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With the US's history of torture of POWs and journalists, I hope he can make a successful appeal to the UN human rights commission.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

You said "UN" and suggested that it might have some influence on the US government.

Hell, it doesn't even have any influence with the UK government.

https://news.un.org/en/story/2...

https://www.ohchr.org/en/NewsE...

The Human Rights Committee is composed of 18 independent experts who are persons of high moral character and recognized competence in the field of human rights.

Members are elected for a term of four years by States parties in accordance with articles 28 to 39 of the Covenant. Members serve in their personal capacity and may be re-elected if nominated.

IOW Sudan can't be a member of the HRC - and for that matter, nobody from Sudan is.

Freedom of speech has never meant freedom to libel or incite violence towards others for example, nor does it cover things like false advertising.

Freedom of speech also does not mean that governments should be able to freely spread false information to their citizens. In Myanmar, it's gotten to the point that Facebook has been used to facilitate outright genocide by spreading altogether false claims about the local muslim minority, and this has been coming from the highest levels of authorities. Facebook recently banned a general of the army from the platform after it came to light that he had been publishing actual photos of dismembered children, claming them to have been killed by the Rohingya, a claim for which there is no supporting evidence.

Meanwhile, the Myanmar government and military have been among the most adept and sophisticated users of Facebook, using the platform to put out their own narrative of the Rohingya crisis. The office of the Commander-in-Chief in March posted photos of dismembered children and dead babies, claiming they were attacked by Rohingya terrorists, to counter British MPs, who were sharply critical of the country’s handling of the Rohingya crisis.

Keep in mind the international stance is that the Myanmarian army has been actively conducting what's basically ethnic cleansing by killing civilians and driving them into exodus. This is a military regime actively using the social network to spread their own propaganda to facilitate and justify genocide, and up until this point FB has done nothing about it, even though similar activities have been going on for a few years. A UN report found that the Myanmarian military has clear genocidal intent behind their actions and that Facebook and disinformation have been a part of this operation.

So this is case of the state using a popular social media network in the country to push their own genocidal narrative and propaganda. So what Facebook must do, and what it's now slowly starting do do is the opposite of what you're saying: not to allow the state to use its power to feed false propaganda to its citizenry to justify genocide.

Imagine if your own government started to do something similar, demonizing one group of individuals and pushing false information through the platforms to support their narrative: 'Look at what the jews/the muslims/the blacks have done, they must be interned to prevent further crime!" Would you still be screaming 'b.-b-but the state must be free to lie to its own citizenry because of freedom of speech!", because I doubt that. That's not what freedom of speech is about.

De-facto they accepted that he has got an asylum in accordance with the article 14. And he is held in the embassy in London due to realistic fear of personal death. So they could either give him a free passage to the airport in a diplomatic car or bring his confinement in the embassy room in compliance with the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners https://www.ohchr.org/en/profe...

"Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners" https://www.ohchr.org/en/profe...

21. (1) Every prisoner who is not employed in outdoor work shall have at least one hour of suitable exercise in the open air daily if the weather permits.

The US and Sweden authorities could count these six years of inhuman conditions as a complete punishment. One year is such inhuman conditions could count at least as five years.

Is America a truly modern country without universal healthcare or paid time off for illness?

"American decline: Open pools of raw sewage in the richest country in the world"
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/41857...
http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEv...

They wrote about his fear as a premise for the reasonability of the finding. "The Republic of Ecuador granted asylum because of Mr. Assange’s fear that if he was extradited to Sweden, he would be further extradited to the United States where he would face serious criminal charges for the peaceful exercise of his freedoms. Since August 2012, Mr. Assange has not been able to leave the Ecuadorian Embassy and is subject to extensive surveillance by the British police." http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEv... As far as I can tell, that reads to me like it's a major reason why they found he was being treated unfairly.

Have you ever read the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?

China is supposed to have signed it, and yet we accept that they do not respect their engagement. And why? Because it is a major commercial partner. Period.

Their Great Firewall and overall surveilance programs of all citizens, and resulting imprisonments, is totally against this Declaration. Their behavior is unacceptable, but we accept it anyway because money talks.

Article 3

Blinding as an incidental or collateral effect of the legitimate military employment of laser systems, including laser systems used against optical equipment, is not covered by the prohibition of this Protocol.

But since when does the US obey protocols? They signed the Protocol on Child Soldiers, and then violated it with Omar Khadr.

Article 6

3. States Parties shall take all feasible measures to ensure that persons within their jurisdiction recruited or used in hostilities contrary to the present Protocol are demobilized or otherwise released from service. States Parties shall, when necessary, accord to such persons all appropriate assistance for their physical and psychological recovery and their social reintegration.

Putting a 15-year-old into Gitmo and torturing him is a clear violation of the protocol. Considering he was dragged from his home in Canada to Afghanistan at the age of 10, what outcome did anyone expect when he was captured at 15?

Look we *know* it is a lie. However, the idea they can censor things they do not like is very troubling.

Move past the thing and look at the possibilities. What if suddenly they do not like fuzzy kitties. Is that going to be censored? What is next? Are they going to take on the legal responsibility if someones precious snowflake sees boobies?

One of the things they censored next was the Goldstone Report of Israeli atrocities during the Gaza war. As many Jews will tell you, the Israelis are now doing things that remind us of the stories our parents and grandparents told us of their treatment by the Nazis and Russians. For example:

http://www2.ohchr.org/english/...

773. At about 12.50 p.m., Khalid Abd Rabbo, his wife Kawthar, their three daughters, Souad (aged 9), Samar (aged 5) and Amal (aged 3), and his mother, Hajja Souad Abd Rabbo, stepped out of the house, all of them carrying white flags. Less than 10 metres from the door was a tank, turned towards their house. Two soldiers were sitting on top of it having a snack (one was eating chips, the other chocolate, according to one of the witnesses). The family stood still, waiting for orders from the soldiers as to what they should do, but none was given. Without warning, a third soldier emerged from inside the tank and started shooting at the three girls and then also at their grandmother. Several bullets hit Souad in the chest, Amal in the stomach and Samar in the back. Hajja Souad was hit in the lower back and in the left arm.

