Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Olympus...


...is falling. Anyway 11th December is UN designated International Mountain Day [link]: Earth's mountains - "Mountains - Key to a Sustainable Future" - cover 27 percent of the land surface and 'play a critical role in moving the world towards sustainable economic growth'. "In particular, mountains provide freshwater, energy and food – resources that will be increasingly scarce in coming decades. However, mountains also have a high incidence of poverty and are extremely vulnerable to climate change, deforestation, land degradation and natural disasters." Excellent, the UN can be a force that is good.

Yesterday was UN designated Human Rights Day, the 20th anniversary [link]; however, only a couple of weeks ago they proclaimed 2014 the International Year of Solidarity with the Palestinian People [link], not a day, a YEAR. This was decided at a meeting where UN approved Jewish groups were banned from attending. Last year U.N. General Assembly adopted 22 resolutions on Israel and 4 on the rest of the world combined [UN Watch]; last month alone there were a nearly a dozen more, FFS, it is getting pathetic: the UN can be a force that is not good.

Set up with such lofty and fine ideals and with a number of specialised agencies (WHO, FAO, UNESCO...) it has to avoid becoming completely tarnished yet the UNGA seems hell bent on falling further from the heady heights of the objectives on which it was founded.

Off topic aside: a minute ago it was 9:10, 11/12/13...yippee. 

2 comments:

Paul said...

The paragraph in italics is interesting because it's not just mountains is it but hills as well which those circumstances be applied to but I'm not sure when 'Hill Day' is.

The downside about mountains is the same as Whales and Dolphins - what's not to like, so everybody visits at least one and you multiply that by millions and you get erosion and other problems.

Re the HRD - nothing like irony eh? Israel being the only true democracy in the Middle East is locked out of a vote!

Span Ows said...

Yes, when does a mountain become a hill become an upland become a foothill become a down doobie-do down down...

They are making a rod for their own back with the fact that the UN doesn't stop the OIC causing hassle and wasting a huge amount of time on anti Israel matters (directly and indirectly)