To draw attention to the highly anticipated report of the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change, on-going in Paris, the French government announced that it will turn off the 336 projectors that illuminate the Eiffel Tower at night. The lights will be off for a full five minutes tomorrow evening in advance of the report's release on Friday.
For an excellent insiders' account of the Panel's race to finish the report by Friday's deadline, read this dispatch by AP science writer Seth Borenstein.
To mark the UN's Holocaust Memorial day, Anne Bayefsky writes in the National Review Online that "the U.N. provides sustenance for the Iranian genocidal threat, which is directed at Israel now, and America next." We then learn from Bayefsky that the UN is "driven by expansionist greed" and serves as a "mouthpiece of Iranian nihilism." Finally, she criticizes the International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohammed elBaredei for having the temerity to suggest that threatening military strikes against Iran may inspire the regime to accelerate its nuclear program. Hence, writes Bayefsky, "Genocide awaits us if we wait for the U.N."
The United Nations marked the annual International Day of Commemoration yesterday, in remembrance of the victims of the Holocaust.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said, "The Holocaust was a unique and undeniable tragedy...The work of remembrance pays tribute to those who perished. But it also plays a vital role in our efforts to stem the tide of human cruelty. It keeps us vigilant for new outbreaks of anti-Semitism and other forms of intolerance. And it is an essential response to those misguided individuals who claim that the Holocaust never happened, or has been exaggerated." More
Eric Shawn, the Fox News correspondent and author of (brace yourself) The U.N. Exposed: How the United Nations Sabotages America's Security and Fails the World, writes a shockingly even-handed dispatch from Kinshasa, where he traveled with the Secretary General this weekend.
From Shawn's report:
After a two day visit to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the country's problems can only be solved by lasting peace and stability.
"By creating such an environment on the political, economic and social levels, the United Nations and the international community will be encouraged to continue working for prosperity and development with the Congolese government," Ban said. More