"The chairman of an upcoming United Nations-organized conference looking into ways of curbing the illegal trade in small arms said today that stepped-up action is needed to tackle the global scourge and follow-up on a Programme of Action endorsed by all Member States in 2001.
At WorldNetDaily, Henry Lamb fumes about the United Nations' encroachment on American sovereignty. Predictably for diatribes of this nature, Lamb targets Kyoto and the Law of the Seas -- two international treaties, incidentally, to which the United States has yet to accede. But until now, never have I seen the anti-UN crowd take offense to the United States Department of Agriculture's National Animal Identification System for American livestock and poultry.
In case you missed these:
Strained relations between U.N., U.S. are bad for everyone
"During the late 1990s, congressional conservatives led by Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., vowed to starve the U.N. unless it acceded to a long list of "reforms." In September 2002, President Bush asserted that the United Nations would become "irrelevant" should it fail to join the U.S. in disarming Iraq. You have to wonder why the U.N. is still in business. The short answer is: Because the United States can't do without it.
CNN: "The takeover of Somalia's capital by Islamic militias could lead to a regional conflict unless the international community resolves Somalia's 15-year-old civil war, the top U.N. envoy to the country warned Monday.... U.N. officials are concerned that the increased fighting could create a new humanitarian crisis, and the United States fears the country could become a new haven for the al Qaeda terror network."
In the midst of a long-winded diatribe against Secretary General Kofi Annan, Claudia Rosett manages to assert that no reforms have followed in the wake of the oil-for-food scandal. "Last year, the general hope, and Annan's promise, was that the exposure of Oil-for-Food corruption, and a host of other U.N. scandals ... would lead to genuine U.N. reform," writes Rosett in the National Review Online. "The scandals are still with us. But there has been no major reform." No reform? Please.
Damage to the once pristine habitats of the deep oceans by pollution, litter and overfishing is running out of control, the United Nations warned yesterday. In a report that indicates that time is running out to save them, the UN said humankind's exploitation of the the deep seas and oceans was "rapidly passing the point of no return".
Alertnet: "The United Nations launched a drive on Thursday to "disaster-proof" schools to prevent children being crushed in earthquakes and swept away in floods.
A sampling of United Nations related blog commentary
Air America Radio notes renewed calls for Guantanamo's closure.
CJR Daily discusses the "Elephant in the Newsroom" known as Guantanamo: "A quick Lexis-Nexis search for "Guantanamo" proves just how inadequate newspapers have been to the task of telling this story. Nearly every article that appears is a breaking news story about a new hunger strike, a court battle over forced feeding, or an organization like the UN voicing concern about the detainees."
Coalition for Darfur links to an AP piece describing "thousands of civilian deaths" documented in Darfur.
Joshua Landis writes: "The new UN investigation into Rafiq Al Hariri's murder is expected to indict Syrian leaders."
Paper Chase says that "UN rights experts call on Egypt to preserve independent judiciary."