Were it not for the fact that the UN's failures have had such tragic consequences for sexually—epxloited children in Africa and Asia, that its corruption denied money to pay for medicines and food for Iraqi children, and that it abets corrupt tyrants, anti—Semites, and terror regimes, there would be considerable humor in the following from the New York Sun:

The United Nations, which urges the world's companies to follow anti—pollution, labor rights, and other standards of corporate responsibility, often ignores those aims when investing its own $29 billion employee pension fund.

A copy of the world body's investment portfolio includes at least a dozen companies that don't adhere to principles in the U.N.'s "Global Compact" for corporate behavior, according to rights groups and pension managers who reviewed the list of almost 400 companies. Fund managers who screen for social responsibility say they would reject those dozen companies as assets in their portfolios.

Why would anyone have any respect for this institution?

Ed Lasky   11 01 05