Joseph A. Klein, CFP United Nations Columnist

UN Secretary General Delivers His New “Common Agenda”

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres introduced his “Common Agenda” plan to the General Assembly and the media on September 10th to address what he called “a pivotal moment” for humanity. Guterres painted a picture of a world facing a perfect storm of simultaneous crises, including the pandemic, climate change, nuclear weapons proliferation, lethal autonomous weapons, cyberwarfare, rising inequality, and discrimination and violence against women and girls.

UN Security Council Holds Useless Meeting on Afghanistan

Back in July, President Joe Biden claimed that “the likelihood there’s going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely.” Wrong! The Taliban have overrun everything, and they now own Afghanistan.

UN Ignores Israeli Demand for Condemnation of Hezbollah Rocket Attacks

The Islamist terrorist group Hezbollah is running Lebanon on behalf of its patron, the Iranian regime. The Deputy Attorney General of the puppet Lebanese Government released four Hezbollah terrorists who were responsible for recently shooting rockets into Israel. On August 6th, Hezbollah had fired from within civilian areas a barrage of 19 rockets into northern Israel. This attack came only two days after the terrorist organization had fired 3 rockets at Israel.

UN Security Council Invites Pro-Palestinian Left-Wing NGO From Israel to Speak

At the United Nations Security Council’s quarterly open debate on the Middle East, which focuses on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, a radical Israeli non-governmental organization (NGO) known as Ir Amim was given a global platform on July 28th to spew its pro-Palestinian propaganda. Yudith Oppenheimer, Executive Director of Ir Amim, blamed Israel for the latest war between Hamas/Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists and Israel that broke out in May of this year.

UN Attacks Western Democracies for So-Called “Systemic Racism”

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights just issued a report that focused on the alleged failure of the United States, Canada, and other Western democracies to adequately address and correct so-called “systematic racism” against Africans and people of African descent. The UN report, commissioned by the dysfunctional UN Human Rights Council, praised the Marxist Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. And it parroted the Critical Race Theory’s attempt to tie every adverse condition and experience that blacks claim to suffer today in the U.S., Canada and other Western democracies to “systemic racism” rooted in the continuing legacy of slavery and colonialism.

Iran’s Next Butcher President

The Biden administration is moving full steam ahead to negotiate a return to the disastrous nuclear deal with Iran, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), come hell or high water. And Iranians will continue to be living in hell after the phony “election” of Ebrahim Raisi as Iran’s new president. Raisi is a hard-line cleric and protégé of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and he has the blood of thousands of Iranian civilians on his hands. Ebrahim ‘The Butcher’ Raisi will replace the current president, Hassan Rouhani, this August.

Israel Scores a Very Rare Victory at the UN

There is an old expression in journalism that “when a man bites a dog that is news.” When it comes to reporting on the United Nations’ treatment of Israel, the UN had one of its rare “man bites a dog” moments on June 7th when Israel was elected for first time to serve as a member of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). More than two-thirds of the 193 UN member states showed their support for Israel, which will now have the ability to vote, offer proposals for discussion, start initiatives and more on one of the UN’s main bodies. Israel’s 3-year term commences in 2022. Iran’s 3-year term fortuitously expires at the end of 2021.

UN Security Council Refuses to Call Out Terrorist Rocket Attacks Aimed at Civilians

After several failed attempts, the United Nations Security Council finally issued an official statement on Saturday regarding this month’s military conflict between Israel and the Palestinian terrorist organizations in Gaza. The statement called for the parties to continue observing the ceasefire that took effect on May 21st. Here is the text of the statement in its entirely, which is an exercise in the UN’s usual display of immoral equivalency:

UN Security Council Holds Useless “Emergency” Meeting on Israel and Gaza Violence

Following two inconclusive closed meetings of the United Nations Security Council last week to discuss the violence spinning out of control in Israel and Gaza, the Security Council held an open virtual meeting on Sunday that lasted nearly three hours. Since China is the president of the Security Council for the month of May, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi presided over the meeting. Several other foreign ministers, including from Jordan and Egypt, also participated remotely.

Biden Administration Supports Globalist Version of Multilateralism at the UN

U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken delivered virtual remarks on May 7th at the United Nations Security Council Open Debate on Multilateralism. The meeting was chaired by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on behalf of China, which is this month’s president of the Security Council. Blinken spewed forth the same old same old Biden administration rhetoric about the critical importance of an international “rules-based order” and the administration’s commitment to multilateralism.

Biden Administration Re-engages With Disgraced UN Palestinian “Refugee” Agency

The Biden administration’s ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, met virtually on April 21st with Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini. According to an official readout of this meeting, Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield “underscored the critical role that UNRWA plays in providing vital services to a vulnerable population and reiterated Secretary [of State] Blinken’s pledge of partnership with the agency.” The Biden administration wasted no time announcing that it would restore $150 million in financial assistance for an agency that is long past its expiration date. UNRWA will get the money without first having to demonstrate that it has cleaned up its act and stopped doing the bidding of Hamas and the Palestinian Authority.

