antichrist

UN agency recognises Palestine

Palestine has become a full member of the United Nations' cultural agency Unesco in a historic vote that saw the US halt its funding for the organisation in protest.
America had threatened to chop 80 million dollars in annual funding if Palestinian membership was approved.
The US State Department said the vote triggered a long-standing congressional restriction on funding to UN bodies that recognise Palestine as a state before an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal is reached.
The decision is a grand symbolic victory for the Palestinians, but it alone will not make Palestine into a state. The issues of borders for an eventual Palestinian state, security troubles and other disputes that have thwarted Middle East peace for decades remain unresolved.
Huge cheers went up in the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation after delegates approved the membership in a vote of 107-14 with 52 abstentions.
Eighty-one votes were needed for approval in a hall with 173 Unesco member delegations present. In a surprise, France voted "yes" - and the room erupted in cheers - while the "no" votes included the United States, Israel, Sweden, the Netherlands and Germany.
"Long live Palestine!" someone shouted in the hall, in French, at the unusually tense and dramatic meeting of Unesco's General Conference.
Even if the vote's impact is not felt right away in the Middle East, it will be at Unesco, which protects historic heritage sites and works to improve world literacy, access to schooling for girls and cultural understanding, but it also has in the past been a forum for anti-Israel sentiment.
Existing US law can bar Washington from funding any UN body that accepts members that do not have the "internationally recognised attributes of statehood." That requirement is generally interpreted to mean UN membership.
Unesco depends heavily on US funding - Washington provides 22% of its budget - but has survived without it in the past: The United States pulled out of Unesco under President Ronald Reagan, rejoining two decades later under President George W. Bush.

antichrist

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has warned the governing body of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization "to stay out of the question of Palestinian statehood" or face defunding if the organization agrees to admit Palestine as a member before an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal is reached. To read more, click here.

antichrist

Palestinians take statehood fight to Unesco



The Palestinian battle to win international recognition for an independent state has moved to Unesco, where members will be asked to vote as early as today on a Palestinian application to join the body as a full member state.
The looming vote has sparked an intense diplomatic struggle at the UN organisation for education, science and culture, with US and European officials appealing to Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinian president, to call off or postpone the vote.
More

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Officials predict an overwhelming majority in favour of Palestinian membership provided Mr Abbas does not pull back at the last minute. An initial vote on the Unesco executive board this month went 40-4 in the Palestinians’ favour. Under current US legislation, a decision to admit Palestine as a member of Unesco would force an immediate cut-off in American funding for the Paris-based body. The US is the biggest contributor to Unesco, accounting for 22 per cent of its budget. It receives a budget of $643m every two years.
“I am very much worried about the future of this organisation,” Irina Bokova, the Unesco director-general, told the Financial Times. She warned against US “disengagement” from the body, arguing that Unesco was supporting “core US interests”, for example by managing and funding education projects in Iraq and Afghanistan.
European diplomats, meanwhile, are worried that a vote on Palestinian membership will once again reveal the deep divisions within the European Union on Palestinian statehood.
Palestinian officials, however, insist they are entitled to join Unesco as well as other UN organisations. Should the application be successful, Palestinian officials say they will call on Unesco to recognise key monuments in the occupied Palestinian territories as world heritage sites. Top of the list is the famous Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, which is built over the site where Jesus is believed to have been born.
“It is the right of the Palestinians to become members of Unesco. Palestine has its own heritage and its own culture that needs to be protected,” said Omar Awadallah, the Palestinian official who heads the foreign ministry’s section dealing with UN bodies. He added that the Palestinian leadership would also seek to gain membership of other international bodies, such as the World Health Organisation and the World Trade Organisation.
The Unesco bid is the first since Mr Abbas submitted the Palestinian application to become a full member of the UN last month. That is still under review by the UN Security Council, though the US has made clear it will veto the request.
Washington cannot, however, veto Palestinian membership at separate UN organisations such as Unesco. Although the Obama administration has been trying to find ways to avoid cutting off funding to Unesco, officials admit there will be little other option should members vote in favour of admitting the Palestinians.
“There are consequences if Unesco votes in this direction,” the state department said last week.
Hillary Clinton, secretary of state, has told Congress that the administration needs more flexibility to be able to decide whether to cut off funding to other UN agencies that might admit the Palestinians.
“There are significant problems if this begins to cascade. What happens with the International Atomic Energy Agency? What happens with the World Health Organisation? What happens with the Food and Agriculture Organisation?” she asked this month.
●At least 10 Palestinians and one Israeli have been killed in the latest flare-up of violence in and around the Gaza Strip, as both sides traded attacks.

antichrist

The voting results:
NO: Australia, Canada, Czech Republic, Germany, Israel, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Palau, Panama, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Sweden, United States of America, Vanuatu.
Details see:
UNESCO and Palestine the human province

AC
yet the voting was way in favour 107-14, so Australia is completely out of step with decent world opinion on human rights

Firegoat7

Hi,


AC you ruin an interesting thread by making such a stupid thread title.
It would be interesting to discuss the Australian vote on the subject, however until you request the mods to change the title I won't.

__________________
"...What I meant?

Dear Mr Ian Rout (ACF news publisher) could you please put Ozchessforum in the next news letter! There is no reason to hide this forum from the Australian chess public.

What they meant?

Sorry, No english!- Amir Karibasic

antichrist

Unfortunately the title was changed which took all the fun out of it - so I ain't crawling to anyone - do take it or leave it

except that Aussie are the biggest gutless crawlers in history

The Seeing

I believe the phrase you're looking for is " brainwashed idiot sheep" .

- V -

Russell Tribunal on Palestine finds Israel guilty of the crimes of Apartheid and Persecution :: www.uruknet.info :: informazione dal medio oriente :: information from middle east :: [vs-1]



The Russell Tribunal on Palestine and its eminent panel of jurists has determined that Israel's practices against the Palestinian people are in breach of the prohibition of apartheid under international law. Following two intense days in Cape Town listening to testimony from expert witnesses, the Tribunal concluded unanimously that "Israel subjects the Palestinian people to an institutionalised regime of domination amounting to apartheid as defined under international law." The jury reached this conclusion having paid particular attention to the legal definition of apartheid and ensuring that each of the defining criteria was met.

This included the following facts: "(i) that two distinct racial groups can be identified; (ii) that 'inhuman acts' are committed against the subordinate group; and (iii) that such acts are committed systematically in the context of an institutionalised regime of domination by one group over the other." They considered in their judgment the widespread evidence of, inter alia, "targeted killings"; the "use of lethal force" against peaceful demonstrators; and the torture and ill-treatment of Palestinians.

The Tribunal declared that although "the Palestinians living under colonial military rule in the Occupied Palestinian Territory are subject to a particularly aggravated form of apartheid" the latter extends to Israeli treatment of Palestinian citizens within Israel, and that "Israel's rule over the Palestinian people, wherever they reside, collectively amounts to a single integrated regime of apartheid."'

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"Few have the stomach to pursue truth , yet most know in their gut something is wrong" V

"But everyone knows the media doesn't inform. Duhhhhhh !! "