{"id":14929,"date":"2012-05-06T08:59:52","date_gmt":"2012-05-06T13:59:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=14929"},"modified":"2012-05-06T08:59:52","modified_gmt":"2012-05-06T13:59:52","slug":"the-un-keeps-its-priorities-clear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2012\/05\/06\/the-un-keeps-its-priorities-clear\/","title":{"rendered":"The UN keeps its priorities clear"},"content":{"rendered":"

As if we needed any reminder that the UN is a political entity, this story by Hillel Neuer<\/a> should provide a useful refresher:<\/p>\n

According to the World Food Program, half a million people don\u2019t have enough to eat in Syria. Fears are growing that the regime is using hunger as a weapon.<\/p>\n

This is the kind of emergency which should attract the attention of the UN Human Rights Council\u2019s hunger monitor, who has the ability to spotlight situations and place them on the world agenda. Yet Olivier de Schutter of Belgium, the \u201cSpecial Rapporteur on the right to food,\u201d is not going to Syria.<\/p>\n

Instead, the UN\u2019s food monitor is coming to investigate Canada.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s right. Despite dire food emergencies around the globe, De Schutter will be devoting the scarce time and resources of the international community on an 11-day tour of Canada — a country that ranks at the bottom of global hunger concerns.<\/p>\n

A key co-ordinator and promoter of De Schutter\u2019s mission is Food Secure Canada, a lobby group whose website accuses the Harper government of \u201cfailing Canadians\u2026and [failing to] fulfill the right to food for all.\u201d The group calls instead for a \u201cPeople\u2019s Food Policy.\u201d<\/p>\n

[. . .]<\/p>\n

Before Canadians can take De Schutter seriously, they ought to ask him some serious questions about whether his mission is about human rights or a political agenda.<\/p>\n

First, consider the origins of the UN\u2019s \u201cright to food\u201d mandate. In voluminous background information provided by De Schutter and his local promoters, there\u2019s no mention that their sponsor was Cuba, a country where some women resort to prostitution for food. De Schutter does not want you to know that Havana\u2019s Communist government created his post, nor that the co-sponsors included China, North Korea, Iran and Zimbabwe.<\/p>\n

These and other repressive regimes are seeking a political weapon to attack the West. That is why the first person they chose to fill the post, when it started in 2000, was Jean Ziegler. The former Swiss Socialist politician was a man they could trust: In 1989, he announced to the world the creation of the Muammar Gaddafi Human Rights Prize.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

H\/T to Nicholas Packwood (Ghost of a Flea<\/em><\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As if we needed any reminder that the UN is a political entity, this story by Hillel Neuer should provide a useful refresher: According to the World Food Program, half a million people don\u2019t have enough to eat in Syria. Fears are growing that the regime is using hunger as a weapon. This is the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,6,74,53],"tags":[52,46,269,691],"class_list":["post-14929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bureaucracy","category-cancon","category-food","category-politics","tag-absurd","tag-hrcs","tag-propaganda","tag-unitednations"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-3SN","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14929"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14929\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14930,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14929\/revisions\/14930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}