EU Referendum

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We have an important report on the United Nations in The Independent. It describes a corrupt, ineffective and thoroughly unaccountable Sec Gen, at the helm of a corrupt, ineffective and thoroughly unaccountable system – part of which is the IPCC.

And from where do we get this? Ah! From Inga-Britt Ahlenius, a Swedish auditor who until last week served as the UN undersecretary general of the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS), which is meant to keep the fight against internal fraud and corruption alive.

Of Sec-Gen Ban Ki-moon, she says: "Your actions are not only deplorable, but seriously reprehensible ... Your action is without precedent and in my opinion seriously embarrassing for yourself," in an introduction to a 50-page memo, which was first obtained by The Washington Post.

"I regret to say that the secretariat now is in a process of decay," she goes on. "Rather than supporting the internal oversight, which is the sign of strong leadership and good governance, you have strived to control it which is to undermine its position." The UN Secretariat, she says, is "drifting into irrelevance".

Tragically, this comes as absolutely no surprise to anyone who has been following the UN and knows even a little of its ways. It is a corrupt, ineffective and thoroughly unaccountable organisation. Anyone who thinks we could or should do business with it is either barking mad, stupid or corrupt, ineffective and thoroughly unaccountable. Take your pick.

COMMENT THREAD

Britain's waning influence at the United Nations is set to dwindle even further with the departure of the last remaining British official in the upper echelons of the world body.

Sir John Holmes, the UN humanitarian chief, has told The Times that he plans to step down later this year in a move that could leave Britain with no representation among top officials at UN headquarters.

And the reason we are still in the UN at all is?

COMMENT THREAD

Claudia Rosett is on the case, in Pajamasmedia, looking at the web of conflicts of interest, and in particular at Achim Steiner, executive director of the UN Environment Program (UNEP), one of the sponsoring organisations for the IPCC.

Rosett, who cut her teeth on the UN's corrupt "oil for food" programme, is well-placed to observe the machinations of this organisation, building a picture which demonstrates that the UN climate Mafia (of which Rajendra Pachauri is part) is as corrupt and self-serving as the rest of the UN institutions.

How anyone can take any UN body seriously is one of those mysteries in life which seem to defy explanation. How rotten and how corrupt do you have to be before people start taking notice?

CLIMATE CHANGE – FINAL PHASE THREAD

After the thwarted ambitions of the UN to introduce world government via its climate change agenda, even the New York Times is questioning the suitability of the United Nations as a negotiating forum.

Its alternatives are not much better, but this can be taken as a straw in the wind. The UN – of "food for oil" fame – has taken a "hit" at Copenhagen, and lost some of its appeal. We will not be safe until the whole thing is disbanded - alongside the EU and the other tranzie nightmares - but it is a start.

CLIMATE CHANGE – NEW THREAD

UN+logo[i-UN+logo]The dollar should be replaced with a global currency, the United Nations has said, proposing the biggest overhaul of the world's monetary system since the Second World War.

And for a global currency, you need global governance – in exactly the same way that for a single European currency you need a single European government. And who will run that "government"? Why, the UN of course.

We have been here before, except that the World Government advocates are coming out of the closet and getting more daring. First it was global warming – where "pollution" knows no boundaries. A "global" problem requires a global solution, etc, etc ... And now a global currency as the answer to a global financial crisis.

Be it the EU or the UN, the rhetoric is always the same – like peas in a pod, they look the same and think the same, and have the same solution to every problem: more and bigger government.

COMMENT THREAD

alg_speech[i-alg_speech]
I think I ought to clarify a couple of points in my previous posting on Britain, Durban II and other countries.

In the first place, we ought to give credit where it is due. Canada did not simply join other countries in boycotting this farcical hate-fest - she led the way, as we wrote back in January 2008. Apologies to all our Canadian readers who felt their country was under-appreciated.

Secondly, it was unwise of me to rely completely on Charles Johnson's postings, especially about Sweden. Being in a hurry is no excuse for not following up a story. However, one of our readers explained the situation and, gratefully, I am posting his comment directly:

Charles Johnson is wrong, as he so often is when it concerns Sweden. This time, though, one may forgive him. The press release and the statement by our Integration Minister Nyanko Sabuni (liberal) was somewhat misleading. Maybe one could forgive her too.

Apparently there has been a rift within our government wrt to the question of participation in the Durban II meeting. (Not that we would know that from our newspapers or from the bloggers either. However, reading between the lines of her statement and the statements put out by our Dept of Foreign Affairs, it is quite evident that feathers have been ruffled.)

It is true that no Swedish minister will be present, but just as Britain is sending a delegation of top diplomats so is Sweden. Obviously our "tranzient" FM Carl Bildt was keen for Sweden to take part. However, the Liberal party was against it, and since Mr Bildt couldn't attend himself (three party meetings in Prague (the French, Czechs and the Swedes) and then onto Cyprus ... one wonders about those carbon footprints!) in the end he must have agreed on a compromise. Or as he writes on his blog today: "It will be necessary to carefully follow what happens at the follow-up meeting to the Durban conference ... and to keep close contact with the other EU countries regarding how to act. It will be difficult to calibrate our presence."

Anyway, Bildt has probably lost. President Ahmedinjahd just did what every sane person knew he would do, and most western diplomats including the Swedish delegation left the conference hall.

I shall write later on about the fun and games in Geneva. Because I was in the BBC Russian Service studio I actually saw the footage of the delegates walking out. Very entertaining it was, too.

COMMENT THREAD

link[i-link]
Things do seem to be linked with each other. Just as I started reading up on the latest news about Durban II there was a call from the BBC Russian Service. Could I come in and take part in a discussion about the British position? Well, I could certainly take part in a discussion (what else do I do with my life?) but finding out what the British position was might be a little more difficult.

We have written about the first Durban conference and its deranged participants who turned it into an anti-American, anti-Semitic and, generally, anti-Western festival here and here. (The best site on which the whole farce can be followed is UN Watch. At least it would be a farce if it were not so tragic. We are, after all, funding this appalling event.)

After a certain amount of humming and ha-ing, the United States has, it would appear, decided to boycott the Conference, not least because Secretary of State Clinton might not have wanted the sort of abuse that was hurled at her predecessor, Colin Powell, at the original Durban conference.

President Obama's decision may have annoyed the tranzis who, naturally enough, do not like to see their favourite president follow in the footsteps of their least favourite one, but has the support of various members of the House:

Last week a bipartisan group of House members sent a letter to Obama congratulating him for deciding to boycott the meeting, which is scheduled to begin Monday.

"We applaud you for making it clear that the United States will not participate in a conference that undermines freedom of expression and is tainted by an anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic agenda," said the letter signed by seven members of Congress.

Voice of America confirms the non-attendance:

State Department Spokesman Robert Wood says the US will boycott the conference "with regret" because of objectionable language in the meeting's draft declaration. Wood said Saturday that despite some improvements, it seemed clear the declaration will not address U.S. concerns about restrictions on freedom of expression.

Given that the committee organizing the conference was chaired by Libya, freedom of expression is unlikely to have ever been high on the agenda.