The IDF refused to let an ambulance bring them to the hospital, so they walked. Amal and Souad died. Samar had a spinal injury and was left paraplegic for life. The Israeli government never investigated this event or prosecuted the soldier responsible.

The Israeli government, and their American sycophants, are trying to claim that all criticism of Israeli policy is anti-semitism, and they are trying to suppress these reports. Since most of the prominent human rights organizations, like Amnesty International, were founded by Jews, they are accusing Jews of being anti-semites. In Wikipedia, you can see an aggressive Israeli effort to suppress these reports. Fortunately, these efforts are not successful, and sometimes, by challenging weaker arguments, and leaving the stronger arguments, make a better case against Israel.

The situation between Israel and Palestine is war, but how is anything a war crime?

http://www2.ohchr.org/english/...

773. At about 12.50 p.m., Khalid Abd Rabbo, his wife Kawthar, their three daughters, Souad (aged 9), Samar (aged 5) and Amal (aged 3), and his mother, Hajja Souad Abd Rabbo, stepped out of the house, all of them carrying white flags. Less than 10 metres from the door was a tank, turned towards their house. Two soldiers were sitting on top of it having a snack (one was eating chips, the other chocolate, according to one of the witnesses). The family stood still, waiting for orders from the soldiers as to what they should do, but none was given. Without warning, a third soldier emerged from inside the tank and started shooting at the three girls and then also at their grandmother. Several bullets hit Souad in the chest, Amal in the stomach and Samar in the back. Hajja Souad was hit in the lower back and in the left arm.

[The IDF refused to let an ambulance bring them to the hospital, so they walked. Amal and Souad died. Samar had a spinal injury and was left paraplegic for life. The Israeli government never investigated this event or prosecuted the soldier responsible.]

Funny how people are quick to point out "the negative impacts that occur in some religious communities" without saying much about the positive.

Well some of the negative impacts are quite atrocious to the point of them being considered crimes against humanity. As an example, as a signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Vatican has to respond to the UN to allegations of systematically breaking aspects of the convention. The number of children raped/sexually abused by ecclastics and never finding any justice is quite high. With the moral hypocrisy of religious groups becoming more into the spotlight it is not surprising or unjustified for people to quickly point out the negative impacts.

Name three acts of terror committed by the State of Israel...

Just search through the Goldstone report three times for "white flag".

http://www2.ohchr.org/english/...

773. At about 12.50 p.m., Khalid Abd Rabbo, his wife Kawthar, their three daughters, Souad (aged 9), Samar (aged 5) and Amal (aged 3), and his mother, Hajja Souad Abd Rabbo, stepped out of the house, all of them carrying white flags. Less than 10 metres from the door was a tank, turned towards their house. Two soldiers were sitting on top of it having a snack (one was eating chips, the other chocolate, according to one of the witnesses). The family stood still, waiting for orders from the soldiers as to what they should do, but none was given. Without warning, a third soldier emerged from inside the tank and started shooting at the three girls and then also at their grandmother. Several bullets hit Souad in the chest, Amal in the stomach and Samar in the back. Hajja Souad was hit in the lower back and in the left arm.

The IDF refused to let an ambulance bring them to the hospital, so they walked. Amal and Souad died. Samar had a spinal injury and was left paraplegic for life. The Israeli government never investigated this event or prosecuted the soldier responsible.

The UN working group on human rights has no authority to do much of anything. Here is the current membership. After making a decision, they will work with the countries involved to help them "Do the Right Thing." They can't force England or Sweden to let him go.

OK, I'll give you your citation.

http://www2.ohchr.org/english/...

GE.09-15866 UNITED NATIONS A General Assembly Distr. GENERAL A/HRC/12/48 25 September 2009 Original: ENGLISH HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL Twelfth session Agenda item 7 HUMAN RIGHTS IN PALESTINE AND OTHER OCCUPIED ARAB TERRITORIES

This post refers to the well-known Goldstone report:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

It should be noted that the author of the report retracted the claim that it was Israeli government policy to deliberately target civilians. Read the whole wikipedia article or google it for details, TLDR: The report stated that both Hamas and Israel targeted civilians, then the part about Israel targeting civilians was retracted because the author concluded that his sources were bias and inaccurate. Even with that having happened, the anti-Israel crowd still quote the redacted parts of the report because it fits their narrative, and fail to mention the part about Hamas targeting civilians.

Here's your cite. I gave this in more detail above.

http://www2.ohchr.org/english/...

GE.09-15866
UNITED NATIONS
A General Assembly Distr.
GENERAL
A/HRC/12/48
25 September 2009
Original: ENGLISH
HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL
Twelfth session
Agenda item 7
HUMAN RIGHTS IN PALESTINE AND OTHER OCCUPIED ARAB TERRITORIES
Report of the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict

7. Deliberate attacks against the civilian population
43. The Mission investigated 11 incidents in which the Israeli armed forces launched directattacks against civilians with lethal outcome (chap. XI). The facts in all bar one of the attacks indicate no justifiable military objective. The first two are attacks on houses in the al-Samouni neighbourhood south of Gaza City, including the shelling of a house in which Palestinian civilians had been forced to assemble by the Israeli armed forces. The following group of seven incidents concern the shooting of civilians while they were trying to leave their homes to walk to a safer place, waving white flags and, in some of the cases, following an injunction from the Israeli forces to do so. The facts gathered by the Mission indicate that all the attacks occurred under circumstances in which the Israeli armed forces were in control of the area and had previously entered into contact with or had atleast observed the persons they subsequently attacked, so that they must have been aware of their civilian status. In the majority of these incidents, the consequences of the Israeli attacks against civilians were aggravated by their subsequent refusal to allow the evacuation of the wounded or to permit access to ambulances.

I'll play devil's advocate:

Firstly, the mandatory [citation needed].

OK, I'll give you your citation.

http://www2.ohchr.org/english/...

