United nations

The most important statement from the new administration. Clear, concise, simply and devastatingly expressed. Exactly what many of us have been saying for years – and always upbraided and denounced for so doing. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Nikki Haley, the new US ambassador to the UN, who has called out the organisation's anti-Israel bias: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwChiaqAMTg Well done, Ms Haley. A woman of colour in the supposedly racist and misogynistic Trump administration. Now she's said it, we all can, with a bit more confidence. And my guess is that more politicians over here will say it, having been given their cue.

Like all the best mistakes, it was done for the right reasons. Knowing that for once the US wouldn’t veto, the UN Security Council passed a resolution condemning settlement building in the occupied Palestinian Territories. The UK was no doubt keen to be with the consensus but we were wrong to back the Resolution. This time was different. Not because Israel has changed, nor the expansion of the settlements is exacerbating the efforts towards a settlement, but because the world has changed and so have we. The Arab Spring showed that the Israel-Palestinian conflict doesn’t matter. This may sound harsh for a country generating more news than any people can reasonably be expected to cope with but the medieval mapmakers were wrong. The Holy Land isn’t the centre of the world.

Libya’s former Prime Minister Dr. Mahmoud Jibril has become the first senior leader of its Arab Spring revolution to call time on the country’s new western-backed government, saying 'the chances of success are very slim'. This apparent failure hasn't been caused by a lack of support, which has poured in from London and Washington in a bid to get the Government of National Accord (GNA) to stand up and walk on its own two feet. It was also hoped that by doing this, a fix could be found for the twin problems of Islamic State and mass migration. But Dr Jibril, who helped steer the country through its brutal uprising against Muammar Gaddafi, says foreign powers made a mistake by installing an unelected regime without popular support.

Even by the high standards of the UN, its report on Julian Assange is ridiculous bordering on comic. The BBC is reporting that the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention will find that he has been ‘unlawfully detained’. This is patently absurd as the only person detaining Assange is Assange himself. He is free to leave the Ecuadorian embassy at any time. Now, if he did so, he would be arrested. But staying in hiding to avoid arrest is completely different from being detained by the state. But the UN panel seems to have missed this. The Assange spin machine has been in full operation today, with the BBC blasting out that he would accept arrest if the UN report found against him.

While a new year can mean new beginnings, Steerpike would hate for anyone to forget some of 2015's more 'interesting' incidents. So Mr S thanks the Geneva-based UN Watch for the following list which highlights the ten worst moments of 2015 when it comes to the United Nations: 10. Iran elected to UN Women Executive Board 'Electing the Iranian regime to the UN women’s rights board is like making a pyromaniac into the town fire chief,' said UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer. 9. Genocide warnings aside, Burundi wins seat on UN Human Rights Council Although a 2010 Transparency International report named Burundi as East Africa's most corrupt country, the country won a seat on the UN Human Rights Council. 8.

The Prince of Wales is right, and I appreciate that this isn’t something people say very often. Now and again, certainly, Prince Charles does turn out to be right about things, such as the need for interfaith dialogue or the horrors of some modern architecture, but the manner in which he tends to be right about them does rather have the feel of happy coincidence. In the future, as Warhol didn’t quite say, we will all be right for 15 minutes. Unless it’s about homeopathy. This week, you see, the Prince told Sky News that the war in Syria may be linked to climate change. Not, please note, that it was caused by climate change, let alone man-made climate change. His view is very much not that, if more of us drove electric cars, Raqqa would be at peace.

For many years, Australia has been turning away boats filled with migrants. From a remove, this looks cold--hearted — a nation built by immigrants showing no compassion for others who want a better life. But it is precisely because Australia is an immigrant nation that it understands the situation: if you let the boats land, more people come. People traffickers will be encouraged, migrants will be swindled, and their bodies will wash up on your shores. Any country serious about immigration needs a more effective and robust approach. Tony Abbott, the former Prime Minister of Australia, made that point clearly this week on a trip to London.

It is probably safe to say that the negotiations with Iran aren’t going very well. As the 30 June deadline for a final agreement looms America’s top negotiator Wendy Sherman has just announced that she will resign shortly after, telling the New York Times that it has been 'two long years' in that position. Meanwhile the Iranians are now saying that they want the deadline for reaching an agreement extended, with the Obama administration insisting that’s not an option. To make matters worse unconfirmed reports have recently emerged claiming that a delegation of North Korean nuclear weapons experts have been paying regular visits to Iranian military facilities.