Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), the principal organ under the U.N. Charter tasked with addressing human rights and fundamental freedoms, has just concluded its annual session by turning a blind eye to the ongoing massacres by the Assad regime. Instead,  a list of all its resolutions for the entire world shows that ECOSOC condemned only one single country: Israel. Two resolutions were adopted against Israel, and one report.

 

Sponsored by Algeria for the Third World grouping known as G-77, and by Turkey, a one-sided and politicized resolution was adopted on July 26 with the following title: “Economic and social repercussions of the Israeli occupation on the living conditions of the Palestinian people in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and the Arab population in the occupied Syrian Golan.”

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Two stories on the Balkans

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1. From now:

Balkans: UN’s Ban Ki-moon in six-day tour of region

Ljubljana, 20 July (AKI) – United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon Friday arrived in Slovenia at the start of a six-day tour of the region ravaged by the bloody breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

Ban held talks with Slovenian president Danilo Turk and prime minister Janez Jansa in the Slovenian capital Ljubljana and was due to address the parliament before heading for Croatia.

Ban will also hold talks with officials in Montenegro, Serbia, Kosovo, Macedonia and Bosnia, where he will visit the eastern town of Srebrenica, scene of the worst massacre in Europe since World War II.

In Srebrenica, Ban will pay tribute to some 8,000 Muslims killed there by Bosnian Serb forces in July 1995 at the end of the 1992-1995 war.

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From July 1 2009

Jihad in Bosnia. muslim terrorists in europe.

H/T Don L

UN refuses to call terror attack on Jews in Bulgaria ‘terrorism’

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Examiner:

Tourist bus gutted by fire in terror attack.

Since the 18 July terrorist attack on a busload of Israeli tourists in the Balkan nation of Bulgaria, the United Nations has yet to refer to the attack as “terrorism.”

The blast killed 7 innocent people; the Bulgarian bus driver and five Israelis to include the unborn child of a pregnant victim.

An Additional 30 were reportedly injured.

The Geneva, Switzerland based human rights organization UN Watch has issued a statement critical of the world organization for failing to classify the attack as terrorism.

• A U.N. spokesperson said that Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the attack “in the strongest possible terms.” In fact, however, the U.N. chief’s choice of terms was weak in comparison to his statement two weeks ago on the bombing of churches in Kenya. In that case, Mr. Ban rightly spoke of “terrorist” attacks, “reprehensible and criminal,” saying the perpetrators “must be held to account.” Yet today he refered only to the deadly “bombing” of Israelis — noticeably declining to describe it as an act of terrorism — and he made no call for holding the perpetrators to account. UN Watch today urged Mr. Ban to clarify his position and to truly use the strongest possible terms to condemn today’s terrorist attack.

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Reactions to Today’s Terror Attack on Israeli Tourists in Bulgaria

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U.N. Watch

A bus carrying Israeli tourists at Bulgaria’s Burgas airport suddenly exploded today, killing seven and wounding at least 30 more.

• A U.N. spokesperson said that Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the attack “in the strongest possible terms.” In fact, however, the U.N. chief’s choice of terms was weak in comparison to his statement two weeks ago on the bombing of churches in Kenya. In that case, Mr. Ban rightly spoke of “terrorist” attacks, “reprehensible and criminal,” saying the perpetrators “must be held to account.” Yet today he referred only to the deadly “bombing” of Israelis — noticeably declining to describe it as an act of terrorism — and he made no call for holding the perpetrators to account. UN Watch today urged Mr. Ban to clarify his position and to truly use the strongest possible terms to condemn today’s terrorist attack.

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Turkish head of the OIC explains its time to get serious about Islamic take over

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In the ‘Resistance is futile’ category, OIC chairman explains that he is tired of hijacking multi-faith conferences people objecting to being subjected to the sharia worldwide. That its time to take action on ‘islamophobia’.

Again, for those who followed the OIC brief by Maj Coughlin, they would see how the date of this video, Jun 28, 2011, conforms quite well with his timeline for OIC influence operations and plans to do an end run around, for one thing, the US 1st amendment.

Transcript below the fold:

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Outrage: Sudan’s Al-Bashir, Indicted for Genocide, is Nominated for Seat on UN Human Rights Council

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U.N. Watch:

Rights group UN Watch urges Ban Ki-moon and rights chief Pillay to speak out

Contact UN Watch in Geneva: me****@*****ch.org

 

GENEVA, July 12 – The Geneva-based human rights group UN Watch urged United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay to urgently speak out against the African-backed bid by Sudanese president Omar Al-Bashir, indicted for genocide by the International Criminal Court, for a seat on the U.N. Human Rights Council.

Last week, the U.S. failed to get the council to pass a condemnation of what it said was a Syrian candidacyfor 2014.

The NGO UN Watch also called on US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the EU’s Catherine Ashton to denounce and fight against Sudan’s candidacy.

“Electing Sudan to the U.N. body mandated to promote and protect human rights worldwide is like putting Jack the Ripper in charge of a women’s shelter,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch.

UN Watch already heads an international campaign of MPs and human rights groups opposing the candidacies of Venezuela and Pakistan.

The U.N.’s African group of states agreed behind closed doors to endorse the candidacies of Ethiopia, Gabon, Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone and Sudan. Because Africa has arranged for five countries to run for the same amount of allotted seats, Sudan’s election is virtually assured.

“Technically,” said Neuer, “Sudan must still receive an absolute majority of 97 affirmative country votes in the U.N. General Assembly’s November election for new human rights council members. However, in the history of these ballots, names presented on a closed slate have never been rejected. It’s just the way U.N. ambassadors work. And the fact is that Sudan has been chosen to head various U.N. groupings, so its election to the UNHRC, however outrageous, is a real possibility.”

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