United nations

I am sorry to hear of the death of Stanford University Professor of Biology Paul R. Ehrlich at the age of 93, but to read his writings you wonder whether it is an event he might actually want us to celebrate. It does, after all, mean one less mouth to feed. Just another 6.5 billion people to go and we will be down to what in 2018 he stated was the world’s optimum population of between 1.5 to 2 billion. Ehrlich’s 1968 book, The Population Bomb – written with his wife Anne whose name his publisher famously kept off the front cover – established Ehrlich as the world’s latter-day Malthusian-in-chief.

The latest media palpitation about Donald Trump concerns his just-announced “Board of Peace.” Unveiled as an initiative to manage the introduction of tranquillity and physical reconstruction of that pile of rubble formerly known as Gaza, the Board of Peace seems to be filling all the empty space in the parking lot reserved for international relations. Think Big! The BoP now seems to take as its mandate international conflict more generally. Reporting on the fledgling enterprise, a story on ABC News mournfully told the world that “Critics and government leaders are decrying the board, saying it undermines the United Nations.”   Is that a promise? And more to the point, how would anyone be

There’s something deeply disingenuous about Newsom’s endless climate crowing

Forces that mobilized over Gaza have, in the case of atrocities being committed in Sudan, fallen almost entirely silent

Countries deemed ‘vulnerable’ to climate change would receive payments

He denounced the UN itself as a colossal failure

As British Ambassador to Yemen, I watched Washington with growing frustration

Chief prosecutor is accused of horrifying personal misconduct

The President decided to yank Elise Stefanik’s nomination because of the slender Republican majority in the House

‘I always knew that if I stood my ground, for all of you, that I would be a target. And a target I became’

Plus: UN Women fails women & Biden’s motorcade hit