And maybe all Asia right now because the dribs and drabs of peace are always counteracted with tension-pushing war slop and I'm simply tired of it.
I'm tired of propaganda tools constantly being deployed when the Chinese are proposing economic partnerships and proposing closer cooperation with Vietnam, Japan, et al, to avoid military confrontation while my agenda-pushing war paper promotes it at every turn.
"UN sanction on North Korea moves ahead; Country accused of violations of human rights" by Cara Anna, Associated Press November 19, 2014
UNITED NATIONS — The world’s boldest effort yet to hold North Korea and leader Kim Jong Un accountable for alleged crimes against humanity moved forward Tuesday at the United Nations, where a Pyongyang envoy threatened further nuclear tests.
Oh, they are so concerned, are they?
Related:
US vows to stop using torture against terrorism suspects
Meaning they still are torturing some folks, so to speak.
UN panel criticizes US record on torture
The follow up was a Slow Saturday Special.
When I see Israeli, AmeriKan, and British war criminals before the bar maybe I will take note. Failing that, the U.N. has been outed as nothing but a tool of the EUSraeli Empire.
The UN General Assembly’s human rights committee approved a resolution that urges the Security Council to refer the country’s harsh human rights situation to the International Criminal Court. The nonbinding resolution now goes to the General Assembly for a vote in the coming weeks. China and Russia, which hold veto power on the council, voted against it.
The resolution was inspired by a groundbreaking UN commission of inquiry report earlier this year that declared North Korea’s human rights situation ‘‘exceeds all others in duration, intensity, and horror.’’
Really? Then why do most European countries have diplomatic ties with them? Why is Japan seeking rapprochement?
The idea that their young leader could be targeted by prosecutors sent North Korean officials on a furious effort to derail the effort.
North Korea sent a sharp warning in comments before the vote. Trying to punish it over human rights ‘‘is compelling us not to refrain any further from conducting nuclear tests,’’ said Choe Myong Nam, a foreign ministry adviser for UN and human rights issues. His colleagues gave no details on that threat.
Choe also accused the European Union and Japan, the resolution’s cosponsors, of ‘‘subservience and sycophancy’’ to the United States, and he promised ‘‘unpredictable and serious consequences’’ if the resolution went forward.
The European Union quickly issued a statement welcoming the support of 111 countries in the vote. Nineteen countries voted against, and 55 abstained.
‘‘It is admirable that the member states of the United Nations are acting to protect the people of North Korea when their own government fails to do so,’’ the head of the commission of inquiry, retired Australian judge Michael Kirby, said in an e-mail, adding that he is confident the Security Council will ‘‘act responsibly.’’
So where do we Amerikans go when ours has failed us and become the most tyrannical around?
Human rights groups turned their attention to China and Russia, which could block any Security Council move. ‘‘No Security Council country, including China, can deny the horror endured by so many North Koreans,’’ Kenneth Roth, director of Human Rights Watch, said in a statement just after the vote. ‘‘The time has come for justice.’’
Yeah, let's gin up a world war to take your attention off the other things!
Who is Human Rights Watch anyway?
North Korea and its allies have argued that a resolution that targets a single country would set a dangerous precedent and that other developing countries could be singled out, too.
Could (blog editor says hopefully).
The resolution says the commission of inquiry report found grounds to believe that crimes against humanity have been committed under policies ‘‘established at the highest level of the State for decades.’’ It calls for targeted sanctions against the people who appear to be most responsible. The commission of inquiry earlier warned Kim Jong Un that could include him.
Bush, Bliar, the coterie of Israeli war cabinets....
But in the chamber Tuesday, the tone shifted. A North Korean foreign ministry adviser, Kim Ju Song, was witnessed trying to get a UN official to eject Shin Dong-Hyuk, a man who fled North Korea and has since spoken out against the regime.
The commission of inquiry report was based on interviews with dozens of people like Shin who had fled and detailed abuses including starvation and a system of harsh prison camps containing up to 120,000 people.
The U.S. has more people jailed than any country on the entire planet, and they are not stays at the Hilton hotel, either.
North Korea has claimed people who cooperated with the commission of inquiry are liars, and it produced a video showing Shin’s father in North Korea condemning him.
But Shin, who bowed to Japan’s ambassador in thanks after the vote, said North Korea’s attempt to intimidate him and others backfired. ‘‘This was an overwhelming defeat,’’ he said.
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So what are the serious consequences we have been promised?
"N. Korea threatens another nuclear test" by Choe Sang-HunNew York Times November 21, 2014
SEOUL — North Korea said Thursday that the country had no option but to consider another nuclear test after the recent “political provocation” by the United Nations to try to indict North Korea’s leaders for crimes against humanity.
