United Nations

(CNSNews.com) – Sheriff Larry Dever, whose officers patrol Cochise County along the border between Arizona and Mexico, said he finds it “amazing” that the U.S. State Department would refer the recently passed immigration law in his state to the United Nations Human Rights Council for review.

“Well, it’s just amazing to me,” Dever told CNSNews.com. “Course, I have about as much regard for the U.N. as I do the vermin that hides in the rocks around my house here and reaches out and tries to bite me every now and then.”

The Bush administration refused to join the U.N. Human Rights Council, citing lax membership criteria that allowed countries with poor human rights records to sit on the council, including countries such as China, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Russia, Cuba, Pakistan, Tunisia and Egypt...

(CNSNews.com) – The Obama administration is playing down the absence of U.N. Security Council unanimity in adopting new sanctions against Iran on Wednesday, attributing three members’ refusal to back the resolution to differences over “timing and tactics.”

Turkey and Brazil voted against resolution 1929, while Lebanon abstained.

For all its supposed unilateralism and unpopularity at the U.N., the Bush administration was twice able to pull off what the current administration has not – a 15 out of 15 vote in the council for sanctions against Tehran. On a third occasion, the Bush administration achieved a 14-0 vote, with one abstention...

The Turkish group at the center of this week's deadly high-seas clash with Israel has been a member of a hard-to-access U.N. organization since 2004, which has given the group special access to the U.N. system.

The Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) branch of U.N.'s Department of Economic and Social Affairs invites in NGOs from around the globe, including the Turkish-based Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief (IHH).

Earlier this week Fox News reported that the IHH has links to terrorist groups including Hamas and Al Qaeda. Indeed, the IHH was described in federal court documents as playing a role in the Millennium terrorist plot to bomb Los Angeles International Airport...

(CNSNews.com) – Iran was reprimanded last week by the United Nations atomic agency for its nuclear activities, and criticized last month by a General Assembly committee for post-election human rights abuses, but the Islamic republic is far from isolated at the world body.

On the contrary, Iran holds a number of leadership positions at the U.N. -- and has just taken on additional ones.

On Wednesday, a Vienna-based U.N. body, the 53-member Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND), elected Iran as chairman of its next year-long session. The 63-year-old CND is described as the U.N.’s “central policy-making body in drug-related issues”...

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...