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Miami, FL (AHN) - At a speaking engagement in Florida, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev took issue with Sen. John McCain's call for a new "League of Democracies" and said any move that undermines the United Nations is a "mistake." "Great powers set an example to the world and must give a chance to the United Nations to develop a new global system," Gorbachev said. "We must not, instead of the United Nations, propose NATO or some kind of a coalition of democratic countries, as suggested by Sen. McCain. I think that to replace the U.N. with that kind of...

The Prime Minister has called for a radical reform of international institutions ranging from the United Nations to the World Bank. In a speech to business leaders in the Indian capital New Delhi, Mr Brown said the UN Security Council should be expanded to include places for nations such as India, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) should have a new "early warning" role to head off crises such as Northern Rock. He also said the World Bank should focus more on increasing clean energy and the environment. He said: "To succeed now, the post-war rules of the game and...

The UN is the chief world producer of political and geopolitical lies.I am from France, a country where the UN is popular, where people were genuinely relieved when they heard about the 2006 UN-brokered cease-fire in Lebanon, where, in fact, most people think that the UN and its Secretary-General, Mr. Kofi Annan, are the very embodiment of international law, order, and decency. Of course, there are some reservations even in France about the UN. The French think that the U.S. exerts too much influence there and deters it from being effective much of the time. The French think that the...

Publics around the world favor dramatic steps to strengthen the United Nations, including giving it the power to have its own standing peacekeeping force, to regulate the international arms trade and to investigate human rights abuses. Large majorities believe the United Nations Security Council should have the right to authorize military force to prevent nuclear proliferation, genocide and terrorism. However support is not as robust among the publics polled for accepting UN decisions that go against their countries’ preferences. These are some of the findings from a survey conducted by The Chicago Council on Global Affairs and WorldPublicOpinion.org, in cooperation...

Axis of Soros May 9, 2007; Page A16 Mark Malloch Brown spoke Monday to a crowded auditorium at the World Bank's headquarters, warning that the bank's mission was "hugely at risk" as long as Paul Wolfowitz remained its president. Only hours earlier, news leaked that a special committee investigating Mr. Wolfowitz had accused him of violating conflict-of-interest rules. A coincidence? We doubt it. Mr. Malloch Brown, remember, was until last year Kofi Annan's deputy at the United Nations. In that position, he distinguished himself by spinning away the $100 billion Oil for Food scandal as little more than a blip...

JOHANNESBURG, April 18 (Reuters) - During apartheid rule in South Africa, the country's liberation movement used the United Nations as a key battleground to win support for its struggle for democracy and human rights. But these days, South Africa's U.N. diplomats find the issues are rarely so clear cut. Post-apartheid South Africa has found itself in the firing line after a string of U.N. votes in which critics say it supported dictatorship and repression in countries ranging from Zimbabwe to Myanmar. It has also raised Western hackles by wanting to drop sanctions against Iran in the dispute over Tehran's nuclear...

Surprisingly, the New Delhi meting of foreign ministers of India, China and Russia did not draw a wider notice. It could be because a major focus of the three-way talks was trade and energy, not conflict resolution, though tricky issues like terrorism and West Asia were on their agenda. ... The New Delhi conclave provided a clue about the role that the trioka wants to play in the world when the three foreign ministers decided that they should meet more regularly. They were clear that ‘cooperation, rather than confrontation’ should govern the approach to regional and global affairs. And expectedly...

The UN's vaunted neutrality props up evil regimes. More than 170 political leaders from around the world recently met at the United Nations to consider what the New York Times called "the most sweeping institutional changes" in the organization's history. But this exercise was, predictably, hopeless. Although both detractors and defenders eagerly proposed "reforms," they skirted the UN's insuperable problem: its corrupt "ideal" of moral neutrality. The fundamental feature of the UN is its policy of opening membership non-judgmentally to all nations--whether free or oppressive, peaceful or belligerent. This is upheld as the UN's central virtue and a vital means...

