You ain't seen nothing yet: United Nations news tax on "Climate Change" to hit americans soon

U.N. Seeks to Raise 'Level of Ambition' in World Climate Regulations

click here for this story on FoxNews

By George Russell

Published September 30, 2011 | FoxNews.com

The 2009 Copenhagen climate summit may have failed, but its objectives, and theUnited Nations’ determination to realize them, are very much alive.

Global airline carbon taxes, taxes on shipping, sweeping changes in land use, and an even bigger squeeze on world-wide greenhouse emissions—including tougher U.S. emissions limits and enforcement —have been under intense discussion at a series of discreet international “workshop” meetings fostered by the U.N. in the past six months.

The gatherings aim at raising the stakes in the “climate change” agenda, while keeping new actions as much as possible under the cloak of purely domestic activities for each nation involved.

Documents summarizing the workshop proceedings will be presented to yet another U.N. gathering in Panama starting October 1, under the auspices of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

The summary documents make clear that the governments of many Western developed countries—including the U.S.— are still hoping to increase the “level of ambition” of commitments they made in the wake of the failed Copenhagen climate summit to undertake drastic reductions in their carbon dioxide emissions to combat “climate change,” even without a global treaty to carve them in stone.

The main discussions, outlined in the customary dense and oblique language of U.N. climate debates, are apparently about how to get there.

Those attending the most recent workshop, held on June 9 in Bonn, included representatives of the U.S., Canada, Australia, the European Union and smaller nations such as Denmark andIreland.

A smattering of tiny developing nations were also present. Notably absent were representatives of developing superpowers like China (the world’s No. 1 emitter of greenhouse gases) and India, or other important nations such as Brazil or Russia.

An earlier meeting, held in April, 2011 in Bangkok, ostensibly focused on the issues involved for developing countries. U.S. and European Union representatives attended, along with a number of medium-sized developing countries, but once again, China, India, Brazil and Russia were absent.

The main impetus behind the Bonn meeting was to deal with an apparent “ambition gap” in meeting the draconian greenhouse targets endorsed by the UNFCCC as necessary to keep global temperatures from rising 1.5-2 degrees Centigrade by 2050.

Among other things, the meeting discussed an “emissions gap report” prepared by the United Nations Environmental Program, which warned that a “lenient” approach to enforcing the “lowest-ambition” CO2 reduction pledges made by developed countries in the wake of Copenhagen, would only reduce CO2 levels by about 25 percent of the amount required to meet the 2-degree warming limit.

In the case of the U.S., that approach nonetheless calls for a commitment to reduce national CO2 emissions of at least 17 percent from their 2005 levels by 2020—a commitment described in a workshop technical paper as “economy-wide.”

The 17 percent figure is one of the early targets contained in the drastic 2009 Waxman-Markey bill on U.S. cap-and-trade policy, formally known as the American Clean Energy and Security Act, which died in the U.S. Senate after passing the House of Representatives in 2009.

In the U.N. technical paper, that bill is described as “pending legislation,” and references are made to even steeper greenhouse gas targets in the remainder of the stalled law-- 30 percent by 2025, a 42 percent reduction by 2030, and a final reduction target of 83 percent by 2050—provided other nations also increase their ambitions.

Click here to read comments from the U.N. Climate workshop.

Any increase in the “level of ambition” of greenhouse targets would likely be achieved by “ implementing a wide range of policies and measures across all economic sectors,” rather than a single, overall target, the document says.

Moreover, they would be enacted not through international treaties, but through lower-profile “domestic legislation” which would have the same effect, but without the furor and attention brought on by coordinated international treaty efforts.

clear that even though a full consensus on how to proceed has not been achieved, a lot of definite suggestions were coming into focus, though most were still swaddled in bland bureaucratic language. Among them:

--the “enhanced use” of global carbon trading markets and the development of “new instruments” for use in those markets, i.e., new kinds of carbon reduction certificates;

--more “market-based mechanisms” to achieve the reductions;

--“addressing emissions from international aviation and maritime transport,” which the documents make clear would also be “a possible source of climate financing,” i.e. taxes. (Only one unnamed participant nation, the document notes, “expressed its concern over the possible impacts of such measures on tourism.”)