GE.09-15866
UNITED NATIONS
A General Assembly Distr.
GENERAL
A/HRC/12/48
25 September 2009
Original: ENGLISH
HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL
Twelfth session
Agenda item 7
HUMAN RIGHTS IN PALESTINE AND OTHER OCCUPIED ARAB TERRITORIES
Report of the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict

7. Deliberate attacks against the civilian population

43. The Mission investigated 11 incidents in which the Israeli armed forces launched direct attacks against civilians with lethal outcome (chap. XI). The facts in all bar one of the attacks indicate no justifiable military objective. The first two are attacks on houses in the al-Samouni neighbourhood south of Gaza City, including the shelling of a house in which Palestinian civilians had been forced to assemble by the Israeli armed forces. The following group of seven incidents concern the shooting of civilians while they were trying to leave their homes to walk to a safer place, waving white flags and, in some of the cases, following an injunction from the Israeli forces to do so. The facts gathered by the Mission indicate that all the attacks occurred under circumstances in which the Israeli armed forces were in control of the area and had previously entered into contact with or had at least observed the persons they subsequently attacked, so that they must have been aware of their civilian status. In the majority of these incidents, the consequences of the Israeli attacks against civilians were aggravated by their subsequent refusal to allow the evacuation of the wounded or to permit access to ambulances.

A/HRC/12/48
page 174
witness's recollection, there had also been a radio message broadcast by the Israeli armed forces around 12.30 announcing that there would be a temporary cessation of shooting between 1 and 4 p.m. that day, during which time residents of the area were asked to walk to central Jabaliyah.

773. At about 12.50 p.m., Khalid Abd Rabbo, his wife Kawthar, their three daughters, Souad (aged 9), Samar (aged 5) and Amal (aged 3), and his mother, Hajja Souad Abd Rabbo, stepped out of the house, all of them carrying white flag s. Less than 10 metres from the door was a tank, turned towards their house. Two soldiers were sitting on top of it having a snack (one was eating chips, the other chocolate, according to one of the witnesses). The family stood still, waiting for orders from the soldiers as to what they should do, but none was given. Without warning, a third soldier emerged from inside the tank and started shooting at the three girls and then also at their grandmother. Several bullets hit Souad in the chest, Amal in the stomach and Samar in the back. Hajja Souad was hit in the lower back and in the left arm.

775. Inside the Abed Rabbo house, Amal and Souad died of their wounds. The family decided that they had to make an attempt to walk to Jabalya and take Samar, the dead bodies of Amal and Souad, and their grandmother to hospital. Khaled and Kawthar Abd Rabbo, and other family members and neighbours carried the girls on their shoulders. Hajja Souad was carried by family and neighbours on a bed. Samar was transferred to al-Shifa hospital and then, through Egypt, to Belgium, where she still is in hospital. According to her parents, Samar suffered a spinal injury and will remain paraplegic for the rest of her life.

This has been documented by the New York Times, Washington Post, BBC, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and others, who actually interviewed the eyewitnesses. The Israeli government never interviewed the eyewitnesses, and never conducted an investigation that they talked about.

You can search for "white flag" and get repeated incidents in which Israel

Bla bla bla. Singling out Muslims is pure bigotry. The only difference between Christian Terrorism and Islamic terrorism is that Christian Terrorism never makes the evening news..

Bwaaa HAAA HAAAA!!!

You're downright fucking risible.

And full of BULLSHIT.

How many people have your "Christian" equivalents of ISIS murdered - in the hundreds of years some have been around? How many have the KKK murdered in 150 years? At MOST what? 3000?

3000 is just ONE good day for Islamic terror.

Or 3,000 is a mere 10 percent of just the number of CHILDREN ISIS alone has killed in Syria alone in just the past couple of years:

Current Total Death Count in Syria: 250,000+
Children: 30,000

Again - crawl up out of Mommy's Basement Intellectual Shelter, grow a MAN'S intellectual balls, and read this UN report:

UNAMI/OHCHR has received reports of serious violations of international humanitarian law and gross abuses of human rights that have been perpetrated by ISIL and associated armed groups, with an apparentv systematic and widespread character. These include attacks directly targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure, executions and other targeted killings of civilians, abductions, rape and other forms of sexual and physical violence perpetrated against women and children, forced recruitment of children, destruction or desecration of places of religious or cultural significance, wanton destruction and looting of property, and denial of fundamental freedoms.

http://www2.ohchr.org/english/...

Sure thing, the out is simple. Dismantle the nuclear weapons program, stop supporting terrorism, recognize Israel's right to exist.

Do those, all sanctions go away.

Israel could have peace tomorrow if they stopped treating Palestinians the way certain other people treated the Jews in the past.

http://world.time.com/2014/02/...
Iranian Foreign Minister Lays Out Condition for Iranian Recognition of Israel
Official's language marks a shift from previous rhetoric
By Karl Vick / Tel Aviv
Feb. 04, 2014

One day after senior Israeli government officials raised eyebrows at an international conference by remaining in the room when Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif took the stage to speak, Zarif told a German television interviewer that Tehran could restore diplomatic relations with Israel in the event of a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians. “Once the Palestinian problem is solved the conditions for an Iranian recognition of Israel will be possible,” Zarif said in the interview Monday.

The Arab League also offered them a peace plan on similar terms.

When you do something wrong, you're supposed to admit it, then say you're sorry, then promise you'll never do it again, then ask for forgiveness.

You're supposed to teach your children this stuff, shame that nations led by adults have such a hard time with it.

There is no shame in saying you're sorry when you're wrong. Iran might well find a lot of support in Europe if they came clean, the US wouldn't be in any position to push on Iran if they did. Nor would we have any need to.

If you are a Zionist then you are the biggest fucking hypocrite in the world. When did Israel ever admit that they were wrong, much less apologize, or ask for forgiveness, for acting like Nazis?

http://www2.ohchr.org/english/...

773. At about 12.50 p.m., Khalid Abd Rabbo, his wife Kawthar, their three daughters, Souad (aged 9), Samar (aged 5) and Amal (aged 3), and his mother, Hajja Souad Abd Rabbo, stepped out of the house, all of them carrying white flags. Less than 10 metres from the door was a tank, turned towards their house. Two soldiers were sitting on top of it having a snack (one was eating chips, the other chocolate, according to one of the witnesses). The family stood still, waiting for orders from the soldiers as to what they should do, but none was given. Without warning, a third soldier emerged from inside the tank and started shooting at the three girls and then also at their grandmother. Several bullets hit Souad in the chest, Amal in the stomach and Samar in the back. Hajja Souad was hit in the lower back and in the left arm.

