China backs Russia’s play.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang said: “China has always upheld the principles of diplomacy and the fundamental norms of international relations.
“At the same time we also take into consideration the history and the current complexities of the Ukrainian issue.”

That would be code for Taiwan and the South China Sea.

Things Justin Trudeau likes;

…in 2013, the United Nations General Assembly elected China, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, and Russia, countries that have no regard for human rights at all, as members of the UN Human Rights Council; selected Hezbollah (a designated terrorist organization) apologist Jean Ziegler as senior advisor to the Council; and elected Mauritania, a primitive country that tolerates slavery, as Council vice-chair. Meanwhile, Richard Falk, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, blamed the Boston Marathon bombing on “the American global domination project” and “Tel Aviv.” Of the UN General Assembly’s 25 resolutions condemning individual countries in 2013, all but four were against the exemplary democracy, Israel, which only seeks recognition of the basis on which the United Nations founded it: as a Jewish state and homeland for the Jewish people. The United Nations also elected the racist, terrorist-infested charnel house and Iranian proxy of Syria to its Special Committee on Decolonization; appointed Zimbabwe (a regime so odious it has been expelled from the Commonwealth, failing to clear an almost subterranean hurdle) to host its world tourism summit; and elected Iran president of its 2013 Conference on Disarmament, even as that country strove to put the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to the shredder.

h/t Kevin B

Iran’s representative will replace Norwegian diplomat Knut Langeland. The position’s duties include relaying information and reports on disarmament and armament activities between the committee and the General Assembly.
H/t: Chris

Hmmmm…. Stephen Harper won’t address the UN General Assembly when it gathers in New York this week, just as he didn’t address it last year or the year before.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon denied on Monday there is any bias in the UN against Israel.
h/t Alex

When even the Guardian objects…

In 1989 – four months after Libya bombed Pan Am flight 103, killing 270 people from 21 countries – Ziegler launched the annual Muammar Qaddafi Human Rights Prize in Tripoli, boasting it was the “Anti-Nobel prize of the third world”. Winners have included Fidel Castro, Louis Farrakhan, and a leader of a Ba’ath party women’s organisation in Saddam’s Iraq. In 2002, the recipients included the convicted French Holocaust denier Roger Garaudy, and Ziegler himself.
In 1986, Ziegler acted as an adviser to the Ethiopian dictator Mengistu, helping draft his one-party constitution. In 1993, Le Monde reported on “Jean Ziegler’s trip to visit Saddam Hussein and Kim Il-sung.”
Ziegler proclaimed “total support for the Cuban revolution” shortly after Fidel Castro had imprisoned many journalists. While visiting Cuba as a UN official he refused to meet Cuban dissidents but lavished praise on Castro.
In 2002, he praised the Zimbabwean dictator, saying, “Mugabe has history and morality with him.”

Jean Ziegler has been elected to the advisory committee of the
UN Human Rights Council.

Of course! Iran will chair the United Nations’ most important disarmament negotiating forum during the panel’s May session…

Apathy – noun, plural ap·a·thies.
1. absence or suppression of passion, emotion, or excitement.
2. lack of interest in or concern for things that others find moving or exciting.
3. Also, ap·a·thei·a, ap·a·thi·a  [ap-uh-thee-uh] Show IPA. Stoicism . freedom from emotion of any kind. *