Saudi Headchoppers to Lead UN Conference on 'Religious Tolerance'

Is this some kind of sick joke?

Saudi Arabia, the oil-rich Islamic kingdom that forbids the public practice of other religious faiths, will preside Wednesday over a two-day U.N. conference on religious tolerance that will draw more than a dozen world leaders, including President Bush, Israeli President Shimon Peres and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

The event is part of a personal initiative by Saudi King Abdullah to promote an interfaith dialogue among the world's major religions. The Saudi leader agreed for the first time to dine in the same room with the Israeli president at a private, pre-conference banquet Tuesday hosted by U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. But Ban hinted that the two leaders -- whose governments do not have diplomatic relations -- were not seated at the same table.

"Normally, in the past, they have not been sitting in the same place like this. That is very important and encouraging," Ban said. "I wholeheartedly support the convening of the interfaith meeting that will be held here at headquarters tomorrow. The values it aims to promote are common to all the world's religions and can help us fight extremism, prejudice and hatred."

We're now officially living in bizarro world when those who are the most intolerant and preach hatred of others are leading an alleged interfaith dialogue. I think I'm going to be ill.

U.S. By Far Biggest Contributor to World Food Program, Oil-Rich Gulf States Give Almost Nothing

We're always reading how much everyone hates the United States and we're constantly told by the UN that we just don't do enough.

Well, this report should put to rest any notion we don't contribute enough of our largesse to help the needy.

Meanwhile, the fat-cat Arabs states spend more money on hate-preaching madrassas than to do to help feed the world's poor.

What a shocker.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and his top lieutenants on Monday are convening the first meeting of the U.N.’s Task Force on the Global Food Crisis. Ban says it will “study the root causes of the crisis,” and propose solutions for “coordinated global action” at a summit of world leaders in June.

Ban might want to consider convincing the oil-rich nations of the Middle East to provide more than the near-invisible amount of money they currently give to the World Food Program (WFP), the U.N.’s food-giving arm, which is charged with alleviating the food crisis.

WFP internal documents show that the major oil producing nations of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) gives almost nothing to the food organization, even as skyrocketing oil prices and swollen oil revenues contribute to the very crisis that the U.N. claims could soon add 100 million more people to the world’s starving masses.

The overwhelming bulk of the burden in feeding the world’s starving poor remains with the United States and a small group of other predominately Western nations, a situation that the WFP has done little so far to change, even as it has asked for another $775 million in donations to ease the crisis.

Donor listings on WFP’s website show that this year, as in every year since 1999, the U.S. is far and away the biggest aid provider to WFP. Since 2001, U.S. donations to the food agency have averaged more than $1.16 billion annually — or more than five times as much as the next biggest donor, the European Commission.

Our friends the Saudis have apparently misplaced their wallets.

On the other hand, Saudi Arabia, with oil revenues last year of $164 billion, does not even appear on the website donor list for 2008.

Isn't that special?

And while Canada, Australia, Western Europe and Japan have hastened to pony up an additional $260 million in aid since WFP’s latest appeal, the world organization told FOX News, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), the international oil cartel, tossed in a grand total of $1.5 million in addition to the $50,000 it had previously donated.

The OPEC total amounts to roughly one minute and 10 seconds worth of the organization’s estimated $674 billion in annual oil revenues in 2007 — revenues that will be vastly exceeded in 2008 with the continuing spiral in world oil prices.

The only other major oil exporter who made the WFP list of 2008 donors was the United Arab Emirates, which kicked in $50,000. UAE oil revenues in 2007 were $63 billion.

What a bunch of lowlifes. These parasites probably spend more money on hookers than they do to help feed the poor.

Here's the donor list.

Useless UN 'Watchdog' Fears for Pakistan Nuke Arsenal

The clueless stooge Mohamed ElBaradei, who's twiddled his thumbs while the Iranians move full-steam toward acquiring nulear weapons, now frets that Al Qaeda could seize Pakistan's nuclear arsenal.

Though I'm sure he'll be happy to sit down with them and convince them to only use them for peaceful purposes.

THE head of the UN atomic watchdog Mohamed ElBaradei warned yesterday that al-Qa'ida could use the deepening political and security crisis in Pakistan to seize the country's nuclear arsenal.

"I fear that chaos ... or an extremist regime could take root in that country, which has 30 to 40 warheads," the Egyptian-born Mr ElBaradei told the pan-Arab daily al-Hayat.

There has been worldwide concern over the security of Pakistan's nuclear warheads since President Pervez Musharraf imposed a national state of emergency in November.

Mr Musharraf said in December that Pakistan's nuclear weapons were under control.

