The United Nations is an utter disaster and unmitigated failure. Take a look at Israel where any number of UN resolutions have gone ignored and scoffed at.Then there's Rwanda where it failed miserably as it did in the Balkans,It took the NATO forces to bomb the Serbs to their senses before another ten thousand Bosnian Muslims would have been butchered. And dont just point to the trial of Milosovich and a pitiful handful of his pals when the UN knows right now of the whereabouts Of Karadich and Ratko Milan or whatever his name is.And nothing is done to arrest them and drag them to the Hague.

Then there's Darfur, the DR of the Congo and Sudan and Kashmir.

Has the world forgotten Hyderabad that was declared an independent state until in 1947.Nehru marched his troops in a few years later on the pretext of taking temporary "police action" to protect the Hindu businesses.Today Hyderabad is "unquestionably" an integral part of India. Swallowed up. The same thing is being repeated i the West Bank in Palestine and the UN hasnt seen a thing. LOL Yeah.

The list goes on and on...altogether too vast to find a place in this brief thread.

socratease

Socratease, you said, "The United Nations is an utter disaster and unmitigated failure." This is true and few would try to deny this. An honest appraisal of the Homo sapiens species would reveal, in my opinion, that the our Uninted Nations' "unmitigated failure" is a direct reflection of the weakness of our species! The question becomes, where and who are we and will we destroy ourselves?

I think the first question that needs to be asked is whether or not the actions of the government of Israel can be considered racist. Enough people I hold in high regard seem to think so and I would tend to agree.

The posts here seem to be saying by extension the world shouldn't have targeted the South African regime because of what was happening in Cambodia or other international calamities. I don't think it is a supportable position.

As to the original Durban conference from my admittedly limited reading it appears to have been the NGO meetings that went awry rather than the meeting of government representatives. But even then the final resolutions didn't appear to be off the scale.

Perhaps I need enlightening but from what I can gleen so far I am of the opinion that the Australian government should attend.