Among the vast arsenal of weapons the West uses, two institutions are paramount: the UN and Nato. If the former is used for diplomatic cover, the latter is used as a blunt instrument to achieve the West’s aggressive agenda.
India’s occupation forces—most of them adherents of a racist Hindu ideology akin to Nazism—are continuing the killing and maiming of Kashmiri youth. The people of Kashmir have had enough; they want India to get out of Kashmir!
The months of August and September highlight two anniversaries: the first, Hizbullah’s valiant resistance to Zionist aggression against Lebanon in 2006 and the second Islamic Iran’s eight year long epic defence of the Islamic State against the combined might of kufr emanating through Ba‘thist Iraq.
Have the warmongers realized that their plot to overthrow Bashar al Asad by military means is untenable especially in the wake of Russia’s bombing campaign? A series of meetings on Syria’s future give rise to some hope for peace.
The UN Security Council has once again shown that it is a tool in the hands of the US and its allies. On April 14, it passed a resolution presented by Arab dicators demanding not a halt to Saudi-led aggression against Yemen but the disarming of Houthi militias that are struggling for their rights. Further, the resolution put a travel ban on a number of anti-regime leaders as well as a freeze on their assets.
According to detailed new research by American economists based on 50 years of data, the US uses its aid budget to bribe countries that are on the security council to secure their votes in its favour. The cash on offer increases by almost 60 percent when recipients of US bounty become members of the council
In what may be one of the UN’s most hypocritical moves ever, the Security Council imposed nonmilitary sanctions on Iran on December 23 for its peaceful nuclear-power programme. That the resolution went through several drafts over the course of two months reflected deep divisions among Council members, but its final passage reconfirmed that the UN does not live up to its high-sounding principles or care about the rights of others
It is widely argued that the United Nations is needed for the promotion of international peace and security, as well as for the protection of human rights and the advancement of human development worldwide. But it is also widely held that the UN is unequal to its tasks, mainly because a few powerful states have a monopoly over its decisions and control the selection and functions of its secretary general and other officials. It is not, therefore, surprising that it is those very countries, led by the US, which oppose every attempt to improve the functions, procedures and powers of the UN and its various officials and agencies. Worldwide attention on these fault lines was focused by the appointment of the foreign minister of South Korea (which is a close ally of the US) as secretary general to succeed Kofi Annan, whose term of office ends in December.
The issue of Darfur dominated the recent UN summit in New York as it did the other two sessions held on the sidelines by African and Arab leaders gathered there. Because the term of the 7,000-strong African Union force in Darfur was due to end on September 30, the main question was whether to send UN peacekeepers to replace it – as the US and its allies demanded but the Sudanese president rejected – or to extend the term of the AU mission and strengthen it.
On September 19, the opening day of the UN General Assembly session in New York, Iranian president MAHMOUD AHMADINEJAD gave a speech that was applauded around the world. Here we reprint the full text of that speech.
The principal task of the UN Security Council – established under the founding charter of the UN as one of the UN's main organs – is supposedly to promote international peace and security in every part of the world. Yet it is undoubtedly more notable for its failures than for its achievements since its first official meeting, which took place on January 10, 1946.
The United Nations, an organisation with a richly deserved reputation for corruption and ineffectiveness, undoubtedly needs urgent and extensive reforms. But the powers that control it and its mainly corrupt leading staff will not allow any serious changes that might bring to an end their deleterious influence or affect their careers.
When US president George W. Bush came to the UN General Assembly on September 23, there was some expectation that his tone would be magnanimous and conciliatory. Six months after the US rode roughshod over the UN by launching a unilateral war against the wishes not only of the majority of the world’s unimportant states, but also of senior members of the Security Council, it was expected that the US might come to mend fences, as if from a position of strength, but with the underlying reality that the US needs international cooperation in the administration of occupied Iraq, given the problems it is having in securing its catch.
Res 101 (Nov 24, 53): Expressed 'strongest censure' of Israel for the first time because of its raid on Qibya. Res 106 (Mar 29, 55): Condemned Israel for Ghazzah raid. Res 111 (Jan 19, 56): Condemned Israel for raid on Syria that killed 56 people. Res 127 (Jan 22, 58): Recommended Israel to suspend its no-man's zone in Jerusalem. Res 162 (Apr 11, 61): Urged Israel to comply with UN decisions.
