Report says U.S. will Withdraw from U.N. Human Rights Council | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's note: This informational nugget was sent to me by Ben Shapiro, who represents the Daily Wire, and since this is one of the most topical news events, it should be published on BCN.

    This post was written by Hank Berrien.

    In huge news, Reuters reports that the United States is about to withdraw from the U.N. Human Rights Council.

    Reuters reports that a U.S. source said the pullout is "imminent," and that diplomats "said it was not a question of if but of when the United States retreats from the Human Rights Council, which is holding a three-week session through July 6."

    The U.N. Human Rights Council has been warned; in June 2017, U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley stated that the Council must "address its chronic anti-Israel bias," adding, "It is essential that this council address its chronic anti-Israel bias if it is to have any credibility. She asserted that the U.S. was "looking carefully at this council and our participation in it." She noted the "rapidly deteriorating human rights situation" in Venezuela, and said it was "hard to accept that this Council has never considered a resolution on Venezuela, and yet it adopted five biased resolutions in March against a single country, Israel."

    In September 2017, Vice-President Mike Pence echoed:

• The Human Rights Council doesn't deserve its name. Today, the United Nations Human Rights Council actually attracts and welcomes many of the worst human rights violators in the world. A clear majority of the Human Rights Council's members fail to meet even the most basic human rights standards.
• Cuba sits on the Human Rights Council, an oppressive regime that has repressed its people and jailed political opponents for more than half a century. Venezuela sits on the Human Rights Council, a dictatorship that undermines democracy at every turn, imprisons political opponents, and as we speak is advancing policies that worsen deprivation and poverty that's costing the lives of innocent men, women, and children.
• ... the Human Rights Council has become a forum for anti-Semitism and invective against Israel. The council's agenda item seven actually singles out Israel for discussion at every single meeting, something no other country must endure. As evidence, the Human Rights Council has passed more than 70 resolutions condemning Israel, while largely ignoring the world's worst human rights abusers.

    The Human Rights Council has no problem inviting a man cited as one of the most brutal men in the world address it, and a look at the new members inaugurated in 2017 into the Council shows a list of some of the most anti-human rights governments in existence.

    President George W. Bush boycotted the Council for three years before Barack Obama rejoined it in 2009. Last month, the notoriously anti-Israel Council voted to accuse Israel of excessive use of force. The United States and Australia were the only two members of the 47-member body to vote against the resolution.