[The IDF refused to let an ambulance bring them to the hospital, so they walked. Amal and Souad died. Samar had a spinal injury and was left paraplegic for life. The Israeli government never investigated this event or prosecuted the soldier responsible.]

This was documented by investigators from the Goldstone Commission, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Ha'aretz, the New York Times, Washington Post, Independent, and others. The Israelis never investigated.

I'll tell you what Israeli Ambassador Ron Prosor said: They're all lying. Goldstone, AI, HRW, Ha'aretz, NYT, WP, they're all lying. They're all Jews who have gone over to the anti-Semites.

I hope the Israeli government and their well-paid PR firms are reading this and will see that their propaganda isn't working any more.

Israel is also a nuclear-armed terrorist state. Since they own the U.S. government, we'll have to depend on the Europeans to put pressure on them, and the boycott, sanctions and divestment movement seems t

Also Judge Richard Goldstone has apologized for the poor quality of that report, for how much he was fooled.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

I met a member of the Goldstone commission after Goldstone published that article. He said that Goldstone may have changed his mind, but Goldstone was speaking for himself, not the commission. And Goldstone never disclosed the evidence that changed his mind.

The Israeli government refused to cooperate with the Goldstone commission. Goldstone said in that article that if the Israeli government had cooperated, his conclusions would have been different.

The main difference would have been the conclusion that the Israelis were deliberately targeting civilians as a matter of government policy. Goldstone said that he was now convinced that, while individual soldiers were deliberately targeting civilians, they were not doing so as a result of government policy.

To give you an idea of what they're talking about, here's one of the best-documented cases:

http://www2.ohchr.org/english/...

773. At about 12.50 p.m., Khalid Abd Rabbo, his wife Kawthar, their three daughters, Souad (aged 9), Samar (aged 5) and Amal (aged 3), and his mother, Hajja Souad Abd Rabbo, stepped out of the house, all of them carrying white flags. Less than 10 metres from the door was a tank, turned towards their house. Two soldiers were sitting on top of it having a snack (one was eating chips, the other chocolate, according to one of the witnesses). The family stood still, waiting for orders from the soldiers as to what they should do, but none was given. Without warning, a third soldier emerged from inside the tank and started shooting at the three girls and then also at their grandmother. Several bullets hit Souad in the chest, Amal in the stomach and Samar in the back. Hajja Souad was hit in the lower back and in the left arm.

The IDF refused to let an ambulance bring them to the hospital, so they walked. Amal and Souad died. Samar had a spinal injury and was left paraplegic for life. As far as any human rights organization or journalist could find out, the Israeli government never investigated this event or prosecuted the soldier responsible. For example, nobody from the Israeli government talked to the Palestinian eyewitnesses, so they can't know first-hand what happened.

Goldstone was writing in 2011 that he was confident that the Israeli government would investigate these charges. As of 2015, they have not done so, so it seems his confidence was misplaced. What are they waiting for -- the messiah?

The UN chose Goldstone to head the commission because he had unimpeachable Zionist credentials, in Israel and South Africa. He was Jewish and had family in Israel. The UN wanted to head off in advance any criticism that the commission would be anti-Israel.

In contrast, the human rights groups, such as Amnesty International, staff their investigating commissions with people who are not living in the country they are investigating, out of fear that they would be subject to pressure.

That fear was justified in Goldstone's case. He was subject to immense abuse from the Israel-first community. They attempted to prevent him from attending his grandson's Bar Mitzvah.

Alan Dershowitz said that it was acceptable under Jewish law for any Jew to kill Goldstone. Dershowitz said that Goldstone was a moser, which means someone who informs on his fellow Jews, like the informers who turned other Jews in to the Nazis. Under Jewish law, it's acceptable to kill a moser. Coming from Dershowitz, one could reasonably worry, since several of his clients were murderers, including the member of the Jewish Defense League who firebombed Sol Hurok'

You forgot to mention the Palestinians sweetening the pot by blowing up buses (unless that's inconvenient because of walls or border guards), shooting at kids at a 12 year old's party, blowing up a holiday dinner for widowers, shooting rockets or artillery toward towns during morning commute (at a rate of one or two a week during "cease fires").

I could go on for days, actually. People who think the Israelis are ugly should turn their heads and look around 360 degrees and get to know all of Israel's neighbors.

I used to raise money for Israel in the 1980s. I was in the middle of the Jewish establishment. I used to write press releases that ran in the New York Times.

I kept reading stories in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal about Israelis killing Palestinians. The ones that really got to me were the Israelis killing Palestinian children. I remember a story in the NYT about an Israeli chasing a 12-year-old girl named Aasma, who ran away screaming, until he shot her in the head and killed her.

I didn't just believe the NYT. I read the Amnesty International reports. And I didn't just believe the AI reports. I asked Israeli government officials. Their answer? They denied it happened. They said the Palestinians made it all up. The Palestinians lied.

I checked them out. It was the Israelis who were lying.

That was long before any Palestinian suicide bombings or bus bombings. The Palestinians were mostly meek and passive. I kept thinking to myself, "Why don't they get guns and fight back? The Jews would."

There were lots of Palestinians who wanted peace with the Israelis. The Israelis actually made it illegal for the Palestinians to talk about having a Palestinian state living in peace with Israel side-by-side. They arrested Palestinians for talking about peace. I know because I read the AI reports, and called the Israeli government about it.

Finally after the Israelis demonstrated that the peaceful Palestinians would get nowhere, the Palestinians did fight back, though not in the way I expected. They started blowing up buses with suicide bombs. Of course, it's terrible when innocent people get killed, Palestinian or Jew. But the Israelis were provoking, beating, arresting and killing the Palestinians for years before the Palestinians finally decided to fight back.

Of course I could give you facts and supporting evidence, but I've done that many times before and I know what the Israeli-firsters say. They just brush it off and say that it's not true, the Palestinians are lying, Amnesty International is lying, B'Tselem is lying, Haaretz is lying, the UN is lying, the NYT is lying, the BBC is lying, everybody else in the world is lying except Israel and MEMRI, because everybody else in the world is anti-Semitic and hates Israel. And I expect that's what you're going to say.