--“enhanced” pledges of greenhouse gas reductions by developed countries, and tougher enforcement to make them stick.

--sweeping changes in land use, and the extensive use of forestry projects to cut emissions, known in UN-speak as LULUCF, for “land use, land-use change and forestry. (The accompanying technical paper that sets out national commitments says that the U.S. will “undertake a comprehensive, land-based approach that takes advantage of the broadest array” of actions.)

Without going into specific details, the workshop records declare that participants “also engaged in a discussion about the way forward for the workshop process and linkages to the formal [climate] negotiations,” which are deemed to be ongoing.

Click here to read the U.N. workshop document.

Where does the quiet workshop process go from here?

According to the documents obtained by Fox News, some participants “suggested organizing more workshops which would focus on issues such as enhancing the level of global ambition” or the issue of how to account for greenhouse reduction claims. Others wanted more information on how to finance the sweeping changes.

The drum-beat for new taxes on international shipping and aviation has already begun. In the wake of an international agreement to increase emission standards for international merchant shipping, announced last July, both the World Wildlife Fund and Oxfam have begun calling for a new, global carbon tax of $25 per ton for maritime shipping to drive emissions down further.

The influential charities have called for the tax proposal to be considered at the next major meeting of the UNFCCC, slated for November in Durban, South Africa.

And much of the international aviation world is already in an uproar over a unilateral declaration by the European Union that it will force all airlines flying into the region to buy carbon permits if they exceed local emission standards, regardless of whether most of the emissions take place in European territory or not. The permits are intended to bring the industry into Europe’s carbon-trading system.

European officials have declared that they also intend to push for global regulation of aviation under climate change discussions at Durban..

The European action is fiercely opposed by airlines in the rest of the world, including the U.S., at least so far.

George Russell is executive editor of Fox News and can be found on Twitter @GeorgeRussell.

Joseph M Torsella speech at 5th Committee on the UN Budget

CUT CUT CUT CUT

UN STAFF

NOW

Ambassador Joseph M Torsella
U.S. Representative for UN Management and Reform
U.S. Mission to the United Nations

New York, NY

September 29, 2011

Click here to read this on USUN page

AS DELIVERED

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, congratulations to you on your election as Chairman of the Bureau, and to other members of the bureau. We are grateful for your service, and also thank Under-Secretary-General Angela Kane and her staff, who have produced the budget documents we will consider in this Committee. We look forward to working constructively with you, the Bureau and other Member States to ensure a successful outcome this session.

And we enthusiastically support your call, Mr. Chairman, for working more effectively here in the Fifth Committee. As the General Assembly body in charge of UN management and administration, the Fifth Committee should itself model the management behavior we expect from the rest of the United Nations. We sometimes cloak our discussions here in code words and diplomatic euphemisms, but in keeping with your call this morning for a new approach to our work, I would like to offer today, on behalf of the United States, some very frank and plainspoken observations on the 2012-13 budget proposal.

We meet at a time of severe – and worldwide – economic challenge. The General Debate that has just concluded made it clear: Member States around the world are under financial strain. This is not a phenomenon of one or even several donor nations, but a global reality, north and south, east and west. From Asia to Europe, from Africa to Latin America and North America, heads of state spoke of the enduring impact of the global financial crisis. That crisis has made financial resources ever more scarce, made efficient outcomes ever more important, and made leaders – including every one of us in this room today – ever more accountable to the citizens we represent for the fiscal decisions we make.

No one has said this better or more clearly than Executive Director of UN AIDS Director Michel Sidibè. “All indicators suggest,” Director Sidibe said in a recent presentation, “that key donor countries already experiencing public deficits will continue to face a serious, prolonged fiscal deficit in the near future. It is a mistake,” he continued, “to interpret this as AIDS fatigue. The world is not turning its back on AIDS. It is turning its back on business as usual.”

That is the simple reality we face, all of us: in a time of scarce resources, the United Nations cannot afford business as usual. But that, unfortunately, is exactly what is represented in too much of the budget submitted to us.

