The UN: What's The Point?
More than a decade after United Nations peacekeepers failed to prevent massacres in Rwanda and Srebrenica, Bosnia, what many consider the organization’s flagship mission appears to be slouching toward crisis once again.
The UN announced on Wednesday that Iran had been appointed to its Working Group on Communications on the Status of Women.
As Guy Benson pointed out on Twitter, that would be the same Iranian regime that on Monday sentenced Nasrin Sotoudeh, a female lawyer and leading campaigner for the rule of law, to 38 years in prison and 148 lashes.
-Sohrab Ahmari 
Of course, another U.N. official was in charge of peacekeeping operations at the time one million Rwandan’s were killed.
His name is Kofi Annan. Despite his failure to prevent the genocide he was promoted to Secretary General of the United Nations. (There is even a Kofi Annan Peacekeeping Training Centre in his native Ghama...)
-David Gerstman
More than a decade after United Nations peacekeepers failed to prevent massacres in Rwanda and Srebrenica, Bosnia, what many consider the organization’s flagship mission appears to be slouching toward crisis once again, diplomats and other experts say.
-Neil MacFarquhar
Hypocrisy, Liberal, Un, Feminism, Sexism
For the past 13 years, a comprehensive annual report has given Yemen the lowest ranking in the world for gender equality. This week Yemen was handed the vice presidency of the executive board of the United Nations gender equality and women’s empowerment agency, UN Women, for 2019.
The decision drew strong criticism from a leading non-governmental monitor of the world body. UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer called it “an insult to women’s rights activists worldwide who struggle against the persecution exemplified by Yemen's misogynistic laws and practices.”
Hypocrisy, Hate, Violence, Misogyny, Un, Feminism, Murder
From January 1 next year, Iran will be a member of the executive board of the U.N. Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (U.N. Women)... “In Iran, women are legally barred from holding some government positions, there are no laws against domestic violence, and adultery is punishable by stoning, making it wholly inappropriate that Iran assume a leadership role on women’s rights and welfare at the U.N.,” Power said.
Hypocrisy, Liberal, Guns, Incompetence, Un, Oops
Iran will preside over the United Nations arms control forum this month, despite the fact that it is under U.N. sanctions for illicit nuclear activities and routinely supplies arms to the terrorist organization Hezbollah in violation of international law. The U.N.’s annual Conference on Disarmament, which Iran is slated to lead from May 27 to June 23, is the organization’s primary multilateral forum for negotiating arms control agreements.
Violence, Incompetence, Un, War, Assault
Victims of an attack on a camp for displaced civilians in Ivory Coast have accused armed U.N. peacekeepers of failing to protect them during a raid that killed seven and wounded more than 50... Camp resident Jean Matthieu Taha said he was beaten by young men with sticks in front of the peacekeepers.
"At that moment the white people just stopped. You'd try to go to the whites, to UNOCI, and they chased you away themselves. I don't know why," he said, the left side of his head covered in an adhesive bandage.
Character, Un, Brilliance, Oops
In what one critic called a move akin to placing Bernie Madoff in charge of thwarting fraud on the stock market, Iran has been elected as one of the 15 members of the United Nation’s Arms Trade Treaty conference. It was chosen for the conference, currently under way in New York, precisely as the UN Security Council slammed Tehran’s illegal arms deals, including shipments to Syria, and while the international community continues to censure and sanction Iran for its refusal to halt its nuclear program. The Army Trade Treaty Conference aims to negotiate an international treaty regulating arms dealing.
Funny, Un, Brilliance
Seldom, however, has there been such anger, or questioning of the organisation's credibility, as that greeting the appointment of a new international envoy for tourism: Robert Mugabe. Improbable as it seems, the Zimbabwean president, who is widely accused of ethnic cleansing, rigging elections, terrorising opposition, controlling media and presiding over a collapsed economy, has been endorsed as a champion of efforts to boost global holidaymaking.