But maybe I'm wrong. Go read the Goldstone report. http://www2.ohchr.org/english/... If you don't believe that, I won't waste any more time with you.

To be perfectly honest, does anyone have statistics (recent) on the number of terrorist acts that are committed by Christians? I'd like to compare them with Islamic terrorist acts, because it seems to me that Islamic apologists need a wake-up call.

I don't know about world-wide, but in Mexico extremists in the cult of Santa Muerte are out of control.

"A recent United Nations report estimated nearly 9,000 civilians have been killed and 17,386 wounded in Iraq in 2014, more than half since ISIL fighters seized large parts on northern Iraq in June. It is likely that the group is responsible another several thousand deaths in Syria. To be sure, these numbers are staggering. But in 2013 drug cartels murdered more than 16,000 people in Mexico alone, and another 60,000 from 2006 to 2012 — a rate of more than one killing every half hour for the last seven years. What is worse, these are estimates from the Mexican government, which is known to deflate the actual death toll by about 50 percent.

Statistics alone do not convey the depravity and threat of the cartels. They carry out hundreds of beheadings every year. In addition to decapitations, the cartels are known to dismember and otherwise mutilate the corpses of their victims — displaying piles of bodies prominently in towns to terrorize the public into compliance. They routinely target women and children to further intimidate communities. Like ISIL, the cartels use social media to post graphic images of their atrocious crimes."

Could it be the HUGE uptick in the amount of anti-semitism is the result of the immigration of a HUGE number Islamic radicals?

More likely the result of things like this. But even Khalid Mashal said that he opposes Zionism, not Jews.

http://www2.ohchr.org/english/...

773. At about 12.50 p.m., Khalid Abd Rabbo, his wife Kawthar, their three daughters, Souad (aged 9), Samar (aged 5) and Amal (aged 3), and his mother, Hajja Souad Abd Rabbo, stepped out of the house, all of them carrying white flags. Less than 10 metres from the door was a tank, turned towards their house. Two soldiers were sitting on top of it having a snack (one was eating chips, the other chocolate, according to one of the witnesses). The family stood still, waiting for orders from the soldiers as to what they should do, but none was given. Without warning, a third soldier emerged from inside the tank and started shooting at the three girls and then also at their grandmother. Several bullets hit Souad in the chest, Amal in the stomach and Samar in the back. Hajja Souad was hit in the lower back and in the left arm.

The IDF refused to let an ambulance bring them to the hospital, so they walked. Amal and Souad died. Samar had a spinal injury and was left paraplegic for life. The Israeli government never investigated this event or prosecuted the soldier responsible.

The official Israel response to this, to anticipate your response, is that it's all lies. B'Tselem, Amnesty International, the New York Times, BBC, the Goldstone report -- all lies.

Because they do things like this:

http://www2.ohchr.org/english/... [ohchr.org]

That isn't an indication of fascism, which is a particular political organization of the state. If that allegation is true is may constitute a war crime - if it is true and there are no mitigating factors. The truth of that allegation isn't clear, and it is completely unrelated to the organization of Israel's government.

Let's check another source.

HRW’s Credibility Gap: 14 Versions of the Abed Rabbo “White Flags” Incident

Such highly-charged moral accusations, and the repeated use of terms like “war crimes”, are largely based on Palestinian “testimony”, while the ability to verify these allegations is very limited or impossible. Although HRW repeated the misleading claim (in its Sept 10 statement) that its “on-the-ground investigations found no evidence of Palestinian fighters in the area at the time”, HRW had no researchers in Gaza until weeks after the fighting. Their entirely non-transparent, “investigations” apparently consisted of recording Palestinian statements in an interview process that is readily subject to manipulation, conducted by HRW officials who lack professional credentials and have a clear bias, (in this report, Joe Stork ) and are therefore impossible to evaluate.

As in numerous other examples of highly flawed HRW “investigations” (Gaza Beach, the 2006 Lebanon War, etc.), as documented in detail in NGO Monitor’s report “Experts or Ideologues ”, the evidence shows major inconsistencies and contradictions in the Abed Rabbo incident. NGO Monitor, CAMERA , and other researchers have documented at least 14 significantly different versions of the story. NGOs have published 6 distinct accounts, and 8 others are from the media. The evolution of these accounts also suggests motivations for promoting allegations that may be far from the truth.

The "fun" part is that being anti-Israel currently is less antisemitic than it is antifascist...

Please explain why Israel or Jews are fascist.

Because they do things like this:

http://www2.ohchr.org/english/...

773. At about 12.50 p.m., Khalid Abd Rabbo, his wife Kawthar, their three daughters, Souad (aged 9), Samar (aged 5) and Amal (aged 3), and his mother, Hajja Souad Abd Rabbo, stepped out of the house, all of them carrying white flags. Less than 10 metres from the door was a tank, turned towards their house. Two soldiers were sitting on top of it having a snack (one was eating chips, the other chocolate, according to one of the witnesses). The family stood still, waiting for orders from the soldiers as to what they should do, but none was given. Without warning, a third soldier emerged from inside the tank and started shooting at the three girls and then also at their grandmother. Several bullets hit Souad in the chest, Amal in the stomach and Samar in the back. Hajja Souad was hit in the lower back and in the left arm.

[The IDF refused to let an ambulance bring them to the hospital, so they walked. Amal and Souad died. Samar had a spinal injury and was left paraplegic for life. The Israeli government never investigated this event or prosecuted the soldier responsible.]

The only part of the Geneva convention that Israel has broken is about settlements in occupied territory which has nothing to do with original borders. At the end of many wars borders have changed.

Israel has also broken the part in the Geneva conventions that prohibit killing of civilians when there is no military necessity for doing so. B'Tselem and Amnesty International have documented thousands of cases.

http://www2.ohchr.org/english/...