To be sure, there are some very positive steps in this budget. When the Secretary General called in February for managers to cut 3% or more from their budget outlines, we applauded. And the United States still supports and welcomes his determined efforts to trim the UN budget and his strong leadership in calling for change in the organization. But what this budget document makes clear is that not all of the organization has risen to the challenge set by the Secretary General. The Secretary General has done his part, but not all of the rest of us have.

First, let’s be clear. A reduction in planned expenses – from budget outline to budget proposal – is not what any family, government or business around the world would recognize as a real belt-tightening “cut.” It is simply loosening our belt a little less than we originally planned. So the relevant measure of our fiscal discipline is whether we will actually spend less in 2012-13 than we did in 2010-11. And this budget fails that test.

There are some cuts around the edges, for example, in conference services, the abolition of some vacant posts, and providing summary records to Member States. These are historic firsts, and we wholeheartedly support those initiatives. But there are too few economy measures in this budget that are entirely realistic, financially meaningful, and clearly sustainable. Of the 37 budget sections before the Committee, reductions are proposed for 18…but 19 either increase (15) or remain unchanged (4). The key driver of costs for future years, in any organization, is personnel. Yet this budget proposes abolishing just 44 net posts from the organization’s 10,307 person workforce. That represents a 0.4% decrease – less than one percent – from current employee levels.

And the onslaught of add-ons which will inevitably be presented during the session – potentially $6 million for Information Communication Technology, $9 million for Administration of Justice, $4 million for the Strategic Heritage Plan renovations in Geneva – as well as the program budget implications emanating from the Economic and Social session in July, a preliminary re-costing estimate of $147 million, and 15 reports still to be considered, could result in an alarming total 2012-13 budget of $5.5 billion.

Considered against the current 2010-11 biennial total of $5.367 billion, that is not a cut. That is in fact a more than 2 percent increase and this does not take into account potential add-ons in the second year of the budget. That does not represent a break from “business as usual,” but rather a continuation of it.

For a decade now, the United Nations regular budget has grown dramatically, relentlessly, and exponentially: from $2.6 billion in 2001-2002, to $5.4 billion in 2010-2011. This growth has significantly outpaced the growth of the budgets of almost all the Member States that comprise the UN. I am not drawing a comparison between the United Nations and the United States, but between the United Nations and the rest of the world.

It’s true that some of this growth can be justified by new mandates that we all proudly support. But it’s also true that those mandates do not account for the disturbingly persistent ten-year trend of increases in the UN budget.

We commonly hear that Special Political Missions are the main reason for the UN’s budget growth. But there are two key points to remember. First, SPMs are – by definition – non-permanent expenses. They may influence the picture for several years at a time, but they do not have the same long-term, structural impact on the UN’s cost structure as, for example, regular budget posts.

Second, SPMs are only part of the story on the cost side of the UN budget. If we consider the budget without SPMs, we see this clearly: it still shows dramatic increases, from $2.4 billion in 2000-2001 to $4.2 billion in 2010-2011. That’s a 75 percent increase – a rate that far outpaces budget increases again in most of the Member States of the UN and at a time when many Member States are cutting entire departments and ministries.

So what is behind this trend? Several budget lines deserve our attention this session: general operating expenses, travel of staff, and grants and contributions have all have played a role, and should be intensely scrutinized. But as I noted earlier, in any organization, it is personnel that is the largest and most important driver of long-term costs, and the UN is no exception: posts accounted for $2.4 billion in costs in 2010-11, a huge increase from ten years ago, when the total costs was a full $1 billion less ($1.4 billion in 2000 - 2001). When we look deeper, we see two troubling facts behind this increase. First, the number of posts themselves has increased, from 8,989 in 2000-2001 to 10,307 in 2010-2011. But second, the cost of UN posts – the total compensation to employees – has grown by 70 percent while the number of posts has grown by only 15 percent.

