North Korea to Assume Presidency of UN Nuclear Disarmament Conference

[vector7]

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• North Korea to Assume Presidency of UN Nuclear Disarmament Conference
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North Korea to Chair UN Nuclear Disarmament Conference

By Jonathan Wachtel
Published June 29, 2011
| FoxNews.com


AP/Xinhua
In this photo taken Wednesday, May 25, 2011 released by China's Xinhua news agency, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, left, shakes hands with Chinese President Hu Jintao during a meeting in Beijing.

Despite numerous breaches of arms embargoes and continued threats to expand its nuclear weapons program, North Korea has assumed the presidency of the United Nations Conference on Disarmament. In a speech to the 65-nation arms control forum in Geneva, the newly-appointed president, North Korean Ambassador So Se Pyong, said he was “very much committed to the Conference.”

Appointing a North Korean to chair the UN’s only multilateral disarmament forum is like “asking the fox to guard the chickens,” says Hillel Neuer, of the UN watchdog organization UN Watch. Neuer is calling on the U.S. and European governments to protest the appointment, which he says, “damages the UN’s credibility.”

When asked about the controversy over North Korea’s new leadership role, UN spokesman Farhan Haq pointed out that the head of the Conference on Disarmament is selected by the member states that sit on the conference, not the UN secretary general.

Haq added that when Secretary General Ban Ki-moon spoke at the Conference on Disarmament this January, he urged the states who sit on the conference to do more to advance its work, so that it “does not become irrelevant.”Aware that many nations see the Conference on Disarmament as a place of talk rather than a forum that does substantive work, Secretary General Ban warned: “The very credibility of this body is at risk.”

The United States, Great Britain, Canada and other Western members of the conference have grown frustrated over the UN forum’s failure over the past decade to move forward on its core disarmament responsibilities, including curbs on the proliferation of fissile material.

Iran, China and Burma were among nations that congratulated North Korea on assuming the presidency of the conference. This month, the U.S. Navy intercepted a North Korean ship suspected of trying to deliver missiles to Burma, forcing its return to North Korea. It was the latest incident among many, as Pyongyang continues the proliferation of arms and weapons-related materials, despite UN Security Council sanctions.

Determined not to be cowed by the West and to provoke Washington, North Korea “celebrated” July 4, 2009, by firing 7 missiles into the Sea of Japan. UN Watch sees North Korea’s appointment to lead the Conference on Disarmament as a political victory for Pyongyang. “It is common sense that a disarmament body should not be headed by the world’s arch-villain on illegal weapons and nuclear proliferation,” said Neuer.

A diplomat from the North Korean Mission to the UN, which is notorious for not returning calls from the Western media, called Fox News to say that complaints about the appointment of their nation to lead the Conference on Disarmament are “just the continuation of the Western mindset that refuses to acknowledge that the Democratic Republic of Korea (North Korea) is fighting for disarmament.”

The diplomat, who requested that he remain anonymous added, “It is normal for my nation, just as any nation, to become president of a UN conference.”

[vector7]

Is the UN stark raving mad?

From: The Australian

July 04, 2011 12:00AM

AS a case of lunatics taking over the asylum, it would be hard to beat the announcement that North Korea has assumed chairmanship of the UN Conference on Disarmament, the premier world body charged with the cessation of the nuclear arms race and prevention of nuclear war.

That's right: the wacky regime that constantly violates the UN's nuclear controls, is the target of UN sanctions, and is the leading proliferator of nuclear technology to Iran and Syria is now putatively in charge of the organisation responsible for negotiating multilateral arms control agreements such as the Biological and Chemical Weapons Conventions and the Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty.

It's because of a Buggins's Turn arrangement under which each of the 65 member states serves a term. And it's only for four weeks. But the symbolism of having North Korea in charge of world disarmament for even four hours, let alone four weeks, is monstrous. Its weapons proliferation and human rights record is such that to find its officials running a match factory would be disturbing. That it is being allowed to serve as head of the UN Conference on Disarmament reflects badly on UN processes and the administration of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Earlier this year, there was outrage when it emerged that Libya was a member of the UN Human Rights Council while Muammar Gaddafi's forces were slaughtering his people, and it took a mighty effort to remove it.