UNITED NATIONS Secretary-General Kofi Annan has refused to fill out a newly minted U.N. financial disclosure form, rejecting advice of his inner circle that doing so would send a good signal as the U.N. seeks to counter allegations that it is closed to public scrutiny, U.N. officials said Thursday. The U.N. unveiled new rules last year that tightened staff financial disclosure requirements in effect since 1999. Annan is not required to fill out the form because he is technically not a staff member. Nonetheless, two U.N. officials told The Associated Press that several of Annan's top aides had recently urged...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The United States should give the United Nations until the end of the year to reform and then consider cutting back on its U.N. dues if the changes fall short, U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said on Monday. "Is good management and lack of corruption too much to ask for?" he asked, calling the United Nations "severely challenged from a management and accountability point of view." Bolton made his comments in response to a question after addressing a symposium on the future of the United Nations sponsored by the conservative Hudson Institute. The United States, one of...

Bolstered by the support of a second permanent U.N. Security Council member, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Monday took his campaign to win a seat on the council to Malaysia. He faces strong opposition from the United States. During a six-day visit to China, the populist leftist won Beijing's backing for Venezuela's bid to be elected onto the 15-member council in October. Russia earlier agreed to support Venezuela. Washington is adamantly opposed to the seat going to a country sympathetic to some of America's biggest foes, including Iran, North Korea and Cuba. The nuclear ambitions of Iran and North Korea...

Few political figures in recent history have so polarized opinion in Congress as John Bolton, the United States permanent representative to the United Nations. Faced with Senate gridlock, Bolton was sent by President Bush as a recess appointment to the United Nations last August. With Bolton’s recess appointment expiring when the new Congress convenes in January 2007, the President recently announced that he would again submit Bolton for confirmation. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee plans to vote on Bolton’s nomination in August, with a full vote of the Senate expected in September. Over the past year, Bolton has proven a...

BOLTON HEARING LIVE ON C-SPAN 3

The United States is trying to use the power of the purse to force through badly needed management reforms, and these tactics have provoked a reaction among developing countries.

Last month President Bush issued a rare apology. "Saying 'Bring it on,' kind of tough talk, you know, that sent the wrong signal," he confessed. "I think in certain parts of the world it was misinterpreted." Well done, Mr. President, you've understood that bluster can backfire. Now how about sharing this insight with your ambassador to the United Nations? John R. Bolton, the ambassador in question, has a rich history of losing friends and failing to influence people. He was notorious, even before arriving at the United Nations last year, for having said that 10 stories of the U.N. headquarters...

Kofi Annan is giving commencement addresses on college campuses while Eric Shawn is not, but the author of the new book U.N. Exposed can give graduating seniors greater insight into how the United Nations really works than the secretary-general can. “At heart I am a New York City crime reporter so I came at it [U.N.] as a local reporter,” said Shawn who is a member of the U.N. press corps and a senior correspondent for FOX News. It is like a corrupt city hall, “U.N. World is the inverse of any logical reality,” explained Shawn. One example of such...

President Vladimir Putin gave his annual address to the Federal Assembly on Wednesday, and there are several things that make this year’s presidential address notable. One is that it comes very close to outlining the contours of Putin’s desired political legacy, which could be described as the New Deal and the Great Society mixed together in one strategy for securing a more just and effective distribution of Russia’s new wealth among its people. It is no coincidence that Putin opened his speech with a strongly worded quote from Franklin D. Roosevelt: “We have stepped on toes, and we will continue...

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would have the final say on withholding half of U.S. dues to the United Nations under a compromise plan announced on Monday that aims to overhaul the world body. This compromise takes away the threat of an automatic deduction of U.S. dues unless the United Nations makes a series of reforms, a key requirement of a House bill passed in June. Rep. Henry Hyde, an Illinois Republican who led a congressional delegation to the United Nations, said he now agrees with members of the Senate and his House Democratic colleague...