Focus for a moment on just one figure: according to the proposed budget, the average total compensation for a UN staff member – simply taking the total proposed cost of posts divided by the total number of posts, not including General Temporary Assistance positions – is $238,000 biannually. No number underscores Chairman Monthe’s point more than this one. Instead of spending our time arguing about whether this or that specific UN post should be a P-5 or a D-1, as we often do, we should focus on asking ourselves – and UN managers – the larger, more important questions: Why is it that both the number and compensation of UN personnel have grown so dramatically? How does management intend to bring these numbers and costs back into line? And why do we, as Member States, tolerate a budget process that tells us, how many meetings are scheduled or guidance materials published in a given department, but does not tell us, for example, how much the UN spends on health care benefits for its employees?

We therefore renew our objection, Mr. Chairman, to receiving the UN budget proposal in a piecemeal fashion, and with too little real financial analysis. And we call for a comprehensive makeover to streamline budgets and the budget process for transparency, flexibility, managerial accountability, and analyzable, actionable information.

Mr. Chairman, I am well aware that the sort of business-like focus on efficiency and economy that I am suggesting today has sometimes been heard in this Committee as political code in this committee for a United States perspective. And, yes, my government does have that perspective: we believe it is our obligation to our taxpayers to do more with less in Washington and here at the UN. But doing more with less is not just the American perspective, or just the developed world perspective. The economic challenges of our time that I began with have made it a global perspective. You don’t need to take my word for it; listen to voices from capitals around the world:

In Brasilia, Brazil’s Planning Minister Miriam Belchior says “finding ways to do more with fewer resources will be the government’s new mantra.”

From Maseru, Lesotho’s Finance Minister says “the time has come when we must all learn to do more with less for the sake of our country.”

And in Pretoria the deputy prime minister declares “we must do more with less. The focus has to be on value for money.”

When we look to our home countries, it’s not just words about efficiency that we find: it’s evidence – clear, convincing, relevant evidence – that public organizations like the UN can achieve more with less. That taking an entrepreneurial approach can save money and improve results at the same time. Consider just these few examples:

In Scotland, a multi-year efficiency program emphasizing greater use of shared services and procurement improvements has so far saved the government $2.3 billion pounds.

In 2010, the Mexican Government instituted structural reform of Ministries, salary reductions, hiring freezes, and other measures amounting to $66 billion pesos in savings.

Botswana is providing more medical services to more people...while reducing the costs of certain procedures by as much as 50%.

And Singapore has embraced eGovernment by creating a single online platform for all public services –improving services, increasing access, and leveraging economies of scale all at the same time.

If each of us looks to our capitals, our own private sectors, indeed our personal experiences, we find proof that the rhetorical choices we pose in the Fifth Committee are often false ones. Colleagues, we know that money does not equal mandates, and resources do not equal results. It is entirely possible for any organization – including the UN – to achieve its mission with fewer resources. The issue isn’t simply how much money we allocate to each department or program, it is whether each and every dollar, yen or euro, and every yuan, peso, real, and rand is being used in the most effective, efficient, and businesslike way.

In that regard, Mr. Chairman, although we will provide more detailed comments on the regular budget in our October statement, I want to raise today several specific concerns we have with the budget before us.

First, we are troubled that we have yet to receive the proposal that relates to the overhaul of the Administration of Justice system and all the details related to treatment of cases from the UNDT and UNAT. The potential cost associated with the implementation of decisions emanating from these tribunals is significant.

Second, while the United States has always been an advocate of UN modernization and innovation, we are also concerned with the recent developments on UMOJA – specifically the delay in deploying and the potential for additional costs. We were promised a great deal and now are being offered a patchwork approach to implementation. Let me be clear: UMOJA should be accomplished on-time, without additional resources, and with quantifiable savings from implementation.

Third, and more generally, we are disappointed that ICT continues to present proposals for additional staff and for further initiatives without first demonstrating tangible results with the resources already allocated. First priority for ICT should be timely completion of UMOJA and demonstrating improvements with the resources already approved by Member States.

Fourth, the Under Secretary General of the Office for Internal Oversight Services is actively engaged in putting OIOS back on course, and the strength of OIOS is directly related to achieving real management improvements at the UN overall. All Member States should make every effort to give USG LaPointe and OIOS the resources and tools needed to make OIOS the robust organization it was intended to be.