I shall write later on what is going on in Geneva at the Durban II conference and it seems to be rather entertaining. In the meantime, let us have a look at Little Green Footballs, which is listing the countries that are boycotting this noxious event.

Here we go: Australia, Sweden (with Canada and Italy having joined Israel and the United States before), Netherlands, Germany and New Zealand. Poland has announced its boycott as well. There may be others but that is plenty.

Wait a minute. There is a country missing. What is Britain's attitude? Clearly, we are not boycotting or Charles Johnson would have noted that fact. Maybe he has simply missed the announcement. After all, even Homer, they tell us, nodded.

No he missed nothing. Not that I would expect him to – I was just trying to let hope win over experience. Britain is ratting on her allies going to the hate-fest Anti-Racism Conference, organized by the committee chaired by Libya at which President Ahmadinejad, for one, is expected to launch his usual anti-Semitic rant and other delegates are expected to applaud or, at least, look neutral. Quite appropriately, that event will take place some time today, the anniversary of Adolf Hitler's birth.

We are not sending a very high level delegation but not a particularly unimportant one either. It is led by Peter Gooderham, British ambassador to the UN in Geneva. A nicely judged effort of fence-sitting diplomatic compromise. According to the official explanation, the Foreign Office is "watching how things will develop".

The spokesman said Britain wanted the conference "to get a collective will to fight racism now" but was "under no illusions about the scale of this challenge."

"We wouldn't be able to support a process that was skewed against the West or other countries," the spokesman said, adding that Britain had certain "red lines" on the issues involved that it would stick to.

"We have argued for the concluding document to have sufficient (content) on the Holocaust and combatting anti-Semitism... we would find it unacceptable if the process seeks to deny or denigrate the Holocaust".

Ah yes, those red lines. How reassuring to hear that phrase again. Remind me, how did it work out last time?

France, apparently, is also sending a delegation and this, according to The Telegraph, shows a rift in the EU. Bernard Kouchner, who is leading the delegation, has warned that they would leave if the Iranian President starts making racist or anti-Semitic comments. Given the man's track record that seems an absolute certainty.

The Italian Foreign Minister, Franco Frattini, has made it clear that it would have been better if the EU member states had stayed together and followed a common line, preferably that of a boycott. One must admit, that Common Foreign Policy is not looking very good at the moment. But when did it? I am afraid, in this case we cannot blame the EU for our own government's pusillanimity.

COMMENT THREAD

I have to ask this: are there any normal people working for the UN? And if there are, do they ever get beyond the tea-making status? Another cute little scandal brewing up or about to be hushed up, depending on how cynical you are.

The police source seems to be quite cynical: "Yeah sure. It's always research." Definitely above tea-making status, methinks.

COMMENT THREAD

On the whole I have great respect for UN Watch, an NGO that tries to show up the UN for the sort of pernicious organization it is, though, I suspect, that is not how they would put it themselves. Something about getting the UN to live up to its principles may be how UN Watch sees its role.

Having said that, I have to point out that they do not appear to understand anything about the European Union. Like many other people I received an e-mail from the organizaion, asking me to take action immediately to prevent a completely duplicitous UN resolution that calls for an immediate truce in Gaza and a withdrawal of Israeli troops, without once mentioning Hamas terrorism from being passed.

The idea is that we all send e-mails to Javier Solana and to Karel Scwarzeneger, the Czech Minister of Foreign Affairs, asking them to stop the EU from voting for the resolution.

Please help us ensure the EU will live up to its principles tomorrow by voting No to this one-sided resolution.

I am not sure what principles UN Watch have in mind but it is the EU that has consistently aided and protected Hamas just as in the days of long ago, it revived the career of that late unlamented mass-murderer, Chairman Yasser Arafat.

Furthermore, the EU does not vote in the UN. It is individual countries that do and they seem to have come to an agreement already, if this piece on YNet is anything to go by.

Western and Arab foreign ministers on Thursday agreed on a compromise draft resolution calling for an immediate Gaza ceasefire and decided to put it to a UN Security Council vote, a Palestinian diplomat said.

Of course, Palestinian diplomats (an oxymoron, surely) have been known to be economical with the truth before. In any case, the devil will be in the details of the resolution.

As it happens, EU or no EU, we cannot exactly be proud of our own infantile looking Foreign Secretary.

In a key concession to the Arabs, a text circulated by the British delegation earlier Thursday "calls for an immediate, durable and fully respected ceasefire" in Gaza and "for the immediate withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza."

An earlier version merely "stressed the need" for an immediate ceasefire.

The latest British draft available also "condemns all acts of hostilities and terror directed against civilians" and for "the lifting of the Israeli blockade" of Gaza.

Does Mr Miliband even know what he is talking about? (That is a purely rhetorical question.)

Incidentally, for those who happen to be in London this coming Sunday, there will be a pro-Israeli and pro-Gazan people, as opposed to Hamas, rally in Trafalgar Square at 11 o'clock. If you want to attend, the organizers, the various Jewish organizers, supported by, among others, Anglican Friends of Israel, are asking everyone to turn up by 10.40 (yes, I know, horribly early) and not to bring any flags or placards - these will be available there.

COMMENT THREAD`

UN_troops[i-UN_troops]A little while ago I was asked by a very charming and intelligent Italian economist whether I was becoming disenchanted with the European Union. She had detected this in the way I referred to that organization. I pointed out that disenchanted was not really the right adjective since that would imply that I had ever been enchanted.

Similarly, I find it rather frustrating to read about there being a "backlash" against the UN because so many things have gone wrong, through no fault of that organization's. Presumably, this blog would be considered to be part of that backlash but, honestly, when did either of us thought the UN or its peacekeepers to be the answer to anybody’s problems? (Yes, I know, the Korean War, which happened under UN auspices only because the Soviet Union was temporarily absent. The first Iraqi War was America's. If the UN had not agreed to support it, we would have had a coalition of the willing. Incidentally, neither of those wars was fought by the men in the blue berets or blue helmets.)

The latest of these sob-stories about the poor UN and how it cannot cope with all the responsibilities was an article in yesterday's International Herald Tribune by Thorsten Benner, Stephan Mergenthaler and Philipp Rottman, all researchers at the Global Public Policy Institute in Berlin. The are also co-authors of the forthcoming paper "Learning to Build Peace? UN Peace Operations and Organisational Learning." Thinking it over I decided not to bother to order it. One article, which, I presume, encompasses the argument, is quite sufficient.

Incidentally, the GPPI's website talks of the organization’s research focusing on "effective and accountable governance". Yet the article by the three esteemed researchers does not mention the fact that the UN, whom they obviously hold in high esteem, is not accountable to anybody and that may be one important reason why it is so ineffective except to provide those who work for it with an extremely cushy life-style, whether legitimately or otherwise.

The argument, as outlined by the three worthy researchers is that the UN peacekeeping operation has become a little overstretched and, thus enmired in all sorts of problems.

The UN apparatus is severely overstretched, exhibiting increasingly serious pathologies ranging from sluggish deployments to shocking sexual abuse scandals.

Dear me, the things that happen and all of them pathologies, untouched by human hand or brain. The article proposes several solutions. Before we turn to them, let us look at what is causing the problems:

UN peacekeeping is the victim of its own success: Never before in their 60-year history have blue helmets been in such high demand. About 110,000 personnel are deployed in 20 peace operations around the world, more than a six-fold increase from 10 years ago.

