Magic Statistics

The United Nations Human Rights Council voted earlier this week to halt independent investigations of Belarus and Cuba, while continuing to monitor Israel.  Those decisions have drawn criticism from many Western countries and from UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

The European Union, Canada and the United States had already attacked the singling-out of Israel's role in the Palestinian territories for continued special investigation, under the deal reached in Geneva on Monday.
 
A UN statement said, "The Secretary-General is disappointed at the council's decision to single out only one specific regional item given the range and scope of allegations of human rights violations throughout the world."

The statement did not actually name Israel, but apparently that’s the “specific regional item” he was talking about.

The package of measures was presented as a “compromise” agreement, even though Canada spoke against the package and withheld consent.  Canada’s explicit objections notwithstanding, the HRC declared that the package was adopted by consensus.  UN Watch has the story.

For possibly the first time in the history of the United Nations, one of its major bodies has ruled that a consensus vote was achieved even though one of its members—one with a particular reputation for honesty—insists it never gave consent, much less even saw the text that was voted upon.  In its most aggressive Orwellian move to date, the UN Human Rights Council declared that this week’s package of new procedures was adopted by consensus, on the night of June 18.  (In fact, the rushed declaration of council president Luis Alfonso de Alba was made past the legal midnight deadline, already in the early moments of June 19, but that’s another story.)  Canada’s challenge to this interpretation was then overruled by the Council, 46 members to 1, the lone vote being Canada’s.

Read the whole thing for the text of Canada’s point of order opposing the consensus declaration.

Sounds like the HRC’s shady manoeuvres stirred up a real hornet’s nest.  What a fine way to end its first year of operations.

Never mind all that. At least one country thought the HRC’s little package was just fine.

Belarusian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrey Papou said in a statement on June 20 that the UN Human Rights Council's decision on June 18 to eliminate the position of its rapporteur on human-rights observance in Belarus shows the council's ability to be guided "by the principles of a constructive international dialogue and cooperation in the human-rights sphere," Belapan reported.

I guess that’s “cooperation” of a sort.  I’ll ignore your human rights abuses if you’ll ignore mine—but for Israel, we’ll make an exception.

h/t: Judeoscope

Previous related posts:

• Belarus off the hook for human rights violations
• UN Human Rights Council decides to ignore Iran and Uzbekistan
• UN Human Rights Council votes against identifying rights-abusing nations

Australia’s opposition Labor Party has endorsed a proposal to revolutionise the country’s social policy by tying welfare to personal responsibility.  The government of Prime Minister John Howard is already preparing new welfare rules and regulations giving effect to the proposal.

Opposition indigenous affairs spokeswoman Jenny Macklin has thrown Labor's support behind radically restructuring welfare payments, while the Howard Government is preparing cabinet submissions that would ensure welfare was quarantined for use on housing and food.

The plans embrace proposals put forward by Mr Pearson, the Cape York indigenous activist, who wants Aboriginal families to be stripped of welfare payments if their children are abused or miss school. He has spent a decade arguing for an end to passive welfare but until now has failed to win bipartisan political support.
. . .
Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough said he was preparing several cabinet submissions in line with Mr Pearson's hard-core approach. Under Mr Brough's plan, all families - white and black - that spent welfare money on alcohol, gambling and drugs would be forced to direct-debit part of their benefits to pay for rent, electricity and food.

Ms Macklin said she supports Mr Pearson’s report in principle, but does not necessarily agree with all of his policy initiatives.

The plan initially calls for a trial in four North Queensland communities.

h/t: Political Correctness Watch

Previous related posts:

• New Zealand’s growing underclass problem
• Australia to reverse PC history teaching

Most countries in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union risk an economic crisis if they do not act now to counteract the effects of rapidly aging and shrinking populations, according to a new report from The World Bank.  Eighteen of the 28 countries in the region can expect their populations to be lower in 2025.  The largest declines: Russia, 17 million; Ukraine, 12 million; Romania, 2 million.

Economist Gordon Betcherman, co-author of the report, spoke about the implications.

It is a difficult enough challenge for countries in Western Europe and the European Union to grapple with the expected pension increase and health care [cost] increases that are going to accompany aging populations.

But when you talk about countries in the former Soviet Union and the Central Asian republics - these are countries that are going to be  dealing with these demographic pressures, first of all, with much lower levels of resources. Just to put it bluntly, a lot less money to throw at the problem than Western European countries. And second of all, we’re talking about pension and health-care systems that really aren’t functioning very well in the first place. So it’s a problem that is really getting overlaid on systems that themselves are not functioning that well.

To deal with the ominous demographic outlook, Mr Betcherman recommends strategies to increase economic output, including encouraging labour force participation and productivity growth.  Nothing about measures to encourage more births, however.

The chart above (click for larger view) shows the predicted rates of population growth for the countries under study.  Substantial growth is expected in only seven:, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Turkey, Kyrgyz Republic, Azerbaijan, and Albania.

The World Bank introduces its report here.  The full report can be downloaded here.

Previous related posts:

• Soviet Union redux?
• Bulgaria has the fastest-shrinking population in Europe
• Russia’s demographic catastrophe
• Low income countries are aging, too