Biden’s Choice for UN Ambassador Uses Critical Race Theory to Lambaste the U.S.

The Biden administration’s ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, delivered an address on April 14th to the 30th Annual Summit of Reverend Al Sharpton’s National Action Network. The U.S. ambassador disgracefully pandered to her audience with tidbits of critical race theory, condemning the country she is supposed to represent as white supremacist.

Rep. Omar Ignores Her Homeland’s Crisis as UN Expresses Deep Concern

Democrat Rep. Ilhan Omar is the first Somali American and African refugee in the United States Congress. She was born in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu. After spending four years in a Kenyan refugee camp to which Ilhan Omar and her family fled as Somalia descended into civil war, she and her family moved to America. They settled in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood in downtown Minneapolis, which is nicknamed “Little Mogadishu” because of its high concentration of Somali American residents. Ilhan Omar became a U.S. citizen in 2000 and was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2018. She was re-elected in 2020.

Canada Wavers on Anti-Semitic UN Durban Conference Anniversary Commemoration

The United Nations plans to celebrate this September the twentieth anniversary of its so-called “World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance” held in Durban, South Africa in 2001. The Durban Declaration and Program of Action served as the conference’s agreed-upon output. The 2001 conference, and the two that followed in 2009 and 2011, turned out to be nothing more than global platforms for the world’s most vicious anti-Semites, such as Iran’s former President Ahmadinejad, to engage in blood libel against the Jewish State of Israel. Charges of racism and apartheid were leveled at Israel by the Palestinians and their enablers who themselves are guilty of racism and ethnic cleansing.

A One-Man Election for UN Secretary General?

The United Nations has promised a fair, transparent, and inclusive process in the selection of the next Secretary General, whose term will begin on January 1, 2022. To date, the only officially recognized candidate is Antonio Guterres, the incumbent, who is seeking a second term. Guterres submitted his formal signed letter of candidacy and accompanying CV to the presidents of the General Assembly and Security Council, who made his candidacy official by distributing Guterres' letter and CV to the UN's member states.

Palestinians Shift Blame for Their Own Vaccine Problems to Israel, With UN’s Support

The spokesperson for United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres was asked on February 24th to comment regarding Saturday Night Live’s anti-Semitic “joke.” Israel’s claim to have vaccinated half of its population meant only its “Jewish half,” the SNL cast member snarked. The spokesperson replied, “It's not for me to get into.” The Secretary General likes to talk abstractly about the evils of anti-Semitism. But when asked about a specific example of an anti-Semitic comment that was broadcast widely on television, his spokesperson refused to denounce it. Instead, he criticized Israel. The spokesperson said that “we have called from here for Israel to do greater cooperation with the Palestinian Authorities in line with its obligations to ensure that the vaccine gets to the population… the Palestinian population in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”

UN-Brokered Libyan Interim Government Agreement Likely to Fail

Ten years have passed since the uprising that toppled Libya’s dictator Muammar el-Qaddafi. Ever since, the country has been riven by civil war, with foreign countries entering the fray and providing military support to their preferred factions. Economic and political instability have become the norm for this failed state. The United Nations has tried numerous times to bring the warring factions together to achieve a political solution to the conflict. Its efforts have not produced the desired result to date. Now the United Nations is holding out hope for a newly formed interim government created by UN-brokered negotiations among a 74-member Libyan Political Dialogue Forum (LPDF). Participants included Libyan political leaders and representatives from Libya’s plethora of tribes and regional factions.

Biden Reengages With Dysfunctional UN Human Rights Council

In another colossal foreign policy blunder, the Biden administration announced Monday that it is reengaging unconditionally with the United Nations’ misnamed Human Rights Council, which makes excuses for some of the worst human rights abusing countries in the world. This move follows the Biden administration’s decisions to reengage with the China-centric World Health Organization and to rejoin the job-killing Paris Agreement on climate change. To quote Forest Gump, “Stupid is as stupid does.” Secretary of State Antony Blinken tweeted, “The @UN Human Rights Council is flawed and needs reform, but walking away won’t fix it. The best way to improve the Council, so it can achieve its potential, is through robust and principled U.S. leadership. Under @POTUS Biden, we are reengaging and ready to lead.”

Biden’s Embrace of Globalists’ Coronavirus and Climate Change Agenda

The World Health Organization (WHO), under the leadership of its China-centric Director General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (Tedros for short), has not reformed its ways since the Trump administration took steps to withdraw the United States from the globalist organization. Nevertheless, Joe Biden signed an executive order on Day One of his presidency, which fully re-engages the United States with the World Health Organization. In doing so, the sleepy “woke” 46th president of the United States is rewarding an incompetent global governance body that helped the Chinese regime cover up the severity of the coronavirus it unleashed upon the world.

Secretary General Guterres Seeks Second Term

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres has announced his intention to seek a second five-year term, which would commence on January 1, 2022. Incumbent secretary generals usually are the odds-on favorites to win re-election, unless they have badly offended one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council. Secretary General Guterres has been very careful not to step on any important toes.