That is a definition of success? We now send far more peacekeepers out, thus spending a great deal more money, not forgetting to make some of it disappear, than before, with no peace in sight anywhere, so we are successful? Let us suppose there is a patient on a saline drip, also needing blood transfusion. Do doctors and nurses say: gosh, he is doing really well, we have doubled the amount of blood we are pumping into him today and will probably double it again tomorrow. We shall also increase the amount of saline solution needed. Wow, what a success! I think not.

Then again, that is the only way most of the public sector and especially the transnational aspect of it measures success. How can we tell aid-giving is a success? By the amounts becoming ever larger. How do we know whether it is governments, NGOs or private organizations that are achieving more? By measuring which sector gives more. The idea that success would consist of countries no longer requiring aid or regions no longer requiring peace-keepers is simply outside the discussion. Well, it is time we started framing the debate in those terms.

So you are an organization dedicated to keeping peace? Right, how much peace have you kept, let alone created?

Mind you, some of the three researchers' suggestions are not stupid even if they seem to be unable to list all that "good work UN peacekeepers have done in exceptionally difficult circumstances over the past decade".

Darfur, they agree, is not one of those examples but, as they rightly point out, there really is no peace to keep there and the UN peacekeepers should not be sent into such places and situations. Fair enough but who should be sent in? One could argue that nobody should go in and we should simply stop sending aid to such entities as the Sudanese government. In fact, that is what we have argued on this blog.

On the other hand, if we believe that the world is one entity and we need to deal with crisis situations if for no other reason that these tend to spill over and create difficulties for us, then we have to decide who actually does go in. The UN, if it is not capable of sorting any really messy crises out should stop pretending it can do so and, above all, should screaming blue murder (if I may use that expression) when someone else tries to do something. Yes, I am referring to their routine anti-Americanism.

Messrs Benner, Mergenthaler and Rotman do not follow their own argument through in the way I did above because they are determined to find some way of making the UN workable, acceptable and popular. Not for nothing is the article called "Rescuing the blue helmets".

We are all guilty of making the blue helmets unsuccessful and unpopular except that, of course, they have been very successful and they would be more popular if only people recognized their success and gave them more money to steal use for the benefit of mankind.

Therefore, under present circumstances the UN should not deploy peacekeepers to Somalia or Chad, where the absence of political will among rival parties renders peacekeepers as little more than turquoise targets.

Key member states must also lower expectations on what peacekeepers can realistically achieve in Darfur. They must make it crystal clear to the public that the absence of peace in Darfur is not the fault of UN peacekeepers but a result of the international community's inability to force the conflict parties into a lasting political settlement.

I cannot quite see what it is the UN complaining about. After all, it explains to all and sundry that it is the international community and those nasty Yanks go against said international community when they do not accept the UN's guidance.

“In addition, UN members urgently need to invest in the infrastructure for peace operations worldwide. Resources need to match the grandiose rhetoric and ambitious goals set out in Security Council mandates. This includes seriously enlarging the UN's standby blue helmet capacity - with a clear manpower commitment on the part of the United States, Canada and Europe, not just Asian and African states who currently supply the vast majority of peacekeepers.

It also means expanding the team of rapidly deployable police officers and complementing it with a team of judicial and legal experts who can play a critical role in struggling peace operations worldwide.

UN members should also approve a permanent cadre of civilian post-conflict reconstruction professionals. Last but not least, UN members need to boost the Secretariat's ability to gather and analyze intelligence, develop doctrine, draw lessons and provide training. All governments should have an interest in ensuring that their own soldiers, police and civilian experts on loan with the UN have access to the best information, guidance and training.

I suggest the three authors do a little research into American constitutional history and public opinion, including military opinion, which regards it unconstitutional to have American servicemen and women wearing the uniform of another state and obey another command structure. Their Commander-in-Chief is accountable to the people of the United States, being the President of the country. Even if Senator Obama is elected (and anything is possible in a democracy) he will find it hard to change that attitude or even the constitutional decisions behind it. He will also have to find out how long a presidential term is but that is another story, not much reported by the British media.

alain_le_roy[i-alain_le_roy]Furthermore, the three researchers seem not to have grasped an important point. UN peacekeeping is a form of subsidy to the poorer countries of Africa and Asia. By putting blue helmets on their soldiers and sending them to do what they will in various trouble spots, such as DR Congo (not mentioned in this article) the countries in question acquire money to pay them and shiny new equipment to give them. Does the Global Public Policy Institute want to bring this system to and end?

Apart from that there is little here except a call on the developed countries who are financing the whole shebang to hand over yet more money to a corrupt and unaccountable organization. Then everything will be hunky-dory.

There is only one more thing to add to this sorry tale. The new SecrGen for Peacekeeping Operations is one Alan Le Roy, who has laboured hard in the French public sector.

After serving in the private sector as a petroleum engineer, he joined the public service as Sous-préfet, then as Counsellor at the Cour des comptes (French Audit Office). He is currently Conseiller Maître à la Cour des comptes and has served since September last year as Ambassador in charge of the Union for the Mediterranean Initiative – a proposed community of European Union member States and countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea which is set to be established next month.

He has previously served the world body as Deputy to the UN Special Coordinator for Sarajevo and Director of Operations for the restoration of essential public services. He also went on missions for the UN Development Programme (UNDP) in Mauritania and was appointed UN Regional Administrator in Kosovo (West Region).

After having been National Coordinator for the Stability Pact for South-east Europe in the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he was appointed EU Special Representative in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. He was subsequently appointed Assistant Secretary for Economic and Financial Affairs in the French Ministry for Foreign Affairs, before serving as the French Ambassador to Madagascar.

Somehow, I don't quite see him sorting the mess out.

UN_troops[i-UN_troops]Some time ago I wrote on my alternative outlet, the BrugesGroupBlog, that, unusually, the UN was being sued because the negligence and, let’s face it, incompetence and lack of understanding of what was going on, had resulted in the deliberate murder of 8,000 men and boys. Given the UN’s track record in peacekeeping operations (DR Congo and the Balkans in general spring to mind but others are not far behind) this was going to be an important decision. And it is.

Yesterday the International Herald Tribune reported that

A Dutch court ruled Thursday that it has no jurisdiction in a civil suit against the United Nations by survivors of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre in Bosnia, affirming U.N. immunity from prosecution, even when genocide is involved.

A group called the Mothers of Srebrenica was seeking compensation for the failure of Dutch United Nations troops to prevent the slaughter by Serb forces of more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim males in the U.N.-declared safe zone.

The Hague District Court said the U.N.'s immunity — which is written into its founding charter — means it cannot be held liable in any country's national court.

As the Dutch government lawyer, Bert Jan Houtzagers, said

if a Dutch court decided it had jurisdiction in the case, "any court in any country could do so and that would thwart the viability of the United Nations."

Well, we wouldn’t want to thwart the UN’s viability, would we? And on that subject, we hear that the Security Council has rejected the idea of sanctions on Zimbabwe, a decision that, according to President Robert Mugabe, who has already been feted by the African Union, is a defeat for racism.

