Claudia Rosett

North Korean Lives for Sale

- Forbes Probing President Obama's resolve, North Korea is now cranking its nuclear extortion routine into high gear. Following its April 5 illicit test of a ballistic missile, Kim Jong Il's regime is threatening an in-our-face expansion of its nuclear program, along with more tests of rockets and bombs.

The U.N.‘s Durban II Debacle

Forbes GENEVA -- As I write this, the United Nations Durban Review Conference on "racism" is still officially in session, stumbling toward the close, on Friday, of its five-day run at the U.N.'s palatial offices on the shores of Lake Geneva.

We Need Action, Not Words, On North Korea

Forbes President Barack Obama's hollow response to North Korea's April 5 illicit missile test amounts to another score for North Korea's Kim Jong Il. Kim has again defied the so-called international community, and received in reply another round of words, words, words--along with a lot of urging that North Korea return to the nuclear bargaining table, for yet more words.

Why Not To Join The U.N. Human Rights Council

- Forbes As part of President Obama's "new era of engagement," the U.S. State Department has just announced plans to seek one of the 47 seats on the United Nations Human Rights Council. This overturns the Bush policy since 2006 of shunning the Council, on grounds that, like its predecessor the U.N. Human Rights Commission, it is irredeemably tipped toward serving the interests of human rights violators.

The UN’s ‘Alliance of Civilizations’

- Forbes President Obama is expected to travel early next month to Istanbul, where he will attend a meeting of a United Nations-spawned outfit called the Alliance of Civilizations. Under that grand title, hundreds of worthies will gather to pursue various aspects of "engagement."

Obama’s “Reset” Video for Iran

Scarcely did we have time to absorb the full import of Barack Obama becoming — in the portentous phrase that has been all over the news — “the first sitting president to appear on the Jay Leno show.” And now here he is in a White House video wishing happy new year to “the people and leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

Does The U.N. Really Matter?

- Forbes His travels apparently bankrolled in part by Iran, his excellency the president of the United Nations General Assembly, Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, recently took a three-week trip to Syria, Finland, China, Bahrain and Switzerland, plus five days in the Islamic Republic of Iran, complete with a photo-op bear hug with Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Deadbeats of the World, Unite!

It speaks volumes about the mindset of UN top management that Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon has just delivered himself of his most articulate statement since he took office — and the gist of it was to insult America, the UN’s biggest sugar-daddy, as a “deadbeat.”

The U.N.‘s Year Of Libya

Forbes At a White House meeting on Tuesday, President Obama and United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon were full of praise for a U.S.-U.N. partnership, which Obama envisions as "extraordinarily constructive" for bringing "peace and stability and security to people around the world." Ban described such collaboration as essential to deal with many crises in what he called a "make-or-break" year.

Can We Give To Gaza Without Giving To Hamas?

Forbes If stuffing billions worth of aid into the Palestinian territories could end Islamist terrorism out of Gaza, it might be worth the money. That seems to be President Obama's gamble, with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton jetting to a donors' conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, this past Monday, to chip in $900 million on behalf of U.S. tax payers. All told, more than 70 countries, cheered on by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, pledged a whopping total of $4.5 billion in fresh aid to the Palestinians.

Obama The Appeaser?

Forbes President Obama's broad scheme for foreign policy has been something of a puzzle, short on specifics and long on talk about forging alliances, extending hands and "engaging." In his first address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday evening, Obama offered a further hint--repeating the gist of the argument with which, as one of his first acts in office, he ordered the closing of Guantanamo Bay: "Living our values doesn't make us weaker. It makes us safer, and it makes us stronger."

Try Real ‘Change’ Toward North Korea

Claudia Rosett, Forbes Quick quiz on North Korea: Can you name a single democratic dissident currently active inside North Korea? Just one? Is there any North Korean equivalent to Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi? Is there a North Korean Andrei Sakharov, Lech Walesa or Nelson Mandela? Is there any parallel to any of the dissidents who agitated openly for years in South Korea to bring about the 1988 switch from dictatorship to democracy in Seoul?

Move the UN to Elkhart — and Presto, Jobs! Jobs! Jobs!

Reposted from Rosett Report

President Obama picked Elkhart, Indiana to make a townhall-meeting pitch on Monday for the porker of an $800-billion-plus stimulus spending package — his rational being that “Elkhart is a place that has lost jobs faster than anywhere else in America.”

Commerce Department Waives Syria Sanctions

Forbes "We will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist." This was President Obama's inaugural offer last month to troublesome tyrants around the world. Most attention has focused on the relevance of that offer to Iran, following Obama's campaign promise to talk without preconditions (an offer to which Tehran has now responded with, you guessed it, a list of conditions).

Dear Ali Khameini, Here’s How To Get Nukes

- Forbes Found next to a couple of empty cappuccino cups in the Delegates' Lounge, United Nations Headquarters, New York.

Freedom Beats A Global Retreat

- Reposted ForbesJust four or five years ago, the headlines were full of democratic movements, notably the yellow, rose and cedar "revolutions" in the Ukraine, Georgia and Lebanon. The Taliban had been toppled, Saddam Hussein overthrown. Democratic stirrings were heralded from the streets of Iran and China to promises of reform in Saudi Arabia and Libya. Freedom was continuing a roll begun way back in the Reagan era. Tyrants were on the outs with polite society.

The Rise of 21st Century Anti-Semitism

America has just thrown one of the world's biggest parties, rejoicing with good reason at the fall of the racial barrier to the White House. But bigotry ebbs and flows on many fronts, and a question for President Obama as he takes up his responsibilities as leader of the free world is whether he will now champion--or at least strive to protect--another minority whose members are today the targets of resurgent prejudice.

Iran Now Chairing the Board at UN’s Lead Agency

Truly, I had plans to write this week about something other than the United Nations. But over at Turtle Bay, here they go again.

Gaza Bedfellows UNRWA And Hamas

Once upon a time, terrorists had to hide from the forces of the free world and filch their living on the sly. That's changing, thanks to long-running efforts by the United Nations, bankrolled most prominently by the U.S.

More Peace Processing Won’t Cut It

Just over 70 years ago, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain returned from Munich to declare that the settlement giving Germany its desired lebensraum in the Sudetenland was a "prelude to a larger settlement in which all Europe may find peace"--or, in Chamberlain's most famous phrase of that day, "peace for our time."