More than 240 women from over 50 countries accused U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan of failing to promote women's rights and of neglecting gender equality in his U.N. reform plans. Secretary-General Kofi Annan is proposing a shakeup of U.N. management practices. that would create a mobile civil service, allow a one-time staff buyout costing about $100,000 per person, modernize technology and consider outsourcing. The proposal, to be unveiled yesterday, is a response to last year's investigation into the U.N. oil-for-food program, which concluded that the U.N.'s shoddy management was partly to blame for widespread corruption. It is also an effort to...

As a moderate-right conservative, it distresses me to reach this conclusion, because I have always thought that having a place where the peoples of the world could meet and talk would always be a good idea, no matter what. However, the obstructionism, the inefficiency, the anti-Semitism, the arrogance and the incredible waste of resources are one thing, but the scandals involving rape and child molestation and oil-for-food bribes are quite another. As more and more information dribbles out, it has become clearer and clearer that these scandals involve the highest levels of UN leadership, and are widespread and so deeply...

Why the UN needs reform In 1991, the members of the United Nations threw their collective efforts behind the attempt to guarantee peace and to bring free elections to Cambodia. To one of the world's most abused, tragic nations, the UN sent its biggest, most expensive peacekeeping force in history. In about two years, some 20,000 UN troops passed through the unfortunate country, proving again the cliche about too many cooks spoiling the broth _ except that the ''broth'' was the nation of Cambodia. The peacekeeping mission turned into a travesty which failed to suppress the Khmer Rouge, tripled the...

UNITED NATIONS: US Ambassador John Bolton’s drive to crack down on UN fraud and abuse is triggering a backlash from developing nations who fear Washington is trying to wrest control from UN members. The simmering conflict between Washington and the developing nations that make up a majority of UN members boiled to the surface this week when two US congressmen said nonaligned states had “worked feverishly in New York to block the efforts ... to clean up the institution”. “We and our colleagues in the House of Representatives have followed, and will continue to follow, your actions very closely, and...

UNITED NATIONS -- The U.S. ambassador opened Security Council discussions on the next U.N. secretary-general, calling the choice of a replacement for Kofi Annan probably the most important decision the world body will make this year. U.S. Ambassador John Bolton, the council's president this month, called a meeting of the five veto-wielding permanent members Thursday "to get a sense of where the council is, so that we can begin to move forward on the issue." Annan's second five-year term ends on Dec. 31 and his successor must be approved by the General Assembly based on a recommendation from the council....

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.S. Ambassador John Bolton's drive to crack down on U.N. fraud and abuse is triggering a backlash from developing nations who fear Washington is trying to wrest control from U.N. members. The simmering conflict between Washington and the developing nations that make up a majority of U.N. members boiled to the surface this week when two U.S. congressmen said nonaligned states had "worked feverishly in New York to block the efforts … to clean up the institution." Tensions escalated after Bolton, who holds the rotating presidency of the 15-nation Security Council in February, scheduled council meetings...

THE United Nations has drawn up plans to privatise the bulk of its staff at its New York headquarters or have their work done more cheaply overseas. The move is in response to mounting demands for reform from the United States, its biggest paymaster. The Business has learned that Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general, has commissioned a study into the outsourcing of the department for General Assembly and Conference ­Management, the main UN ­decision-making body whose officials issue about 200 documents a day in six languages. The move comes as the UN grapples with the oil-for-food scandal in which...

At one level, the United Nations is merely the latest variant on the Congress of Vienna held almost two centuries ago—a venue where the great powers sit down to resolve the problems of the world to their mutual satisfaction. Unfortunately, unlike Lord Castlereagh, Prince Metternich and Talleyrand, none of whom would be asked to audition for a “We Are The World” charity fundraising single, the UN has become the repository of all the West’s sappiest illusions of one-worldism. Let me give an example. Nearly three years ago, the space shuttle Columbia crashed, and Katie Couric on NBC’s Today show saluted...