Two of the countries that blocked the American resolution were China and Russia, permanent members of the Security Council. Is anybody surprised by that? Well, David Miliband, our youthful looking Foreign Secretary seems to be. To him Russia’s veto is “incomprehensible”.

"I'm very disappointed that the U.N. Security Council should have failed to pass a strong and clear resolution on Zimbabwe," Miliband said in a statement.

"It'll appear incomprehensible to the people of Zimbabwe that Russia, which committed itself at the G8 to take further steps including introducing financial and other sanctions, should stand in the way of Security Council action."

"Nor will they understand the Chinese vote," Miliband said. Veto-holding China was also among five countries that opposed the U.S.-drafted text in the 15-nation council on Friday.

Of the other members, South Africa, Libya and Vietnam also voted against and Indonesia abstained. Russia maintained that Zimbabwe posed no international threat and, therefore, the situation was not within the Security Council’s remit. This may well be true but it merely underlines the need to stop pretending that the UN is some kind of a moral force for good in the world. (Not that this blog has ever been known to say that.)

While we are on the subject of not pretending any longer, it might be a good idea not to pretend that Russia is in any way an ally of the West. Predictably, the Russian Foreign Ministry hit back at British and American criticisms of the country’s stand over Zimbabwe:

The Russian Foreign Ministry in a statement Saturday said the criticism "places a question mark over the worthiness of Russia as a G-8 partner," The Associated Press reported.

It added that the possibility of U.N. sanctions on Zimbabwe was excluded at a recent G-8 summit in Japan.

Russia said it believed the sanctions would set a precedent for U.N. meddling, AP reported.

Does this mean that Russia is about to leave the G8 in a huff? Let us hope so. After all, questions about the suitability of her membership – hardly one of the leading industrical economies or a democracy – have been asked ever since the anomalous situation had been created.

The last sentence, on the other hand, makes it clear what Russia is really saying, regardles of what it did or did not agree to at the G8 meeting. Ever since the idea of a United Nations was mooted, the Soviet Union showed itself to be determined to ensure that internal oppression and human rights crimes should not come under its aegis. This is probably quite a good idea as the UN can do absolutely nothing about any of these problems. On the other hand, it does rather obviate the necessity for the UN and that Russia would not like. The Security Council has always been a useful forum.

If the UN starts agreeing to sanctions on countries and politicians who are guilty of serious crimes against humanity and, indeed, human beings, then might it not one day start discussing the behaviour of certain politicians in Chechnya? Probably not, as it happens, but the Russian government believes in being safe. Of course, its recent intervention and creeping invasion of Abkhazia and Southern Ossetia may well be described as a threat to international security and may be the other reason why Russia is so very unanxious to see the UN straying into that territory.

The question is whether the UN refusing to agree on sanctions against Zimbabwe makes the government now legitimate enough for the EU to resume (if it ever stopped) giving aid to the country. As Reuters reports:

The European Commission is ready to provide up to 250 million euros in development aid for Zimbabwe's worst-hit sectors if the country gets a legitimate, credible government, the EU's aid chief said.

The European Union's executive arm would then also call for an international lifting of debt owed by the country, EU Aid Commissioner Louis Michel said.

"I would encourage the rest of the international donor community to make it clear today that it is ready to provide substantial and immediate assistance to Zimbabwe in the wake of a transition towards democracy," Michel said.

The Commission is not the EU’s executive arm but both legislative and executive (and completely illegitimate in itself, let it be said in passing, though not precisely in the Mugabe league of nastiness) and its readiness to plunge money into a country that is a complete mess without bothering to find out what is really needed and to what extent the people of that country should be allowed to take charge of it is really touching.

By the way, Mugabe’s government has been illegitimate and viciously oppressive for quite a long time, during which he, together with his friends and relations, has managed to wreck what was an extremely successful economy. Does that mean the EU stopped giving the country’s rulers our money to ensure that they stayed in power and continued to oppress the people of Zimbabwe? Not on your life and not on the Zimbabweans' life either.

The European Commission is the most important aid donor to Zimbabwe and last year provided 91 million euros in humanitarian aid and other assistance.

Anyone would think the European Commission was handing over the Commissioners’ own money to possibly the bloodiest tyranny in Africa at the moment. Mrs Mugabe, for one, must have been very grateful for the help she received in her shopping trips.

The bizarre world of the United Nations never fails to entertain.

US+Aid[i-US+Aid]First there was the Burmese cyclone, now we have the Chinese earthquake. What do these events have in common? Yes, they are likely to result in many deaths and no, we are not going to know how many for a long time, if ever. But that is something they share with the far greater disaster of the tsunami two and a half years ago.

There is something else they have in common - the sight of the international community standing by helplessly, wringing its hands and being unable to help. We are witnessing hysterical outbursts from Oxfam and a certain amount of temporary smugness from the Red Cross.

We have seen the UN withdraw its aid because the Burmese government, otherwise known as the junta, has taken it all away and announced that it would do the distributing. We, on this blog, have no faith in the Burmese junta doing the right thing or behaving in an efficient fashion. But then, we have no faith in the UN or the many NGOs who are teeming around Burma and will, undoubtedly start teeming around China, doing the right thing or behaving in an efficient fashion. Remember the number of stories we have had since the tsunami of aid not arriving at the required destination, people still homeless, food and equipment going to waste.

At the time we covered the tsunami and the aid efforts extensively on the blog [scroll down for the stories]. One thing became clear: delivery and distribution of aid was rapid and efficient as long as it was done by the US navy, the Australian navy with support from the Indian navy and the Japanese air force.

As soon as they had finished their work and moved out, the NGOs, who had until then spent their time and money bickering and trying to ensure that their staff had "adequate" working and living conditions, moved in, the aid efforts largely disintegrated and the huge amounts of money given by generous people in Britain and even more generous governments who are always ready to use taxes for various purposes, were wasted.

This time the American navy, who is standing by, as, I have no doubt, are the Australian and Indian navies, is not allowed in. But that should not matter. We have the international community; we have the UN; we have the NGOs; we have advertisements in all the newspapers and all the Oxfam shops, pleading for money as there will be 1 million, 2 million, however many millions of deaths. People will undoubtedly give because people are generous and rarely bother to think when they read horror stories.

The truth is that Oxfam is collecting money, yet again, under false pretences. It has no idea how many people will die. It cannot get the aid in and the money, so generously given in response to its appeals, will either be spent on accommodation for its staff around Burma or wasted on aid that never gets to the necessary recipients.

Mrs Thatcher has been accused of saying that there is no such thing as society. What she actually said is that society is not an abstract entity but consists of people. Whenever society is expected to achieve something, the question of who in reality is going to do that achieving is forgotten. The most obviously tragic result of that attitude has been "care in the community" with thousands of people with various mental disorders and inability to deal with life, thrown out on the streets.

In the same way, it is time to understand that there is no such thing as the international community, no matter what we are told by the tranzis. It can do nothing. Neither the UN nor the NGOs can help people if the governments in question are not co-operating. As it happens, they cannot help people in other circumstances either or only very rarely.

Liberal interventionism in the name of humanitarian principles can be done by countries or by groups of countries, with the practical side of it carried out by men and women in the uniforms of those countries. All else is Scotch mist.