China, Cuba and Saudi Arabia remain council members. And Mr Ban did the UN's standing no favours last week by endorsing an International Conference on the Global Fight Against Terrorism organised by Iran, and which included representatives of North Korea and Syria as well as Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, wanted by the International Criminal Court on genocide charges.

UN apologists argue that having North Korea heading the Conference on Disarmament doesn't matter as it doesn't do much. They're wrong. It's an outrage. After drawing condemnation from the US and China in May 2009 for defying the UN by testing a bomb comparable to those that obliterated Hiroshima and Nagasaki, North Korea has no credibility on disarmament. The sooner UN processes are amended to bar countries beyond the pale of civilized behaviour from such appointments, the better.

[vector7]

June 30, 2011
North Korea Assumes Presidency of UN Conference on Disarmament

Posted by Dave Blount at June 30, 2011 12:37 PM

If the United Nations didn't jump the shark long ago, it has now that North Korea has assumed the presidency of the Conference on Disarmament:

"Bare months after the U.N. finally suspended Libya's Col. Muammar Qaddafi from its Human Rights Council, North Korea wins the propaganda coup of heading the world's disarmament agency," the executive director of UN Watch Hillel Neuer said in a statement protesting the move. "It's asking the fox to guard the chickens … no system should tolerate such a fundamental conflict of interests. It's common sense that a disarmament body should not be headed by the world's arch-villain on illegal weapons and nuclear proliferation, notorious for exporting missiles and nuclear know-how to fellow rogue regimes around the globe."

It's also common sense that Americans should not be forced to fund this malignant and farcical institution. Meanwhile, the adolescent Marxist in the White House tells us that we must raise both taxes and the debt ceiling, because he can't find any spending to cut.

The blind could see where all this moonbattery is heading.

On a tip from Byron.

[vector7]

North Korea to Head UN Conference…on Disarmament?

• Posted on June 29, 2011 at 9:43pm by Tiffany Gabbay

This time around, the U.N has appointed North Korea, with its nuclear ambitions, to chair of the U.N. Conference on Disarmament. You read that correctly. A conference on disarmament is being chaired by a country bent on developing its own nuclear weapons arsenal. Given the U.N.’s history of dubious appointments, however, this may not come as a surprise.

The Weekly Standard reports:

On Tuesday, the United Nations again made itself an international laughing stock – except perhaps to the American taxpayers who continue to foot 22 percent of the bill – by appointing North Korea chair of the U.N. Conference on Disarmament. That would be the same North Korea that, according to an article this week by Senator John Kerry, head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has “twice tested nuclear weapons…is developing missiles to carry them…has built facilities capable of producing highly enriched uranium for more nuclear weapons” and has defied a U.N. arms embargo by exporting weapons and sensitive technologies to rogue regimes.

Alas, Senator Kerry is also one of the lead champion of the United Nations in the Senate. According to the U.N., “The Conference is funded from the UN regular budget, reports to the General Assembly and receives guidance from it.”

North Korea’s representative of the conference So Se Pyongof, vowed to do “everything in his capacity to move the Conference on Disarmament forward.”

Not surprisingly, the chairmanship was praised by an Iranian delegate who assured Pyongof the Iranian delegation would give North Korea its “full support and cooperation.”

Weekly Standard went on to describe other delegates reaction:

Congratulations also poured in from such upstanding world citizens and U.N. fans as China. China’s Wang Qun “welcomed the presidency of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.”
It was left to the Canadian delegate to speak plainly. Canada’s Marius Grinius said: “[i]n the last 13 years the Conference has failed to move forward on its core disarmament responsibilities, including the negotiation of a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty…[T]he Conference on Disarmament is on life support because it no longer is the sole multilateral negotiating forum for disarmament. Indeed, it is not negotiating anything and has not been for a very long time.”

(H/T: Weekly Standard)

[Malsua]

Is this for real?

I suppose this is a good thing. People need reminded at how corrupt, inept, ineffectual and preposterous the UN really is.