Earlier this month the Pakistani ambassador to the United Nations, chafing over a U.S. plan to salvage the discredited Human Rights Commission, exemplified why the very idea of U.N. reform looks more and more like a gothic fantasy. The ambassador was indignant at the notion that states under U.N. sanction for rights abuses should be kept off a newly created Human Rights Council. "The presumption that a country is a violator of human rights is very subjective," complained Munir Akram. "If you want to create criteria...that exclude certain countries, why not those that don't support trade liberalization or that don't...

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The U.S. ambassador to the U.N. pushed Tuesday for all five permanent Security Council members to have the right to sit on a new Human Rights Council. Negotiations to replace the present rights council is now the dominant reform topic at the U.N. Past rights councils have included notorious human rights abusers such as Zimbabwe and Cuba. The panel now has 53 members. U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said the permanent council members - United States, Russia, China, France and the United Kingdom - should also be on the Geneva-based rights panel would make it a better...

The UN budget for the biennium 2006-2007 was adopted by the General Assembly at the 11th hour by consensus. The total price tag was $3,799,000,000, 22% of which comes from American taxpayers. For the first time, the resolution adopting the budget attempts to tie dollars to UN reform: "the Secretary-General, while adhering to the existing procedures regarding the annual assessment of Member States, is authorized to enter into expenditure of a first tranche, limited to 950 million dollars, as an exceptional measure."But the following phrase adds: "The General Assembly, in order to ensure the availability of resources for programme delivery,...

Diplomacy: Remember the fuss about John Bolton, how Democrats stalled his confirmation as U.N. ambassador and depicted him as a threat to the world order? Well, his recess appointment is having a salutary impact. That's not how it was supposed to turn out, at least according to the Democrats and the media hysterics. Bolton was the tough-talking undersecretary of state who was once so impolitic as to quip that it wouldn't much matter if the top 10 stories of the East River edifice were knocked over. Mix in some rumors about Bolton bullying State Department subordinates — a delicious fantasy,...

After advising his yet-unnamed successor to grow "thick skin," Secretary-General Annan yesterday appeared to have thinned his own, lashing out at reporters who asked about United Nations and Annan family scandals. Mr. Annan refused to allow a London Times correspondent, James Bone, to ask a question, accusing him of being "an embarrassment" to his profession. The eruption...reflected frustrations...poor supervision of the oil-for-food program...failed to move on such world events as the Darfur genocide... none of the U.N. reform ideas championed by Mr. Annan were implemented beyond window-dressing. Mr. Annan's...remark that the Iraq war was illegal. The comment did not sit...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 8 (UPI) -- U.S. Ambassador John Bolton's demand for reforms at the United Nations before approving its budget is winning support from congressional Republicans. Whatever it takes," said Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., told The Washington Times. "We desperately need to reform that body." Bolton reportedly wants the world body to overhaul its operations by creating an ethics office and increasing the oversight of its activities. But the General Assembly could approve the budget unless Bolton gains majority support. U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., will try to get congressional support to help Bolton force reform, a spokeswoman...

Front and center on the United Nations Web site is a link titled "Renewing the U.N." Click on it and you'll find a photo of Secretary General Kofi Annan next to a statement that reads, in part, "We must reshape the Organization in ways not previously imagined and with a boldness and speed not previously shown."That quote dates from last March. Here's Mr. Annan last week: "The business of the U.N. is not reform. The business of the U.N. is carrying out the mandates that the General Assembly and the Security Council have given us, so that business must continue."...

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and US Ambassador John Bolton sparred on Friday over the stalled UN budget and the slow pace of planned reforms amid fears that the impasse could lead to a "financial crunch." "There has been suggestion by some governments, or a government, that we should not be given the two-year budget but maybe a temporary three-month or so budget," Annan told UN staff, referring to a Bolton proposal. "This doesn't work for the United Nations," said Annan, who canceled an overseas trip this weekend to deal with the budget challenge. Last month, Bolton suggested that the world...

