Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Peter Dierks who wrote (25433)	2/29/2008 11:12:57 PM
From: Peter Dierks	Respond to of 71588

Your U.N. at Work -- III March 1, 2008 When it comes to the U.N. Human Rights Council, is there anything left to say? Well, yes. In a break with precedent, this product of former Secretary General Kofi Annan's "reforms" has found a country other than Israel to criticize. The United States. This week, two Council "experts" -- an American lawyer and an Indian architect -- accused the Department of Housing and Urban Development of denying the "internationally recognized human rights" of New Orleans residents whose former homes in public housing complexes are scheduled for demolition. The demolitions, say the experts, "could effectively deny thousands of African-American residents their right to return to housing from which they were displaced by the hurricane." 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. Meanwhile, the Council will soon release a 25-page report by South African "investigator" John Dugard that is its most comprehensive defense yet of Palestinian terrorism. "Common sense," Mr. Dugard writes, "dictates that a distinction must be drawn between acts of mindless terror, such as acts committed by al Qaeda, and acts committed in the course of a war of national liberation against colonialism, apartheid or military occupation." Mr. Dugard goes on to lament the "Judaization" of Jerusalem, which if nothing else is a revealing use of language. We doubt Mr. Dugard's words provide much solace to the relatives of Israelis blown up on buses, in cafes and discotheques. But at least we now know what passes for "common sense" at the United Nations. online.wsj.com

To: Peter Dierks who wrote (25433)	11/20/2009 8:57:44 AM
From: Peter Dierks	Respond to of 71588

Banished at Turtle Bay A U.N. critic has her credentials stripped. NOVEMBER 20, 2009. As part of our public-service reports on the workings of your favorite world body, allow us to introduce you to Anne Bayefsky. The Toronto native is an expert on human-rights law and an accredited United Nations observer. She is also a friend of Israel, which makes her persona non grata as far as the folks at Turtle Bay are concerned. Ms. Bayefsky's sin was a two-minute talk she delivered at the U.N. earlier this month after the General Assembly had issued a resolution endorsing the Goldstone Report, which levels war crimes charges at Israel for defending itself in the face of Hamas's rockets. "The resolution doesn't mention the word Hamas," she said. "This is a resolution that purports to be even-handed; it is anything but." Ms. Bayefsky's comments were the only note of criticism on a day otherwise marked by much U.N. jubilation. Whereupon she was summarily stripped of her U.N. badge and evicted from the premises. "The Palestinian ambassador is very upset by your statement," Ms. Bayefsky says the U.N. security chief told her. Journalist Matthew Russell Lee tells us that he heard the ambassador asking whether U.N. security had "captured" Ms. Bayefsky. For the record, the U.N. claims that Ms. Bayefsky violated procedures by bringing a colleague who lacked a proper badge, and that she was not entitled to speak where she did, though representatives of nongovernment organizations have used it in the past. And when we called the Palestinian Mission to get their side of the story, they told us the fracas was the last of their worries. Maybe so. Yet the U.N. continues to bar Ms. Bayefsky from the premises, despite calls on her behalf by the U.S. mission and Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel. Best-case scenario, one U.N. insider tells us, is that "they'll put her on probation." We hear the U.N.'s NGO accreditation committee, chaired by Sudan, will likely make the final decision. Meanwhile, a committee of the General Assembly recently passed a resolution on the so-called defamation of religion. "Everyone has the right to hold opinions without interference, and has the right to freedom of expression, the exercise of which carries with it special duties and responsibilities and may therefore be subject to limitations," it says. "Without interference" yet "subject to limitations." Orwell should be living now. online.wsj.com