UPDATE: There is some good news. The Burmese government (or junta) has allowed a US military aircraft in with aid. Possibly, this will lead to some efficient transportation and distribution of badly needed aid, not to mention some assessment of what is really going on in the country.

un-congo[i-un-congo]For once it is not the IOC, possibly the most corrupt of all the tranzis, that the posting is about. We are back with our old friends, the United Nations, an organization that keeps trying to set itself up as the conscience and law-giver of the world.

First of all, we need to point out that the Head of UN Operations in DR Congo has denied that there had been a cover-up. Normally, when something is denied publicly, we can assume that it must be true. The fact that the BBC (the BBC?) is bringing us this story with a great deal of scepticism gives one furiously to think.

UN troops in DR Congo have been accused of all sorts of matters: rape and extortion of sexual favours in return for food, often from minors; smuggling of gold and ivory; sale of arms and ammunition to the various rebel groups in the country.

Alan Doss, the Head of Operations, said "that he had personally never experienced any political pressure to abort or adjust the findings of any investigation". In any case, he added, all these accusations are old hat.

Just because some troops (believed to be from India and Pakistan) have behaved badly – and Mr Doss went so far as to acknowledge that – it does not mean that we should blame whole countries for that.

We would agree with that, though we hope these arguments will apply when the odd American or British serviceman (or woman) is found to behave badly. The countries in question should not be blamed for this.

However, there is something to be said for blaming the UN. After all, there has been a long string of accusations levelled against UN peacekeepers and little enough has been done to sort the problems out, despite Claudia Rossett's and UN Watch's valiant campaign.

The UN, if it is even to pretend that it sends out peacekeeping troops and does something practical in the world, cannot afford to alienate countries that supply those troops, no matter what the accusations against the troops might be. It is, therefore, easier to try to suppress the investigations or come up with fatuous self-righteousness:

And the head of the United Nations division responsible for investigating corruption and mis-management, Inga Britt Ahlenius, has also defended the UN against the charges.

She said reports she had commissioned which showed a picture of considerable disarray in the organisation - and which have been seen by the BBC - refer to difficulties which are now in the past, and that new managers are in place.

Well, that's all right then. We know our money is safe with the likes of Ms Ahlenius.

link[i-link]It is, perhaps, just as well for my peace of mind that the transnational organizations, its members and supporters, collectively known as tranzis are really quite as ghastly as they are. Otherwise, I may well find myself supporting one or more of them, particularly after reading yet another rant by a soi-disant eurosceptic in favour of such freedom loving states as Russia or China.

The problem, as I see it, is lack of real political principles. Just as the europhiliacs rant about the beauty of integration and transnational governance, for want of any ideas, so many eurosceptics (well, soi-disant ones, as I mentioned above) go on about the nation state as some sort of a holy entity, regardless of whether it is a nation, or how the state came about.

What that leads to is a support for any state that is in existence at the moment of discussion. Not a happy thought for those of us who envisage the European Union becoming a state to all intents and purposes very soon. After that Britain’s desire to free herself from the shackles will be internal EU matter, according to this argument, not to be interfered with or mentioned by outsiders.

Luckily, most Americans have a slightly different view of the world, as do committed Anglospherists in other lands.

Equally luckily, whenever thoughts of that kind enter my head I come across a few stories about those wonderful tranzis and recover my equanimity.

Let us start with an editorial in the Wall Street Journal, written by Roger Köppel, who is owner and chief editor of the Swiss weekly, Die Weltwoche, the only eurosceptic publication in the German language, as I was once told by one of its editors. It is an unusual publication in its political orientation and courage in breaking away from the herd.

It is, therefore, not surprising that Roger Köppel is less than impressed by the Social-Democratic Foreign Minister of Switzerland, Micheline Calmy-Rey. Mme Clamy-Rey has decided to break with the Swiss tradition of neutrality and try to turn the country into “a moral superpower”.

Like many politicians, when she discusses morality, she really means the trendy political and social views of the left-leaning, unaccountable and unbalanced tranzis. Mr Köppel puts it more politely:

It is a morality, however, that is firmly anchored in the left-liberal mainstream that seems to have lost its moral compass. She shares the aversion of Europe's general public toward the U.S. and Israel. There is an emotional resentment of globalization and a belief against all evidence that, in the end, only broad-based development aid can improve the lives of the poor.

Among her other achievements is the nomination of the old Marxist, friend of Fidel Castro and co-founder of the Muammar Qaddafi Human Rights Prize (I wonder why Peter Simple never thought of that one), Jean Ziegler to be an adviser on human rights to the UN.

Her other actions include marching across the North Korean border in red sneakers (I missed this one) “to make a statement that no one understood” and generally make a nuisance herself whenever an American politician was around.

Recently she managed to photograph herself with Iranian President Ahmadinejad as she visited the country, allegedly to discuss transparency in Iranian nuclear development. In fact, she undermined the West’s rather feeble attempts to have some kind of sanctions against that country and handed the Iranian leader a propaganda coup.

Although Ms. Calmy-Rey claims she harshly criticized the president for his policies, such as stoning adulterers, the prevailing impression was that she let herself be manipulated as a useful idiot by a brutal regime.

Mr Köppel is concerned, rightly, with the harm this slightly batty female does to Switzerland’s image and reality. One cannot help feeling, however, that another tranzi nutter is not quite what the world needs.

So it is once again time to have a look at that untalented circus, the tranzi to end all tranzis, the UN, the organization that some eurosceptics set up as the arbiter of international law. Thanks to a posting on Little Green Footballs, entitled “UN Human Rights Council: Officially a Self-Mocking Joke”, we find this:

Islamic countries have succeeded in hijacking the United Nations Human Rights Council and perverting its intent (even more than it was already perverted).

I am glad Charles Johnson added that last bit in brackets. Otherwise I might have had a serious fit from all the laughing the comment would have generated.

He links to an article in the International Herald Tribune, entitled “Arabs, Muslims battle US, Europeans over free speech at UN”.

Arab and Muslim countries defended Tuesday a resolution they pushed through at the United Nations to have the body's expert on free speech police individuals and news media for negative comments on Islam.

In itself this is not much of a story. The UN can do no policing because, contrary to some opinions, it has no rights to do so. Of course, it can make grand pronouncements as Ban Ki-Moon did, when he denounced Geert Wilders’s film “Fitna” that remains widely available on Youtube.

Of course, as Claudia Rossett points out, the SecGen’s condemnation and efforts to censor internet films are selective. We have heard nothing from him on the subject of the psychotic mouse, Farfur, or his pathological cousin, the Nahoul, the killer bee, or any others of that delightful cohort that is Hamas’s answer to Blue Peter. (One of the most recent films shows a little darling boy killing President Bush and announcing that the White House has become a mosque.)

One cannot help being amused in a rather grim way by the genuinely Orwellian task given to the UN’s expert on free speech to police negative comments on anything at all. But that’s the UN for you. They probably use the word Orwellian without ever understanding what it means.

The expert in question is a Kenyan, Ambeyi Ligabo and his job is to report to the UN about suppression of free speech by dictatorships and repressive governments. One can’t help feeling that the man has his work cut out. It hardly seems fair that there should be this resolution that adds to his burdens.