773. At about 12.50 p.m., Khalid Abd Rabbo, his wife Kawthar, their three daughters, Souad (aged 9), Samar (aged 5) and Amal (aged 3), and his mother, Hajja Souad Abd Rabbo, stepped out of the house, all of them carrying white flags. Less than 10 metres from the door was a tank, turned towards their house. Two soldiers were sitting on top of it having a snack (one was eating chips, the other chocolate, according to one of the witnesses). The family stood still, waiting for orders from the soldiers as to what they should do, but none was given. Without warning, a third soldier emerged from inside the tank and started shooting at the three girls and then also at their grandmother. Several bullets hit Souad in the chest, Amal in the stomach and Samar in the back. Hajja Souad was hit in the lower back and in the left arm.

[The IDF refused to let an ambulance bring them to the hospital, so they walked. Amal and Souad died. Samar had a spinal injury and was left paraplegic for life. The Israeli government never investigated this event or prosecuted the soldier responsible.]

Great, you want to judge both sides impartially by international law, let's judge them by international law.

If you want to go that way you should be prepared for the possibility that international law won't be on your side. (Which I'm not sure you are.)

Are the Settlements Illegal?

Eshkol went ahead to create the settlement anyway, and therefore set the conditions which began the Movement for Greater Israel and Israel's settlement enterprise.

"Movement for Greater Israel"? They kind of shot that to hell when they returned Sinai to Egypt, didn't they? (How much land was that compared to the territory of Israel proper?)

2. Killing non-combatants

From the Goldstone Report:

http://www2.ohchr.org/english/...

The "Goldsone Report"?

Goldstone: You Cannot Undo a Slander

Richard Goldstone, the formerly respected South African jurist who disgraced himself by lending his name to a sinister and libelous U.N. report condemning Israel for war crimes, has now issued a very public retraction. “If I had known then what I know now,” he wrote in the Washington Post, “the Goldstone Report would have been a different document.” New information has persuaded him, he said, “that civilians were not intentionally targeted as a matter of policy” by Israel. ......

For the better part of four years, Israel suffered more than 10,000 missile attacks against its civilians from Gaza. When it finally used military force to stop the attacks, Israel, in the words of British colonel Richard Kemp, former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, “did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare. Israel did so while facing an enemy that deliberately positioned its military capability behind the human shield of the civilian population.”

All of this was not just knowable when Goldstone signed on as front man for the U.N. lynch mob, it was known. The Goldstone Report was intended, and has since been employed, to stigmatize any Israeli self-defense as a war crime.

I'm not morally judging actions, I'm legally judging actions. Hamas is deliberately and systematically committing war crimes as defined by international law.

Great, you want to judge both sides impartially by international law, let's judge them by international law.

1. Settlements beyond the 1967 borders

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Legal opinion on settlements in the occupied territories

In the late 1960s, Meron was legal counsel to the Israeli Foreign Ministry and wrote a secret 1967 memo[17] [18] [19] for Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, who was considering creating an Israeli settlement at Kfar Etzion. This was just after Israel's victory in the Six-Day War of June 1967. Meron's memo concluded that creating new settlements in the Occupied Territories would be a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Eshkol went ahead to create the settlement anyway, and therefore set the conditions which began the Movement for Greater Israel and Israel's settlement enterprise.

2. Killing non-combatants

From the Goldstone Report:

http://www2.ohchr.org/english/...

773. At about 12.50 p.m., Khalid Abd Rabbo, his wife Kawthar, their three daughters, Souad (aged 9), Samar (aged 5) and Amal (aged 3), and his mother, Hajja Souad Abd Rabbo, stepped out of the house, all of them carrying white flags. Less than 10 metres from the door was a tank, turned towards their house. Two soldiers were sitting on top of it having a snack (one was eating chips, the other chocolate, according to one of the witnesses). The family stood still, waiting for orders from the soldiers as to what they should do, but none was given. Without warning, a third soldier emerged from inside the tank and started shooting at the three girls and then also at their grandmother. Several bullets hit Souad in the chest, Amal in the stomach and Samar in the back. Hajja Souad was hit in the lower back and in the left arm.

[The IDF refused to let an ambulance bring them to the hospital, so they walked. Amal and Souad died. Samar had a spinal injury and was left paraplegic for life. The Israeli government never investigated this event or prosecuted the soldier responsible.]

After the first Gaza war, Israeli government lawyers warned top officials not to travel in certain parts of Europe, because they might be arrested for violating the Geneva Conventions. A lot of them were shooting their mouths off with customary Israeli arrogance about "making them suffer" because they had elected Hamas, and using "overwhelming force".

Let's take a look at the membership of the UN Human Rights Commission-

China Kuwait Pakistan Russia Saudi Arabia UAE Venezuela

Clearly these folks are qualified to tell other people about how important civil rights are.

Please, check your info, before trying to take credibility from the U.N. Commission of Human Rights:

"To implement our comprehensive mandate, we employ 1085 staff (as of 31 December 2013) based in Geneva, New York and in 13 country offices and 13 regional offices or centres around the world, as well as a workforce of 689 international human rights officers serving in UN peace missions or political offices. We are funded from the United Nations regular budget and from voluntary contributions from Member States, intergovernmental organizations, foundations and individuals."
Source: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/AboutU...

Who is going to maintain this after you leave? Are you making a firm commitment to provide maintenance in the long term? If so, your off-site VPS solution with a web front end may be appropriate. If not, and there is no local IT expertise at the charity, something self-contained that needs only a single consumer software package to work (Access, Libreoffice Base, even an Excel or Calc workbook) has a better chance of remaining useful when you're gone. Since this is personal data, have you considered how the local law may affect how the data must be stored, secured and accessed? e.g:

https://uprdoc.ohchr.org/uprwe...
 

The problem is that it's a bunch of politicians making decisions they either have no idea about or are only there to sabotage take the UN Human Rights comittee for instance http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodi... 1/2 of these countries haven't exactly got a clean record on Human Rights to start off with.

You can read the statements of Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch (organizations founded by Jews) which condemn violations of international law by Palestinians and Israelis alike. There are clear standards.