Related: UN resolution: Israel must renounce nuclear arms
"The United States and Canada were among four countries that joined Israel in opposing the measure."
The statement from the North Korean Foreign Ministry came after a UN committee voted Tuesday to adopt a resolution that urged the Security Council to refer the leaders to the International Criminal Court for prosecution for extensive violations of human rights.
North Korea has conducted three nuclear tests since 2006, the latest in February of last year. Its threat of another test came a day after a US research institute reported that the country might be preparing to reprocess spent nuclear fuel to extract weapons-grade plutonium at its main nuclear complex north of its capital, Pyongyang.
The research organization, Johns Hopkins University’s US-Korea Institute at SAIS, reported on its website 38 North on Wednesday that recent commercial satellite imagery of North Korea’s Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center showed evidence of a lengthy reactor shutdown.
In one ear out the other mean anything to you (as if I would US intelligence and the propaganda pre$$ at this point)?
Even if they did test another bomb, so what? It's not worth any type of war, sorry!
North Korea last reprocessed spent fuel in 2009, when it undertook a series of moves that raised tensions in the region, including its second nuclear test.
Yeah, I know who is doing that now.
China, the country’s main ally, voted against the UN resolution and has indicated that it would veto any move by the Security Council to refer the issue to the International Criminal Court.
Like the U.S. would for Israel.
But the mere suggestion that the top North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, could be held accountable in a criminal court has infuriated the North Korean government.
Like Palestinian charges against Israel.
On Thursday, it called the resolution a “political provocation,” accusing the United States of hiring “rubber stamps” to pass the document. It said the resolution set a dangerous precedent in “politicizing and internationalizing the issue of human rights” to overthrow an independent country’s government.
It does because it could conceivably boomerang on them.
“The United States’ hostile acts are leaving us no longer able to refrain from conducting a new nuclear test,” said the North Korean statement, which was carried by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency. “Our war deterrent will be strengthened infinitely in the face of the United States’ plot for armed interference and invasion.”
Aaaah! We never do tha.... oh, yeah.
Strangely, it is the nuclear bomb that has likely forestalled invasion of the North. The U.S. only invades those that DO NOT HAVE the bomb (like Iraq). That's why they want to keep Iran from getting the one they are not building.
In a report on Oct. 3, the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security cited satellite imagery indicating the possible shutdown of a five-megawatt nuclear reactor at Yongbyon for either partial refueling or renovations. Spent fuel from that reactor remains the North’s only known source of plutonium.
Yeah, well, I've been told about a lot of satellite images and intelligence that turned out to be bulls***.
In its Wednesday report, the US-Korea Institute cited what it called new evidence, such as steam rising and truck activity, that it said indicated North Korea was unloading some of the used fuel rods from the reactor and may be preparing to restart a radio-chemical laboratory at Yongbyon. The laboratory separates weapons-grade plutonium from waste materials of spent nuclear fuel.
Yeah, okay.
North Korea restarted the once-mothballed Yongbyon reactor in August last year. Nuclear experts say that after a year of operation, the reactor core could contain up to five kilograms of weapons-grade plutonium, roughly a bomb’s worth of fuel.
Oh, so it will take them a year to do it. This is what I said it was at the top.
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Related: Hold firm on North Korea
So sayeth them with all the answers.
Also see: Chief of South Korean ferry company sentenced to 10 years in jail
It sure has been a bad year for South Korean ships.
Speaking of calling it quits:
"Top UN relief official to step down" by Rick Gladstone, New York Times November 27, 2014
NEW YORK — Valerie Amos, the top relief official at the United Nations, who has grappled with some of the most intractable humanitarian disasters in her four years on the job, is resigning, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced Wednesday.
In a brief statement, Ban gave no explanation for why Amos was resigning, when the resignation would take effect, or who might replace her. But timing of the announcement was considered a surprise.
Amos, the undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, has most notably been the face of the UN relief efforts for civilians in the Syrian civil war, now nearly four years old.
She has repeatedly implored the Syrian government, with mixed results, to permit relief convoys into rebel-held areas. She supported a UN Security Council resolution approved in July that authorized, for the first time, the delivery of aid across Syria’s borders without the Syrian government’s permission.
The resignation announcement came one day after Amos told the council that although that resolution had made a difference, an estimated 12.2 million Syrians now need assistance because of conflict, up from 10.8 million in July.
A former British cabinet minister, Amos took the UN position in 2010, about a year before the conflict in Syria began.
Syria has preoccupied much of her time, adding to the management of relief efforts like the 2013 typhoon disaster in the Philippines and a variety of humanitarian crises in Africa, including the conflict in South Sudan and the basic collapse of authority in the Central African Republic.
I can't remember the last time I saw articles about them, although I do remember seeing something about the Congo recently. They have all been submerged by Ebola.
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