Low Earth Orbit

UN-believable

[source, source, source] "??Reporters sans frontières??":http://www.rsf.fr/ is an organization that supports press freedoms. There were a consultive organization to the UN Human Rights Commission. The UNHRC(United Nations Human Rights Commission) has now removed that status for the group in a move that violates UN procedural rules. The action was undertaken at the request of Libya and Cuba, both nations with representation on the UNHRC(United Nations Human Rights Commission). RSF(Reporters sans frontières) had already pissed off those two thugocracies by reporting on their human rights records, but what seems to have tipped the rest of the UNHRC(United Nations Human Rights Commission) was that

The organisation published a report on the [UNHRC] commission's accelerating decline, entitled ??Wheeling and Dealing??, incompetence and "non-action," in which it recommends a radical overhaul

This is the organization that will straighten out Iraq and make it a stable, rule of law democracy? Oh yeah, that's plausible.

World Bank demonstrates its moral clarity

[source, source]

In a statement worthy of the French diplomat he apparently aspires to become, World Bank President James Wolfensohn concluded his meeting with the Iraqi Governing Council with the disdainful remark that "a constitution and an elected government would constitute a recognized government, but what do we do in the meantime?" Whoaaa there, Daddy Warbucks! Hold the sauterne and the foie gras! I don't recall that Saddam's regime was elected. Or that it governed by a constitution. Yet that terror-state was recognized as legitimate by the world's diplomats and international bankers. Every slithering, interest-bearing one of them. And now Iraq's interim Governing Council doesn't deserve the level of recognition accorded Saddam Hussein? Saddam seized power in a coup, slaughtered his opponents, started successive wars of aggression, pursued weapons of mass destruction and never held a single honest election. But he was just fine with foreign ministries, the United Nations and world financial institutions. Yet Iraq's representative Governing Council lacks legitimacy as it seeks to build democracy? And Iraq doesn't qualify for reconstruction loans? This is a double standard of such a disgraceful magnitude that the only appropriate adjective is "European."

Fallout from the Korean summit

The "??Wall Street Journal??":http:/wsj.com reports today that Chung Mon Hun, a top executive of Hyundai has committed suicide. Chung has been embroiled in a scandal involving the summit between North and South Korea in 2000. Chung alledgedly helped funnel $100 million to North Korea to purchase their presence at the summit.