Not only must he report on curtailment of free speech now but also on the exercise of free speech if it is done to criticize Islam.

The resolution was introduced by Egypt and Pakistan, two countries well known for the freedom of expression they allow, to that wondrous body about which we have written on numerous occasions, the UN Human Rights Council and was passed 32 - 0.

Ahem, one says to oneself. Whatever happened to the Western countries who maintain that freedom of speech is a value to be cherished? The United States has, quite rightly, refused to be a member of this farcical body. But what of the European countries?

Well, they seem to have abstained. One would not want to be seen to be too extreme in defending the idea of freedom, would one?

Slovenia's ambassador, Andrej Logar, speaking on behalf of the European Union, warned that Ligabo's role as an independent expert was shifting from protecting free speech toward limiting it.

Yes, well, that’s the way it crumbles, cookie-wise, as they kept saying in that wonderful film, “The Apartment”. After all, Slovenia, too, condemned Geert Wilders’s film.

Just for the record, these countries represent Europe and the West in general on the UNHRC: Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland, United Kingdom, as well as the Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, Russia and Ukraine.

One can understand why Russia thought it was best not to interfere with other people’s censorship of expression. But what were the others thinking of? Wringing one’s hands after the resolution had gone through is hardly sensible.

Oh yes, and, naturally enough, we are paying large amounts of money for this bizarre show to go on.

Durban_conference+01[i-Durban_conference+01]Oh no, not again, I hear our readers cry. Unfortunately yes, but I promise to leave the subject alone for a little while. It has always been our contention that the fight against the EU has to be part of a fight against all unaccountable and too often corrupt transnational organizations (tranzis) that are trying to take power from the few democratic countries that exist, prevent the others from becoming democratic and impose their own governance by transnational lawyers and officials who are always nice to tyrannical kleptocrats.

For once, the news is refreshingly good. Canada has announced that it will not attend the next anti-Western, anti-American, anti-Israeli, anti-Semitic hate fest, otherwise known as the Durban Anti-Racism Conference in 2009.

We have written about this conference before, pointing out that the committee that is organizing it is chaired by Libya, a country that knows a thing or two about freedom and tolerance (lack of), and includes Iran, “whose President has repeatedly and forcefully called for the annihilation of Israel, proclaimed that the Holocaust was probably a joke invented by the international Zionist conspiracy and hosted an anti-holocaust cartoon festival”.

Gateway Pundit published a really interesting hand-out from the 2001 conference that sighs over the fact that Hitler did not win.

According to Reuters (we always acknowledge our sources on this blog)

A similar meeting at the same venue in 2001 was marred when Israel and the United States walked out in protest over draft conference texts branding Israel as a racist and apartheid state -- language that was later dropped.

"(We) had hoped that the preparatory process for the 2009 ... conference would remedy the mistakes of the past. Despite our efforts, we have concluded that it will not. Canada will therefore not participate," Foreign Minister Maxime Bernier said in a statement.

Jason Kenney, the secretary of state for multiculturalism, said the Conservative government was sure the conference would "showcase the same regrettable anti-Semitism" as the 2001 meeting.

"Our government sees no value in allowing Canada's participation to continue to dignify or legitimate such hateful and un-Canadian propaganda," he told Reuters.

Now there’s a secretary of state for multiculturalism one can have some time for. He clearly believes that racism is racism, no matter who expresses it and anti-Semitism is wrong, no matter how it is phrased.

There is, at the moment a certain amount of ghashing of teeth and whining about those nasty Canadians misunderstanding and not wanting to get involved in true multilateral activity blah-blah-blah. As CTV.ca says with a collective straight face:

But African governments complained at the last conference that Western governments had chosen to highlight treatment of the Israeli issue as if it was the only one on the agenda.

South Africa, the host country, stopped short of calling U.S. President George Bush a racist, saying instead that he was not "anti-racist." Other African countries were upset that Britain and the West refused to overtly apologize for their support of centuries of slavery.

Well, I don’t know. I remember noting at the time that rich, spoilt, largely white middle class kids were screaming racist abuse at Colin Powell, then Secretary of State. Nor did that endless demand for an apology for slavery escape everybody’s attention.

Perhaps what the British should have apologized for is abolishing the slave trade in 1807, thus depriving the Arab slavers, whom the Royal Navy fought, and certain African chieftains of their income from selling slaves.

The real question is whether Canada will be supported by, at the very least, the other Anglospheric countries. The new Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, is a former diplomat, at ease with the tranzis, so one need not rely on him. The United States are going through an agonizing if entertaining election, so no decisions taken now would be binding. That may be a good reason for President Bush to make a significant gesture, especially after the ridiculous Annapolis Conference and equally ridiculous trip to the Middle East.

What of our own Prime Minister? He made a half-hearted gesture over President Mugabe and the EU-Africa Summit. Will he go that extra mile and pull Britain from the Durban Conference? Oh wait, I am not sure he can. This is probably part of the common foreign policy and, as such, EU competence.

Clooney[i-Clooney]Somehow, I have never been able to take George Clooney seriously even as a cinema actor. Possibly, that is because the only one of his films I managed to watch right through (I was in an aeroplane above the Atlantic but even that is a poor excuse) was “Intolerable Cruelty”. It was bad.

Prettyboy Clooney was completely unbelievable as the ultra-smart divorce lawyer who could out-run and out-gun anyone until love found him in the shape of Catherine Zeta-Jones (OK, you guys, here are some pictures of her – this is an equal opportunities blog). Sadly, there was zilch chemistry between the two and I have never wanted to see another George Clooney film again.

In particular, I have always despised Clooney as the political activist. His idea of courage – I kid you not – is to make an anti-McCarthy film as if there had not been a few self-glorifying films of that kind in Hollywood before. In any case, “Good-night and good luck” is a pack of lies. All those “innocent victims” were Communist agents, some merely of influence, some actual providers of information, like Laurence Duggan, found conveniently dead under his office window when the investigation came too close, the supposed “innocent victim” of the film.

Now Georgy-Porgy has found another outlet for his ultra-fashionable left-wing views: SecGen Ban Ki-Moon has appointed him to be the UN Messenger of Peace. If one needed an example of the preposterousness, nastiness and complete idiocy of the UN, this could be it.

A Messenger of Peace, eh? Was there not one in the Bible already? As one of the commenters on Libertas asks, did Jesus Christ resign or retire? Did we all miss the news?

The best and angriest comment on the subject is, predictably, by the admirable Claudia Rossett, who still has not been given the Pulitzer Prize for uncovering all sorts of skulduggery in the UN.

This would all be great if UN peacekeeping actually produced peace. But the illusion that the UN is a grand force for good in this world deserves to be catalogued somewhere between World’s Most Amazing Scams and Believe It-Or-Not Best-in-Special-Effects. The reality of today’s UN is more like a cross between “Animal House” (the movie, with John Belushi) and “Animal Farm” (the book, by George Orwell). Libya and Vietnam have just joined the Security Council, where China and Russia hold permanent seats. The Organization of the Islamic Conference has turned the General Assembly into its Manhattan clubhouse — which Iran’s mushroom-cloud-in-chief Mahmoud Ahmadinejad now uses every September as a base to parade around New York and lecture his audiences that Iran is a country of peaceful intentions and no homosexuals.