The UN Glorifies Mass Murderer
SHAME: Giant portrait of the mass murderer Che Guevara now on display at the United Nations in Geneva, home of its ironically-named Human Rights Council. pic.twitter.com/M01fCPMpRs
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) February 28, 2019
Hatred is the central element of our struggle! Hatred that is intransigent... hatred so violent that it propels a human being beyond his natural limitations, making him violent and cold-blooded killing machine...
We reject any peaceful approach. Violence is inevitable. To establish Socialism rivers of blood must flow!
-Che Guevara
Incompetence, Un
(Reuters) - Rights group Amnesty International lambasted the United Nations Security Council on Thursday as "tired, out of step and increasingly unfit for purpose". In its annual report, Amnesty said the failure of world powers to take stronger action on Syria was evidence that a sclerotic security council was hamstrung by vested interests, and also warned of abuses arising from Europe's economic crisis.
Incompetence, Un, Oops, War
Iran imported weapons worth over $560 million over a three-year period despite being the target of a United Nations arms embargo, the Telegraph reported Thursday, citing data published the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Anna MacDonald, the Control Arms campaigns manager for Oxfam, was quoted by the British daily as saying that the Islamic Republic's success in tapping the international arms market showed the ineffectiveness of current restrictions.
Hypocrisy, Incompetence, Character, Scandal, Un, Oops, War
U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice recalled that the "United Nations was established in the shadow of a genocide," the Nazi slaughter of six million Jews during World War II. "It suffered an enormous blow to its credibility and effectiveness in the face of another genocide, the one we're gathered to commemorate today," she said, a reference to the U.N.'s failure to intervene and halt the Rwanda genocide.
When the United Nations was founded more than sixty years ago, it embodied our hope for a safer, more peaceful world.
But as reports of human rights violations and international conflicts make daily headlines, a question arises: Is the United Nations living up to its founding ideals?
-Katie Pavlich
Incompetence, Funny, Un
A United Nations panel has adopted a report praising Qaddafi-era Libya for its human rights record, a year after the report was sidelined amid international objection.
Environmentalist, Incompetence, Funny, Un
There has been talk, meanwhile, of a new environmental peacekeeping force – green helmets – which could step into conflicts caused by shrinking resources.
Hypocrisy, Violence, Funny, Un
While the UN General Assembly was working to promote peace, behind the scenes officials were trying to contain a violent scuffle between UN security staff and Turkish diplomats.
Violence, Incompetence, Un
While diplomats dither over the correct way to admonish the regime of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, the Internet has been filled with pictures of corpses, mutilated teenage torture victims and panicked crowds seeking shelter from snipers. But the United Nations Security Council, which authorized military action against Libya in March to defend its citizens from their government, has remained silent.
"Practices of the security services against our unarmed citizens ... are against all human values and the slogans of the party," they wrote.
The Baath party signatories from the Banias region condemned "the house raids and the indiscriminate use of live fire against people, homes, mosques and churches."
Incompetence, Character, Un
UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. Security has failed to agree on a statement condemning Syrian violence against peaceful protesters.
Hypocrisy, Liberal, Incompetence, Character, Un
While Syria’s government is killing hundreds of pro-democracy protesters, the United Nations Development Program, or UNDP, is considering whether to approve a $38 million, five-year aid program for Damascus, to continue what it calls “a well-functioning partnership with the government.”
Incompetence, Un
Despite numerous breaches of arms embargoes and continued threats to expand its nuclear weapons program, North Korea has assumed the presidency of the United Nations Conference on Disarmament.
Character, Un, Feminism
NEW YORK — Without fanfare, the United Nations this week elected Iran to its Commission on the Status of Women, handing a four-year seat on the influential human rights body to a theocratic state in which stoning is enshrined in law and lashings are required for women judged "immodest."
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will carry the Olympic torch on Thursday during the final leg of its relay in London, his spokesman said on Tuesday.