United Nations

LONDON - The U.N. Population Fund has declared that having fewer children would help reduce so-called global warming...but added it is difficult to proof a connection between the two.

The agency said the battle against global warming could be helped if the world slowed population growth by making free condoms and family planning advice more widely available.

The agency did not recommend countries set limits on how many children people should have, but said: "Women with access to reproductive health services ... have lower fertility rates that contribute to slower growth in greenhouse gas emissions"...

The United States expressed mild disappointment Friday that Iran withheld a decision on whether to accept a U.N.-coordinated plan that could ease fears about Iran's potential for making a nuclear weapon.

The U.S., along with Russia and France, officially endorsed the plan Friday. The State Department said it was unhappy that Iran was not ready to embrace the plan, which calls for Iran to ship most of its low-enriched uranium to Russia for further enrichment. The resulting fuel is to be used for a research reactor in Tehran that makes medical isotopes and is under regular monitoring by a U.N. agency.

The plan is attractive from the U.S. point of view because it would consume a large proportion of Iran's stockpile of low-enriched uranium, thereby limiting the potential for it to secretly convert it into uranium suitable for making a nuclear weapon. Iran denies it has any intention of making a nuclear weapon...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – President Barack Obama has not yet determined whether he will make a decision on sending more troops to Afghanistan before the November 7 election runoff, a US official said Tuesday.

"The UN, NATO, the US stand ready to assist the Afghans in conducting the second round," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters.

"Whether or not the president makes a decision before that I don't think has been determined.

"I have continued to say a decision will be made in the coming weeks as the president goes through an examination of our policy," he added...

(CNSNews.com) – A counter-terrorism report that has been presented to the United Nations General Assembly would bend the U.N.’s definition of gender.

The report, written by UN Special Rapporteur Martin Scheinin, is titled “Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms While Countering Terrorism.” While the main focus of the document is gender-based issues that arise from counter-terrorism efforts, the report’s definition of gender that has generated opposition...

New York, NY (LifeNews.com) -- The Vatican ambassador to the United Nations told the international body on Monday that there is no international "right" to abortion. Its ambassador told UN delegates on Monday that people should be considered the world's greatest resource instead of the pro-abortion notion that there are too many.

Archbishop Celestino Migliore, permanent observer of the Holy See at the United Nations, presented the position in an address on population and development at the 64th session of the U.N. General Assembly.

According to a Zenit report, he said abortion advocates were wrong to conclude at the Cairo conference 15 years ago "that a population explosion was going to occur and hamper the ability to achieve adequate global economic development"...

Geneva (AP) - The U.N. Human Rights Council voted Friday to endorse a Gaza war crimes report and send it to the Security Council, possibly setting up international prosecution of Israelis and Palestinians accused of war crimes.

The council approved a Palestinian-backed resolution after two days of debate on the Goldstone report, which it had commissioned following the Dec. 27-Jan. 18 conflict in which almost 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed.

The resolution passed 25-6, with mostly developing countries in favor and the United States and five European countries opposing. Eleven mostly European and African countries abstained, while Britain, France and three other members of the 47-nation body declined to vote...

JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he will never allow any of the country's leaders or soldiers to be put on trial for war crimes.

Netanyahu made the comments during a fiery speech at the opening of the winter session of the Israeli parliament.

Netanyahu opened the speech with an angry tirade against a recent U.N. report that accused Israel of committing war crimes during its war against militants in the Gaza Strip last year...

New York, NY (LifeNews.com) -- In a column appearing in the liberal magazine Salon today, former "Catholics for a Free Choice" president Frances Kissling is renewing her bid to kick the pro-life Vatican out of the United Nations. Kissling is a relentless abortion advocate who dislikes that the Catholic Church advocates pro-life principles.

Kissling tries to make the case that the Vatican isn't really a state and therefore shouldn't have permanent observer status at the United Nations.

Deal Hudson, a prominent Catholic writer, offers his input on Kissling's column.

"Kissling has been trying to get the Vatican booted from the UN for years," he notes...

GENTHOD, Switzerland - Iran and six world powers put nuclear talks back on track at a landmark session that included the highest-level bilateral contact with the U.S. in years. The meeting ended with a pledge to meet again this month, but disputes surfacing shortly after its conclusion indicated a rough road to agreement ahead.

Iran accepted a demand Thursday at the talks in a villa outside Geneva to allow U.N. inspectors into its covertly built enrichment plant, in a move that appeared to defuse tensions that had been building for weeks.

Western officials at the session said the Islamic republic had also agreed to allow Russia to take some of its enriched uranium and enrich it to higher levels for its research reactor in Tehran, a potentially significant move that would show greater flexibility by both sides...

Holding aloft evidence of Hitler's Final Solution, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday railed against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for his denial of the Holocaust and scolded the United Nations for allowing Ahmadinejad to speak during its opening session of the 64th U.N. General Assembly.

Offering detailed reminders of the war that sent 6 million Jews to their deaths in concentration camps and recalling the agreement within the world body to create the Jewish State, Netanyahu took his turn at the dais to express astonishment at what he witnessed a day earlier.

He commended those who boycotted Ahmadinejad's speech, but condemned those who allowed it...