[Toad]

Omfg. Sanity has left the building. At least as Malsua said, the ultimate net action will be exactly nothing.

[American Patriot]

Lmao!

[New Guy]

seems like a good place to throw this tidbit up...maybe the UN should pick up a newspaper now and then.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/07...clear-secrets/

Scientist: N. Korea Paid Pakistan for Nuclear Tech
Published July 06, 2011
| Associated Press
Print Email Share Comments
WASHINGTON – The founder of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program claims that in the late 1990s North Korean officials paid kickbacks to senior Pakistani military figures in exchange for critical weapons technology.
Abdul Qadeer Khan has given a United States-based expert documents that appear to show North Korea's government paid more than $3.5 million to two Pakistani military officials as part of the deal, the expert told The Associated Press Wednesday.

To back up his claim, Khan released what he said was a copy of a North Korean official's 1998 letter to him, written in English, that purports to describe the secret deal.
Khan gave the documents to Simon Henderson of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, an authority on Pakistan's weapons program. He did so because he has been accused by his government of running a covert nuclear smuggling operation without official knowledge or consent.
"He gave it to me because he regarded it as showing that the story, the perception that he had been a rogue operator was false," Henderson said.
The letter, along with a statement by Khan describing the deal, suggests that at least some top-level Pakistani military officials knew early on about some of Khan's extensive sale of nuclear weapons technology to other countries, including North Korea, Iran and Libya.
If that's true, it could deepen the distrust between the United States and Pakistan, which are struggling to set aside their differences and cooperate in the battle against militant extremists in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The significance of the revelation is in dispute. Henderson said the documents prove Khan's claims that his nuclear arms smuggling network had high-level support from the Pakistani government, but others say the letter bolsters the government's claims it didn't know what Khan was up to.
The Washington Post said it obtained the documents and first reported on them on its website Wednesday after a lengthy effort to authenticate them.
The letter Khan released is dated July 15, 1998, and marked "Secret." It carries the apparent signature of North Korean Workers Party Secretary Jon Byong Ho.
The text says, "Please give the agreed documents, components, etc. to a ... (North Korean Embassy official in Pakistan) to be flown back when our plane returns after delivery of missile components."
The letter never mentions the word "nuclear." But Khan's written description of the events surrounding the letter makes it clear that the Workers Party official was referring to components and plans for Pakistani centrifuges used to enrich uranium.
Highly enriched uranium can be used either to make fuel for nuclear reactors or to form the explosive core of a nuclear weapon.
Jehangir Karamat, a former Pakistani military chief named as the recipient of the $3 million, said the letter was untrue. In an email to the Post from Lahore, Karamat said Khan, as part of his defense against allegations of personal responsibility for illicit nuclear proliferation, had tried "to shift blame on others."
The other official, retired Lt. Gen. Zulfiqar Khan, called the letter "a fabrication."
The Post said the assertions by Khan and the details in the letter could not be independently verified.
But the newspaper quoted one senior U.S. official who said the signature appeared genuine and the contents were "consistent with our knowledge" of the events described. Another intelligence official said the letter contained information known only to a handful of people.
Khan has long denied claims that he was working behind his government's back in his covert nuclear technology sales to foreign governments.
"This is a piece of dramatic evidence that Khan did not act as a single rogue agent, but instead was operating at the instruction of others," Henderson said. "I think the main point of this is that Pakistan used this technology to trade for diplomatic advantage."
David Albright, an authority on nuclear proliferation with the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington, disagreed, saying the letter and Khan's narrative are evidence he acted alone.
"It shows that Khan was a rogue agent and that he colluded to provide centrifuge components to North Korea without Pakistani official approval," Albright said.
He said that in Khan's narrative, which has not been released, the scientist claimed he had assured the military that North Korea would not use the centrifuges for its nuclear weapons program, since it already had more advanced technology for that purpose.
Albright said the claim was false, but Pakistani military officials could have found it plausible.


Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/07...#ixzz1RQjPbXOw

[American Patriot]

UN read? HA!

They have places like Libya as "human rights council" leaders and rogue countries in charge of nuclear crap?

Right