Free Republic

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) voted recently to officially declare Rachel's Tomb to be a mosque. UNESCO director Irena Bokova had previously stated “concern” at Israel's decision to treat the tomb as a heritage site. The vote called for Rachel's Tomb and the Tomb of the Patriarchs – the burial site of the other Biblical Patriarchs and Matriarchs – to be removed from Israel's National Heritage list. The Palestinian Authority has claimed that Rachel's Tomb is holy to Muslims as the site of a mosque called the Bilal Bin Rabah Mosque. The PA demands control over...

Top 10 Reasons I Hate the UN10. UNESCO: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural OrganizationMay 28, 2009:I’d think that seriously advocating book burning at any time would disqualify you, since presumably there are equally qualified candidates for the UN’s cultural heritage agency who’ve never advocated destroying cultural heritage. But Israeli society is toxic anyway – especially compared to the glory that is the contemporary Egyptian public sphere – so no loss:Egyptian Culture Minister Farouk Hosni, a candidate for the top job at the United Nations culture agency UNESCO, apologised on Wednesday for calling for Israeli books to be burnt… Hosni...

Julian Huxley, the head of UNESCO in 1947, wrote a book titled, “UNESCO: Its Purpose and Its Philosophy.” His book was a blueprint for a New World Order that called for a single 'new' spirituality---a mixture of Buddhist materialist-pantheism, Liberalized 'pantheistic' Christianity, Gnosticism, and other occult traditions--- one language, and one way of thinking. He believed a global order could be brought about through the universal implementation of Hegel’s Dialectic process. Huxley observed, “The task before UNESCO…is to help the emergence of a single world culture with its own philosophy and background of ideas and with its own broad purpose.”...

Think Globally Read Locally Malcolm A. Kline, January 22, 2010 The UN warns that illiteracy is a global problem but Americans may not have to look that far to find it. “Far too many young people emerge from primary school unable to read or write,” UNESCO warns. “In some countries in sub-Saharan Africa, young adults with five years of primary schooling have a 40% chance of being illiterate.” The U. S. could catch up in this race to the bottom. “The skills and knowledge that college instructors expect entering students to have are more focused and specific than what high...

UNESCO Unhinged Malcolm A. Kline, November 4, 2009 Not content to merely soak up billions of tax dollars it cannot account for and excuse the actions of totalitarian regimes around the world, the United Nations has come up with guidelines for sex education in countries such as the one that hosts the UN. “In the guidelines, UNESCO tells teachers around the world to present abstinence until marriage as ‘only one of a range of choices available to young people’ in order to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases,” The Education Reporter reports. “The guidelines have children ages five to eight...

Children As Young As Five To Learn About Masturbation and Abortion Under New UN Guidelines By KIRSTY WALKER 10th September 2009 Children as young as five should be taught about explicit sex acts, according to guidelines from the United Nations. The advice also calls for youngsters to learn about abortion, same-sex relationships and sexually transmitted diseases. The draft report on sex education has been compiled by UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation. Too young? Children as young as five could be taught about masturbation if UNESCO guidelines are followed (file photo) The guidance is due to be...

SNIPPET: "The new head of the Paris-based U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), an agency that gets 22 percent of its regular $600 million-plus annual budget from U.S. taxpayers, will be selected in a process that involves behind-closed-doors interviewing and a secret ballot vote." SNIPPET: "Farouk Hosni, who has been Egypt’s culture minister for more than two decades, leads a nine-strong field of hopefuls. He leads largely because he has the backing of the Arab League, the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and the African Union, and because Arab governments say it is the Arab world’s turn." SNIPPET:...

New York, NY (LifeNews.com) -- A new report from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has been roundly criticized since its release. Now, a new analysis of the 94-page documents finds the UN agency is calling for children to promote abortions across the globe.The analysis finds children are not only told about abortion and where to obtain one but encouraged to be trained to “advocate” the pro-abortion position.The report, entitled International Guidelines on Sexual Education, is filled with advice for sex education instructors to advance the abortion agenda. It calls on making children as young as...

NEW YORK — The United Nations is recommending that children as young as five receive mandatory sexual education that would teach even pre-kindergarteners about masturbation and topics like gender violence. The U.N.'s Economic, Social and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) released a 98-page report in June offering a universal lesson plan for kids ranging in age from 5-18, an "informed approach to effective sex, relationships" and HIV education that they say is essential for "all young people." The U.N. insists the program is "age appropriate," but critics say it's exposing kids to sex far too early, and offers up abstract ideas —...

How should the international community punish North Korea after Monday’s nuclear tests? While the Security Council of the United Nations was busy crafting a resolution to admonish the communist nation, the U.N. Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization gave them their third biosphere reserve. Mount Myohyang takes the cake as one of the weirder additions to the 22 world biosphere reserves announced on Tuesday. It’s the only place on earth where can you gaze through a glass case at a stuffed crocodile with a cocktail tray while breathing in the fresh air of the “Mountain of Mysterious Fragrance.” The basis for...

