Free Republic

It cannot be stressed enough that this agreement is not about refugees fleeing persecution, or their rights to protection under international law. Instead, the agreement propagates the radical idea that migration -- for any reason -- is something that needs to be promoted, enabled and protected. The UN has no interest in admitting that its agreement promotes migration as a human right; until recently, there has been little debate about it. More debate might risk jeopardizing the entire project. UN member states are not only supposed to open their borders for the migrants of the world, but should also...

A top U.N. scientist on Thursday shrugged off an online quip from U.S. President Donald Trump that questioned global warming, saying a U.S. government report will show the “fundamental impacts of climate change on the U.S. continent.” Officials at the World Meteorological Organization also said environmentally minded efforts by the state of California, in parts of the financial sector, among grassroots activists and others will have more of an impact to help the fight against climate change than “political disturbance” and “discourse” will impede it. The science, they said, will have the last word. Some of that science comes Friday...

Absent heroic efforts, the world has locked in dangerous climate change. That’s according to a much-anticipated report released on Monday in South Korea by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a U.N.-sponsored collection of the world’s top scientists. That stark, blunt assessment comes after years of deliberation at the request of the world’s most vulnerable nations to assemble pathways that could limit global warming to no more than 1.5 degrees C, now believed to be the upper limit that would preserve the stability of the world’s interconnected ecological and societal systems. Some key conclusions: The world has already warmed by...

BRINDISI, Italy — The United Nations is seriously stepping up its campaign to undermine free speech, online freedom, and a surge in opposition to globalism worldwide. Pointing to what it calls “international law” against racism and “intolerance,” the UN is demanding a global crackdown on fundamental human rights as well as what is described as “nationalist populism.” In particular, the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment must go. As part of the attack, political and economic ideas the UN hates — populism, concern about corrupt elites, nationalism, individual liberty, borders, and more — are also now officially in the UN’s crosshairs. Basically,...

The International Criminal Court (ICC) ruled on Thursday that it has jurisdiction over alleged deportations of Rohingya people from Myanmar to Bangladesh as a possible crime against humanity. The decision at the Hague-based court paves the way for prosecutor Fatou Bensouda to further examine whether there is sufficient evidence to file charges in the case, although she has not done so yet. Bensouda’s representatives were not immediately available for comment. Although Myanmar is not a member of the Hague-based court, Bangladesh is, and the cross-border nature of deportation was sufficient for jurisdiction, the court said. […] The office of government...

At a time when the Trump administration’s robust defense of Israel at the United Nations is shaking up an institution that has long been hostile to the Jewish state, the biggest bloc of developing nations at the U.N. has decided to bestow its presidency on the “State of Palestine.” The move looks likely to increase pressure on the U.S. and Israel in the U.N. General Assembly, where the U.S. already invariably loses Israel-related votes by heavily lopsided margins. There is no sovereign state of Palestine, but the self-rule Palestinian Authority chaired by Mahmoud Abbas has since 2012 enjoyed the status...

The Trump administration will defend America’s decades-old economic embargo on Cuba in a United Nations vote this week, the State Department said Tuesday, in a reversal from the Obama administration that reflects deteriorating U.S.-Cuban relations. Every year the U.N. votes to condemn the embargo, and for years the U.S. predictably voted “no.” But last year, under President Barack Obama, the U.S. abstained for the first time, as Obama and Cuban President Raúl Castro moved forward with the historic warming of relations. A “no” vote Wednesday from U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley will return the United States to a...

The White House’s decision to break with decades of U.S. policy and allow the U.N. Security Council to condemn Israeli settlements is the culmination of years of bad blood between President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.  The decision won Obama criticism from across the political spectrum, and almost certainly wouldn't have been made if Hillary Clinton had won the presidential election. It opened him up to condemnation from President-elect Donald Trump and the right, and could lead to a battle over U.S. funding for the U.N. in Congress.  But Obama's team decided it was worth it.

Republican lawmakers on Wednesday introduced yet another bill targeting United Nations funding, this time including a special focus on the U.N. Human Rights Council’s heavily anti-Israel agenda. […] It calls specifically for U.S. funding to be withheld until the president certifies that no U.N. agency or affiliated agency grants official status or recognition to any organization promoting or condoning anti-Semitism. American taxpayers account for 22 percent of the regular budget of the U.N., plus almost 29 percent of the separate peacekeeping budget. The U.S. additionally provides billions of dollars more each year in “voluntary contributions” to a spread of U.N....

U.N. to Celebrate ‘World Toilet Day’ The United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution to mark "World Toilet Day." The day will be celebrated November 19.

When the U.N. Fails, We All Do 'In a sense things got better after the peacekeepers left,' Rusesabagina told me. 'People realized no one was going to help them'By Fareed Zakaria NewsweekDec. 13 issue - You have never heard of Paul Rusesabagina. But if you watch the stunning new movie "Hotel Rwanda," you will never forget him. The movie tells the true story of Rusesabagina, an "ordinary" Rwandan, a hotel manager, who was able to shelter and save more than 1,200 people—Tutsis and Hutus—in the midst of the Rwandan genocide. He is a Rwandan Schindler, who in a series of...