And fifth, Mr. Chairman, my delegation strongly believes that the buy-in of major stakeholders is required for “the broadest possible agreement” to be reached on any issue, and as such we look forward to working closely with all delegations on the many important issues on our agenda in the months ahead.

Finally, Mr. Chairman, as we consider the urgent need to find savings in the UN budget, let us not to do so abstractly. Let us remember that every savings we can achieve has real-world implications for the people we were all sent here to represent. $100,000 represents just .000001 percent of the UN’s regular budget; that’s the kind of sum sometimes treated as a rounding error in a $5 billion budget. But there are other, better ways to think about that $100,000. $100,000 also represents the average federal taxes paid by 16 hard-working American families in one year. $100,000 could provide over 130,000 high-energy biscuits for the malnourished children helped by UNICEF. It could test over 66,000 children for malaria, equip hospitals with over 1,300 basic surgical kits, or provide 100,000 waterproof sleeping mats for children who have lost their homes to disaster.

The United States, therefore, calls for a comprehensive, department-by-department, line-by-line, review of this budget, with the aim of achieving the Secretary General’s original goal: a real, meaningful, and sustainable reduction in expenses from the last biennium, and the first steps in a new course of fiscal restraint and prudence at the UN.

The experience of governments, businesses and families in each of our countries proves that it can be done. And the duty that each of us has to our taxpayers demands that we do it.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Ros-Lehtinen speaks to CNN's Wolf Blitzer on UN Reform Bill & PA Funding

Is Geroge Soros trying to replace investigative media at the United Nations ?

Soft UN & Dead Media Replaced By NGOs, Elite Soros Crowd Told at River Club

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, September 26 -- When the UN has gone soft and corporate media is dying, who or what will pick up the slack?

That was the question Monday night at the River Club ten blocks north of the UN where the non-governmental organization Global Witness hosted George Soros, financiers, journalists and tennis players in an Art Deco space beside a gleaming turquoise pool.

One of Global Witness' three founders Charmian Gooch told the crowd how they began on Cambodia, then illegal mining and now Gaddafi's Libya investment funds.

She said proudly, we have no membership, no public relations, no marketing. Then an Alex Soros was introduced to speak, followed by investigative journalist Ken Silverstein.

Silverstein spoke of the death of media, how the Los Angeles Times closed its investigative unit and tried to replace three reporters' 900 bylines a year.

He now works at Harper's, and did a story on the side for Global Witness but at least initially kept his name off it, he told Inner City Press, in order to get into Cambodia.

All of this took place close to the UN, during the annual General Debate, but the UN wasn't mentioned once.

Soros looks heavenward at GW event by UN Monday night, publish what you pay

Inner City Press asked Silverstein about Equatorial Guinea being the head of the African Union, and Gabon on the Security Council. Silverstein said that the son of Equatorial Guinea's long time ruler Obiang leaving the US shows the power of the pen. But to what end?

Another journalist present cautioned, you cannot change the world. Then what was this event about, with the senior George Soros present, acknowledged from the podium? Tennis players in whites wandered through on their way to indoor courts, the signs outside of which told "Babysitters" to not enter without The Pro.

Footnote: Among the attendees was one Scott Wallace, writing about uncontacted tribes in Brazil. Inner City Press asked him about such tribes impacted by the Belo Monte dam; he said they exist. He said Peru denies the existence of such tribe. He will be in New York at the Explorers' Club in November. And we will try to be there.

In Australia the Socialist Gov lied to Parliament - saying that the Carbon Tax will work because the "United States would join the scheme by 2016"

CLICK HERE FOR THIS STORY - SYDNEY MORNING HERALD

Aus Treasury defends carbon price modelling

Treasury officials have rejected claims their carbon price modelling collapses if the United States does not introduce an emissions trading scheme.

Treasury macroeconomic executive director David Gruen told a parliamentary inquiry the department had made assumptions about international climate change action based on the "best information" available now.

"The modelling is based on the US taking action but it's not based on the US taking action specifically as an emission trading scheme," he said.

Advertisement: Story continues below

Dr Gruen said the US could take action through regulatory measures.

Liberal senator Mathias Cormann then asked the treasury officials to clarify earlier statements that the modelling assumes comparable carbon pricing in other major economies from 2015/16.