But in unusual public comments, Mr ElBaradei said he was "worried that nuclear weapons could fall into the hands of an extremist group in Pakistan or in Afghanistan".

The intervention by the UN nuclear chief, on the eve of a visit to Iran, comes amid growing apprehension about the way jihadi militants linked to al-Qa'ida and the Taliban have cut a swath through Pakistan, seeking to take advantage of the country's political turmoil.

The militants are particularly active in remote areas where Pakistan's estimated 50 nuclear warheads are believed to be deployed, though officials in Islamabad have insisted there is no threat to their security or the country's arsenal.

There have been reports of deepening concern in Washington about the safety of the nuclear arsenal.

In her last major interview before her assassination, former prime minister Benazir Bhutto expressed concern that "al-Qa'ida could be marching on Islamabad in two to four years".

Most reassuring.

UPDATE: Here's another comforting thought: New Taliban Leader: More Dangerous Than Bin Laden?

Israel: Dump Incompetent Hack ElBaradei

Only at the UN could someone so clueless still be employed.

Perhaps they'll spring into action once we see mushroom clouds over Tel Aviv.

Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz called Thursday for Mohamed ElBaradei to be removed as head of the UN nuclear watchdog, saying he had turned a blind eye to archfoe Iran's nuclear ambitions.

The call for ElBaradei's dismissal comes just days before the International Atomic Energy Agency is due to publish a new report on Iran's nuclear programme, to serve as a key part of further discussions at the United Nations on whether to impose a third set of sanctions on Tehran.

"The policies followed by ElBaradei endanger world peace. His irresponsible attitude of sticking his head in the sand over Iran's nuclear programme should lead to his impeachment," Mofaz told public radio from Washington.

Mofaz, who heads "the strategic dialogue" between Israel and its main ally the United States, held talks on Wednesday with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

ElBaradei raised the ire of many Israeli officials after telling France's Le Monde newspaper that Iran would need "between three and eight years" to develop a nuclear bomb and that there were was no immediate threat.

Of course, now that the Iranians have 3000 centrifuges up and running, ElBaradei is nowhere to be found.

UN Yawns as Zimbabwe Catastrophe Goes Unnoticed

When we mentioned people were reduced to eating housepets in Zimbabwe, it was scarcely noted. Now a member of the opposition party to Robert Mugabe's goons is saying the dire situation in the forlorn African nation is the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

He's probably right, but human rights groups, the UN and Hollyweird actors are busy elsewhere. They just don't like criticizing their fellow travelers.

Zimbabwe humanitarian crisis is world's worst-MDC

The humanitarian crisis in Zimbabwe has become the world's worst but is still largely ignored by the international community, a member of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said on Monday.

David Coltart, one of Zimbabwe's leading white politicians and member of parliament for a mainly black constituency, said the crisis in the former British colony had far outgrown the ability of any single nation to tackle.

He accused United Nations food and health agencies of a gross dereliction of duty in keeping silent on the issue.

"Zimbabwe is the world's worst humanitarian crisis -- but no one is talking about it in public," he told Reuters on a visit to London. "It is absolutely catastrophic. The U.N. must act.

"Not only are people starving to death every day, but the collapse of the economy is starting to destabilise the region."

Inflation in the country once known as the breadbasket of Africa is running at around 4,500 percent, unemployment is at 80 percent and price controls have stripped supermarket shelves bare.

Even staple foods like bread and maize meal are virtually impossible to get hold of and people have been reduced to scavenging.

President Robert Mugabe, in power since independence in 1980, blames the economic disaster on meddling by outside countries, including former colonial power Britain.

Of course Mugabe blames everyone else. When was the last time a Communist admitted fault of his own?

"What we need is a massive humanitarian relief effort. Mugabe is deliberately using food as a weapon," said Coltart, who is secretary for legal affairs for a faction of the MDC.

"The trouble is that on the surface everything is quiet -- it is in the hospitals and in the morgues that you see the truth," he added.

Send in the Clowns

If the poor folks in Darfur think they have it bad, well, things aren't going to get much better.

U.N. approves up to 26,000 troops, police for Darfur

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council authorized on Tuesday up to 26,000 troops and police for Darfur and approved the use of force to protect civilians in Sudan's arid western region.

Expected to cost more than $2 billion in the first year, the combined "hybrid" U.N.-African Union operation aims to quell violence in Darfur, where more than 2.1 million people have been driven into camps and an estimated 200,000 have died over the past four years.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who conducted months of talks with Khartoum, described the resolution as "historic and unprecedented" and said the mission would "make a clear and positive difference."

Sure.

Hide the women and young girls.