UN Names N. Korea Chair of Disarmament Committee 182
LibRT writes "The irony-challenged folks at the UN have named North Korea chair of the Conference on Disarmament, which is heavily focused on the prevention of a nuclear arms race and nuclear disarmament. The Canadian government has boycotted the convention, calling it an 'absurd' turn of events: 'North Korea is simply not a credible chair of a disarmament body. The fact that it gets a turn chairing a United Nations committee focused on disarmament is unacceptable, given the North Korean regime's efforts in the exact opposite direction.'"
Note that Libya was once president of the UN's Human Rights Commission, and only recently removed from its successor in interest, the Human Rights Council.
Alternate Headline: North Korea is in the UN (Score:5, Informative)
If you bothered to RTFA you'd realize that the chair rotates among all the nations and North Korea will only hold it until August 19th.
Predictably incomplete summary (Score:5, Informative)
This has nothing to do with being irony-challenged and everything to do with representation.
1) the UN is an international body which encourages participation from all. You don't make peace with your friends, you make it with your enemies.
2) the Conference On Disarmament is not like the Security Council
3) the chair of the Conference On Disarmament is appointed on a rotational basis, so the UN has not deliberately and fecklessly chosen North Korea; they are a member of the Conference (they need to be so we can discuss disarmament with them) so the chair comes to them eventually.
4) the chairmanship period is ONLY SIX WEEKS LONG
5) without such bizarre situations it would be difficult for the world to stand up and mention the bitter irony and discuss North Korea's record, now wouldn't it?
I appreciate this isn't going to stop the armchair John Boltons of slashdot, and I consider this a service to others who might otherwise feel the need to raise their blood pressure to deal with the inevitable idiots. I got this one guys; you can deal with it when Israel gets the chair.
Re:considering that Obama (Score:5, Informative)
20 years ago.