"We have modelled abatement in the US but that abatement could take alternative ways," Dr Gruen said.

"We are doing the best we can do based on the information we have now.

"We do not have a crystal ball that tells us actually what is going to happen."

The Treasury official said treasury had taken into account countries' pledges at the UN climate talks in Cancun last year.

"We have operationalised those in our modelling but it does require those countries to live up to those pledges," Dr Gruen said.

Last week, opposition climate action spokesman Greg Hunt said Treasury's updated carbon tax modelling was worthless "because it's based on a fantasy that the Unites States would be part of a global trading scheme by 2016".

"This is utterly out of line with anything that is realistic," Mr Hunt said.

The federal government has introduced bills to price carbon emissions from mid-2012.

The price would begin at a fixed rate of $23 per tonne, rising for three years, before a floating market-based scheme would start in mid-2015.

The joint select committee on Labor's so-called clean energy future legislation continues in Canberra.

Vrij: - Het contract van Eveline Herfkens

UNDP, de VN-organisatie waar Herfkens de campagne voor de millenniumdoelstellingen leidt, plaatste vorige week Herfkens’ contract op zijn website, omdat er ‘berichten in de pers circuleren dat Herfkens een jaarsalaris van $ 225,000 ontving.’ Dit is niet juist, schrijft UNDP. Vrij Nederland noemde dit bruto bedrag in ons eerste artikel over de affaire. Zat VN ernaast? Wij baseerden ons op de pensioen calculatie voor een Assistant Secretary General, de positie die Herfkens innam.

Hoewel op zich correct, geeft het geen juist beeld van het netto salaris dat Herfkens ontving. Waarvoor onze excuses. Volgens UNDP kreeg Herfkens netto $ 134,331 per jaar. Onderdeel van dit netto salaris is een ‘post adjustment’. Wie in een ‘dure’ stad voor de Verenigde Naties werkt, ontvangt meer geld (voor New York is de ‘post adjustment ongeveer 63%). Het netto salaris is belastingvrij. Over de huurvergoeding die Herfkens van de Nederlandse overheid ontving heeft Herfkens ook geen belasting betaald. Buitenlandse Zaken maakte de huur direct over aan de eigenaar van het appartement.

Lezers vroegen ons of Herfkens ook een huursubsidie ontving van UNDP. Een stafmedewerker van de Verenigde Naties kan een dergelijke vergoeding aanvragen. Wij stelden die vraag aan UNDP. Het antwoord is: nee.

Op 1 november 2006 kreeg Herfkens een nieuw contract. Nu met een netto jaarsalaris van $ 144,968. Ook in dit contract is een ‘post adjustment’ onderdeel van het salaris. Herfkens was inmiddels naar Maryland verhuisd en de ‘post adjustment’ is nu voor Washington DC (45.7%).
UNDP heeft inderdaad een klein PR-kantoortje in Washington. Maar daar werkte Herfkens niet. Ze werkte thuis, hoewel ze een managers-salaris ontving en slechts enkele malen per jaar op het kantoor in New York verscheen.

Aan UNDP de vraag gesteld of het vaker voorkomt dat een stafmedewerker met Herfkens’ positie en salaris, thuis werkt. ‘There are work/life arrangements in UNDP where senior staff may work from home,’ schrijft UNDP ons. Medewerkers van UNDP vertellen Vrij Nederland echter dat een stafmedewerker af en toe vanuit huis mag werken. Maar niemand had ooit gehoord van een stafmedewerker die al haar werk vanuit huis doet.

Volgens het contract kreeg Herfkens ook een ‘mobility/hardship allowance’, een vergoeding die een stafmedewerker ontvangt als hij of zij van het ene ‘duty station’ (New York) naar het andere ‘duty station’ (Washington, waar Herfkens dus nooit komt) wordt overgeplaatst. De Nederlandse overheid heeft de verhuiskosten voor Herfkens van New York naar Maryland betaald. Die vergoeding ontving ze dus dubbel.