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United States threatened on Tuesday to delay the two-year United Nations budget unless reforms are approved by the end of the year, a move that could cause havoc for U.N. operations. U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said Secretary-General Kofi Annan and his staff have acknowledged they might not have all management and other reform proposals until February, after the December 31 budget deadline. Although a U.N summit document calls on Annan to provide "recommendations to the General Assembly for decision" during the first quarter of 2006, Bolton said this was too late. "I don't think we...

The Washington Timeswww.washingtontimes.com Can the U.S. find a substitute for the U.N.?By Betsy PisikTHE WASHINGTON TIMESPublished November 15, 2005 America's representative at the United Nations said yesterday that the organization must become better at solving problems and more responsive to U.S. concerns or Washington will seek other venues for international action.     During a luncheon with reporters and editors at The Washington Times, U.N. Ambassador John R. Bolton said repeatedly that the Bush administration requires nothing less than "a revolution of reform" at the world body, encompassing everything from U.N. Security Council engagement to management changes to a focus on...

The United States reportedly may look for a U.N. substitute if that body doesn't improve in problem solving and responding to U.S. needs. U.N. Ambassador John R. Bolton told The Washington Times that the Bush administration requires nothing less than a revolution of reform at the United Nations. "That," he said, "would cover everything from Security Council engagement to management changes to a focus on administrative skills in choosing the next secretary-general." The United Nations, which he said seemed caught in a time warp, "has got to be a place to solve problems that need solving, rather than a place...

UNITED NATIONS - The United Nations faces a crisis of reputation in the wake of the oil-for-food scandal, but the 191 member states and Secretary-General Kofi Annan are determined to reform the world body, the top U.N. management official said Wednesday. Key elements of that reform include a new, strengthened whistleblower policy and new financial disclosure rules that, among other things, will require that staff report gifts of more than $250 rather than $10,000 as the rules currently demand, said Undersecretary-General Christopher Burnham. Burnham is an American and former official in the administration of President Bush. He was hired five...

The United Nations has yet to take steps to protect staffers who accuse superiors of misconduct, nearly 18 months after Secretary-General Kofi Annan promised to shield such whistle-blowers from reprisals, U.N. officials acknowledged on Tuesday.[snip]Almost a year and a half later, however, new draft rules on whistle-blowers remain on the desk of Deputy Secretary-General Louise Frechette, said Barbara Dixon, who heads the watchdog unit's Investigations Division.

United Nations Ambassador John Bolton told Congress Tuesday that he's working hard to press the U.S. case for an urgent overhaul of the world body, but he expects a tough diplomatic campaign to win the necessary support. Making his first appearance before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee since President Bush used recess-appointment to install him over the objections of Senate Democrats, Bolton said he has been engaged in "a matter of intense diplomacy in New York" to try to rally support for changing the U.N. Bolton said that while rich countries like Japan, Britain and others in Western Europe support...

By any reasonable standard, the Bush policy on the U.N. should be more controversial than the Harriet Miers nomination to the Supreme Court. The President, who is depicted by the media as a unilateralist in foreign policy, is presiding over an unprecedented expansion of U.N. power on the world stage. Despite U.N. scandals and corruption, his administration spends more money on international organizations year after year. And global taxes for the U.N. may be on the horizon. One might think that a President who went to war in Iraq without U.N. approval and appointed the tenacious John Bolton as U.N....

Last month at its “World Summit” in New York, the United Nations took another big step toward destroying national sovereignty - a step that could threaten the United States in the future. The UN passed a resolution at this summit that, among other things, establishes a “Peacebuilding Commission,” creates a worldwide UN “democracy fund,” and most troublingly codifies the dangerous “Responsibility to Protect” report as part of UN policy. The three are certainly interrelated. I have been concerned for some time about the establishment of a UN Peacebuilding Commission, an idea I first found so troubling when the International Relations...

