Reason #2131243343294 the UN is a joke

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North Korea heads disarmament body UNITED NATIONS — Nuclear-armed North Korea has assumed the presidency of a key United Nations disarmament body — despite facing UN Security Council sanctions over its weapons programs. The development comes in the same week the UN defended its decision to support Iran's holding of an international "anti-terrorism" conference — which saw participants declaring that Western powers were the international terrorists. UN officials point out that North Korean ambassador So Se Pyong takes on the presidency of the Geneva-based Conference on Disarmament under rules that say the chair will rotate among all 65 member states in alphabetical order. But critics said Wednesday the rules should be changed when they allow the body — whose mandate is in part to push for world nuclear disarmament — to be led by a country that the West considers to be an international nuclear renegade. "No system should tolerate such a fundamental conflict of interests," said Hillel Neuer, executive director of Geneva-based UN Watch, which also led protests against the UN's input at the Iranian "anti-terrorism" conference. "It's common sense that a disarmament body should not be headed by the world's arch-villain on illegal weapons and nuclear proliferation, notorious for exporting missiles and nuclear know-how to fellow rogue regimes around the globe." Once a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, North Korea pulled out in 2003 after violating it, then conducted its first nuclear bomb test in 2006, and is believed to have stockpiled up to eight nuclear warheads. So Se Pyong said during an address Tuesday he was "very engaged in moving the conference forward," and would use his four working-weeks of presidency to seek "constructive proposals" that would strengthen the "work and the credibility" of the conference. "That might make sense, if by 'forward' he means toward a nuclear winter, or by 'constructive,' he means steering clear of anything that might impede North Korea," argued Anne Bayefsky, head of the New York-based monitoring group Eye on the UN. One of the most vocal countries at conference meetings is Iran, which British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Wednesday had just carried out secret tests of ballistic missiles capable of delivering a nuclear payload in breach of UN resolutions. Iran's ambassador to the conference, Mohammad Hassan Daryaei, pledged his country's "full support and co-operation" with North Korea as he congratulated the body's new president. Canadian government envoy Marius Grinius also welcomed North Korea's succession — but went on to highlight that Ottawa, along with other Western powers, believes the body has been marginalized for years. He said it was "not negotiating anything," and had "not been for a very long time." While the UN bills the conference as the "single multilateral disarmament negotiating forum of the international community," others exist — to the point that Grinius signalled the UN body's inertia may in the end seal its own fate. He argued that the conference was on "life support," and appeared to be proposing its disbandment as he said the body was "fast approaching a historic tipping point." A key obstacle to progress is the conference's rule that everything must be decided by consensus, which critics say some countries utilize as a de fact veto. Pakistan, for example, has blocked a long-proposed Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty, which aims to ban the further production of material that can be used to fuel a nuclear bomb. Read more: http://www.canada.com/news/Another+oddity+North+Korea+heads+disarmament+body/5026018/story.html#ixzz1QrCDhAYD

[akshayxyz]

US or any other military/war-head heavy nations do not deserve that position either. But I really hope either this is a joke or some deep thought went into it. Here is a funny view point from Reddit. Of course, I do not subscribe to it at all.

At first glance this is definitely a WTF. But if you are to think a little deeper, it makes a bit more sense. The international community has been battling with North Korea over disarmament for a long time, and nothing has seemed to work. I believe that awarding this position to North Korea is a new strategy for trying to rein the nation which has so blatantly defied past attempts at control. Metaphorically it could be understood as the kid in class who acts out and is given responsibility, like getting the milk from the cafeteria. By giving North Korea an active role in the process they may be more likely to adopt the sanctions placed against them, as they are no longer an unrepresented victim of Western dominance. This has been one of Kim Jong Il's main talking points.