Als gevolg van haar aanvraag van een Green Card werd Herfkens’ contract opgezegd. Sindsdien ontvangt ze een $ 750,- per dag. Dit is niet belastingvrij en er is geen ‘post adjustment.’ UNDP betaalt deze hoge dagprijs normaliter alleen aan consultants die hooguit een maand voor UNDP werken. Dat Herfkens al maanden lang deze dagprijs ontvangt, is zeer ongebruikelijk.

De openbaarmaking van Herfkens’ salaris is lovenswaardig. Het beantwoordt echter niet de vraag waarom Herfkens met een manager-salaris thuis mocht werken, of waarom ze een duur consultant-contract heeft.

Voor de goede orde: de bedragen die UNDP noemt, zijn vervolgens aangepast omdat Herfkens niet full-time werkt.

Op de vraag van Vrij Nederland aan Buitenlandse Zaken over het diplomatieke paspoort van Herfkens, antwoordde BZ dat Herfkens haar pas zo spoedig mogelijk zal inleveren.

CanadaFreepress: - The UN: Dictators R US

The UN: Dictators R US

Jeff Crouere Wednesday, September 21, 2011

September 20, 2011…. This week, world leaders are gathering in New York for the United Nations General Assembly. As usual, the spotlight will be on some of the world’s biggest tyrants who will be given the key speaking positions.

Iranian dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will bring a contingent of 140 Islamic radicals to the Big Apple. Once again, Ahmadinejad will speak to the U.N. General Assembly and receive a warm reception from the vast majority of 193 delegates. In contrast, the Prime Minister of Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East, will receive another rude reception. Certainly, anti-Semitism is a key factor in this rough treatment, but it is also worthwhile to note that two-thirds of the U.N. delegates represent developing counties where democracy is a foreign concept. Sadly, tyrants, despots, radical clerics, and dictators are well represented among the U.N. General Assembly.

In previous years, terrorists like Yasser Arafat of the PLO and dictators such as Fidel Castro of Cuba and Muammar Gaddafi of Libya have been given starring roles at the United Nations. In a 2009 U.N. speech, Gaddafi rambled on for two hours about so-called enemies of his country. In fact, Libya’s biggest enemy has been Gaddafi, who has finally been removed from power. He is currently wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity. The world would have been spared much misery if the minute Gaddafi set foot in New York he would have been arrested for his role in the bombing of Pan American flight 103 and the killing of 270 innocent people. Instead, Gaddafi was given a hero’s welcome at the U.N. and treated like some sort of Islamic rock star.

In 2009, a true tragedy occurred when Gaddafi was allowed to come to this country and spew his poison. This week, U.S. officials should not make the same mistake again. Ahmadinejad should be arrested and immediately delivered to the International Criminal Court for his long list of crimes.

Ahmadinejad has been advancing an illegal nuclear weapons program and lying to the world about his intentions. He has been lavishing funding worldwide on the main enemy of the United States, Al-Qaeda. In fact, according to Nathan Carlton of United Against a Nuclear Iran, Ahmadinejad’s regime is “the world largest state sponsor of terrorism.” There is clear evidence that Ahmadinejad is arming insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan with the latest weaponry, which is used to kill American soldiers.

Along with supporting international jihad which specializes in killing innocent civilians, Ahmadinejad brutally repressed a peaceful democratic uprising in his country in 2009. This brutality has not stopped and according to Amnesty International, the Iranian regime has executed an average of two people per day in the first half of 2011.

Ahmadinejad has blood on his hands, which is why no organization that purportedly pursues peaceful coexistence among nations should allow this tyrant a platform to emit his hatred toward the U.S. and Israel, or his anti-Semitic beliefs denying the existence of the Holocaust.

As we await another disgusting display at the United Nations, U.S. taxpayers should demand that Congress withdraw funding from this organization. Currently, The U.N. receives 22 percent of its regular budget and 27 percent of its peacekeeping operations from the United States taxpayers. No other country contributes as much as the United States and some countries contribute as little as 0.001 percent of the budget. In addition, our country incurs significant costs in hosting the U.N. headquarters in New York City.

Facing a massive $1.4 trillion annual deficit and a national debt of $15 trillion, the United States can not afford to waste money on an organization that promotes anti-Semitic, anti-American dictators.