Nor does she forget those wonderful peacekeeping UN troops that will be His Peacefulness Clooney’s “special focus”:

In UN peacekeeping, which will be Clooney’s special focus, peacekeeper sex scandals continue to bubble up, with their own special focus on under-age locals the peacekeepers are supposed to be protecting (almost three years after the UN declared a zero-tolerance policy for such outrages). Peacekeeping has been one of the major areas of UN corruption, with even the UN itself finally acknowledging hundreds of millions worth of tainted contracts.

We have said it before and we shall say it again: the only genuine peace-keeping force in the world are the US Marine Corps, closely followed by the US Army. All else is for the birds.

Just as I cannot take Georgy-Porgy Clooney seriously, so I cannot share Ms Rossett’s anger. I should, I know, and I often do when it comes to the UN or the World Bank. But the sight of G-P Clooney pratting round carefully controlled and secured so-called war zones in fetching uniforms and helmets, dispensing fatuous and predictable comments merely makes me laugh. The whole notion of idiot film stars as UN Messsengers of Whatever is completely ludicrous and entirely appropriate to that ghastly organization.

I was going to say it all adds to the gaiety of nations but the last time I did so I was ticked off severely by a reader who was completely unimpressed by my frivolity. Oh what the heck – it does add to the gaiety of nations. And it might just bring nearer the day when that prime piece of real estate in Manhattan is reclaimed from the crooks and tyrants whose representatives infest it.

U_Friggin___N[i-U_Friggin___N]Via a posting on American Thinker we can find this article in the New York Sun about the latest report to the UN Security Council by that organization's special envoy to Iraq (well, actually Baghdad, as he does not seem to spend too much time away from the protected areas), Steffan de Mistura. It is astonishingly upbeat, given that the UN's attitude to that war was summed up by the last SecGen, Kofi Annan, according to whom, unseating Saddam was "illegal".

Even so, the upbeat mood is slightly peculiar:

In the most upbeat assessment by a U.N. official since America invaded Iraq, Secretary-General Ban's top envoy in Baghdad, Steffan de Mistura, told the Security Council yesterday that it "cannot ignore the recent improvements" in Iraq since last year's troop surge.

Mr. de Mistura, who arrived in Baghdad last fall, acknowledged that Iraqis and the coalition forces still face serious "challenges" in the near future, but in yesterday's periodic report to the council, he noted marked progress since last year and said the security situation has not only improved but that there have been "welcome steps towards national reconciliation and inclusive political dialogue," though "tentative and overdue."

One can almost hear the grinding of the teeth in that "cannot ignore the recent improvements". Oh how they would like to ignore and for how long they have managed to do so. It has just become impossible for the UN just as it has become impossible for the American MSM (though ours is still doing well on that) to ignore those improvements.

It is also interesting to know that the UN's gopher thinks that those "welcome steps towards national reconciliation and inclusive dialogue" are still sadly tentative and terribly overdue. Um, says who?

Superman[i-Superman]Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s the UN trying to get some credibility. According to a report in the Financial Times

In a move reminiscent of storylines developed during the second world war, the UN is joining forces with Marvel Comics, creators of Spider-Man and the Incredible Hulk, to create a comic book showing the international body working with superheroes to solve bloody conflicts and rid the world of disease.

The comic, initially to be distributed free to 1m US schoolchildren, will be set in a war-torn fictional country and feature superheroes such as Spider-Man working with UN agencies such as Unicef and the “blue hats”, the UN peacekeepers.

One wonders whether the Incredible Hulk or, for that matter, Spider-Man might not be better employed sorting out the real problems why the UN’s image is, ahem, a little tarnished.

It is not, pace Deborah Brewster of the FT, the United States government alone who find the UN a somewhat unpalatable organization. The reasons for that tarnished image might lie in stories like this. A week ago the Washington Post, among others, reported that

A U.N. task force has uncovered a pervasive pattern of corruption and mismanagement involving hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts for fuel, food, construction and other materials and services used by U.N. peacekeeping operations, which are in the midst of their largest expansion in 15 years.

In recent weeks, 10 procurement officials have been charged with misconduct for allegedly soliciting bribes and rigging bids in Congo and Haiti. It has been the largest single crackdown on U.N. staff malfeasance in the field in more than a decade.

The story is not precisely new and that may be why most of the media, old and new, leaves it wearily alone. But think what Spider-Man could achieve if he teamed up not with the “blue hats” who have been known to rape women and children or buy sexual favours for food in countries such as DR Congo but with Claudia Rossett, the woman who has doggedly pursued every scandal and every investigation that, somehow, never manages to lead to anything except for a few arrests and the odd conviction here and there.

Spider-Man and the Incredible Hulk, not to mention Superman and Batman could all team up with Ms Rossett and divide between them the various scandals, such as the membership of the Human Rights Council or of the Committee for the 2009 UN World Conference against Racism, that is likely to become another America and Israel-bashing anti-Semitic, anti-Western performance.

While Spider-Man and Superman could help Claudia Rossett (after all, Superman’s alter ego, Clark Kent, is a journalist), the Incredible Hulk could rush into meetings of various UN organizations and ensure that there was freedom of speech. Otherwise, you never know, the organization’s image might be tarnished.

He might prevent this bit of censorship, for instance, when a well-researched, carefully argued speech by Hillel Neuer, Executive Director of UN Watch was deemed to be “inadmissible” by the President of the UN Human Rights Council. With or without the Incredible Hulk, we referred to the incident when it happened.

Captain+America[i-Captain+America]Sadly, the Financial Times does not refer to any of this or speculate as to how the Marvel Comic heroes might deal with a lost cause like the UN’s image. Instead, there is a sneering reference of American use of comics during World War II.

The latest UN initiative is not the first time US comics have been used for political purposes. During the second world war, superheroes were shown taking on Germany’s Nazi regime. Marvel’s Captain America, together with other characters such as Superman, were shown beating up Adolf Hitler.

The UN’s goals are somewhat different: according to its website, it hopes the comics will teach children the value of international co- operation and sensitise them to the problems faced in other parts of the world.

And that just goes to show how superior the UN’s goals are to that of the US government in that bit of unpleasantness in the early forties. Beating up Adolf Hitler? Oh my, my, my. How violent and insensitive. Pass me the smelling salts. Failing that, pass me the sick-bag.

Mention of Captain America (not one I know except by hearsay) reminds me of another attempt to harness the power of comic strips to tranzi political propaganda. I am sure our readers will reall Captain Euro, the intrepid and distinctly Aryan looking fighter for peace, harmony and European integration.

Captain+Euro[i-Captain+Euro]Captain Euro and his cohorts were part of an attempt at a concerted effort by the EU’s propaganda machine to use our money (no agreements with Marvel Comics for them) to produce propaganda for our children. As Daniel Hannan describes here, it failed miserably.

Captain Euro’s great enemy was Dr D. Vider (gettit?) a truly evil man. The Free Will blog had a good deal of fun at the expense of the whole concept [you’ll have to excuse the language].