BEIRUT (AFP) — As Beirut prepares to don the mantle of UNESCO "World Book Capital City 2009," Arabic novels are enjoying an unprecedented boom across the Middle East, breaking taboos on topics such as sex and religion. The Lebanese capital was chosen as the world's literary centre this year "in the light of its focus on cultural diversity, dialogue and tolerance," according to the UNESCO selection committee. There is no shortage of literary fodder as book readings and launches are scheduled across Beirut daily for the last week of April. Among books being showcased will be a wealth of latest...

A UNESCO mission has visited northern Iraq, with transport and security arranged by American troops. The specialists visited four key sites -- Nimrud, Ninevah, Ashur and Hatra -- and found no evidence of recent looting. This was the first UNESCO inspection since the 2003 invasion. The visit, which for security reasons was not publicised at the time, was from 18-25 November. Details of their findings were later released by Dr Suzanne Bott, a US State Department cultural heritage advisor based at Mosul, in Ninewa province. UNESCO confirmed the mission had taken place, saying that it had been organised by the...

The Knights Templar are demanding that the Vatican give them back their good name and, possibly, billions in assets into the bargain, 700 years after the order was brutally suppressed by a joint venture between the Pope and the King of France. If the Holy See doesn’t comply, the warrior knights, renowned for liberating the Holy Land, will deploy that most fearsome of weapons: a laborious court case through the creaking Spanish legal system. The Daily Telegraph reports that The Association of the Sovereign Order of the Temple of Christ has launched a court case in Spain, demanding Pope Benedict...

Executive Summary The United Nations is celebrating its 40th anniversary amid much hoopla and endless expressions of goodwill. Last month dozens of heads of state descended on New York for the opening of the 40th session of the General Assembly; scores more are expected for the official commemorative festivities the week of October 21. Despite widespread and withering criticism of the institution in recent years--in September Singapore's foreign minister, Suppiah Dhanabalan, told the General Assembly that the UN's prestige "is at an all time low"[1]--hope burns eternal. Austrian ambassador Thomas Klestil recently reaffirmed his nation's support for the international body:...

James Cuno, president and director of the Art Institute of Chicago, posits in his new book Who Owns Antiquity? (Princeton University Press, $24.95) that the UNESCO treaty and laws enacted around the world aimed at applying its principles have done nothing to stop looting and have succeeded only in inhibiting the global movement of art. UNESCO, he argues, has impoverished our understanding of one another and contributed to a stale, narrowly nationalistic view of culture. More specifically, these laws have prevented museums like his from acquiring antiquities as they have in the past. He calls them "nationalist retentionist cultural property...

Excerpt from NJ101.5 "The legislature can't cure the problem," says State Senator Loretta Weinberg, "The only thing we can cure with legislation is to make sure that people know they can't act on those biases." Weinberg sponsors a bill scheduled for a vote today in the full Senate that would amend the law concerning the crime of bias intimidation to specifically provide that "gender identity or expression" and "national origin" are within the protected classes set forth in the statute. Currently a bias crime based on gender identity or expression or national origin can be prosecuted using the protected classes...

Critics have long believed environmentalists were planning global domination. The problem with making a credible case against such an ambitious plan was simple: no environmental leader had published one. Yet conflicts over global warming, world trade, multinational corporations, population control, sustainable futures, and transnational government left little doubt that environmentalists in fact shared the unspoken aim of wielding supreme power over a green future. But there was no proof. For years, critics, lacking hard evidence, were reduced to piecing together a jigsaw puzzle of suspicious environmentalist actions - funding from huge charitable trusts, ties to the broader "progressive" community, and...

Commentary: China silently nuclearizing South Asia MANIPAL, Sep. 17 M.D. NALAPAT Column: Future Present In 1999 this columnist put forward the theory of a "proxy nuclear state," a country that has had nuclear capability grafted onto it by an outside power. Thus far, China has developed two such states -- North Korea (to harry Japan) and Pakistan (to contain India). A third, Bangladesh, is well on the way, with Iran a likely candidate for a future in which tensions with the United States reach the 1950s level. China's warming strategic relationship with Russia has resulted in Moscow going along as...

Seven years ago, it was a place of serene contemplation. Now it is a vast, gaping chasm, filled with dust, noise and what looks like rubble, with signs warning that hard hats must be worn. This is the niche which used to house the one of the world's tallest Buddhas - 55 metres high. In it you can still see slight swellings where its feet used to be, and ghostly traces of where the head and neck were. In the early morning light, a huge bulldozer shifts massive blocks of the destroyed colossus, already labelled and classified, into undercover storage...

Egypt is scoffing at a global contest to name the new seven wonders of the world, saying it is a disgrace that the ancient Pyramids of Giza — the only surviving structure from the traditional list of architectural marvels — must compete for a spot. ADVERTISEMENT Top Egyptian officials have criticized the popular contest that urges people around the world to vote for their top sites from a list of 21 finalists that lumps the pyramids with upstart wonders like the Statue of Liberty, the Eiffel Tower and Peru's Machu Picchu. The pyramids are "living in the hearts of people...