This is the kind of disproportionate response Israel has been committing. You can see many more cases like this in the Goldstone report http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Fact_Finding_Mission_on_the_Gaza_Conflict I could accept an Israeli incursion into Gaza if at least they limited themselves to killing combatants and not deliberately killing non-threatening civilians, but they don't. If you're an American, your tax money is paying for this. Are you willing to accept this?

http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/12session/A-HRC-12-48.pdf

773. At about 12.50 p.m., Khalid Abd Rabbo, his wife Kawthar, their three daughters, Souad (aged 9), Samar (aged 5) and Amal (aged 3), and his mother, Hajja Souad Abd Rabbo, stepped out of the house, all of them carrying white flags. Less than 10 metres from the door was a tank, turned towards their house. Two soldiers were sitting on top of it having a snack (one was eating chips, the other chocolate, according to one of the witnesses). The family stood still, waiting for orders from the soldiers as to what they should do, but none was given. Without warning, a third soldier emerged from inside the tank and started shooting at the three girls and then also at their grandmother. Several bullets hit Souad in the chest, Amal in the stomach and Samar in the back. Hajja Souad was hit in the lower back and in the left arm.

(The IDF refused to let an anbulance bring them to the hospital, so they walked. Amal and Souad died. Samar had a spinal injury and was left paraplegic for life.)

Second, what should they do? The Palestinians, including Hamas, have been making peace offers for years. One of the Hamas leaders, Ahmed Jabari, was prepared to sign a long-term peace agreement; he was one of the first assassinated by Israel. It really seems that Netanyahu doesn't want peace. This is a consistent pattern -- every time Hamas calls a ceasefire, the Israelis assassinate somebody.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/17/opinion/israels-shortsighted-assassination.html
Op-Ed Contributor
Israel’s Shortsighted Assassination
By GERSHON BASKIN
Published: November 16, 2012

Passing messages between the two sides, I was able to learn firsthand that Mr. Jabari wasn’t just interested in a long-term cease-fire; he was also the person responsible for enforcing previous cease-fire understandings brokered by the Egyptian intelligence agency. Mr. Jabari enforced those cease-fires only after confirming that Israel was prepared to stop its attacks on Gaza. On the morning that he was killed, Mr. Jabari received a draft proposal for an extended cease-fire with Israel, including mechanisms that would verify intentions and ensure compliance. This draft was agreed upon by me and Hamas’s deputy foreign minister, Mr. Hamad, when we met last week in Egypt.

Gershon Baskin is a co-chairman of the Israel Palestine Center for Research and Information, a columnist for The Jerusalem Post and the initiator and negotiator of the secret back channel for the release of Gilad Shalit.

http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/Pages/CurrentMembers.aspx
Angola, Austria, Bangladesh, Belgium, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso,Cameroon, Chile, China, Congo, Costa Rica, Cuba, Czech Republic, Djibouti, Ecuador, Guatemala, Hungary India, Indonesia, Italy, Jordan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Libya * Malaysia, Maldives, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mexico, Nigeria Norway, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Qatar, Republic of Moldova, Romania, Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Spain, Switzerland, Thailand Uganda, United States of America.

So, you claim that these countries are largely islamic states?

The amount of proganda and lies you are fed in your in your country is astounding. I know fighting against it is like trying to stop a tsunami with one's bare hands, but sometimes I can't help myself.

We're talking about the same United Nations that has Libya on its Human Rights Council. What do you think is going to happen?

How are we supposed to take your post seriously on a geek discussion site if you cant even post a link properly?

The link you wanted to post was here:

Libya

And btw, why should they not be on the council again in 2013? They are no longer a dictatorship and are making great strives towards democracy now that Gadafi is gone.

You did realise that was what it said on the link you posted didn't you? Here is the story stating they will be re-admitted:

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=40438&Cr=libya&Cr1

They were kicked off the council for clamping down on their own citizens at the start of the arab spring.

Also Women is Saudi Arabia can vote and run for office, historically they could not (like everywhere 100 year ago).

No, they can't. They MAY be allowed to in 2015, if the King keeps his promise.

Also there is nothing in the law about leaving the house.

Arguing the technically on de jure vs. de facto practices went out here in the U.S. back when segregationists used to argue that TECHNICALLY in the LAW there was nothing stopping blacks from voting in the South. The reality is that women walking around without a male escort in Saudi Arabia are banned from all businesses and are subject to beating by the religious police there. But don't take my, or the evil western media's, word for it. Read the United Nations Report on the subject (part III, section D).

The United States was booted off the UN human rights committee and replaced by China out of its unwillingness to address fundamental problems like having the highest incarceration rate of any UN member nation, no journalist shield laws, carrying out a forced sterilization program on its citizens, and for numerous actions that are against the Geneva convention such as the torture of political prisoners and secret courts where people are indefinately detained or even executed.

Source? According to the Human Rights Council's website, the US and China are both current members.

Also, although the US has no federal shield laws for journalists, most states do (and I really doubt China has any).

Clearly the US government has committed human-rights abuses, but are you seriously arguing that China has a better record on human rights than the US?

http://www.alternet.org/investigations/148314/un_report%3A_american_citizen_executed_by_israelis_during_mavi_marmara_raid/

'Based on both "forensic and firearm evidence," the fact-finding panel concluded that Dogan's killing and that of five Turkish citizens by the Israeli troops on the Mavi Marmari May 31 "can be characterized as extra-legal, arbitrary and summary executions." (See Report [.pdf] Page 38, Section 170)"'

http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/15session/A.HRC.15.21_en.pdf

I like the thought of the government defending its citizenry's fundamental human rights. But these days nobody seems to value that role of the government.

Of course, it does give a few (some would say unscrupulous) companies the ability to deprive U.S. citizens of access to the Internet, something that the U.N. has declared to be a fundamental human rights.

Thus far, for-profit companies do not have a particularly stellar track record when it comes to protecting fundamental human rights.

The UN recently declared internet access to be a basic human right. I wonder what they would have to say about the government colluding with corporations to curtail the basic human rights of citizens of the United States.
Oh, who am I kidding. They probably won't have anything to say about it at all.

From: U.N. Report Declares Internet Access a Human Right

The report, by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression, comes the same day an internet-monitoring firm detected that two thirds of Syria's internet access has abruptly gone dark, in what is likely a government response to unrest in that country.