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- John R. Bolton allowed only one crooked grin of satisfaction Wednesday as he faced members of Congress from behind a small placard that read "Ambassador Bolton." Bolton, President Bush's hard-charging choice to be the U.S. ambassador at the United Nations, has been pulling long hours and winning respect if not friends among U.N. diplomats in the nearly two months since Bush went around Senate Democrats to give Bolton a rare recess appointment to the U.N. job. Back on Capitol Hill for the first time since his long and fruitless attempt to win Senate confirmation, Bolton was all...

Nearly 170 heads of state came to New York last week for the United Nations’ 60th anniversary. So organizers planned a gala birthday celebration fitting for the occasion. But soon after the World Summit started on Wednesday, it became obvious the party was destined to go bust. First, a little background. Originally, the focus of the Summit was going to be the Millennium Development Goals – MDGs – an ambitious blueprint for the eradication of world poverty by the year 2015. But then secretary-general Kofi Annan began to hype the event as a “once in a generation opportunity for the...

The United Nations world summit... seems to have done no real harm: It has not further extended the authority and reach of the U.N., it has not foisted another "protocol" or "convention" for the Senate to consider... [or] fund. That may be a negative accomplishment, but it is certainly a real one, especially as Secretary General Kofi Annan had envisioned the summit as an opportunity to expand membership in the Security Council, expand his own powers and require rich countries to pony up additional billions in foreign aid, among other brainstorms. It took new U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John...

UNITED NATIONS, Sept 15 (Reuters) - Terrorism is the main threat to human rights and development and the U.N. Security Council must be at the center of global efforts to fight it, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday. But governments alone are not enough to counter the threat, he told a world summit examining the future of the United Nations on its 60th anniversary. Religious and civic groups as well as the media, cultural and humanitarian organizations must all play a role, he said. From its creation, despite many heated discussions and bitter disagreements, the United Nations has symbolized...

For decades America has treated the United Nations like a difficult adolescent. The UN filled its debating chambers with anti-American rhetoric and fired off a stream of angry resolutions supporting gun-toting liberation movements.Then it would appear in Washington, red-eyed after the party, and ask for a few million extra dollars to keep everything ticking over. Almost always, America paid up. Not any more. The arrival of John Bolton, the hard-nosed new American ambassador to the United Nations, has brought the party to a halt. Yesterday, with just 24 hours to go before world leaders convene for the UN's 60th birthday...

UNITED NATIONS - The U.N. General Assembly approved a watered-down declaration on development, human rights, terrorism and global security on Tuesday for adoption at the world body's 60th anniversary summit. The meeting of world leaders is intended to revitalize the United Nations for the fight against poverty and environmental destruction, and make the sprawling organization more effective in tackling the 21st century threats of terrorism and the spread of weapons of mass destruction. But negotiators failed to agree on wording on nuclear proliferation or a definition of terrorism sought by Western nations, or on commitments to greater aid and tearing...

UNITED NATIONS -- U.S. Ambassador John Bolton called Friday for a "cultural revolution" in the way the United Nations does business, citing the oil-for-food scandal as an example of the need for sweeping reform at the world body. A report this week blamed bad management for allowing Saddam Hussein's government to reap $10.2 billion from the humanitarian program designed to help the Iraqi people cope with U.N. sanctions. "This is the kind of development that I think shocks our conscience in America, to see the humanitarian impulse so cynically manipulated," Bolton said in a speech to the World Jewish Congress.

IT'S RARE THAT doorstop-size reports appear just days before an opportunity to act on them, but that is what's just happened at the United Nations. The commission headed by Paul A. Volcker, the former Federal Reserve chairman, has delivered a massive indictment of the United Nations' handling of Iraq's oil-for-food program just ahead of next week's summit at which U.N. reform will be on the agenda. When Mr. Volcker delivered his report to the Security Council yesterday, his call for change was echoed both by U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and by ambassadors representing the United States and other member...