Now let's meet Captain Euro's archenemy, "Dr. D. Vider". (Get it? "D. Vider"? He divides people! He's anti-unity! He's bad! The only thing missing is his girlfriend, "Uni L. Ateral".)

DAVID VIDERIUS is a former financier. He is a multi-millionaire, used to making money no matter if it might involve the suffering of others. Banned and ostracised from the financial world for unprofessional conduct he managed to escape arrest despite his involvement in financial scandal.

I shit you not, the villain who threatens Europe is a wealthy "corporate criminal".

Having disappeared for many years, he reappeared as DR D VIDER. He manages a holding company, DIVIDEX, controlling hundreds of different businesses across Europe and beyond. His son and only family, Junior, helps him in his quest for power. His ambition for his son sometimes clouds his judgment.

Junior?

THE GLOBAL TOURING CIRCUS, a huge travelling company that he secured when it was on the edge of bankruptcy, is now DIVIDEX'S base. Dr D Vider uses the circus as a cover for recruiting new members to his evil team from all over the world.

So, let me get this straight. He runs an evil Euro-circus? Couldn't possibly be... What about Junior? Why is he so evil?

The lack of attention he received as a child, has turned Junior into a sociopath.

These people are for real. Other villains in Dr. D. Vider's little circus include a midget with a yo-yo and an Amazonian parrot that likes caviar.

In other words, the evil enemy of the wondrous Captain Euro and his superlative team that consists of people who are Gaia enthusiasts, fabulous gymnasts and people who get their scientific ideas from science fiction is - ta-dah – a businessman, who is clearly crooked, as all businessmen are.

D.Vider[i-D.Vider]The man who creates employment, provides financial services and adds to the wealth of wherever he happens to be (incidentally, what is wrong with international business which breaks down national barriers?) is evil, evil, evil. The goodies are people who prat around as parasites on the body politic, financed by the taxpayer.

Despite a certain amount of excitement the idea did not take off. To be fair, even the Guardian thought it entertaining rather than a serious educational idea.

The good Captain is invested with the sort of history only a marketing company besieged by focus groups could devise. 'Born Adam Andros - the only child of a famous European ambassador and a professor of palaeontology,' reads his resume.

'Travelling the world with his parents, Adam learned to cope with the adult social world from an early age. As a child, participation in an experimental language programme enabled Adam to become a polyglot.' Ah - so that's how to become a good European.

But it's not all plain sailing for Captain Euro. Shunning the life of canapés and ambassadorial receptions that surely awaited him, he has taken a vow: 'to use, wherever possible, intellect, culture and logic - not violence - to take control of difficult criminal situations'. Oh, and in his spare time he paints European landscapes. 'The fingers that tap scientific data into Captain Euro's palmtop computer are often stained with paint.'

Yet despite the glossy packaging, it remains unclear just what Captain Euro is promoting. A single currency? Sure. But with his strong jaw and clean-cut morals, there is something more. Is Captain Euro a proponent of fortress Europe, an us-and-them world, secure for the haves and inaccessible to the have-nots? Asylum-seekers, take note.

This article points to the main problem with the comic – the looks of the characters. Captain Euro and his cohorts are superb specimens of physical attraction mostly on the Aryan side. Even the scientist is sexy and attractive.

Their main enemy Dr D. Vider has a distinctly semitic look and resembles the villains of cartoons in Der Stürmer of evil memory. He is assisted by “moustachioed, dusky-skinned cohorts”. Ooops!

Setting aside the political problem there, the creation shows a certain lack of knowledge. Comic heroes are not handsome. Superman may be clean-cut and strong-jawed but his alter ego is distinctly nerdy. Captain America is well-hidden behind his mask but his alter ego is weak and sickly.

Batman and Spider-Man are on the weird side and the others, such as the Incredible Hulk are complete fantasy. Nothing clean-cut or handsome about them.

Cacofonix[i-Cacofonix]As for the best-known European comics the idea of good-looking heroes does not arise. The only remotely handsome character in Asterix is Cacophonix, the poet, who usually ends the story gagged and trussed up as he is about to spoil the feast of roast boar by singing some new-fangled composition.

Tintin, whom I like a good deal more than Mr Hannan seems to, is a funny-looking boy reporter. His friends, Captain Haddock, Professor Calculus and the ineffable Thompson twins, are not handsome gymnasts though the good captain has plenty of muscle power. Some people might admire Bianca Castafiore but for my money the only good looking character is Snowy the dog (Milou in French).

Tintin[i-Tintin]One can’t help feeling that there might be a reason for this. Maybe the creators of Captain Euro should have spent less time in focus groups and more time reading successful comics.

That leaves us with the UN and Spider-Man who “is preparing to take on a group that might be his most formidable nemesis: the likes of former American Ambassador John Bolton and other major critics of the United Nations”.

Here is a much better idea, developed by this blog without any focus groups or taxpayers’ money. Instead of producing idiotic stories about Spider-Man, the Incredible Hulk and whoever else being sensitive and Gaia-focused, why not have them fight the real baddies in the world, for example people who go around assassinating former prime ministers and present opposition leaders as they travel round some fictitious country on an election campaign?

Or here is another storyline that might work: how about Superman setting up a super-organization that whizzes round the world rescuing real journalists and bloggers who are trying to tell the truth about certain countries and political systems.

There would be plenty of righteous indignation and a great deal of pow! Wham! Kerpow! In fact, just like Captain America during World War II these comics could be so popular, they would not have to be sent out free to anybody using, one assumes, taxpayers’ money. Kids would queue up to buy them.

Gaddafi[i-Gaddafi]Who would have thought it that we find ourselves even partially in agreement with Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, shown in this Reuters picture gesturing in a characteristic manner.

Gaddafi is attending the EU-Africa Summit with intentions to travel on to France and Spain "after several decades of not being welcome". One wonders whether he really is all that welcome even now.

What a character that man is, to be sure. He used the Summit to attack the UN, insisting that it is a dictatorship and has no right to preach democracy. As a matter of fact, we had not realized that the UN was preaching all that much democracy, spending as it does a great deal of time, pacifying and financing dictators and attacking the West, particularly the United States, and, of course, Israel.

Escorted by muscular female bodyguards dressed in desert-colored khaki and caps, Gaddafi criticized the current United Nations structure in which five countries -- the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia -- have veto powers.

He said the U.N. General Assembly, at which virtually all of the world's states are represented, should be the executive body of the global organization, not the smaller Security Council.

"Why are we asking for democracy in countries, when there is dictatorship in the U.N. (and) if we can't establish democracy in the world parliament," he told academics and diplomats.

Well, of course, the UN is not the world parliament though it would like to come close to it. But then how would Colonel Gaddafi know about parliaments?

It is undoubtedly true that it is undemocratic and unaccountable. It does not have as much power as a dictator, such as Colonel Gaddafi does, but whenever it acquires any power it misuses it.

I rather take to this idea of 191 countries in the General Assembly making decisions and creating policies. Nothing will ever be decided on. Excellent. Will it be more democratic? After all, a very large proportion of those countries are not democratic themselves so their legates are not precisely representative of the people and the countries. And that is before we even mention such matters as freedom and human rights.