Full report, dated 15 May 2011: Report of the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, Frank La Rue

1. Take your pick

UN's International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights has declared the same:
"Every human being has the inherent right to life. This right shall be protected by law. No man shall be deprived of his life arbitrarily."
"[The Death] penalty can only be carried out pursuant to a final judgment rendered by a competent court" – ICCPR Articles 6.1 and 6.2.[1

Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions
http://www2.ohchr.org/english/issues/executions/index.htm

Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism
http://www2.ohchr.org/english/issues/terrorism/rapporteur/srchr.htm

2. "So what?" you say. We've got this important principle called "Rule of Law". If you cannot comprehend this simple fact then you have huge huge problems. The way it was handled was *not* right, let alone legal.

1. Take your pick

UN's International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights has declared the same:
"Every human being has the inherent right to life. This right shall be protected by law. No man shall be deprived of his life arbitrarily."
"[The Death] penalty can only be carried out pursuant to a final judgment rendered by a competent court" – ICCPR Articles 6.1 and 6.2.[1

Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions
http://www2.ohchr.org/english/issues/executions/index.htm

Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism
http://www2.ohchr.org/english/issues/terrorism/rapporteur/srchr.htm

2. "So what?" you say. We've got this important principle called "Rule of Law". If you cannot comprehend this simple fact then you have huge huge problems. The way it was handled was *not* right, let alone legal.

Did I hurt your feelings? I'm only trying to be objective here, I don't have any feelings for or against Brazil. I believe it will become a fully developed country within a few decades.

Israel is clearly a developed nation in every aspect of the word. A structured society, ruled by law, organized and effective, high income status, high GDP levels, high levels of education and research all speak in favor of this status.

I assume you object because of the nature of the conflict with/over Palestine? That fact does not detract from the fact that Israelis enjoy a higher quality of life [on average] than say Brazilians. Please, remember I'm not referring to the top echelons of either society.

Freedom House's American origins not withstanding it still produces solid reports, I doubt you can find factual faults with that report?

At least I provided sources and arguments for my claims, you just dismissed the source without providing any counterarguments.

You also seem to have skipped criticizing all the other international sources I named from the OECD to the UN? Do you at least approve of them?

I did my homework, you on the other hand have nothing but hot air.

Sources

How about an official UN report from the High Commissioner for Human Rights on your country and crime, corruption and violence?

How about the UNESCO's official page for Brazil:

"Brazil has been historically marked by social, economic and cultural inequalities. Both society and government are increasingly aware of the need for changing that scenario by creating mechanisms of social participation and control, programmes, projects, and actions that represent a movement towards positive changes."

"Although it has a large number of poor people Brazil is not a poor country, but still has to overcome social injustice and inequality. The social injustices are are reflected in a medium rank in the Human Development Index (HDI), which means that difficulties are still to be overcome in education, health, income distribution and employment conditions."

How about a report from Brazil itself (Ministério da Educação)?

I quote:" In spite of these undeniable advances, Brazil still needs to make great improvements in
these indicators. In terms of HDI in the Latin America and Caribbean region, Argentina,
Chile, Uruguay, Costa Rica, Cuba and Mexico all have higher scores than Brazil."

"In spite of Brazil having the eighth largest economy in the world, the extreme inequality in
income which still typifies the country means that problems of social exclusion running
alongside economic growth continue to exist."

"These data show that, in spite of the progress made, the defects in the Brazilian school
system are still producing large numbers of people with insufficient levels of education,"

"The situation of socio-economic exclusion and insufficient provision of basic education are
also reflected in the opportunities for lifelong learning."

Nationmaster further provides details and sources on the crime rates in Brazil:
http://www.nationmaster.com/country/br-brazil/cri-crime

And so on...

Look up the Bedouin situation in Israel and get back to me. They are not even allowed to participate in local elections let alone national ones, but the Jewish Israelis in the same area do, if that is not unethical to an open society than what is?

I take it you didn't see that study recently that showed that America alone wastes 1 400 kilocalories per person per day, or 150 trillion kilocalories per year. It takes roughly 1 000 kilocalories per day to reverse malnutrition in children. So, just taking food from America's trash, we could eradicate hunger in children. Of course, then they'd be poisoned by all the crap in fast food, but nevertheless.

Alternatively, you could just read this .doc file, pointing out that we already produce enough food to feed double the population of the world? I know, accepting the idea that people starve because of the greed and apathy of wealthy nations combined with the corrupt governments of rich and poor nations, rather than because of some complex socio-economic problem, but it simply isn't true that world hunger is a complex problem.

tl;dr: the world produces enough food to make everyone in the world fat, we just throw it away instead of feeding the 1 000 000 000 starving people.

I though there was a UN convention that prohibited extradition to countries that practice torture or won't give a person due process.

The Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment says, in Section 3.1, "No State Party shall expel, return ('refouler') or extradite a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture." The treaty permits extradition to a state that practices torture as long as you think the particular person you're extraditing won't be tortured. Similarly, I believe EU countries generally won't extradite anyone to the US if they would face capital punishment, but will extradite them if the US agrees that they won't be executed.

Given the diplomatic repercussions if this guy were tortured (i.e., the UK not extraditing anyone anymore), it's unlikely. It really wouldn't be worth it for the US to torture him, given that they gain nothing (it's not like he knows anything) and stand to lose a lot. It might happen, I guess, but I doubt it's likely enough to violate the Convention. Although IANAL, of course.

I'm not aware of any UN convention that prohibits extradition to countries that won't give a person "due process", but one might exist. UK law is more relevant here, though, since most treaties of this sort don't have intranational dispute resolution mechanisms. The Convention against Torture provides a means of arbitration in Article 30, but only if there's a dispute between states, not if a citizen thinks his own state is violating the treaty. So if the UK and EU decide the extradition doesn't violate any laws or treaties, there's no further recourse in practice.

"Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice."

What did the UN do? Caved in to tyrants, of course. It's what the UN does - look at its record. I say this without rancor or anger, it's very sad what the UN was intended to be and how it has turned out in the year 2009. The idea of an international organization of nations is a good idea, but the United Nations as an implementation has failed.

Actually, you can make plants grow in the desert. Also, while it is a travesty that we don't adequately feed every human being on the planet, we should not only be able to do so, but we should be able to do so even if the current world population doubles.