Along with de-funding the United Nations, we should also give the group a one-way ticket out of the country and let some other nation provide these tyrants a headquarters.

Paying the UN to steal a NY park - NYPOST.com

Paying the UN to steal a NY park - NYPOST.com

The United States is going broke, and the United Nations is morally bankrupt. So why should US taxpayers pay for UN bureaucrats to get swanky new offices -- destroying a New York City park in the process?

It’s all poised to happen, if the UN project can clear a key hurdle by Oct. 10.

For nearly a decade, the United Nations and the Bloomberg administration have eyed Robert Moses Playground, a small city park just south of UN headquarters, as the site for a new tower -- as tall as 505 feet -- in which to “consolidate” UN offices now scattered across the city.

The city would sell the park to the UN Development Corp. -- a state public-benefit corporation (on whose board sits Mayor Bloomberg’s sister, Marjorie Tiven) that manages UN real-estate needs. Once the corporation builds the new tower, the United Nations would supposedly vacate UN Plaza 1 and 2, which the city would put up for sale.

The money from these real-estate transactions would go into a special fund for East Side development, which could then cover the $150 million or more cost of completing the East Side “greenway” with an “esplanade” (complete with bike paths, of course) built over the water from 38th Street to 60th Street.

This June, the state Legislature finally cleared the way for the park to be “alienated” for sale as real estate. But that “alienation” won’t happen if a “Memorandum of Understanding” isn’t reached by Oct. 10. Needed are OKs from the mayor, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, as well as the local representatives, Assemblyman Brian Kavanagh and state Sen. Liz Krueger.

Many in the neighborhood pray that one of the politicians will refuse.

The East End Hockey Association, which has played at Robert Moses since 1972, opposes the swap. And Vivienne Gilbert, co-op president of 5 Tudor City Place, says area residents are worried about the project’s effect on their safety and quality of life.

Land next to the park is slated to become housing and office towers, so residents are especially concerned about light and air. The crowding caused by the new development, Gilbert adds, makes it all the more important to keep the playground open as recreational space.

Then there’s security. Not only does the park sit atop the Queens-Midtown Tunnel, but fitting a 39-story tower on the cramped site wouldn’t allow much “setback” from the street. These factors, Gilbert explains, increase the building’s appeal as a terrorist target -- and would require even stricter security in a neighborhood that already sometimes stifles under it.

Kavanagh insists that security concerns will be addressed, and that no plan will move forward unless adequate substitute park space is found; he’s “optimistic that we will work out a deal that is a win for the community.”

But there’s also the bigger picture: a potential multimillion-dollar bill for federal taxpayers.

As Heritage Foundation fellow Brett Schaefer noted in a recent paper, the United Nations would ultimately pay the UNDC for the tower -- but Uncle Sam shoulders a fifth or more of the UN budget. Estimates of the project’s cost run as high as $475 million.

Plus, the savings of “consolidating” UN staff into the new tower may not materialize. According to Schaefer, the United Nations pays half the market rate at UN Plaza 1 and 2; the new tower would mean giving up those favorable rents.

If it consolidates at all: Fox News recently reported that Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon has gone on a hiring binge of late, increasing the size of his Secretariat from 2008 to 2009 by nearly 38 percent.

Americans may pay an even bigger price. Typically, the UNDC has financed its development through tax-exempt bonds, which amount to a subsidy from federal, state and local taxpayers. (A spokesman for a coalition of groups championing the project, David Cantor, says the UNDC will use tax-exempt bonds for at most a portion of the building.)

The question, however, is why US taxpayers would pay a dime toward this project. At a time when we’re hugely in debt, and the United Nations is busy pushing Palestinian statehood and fêting Iranian nut-job Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, why should we fork over millions of dollars -- and a city park -- to make the United Nations’ dream of nicer, more convenient offices come true?

Proponents of the project say it’s not a done deal, pointing to hurdles beyond the Oct. 10 deadline. But once such projects get rolling, they become almost impossible to resist.

The best bet would be to stop the project now -- before it’s too late.

Meghan Clyne is managing editor of National Affairs.