US Action News

The election on Tuesday of five new U.N. Security Council members sets up a challenging year ahead for the United States.

America has more freedom and is more generous with its money and blood than any other nation in the world. Yet in a a report to the UN Human Rights Council which includes such grand examples of human rights as Angola, Bahrain, China, Cuba, Gabon, Jordan, Kyrgyzstan, Libya, Mauritania, Qatar, Russia and Saudi Arabia, Obama denigrates America as a human rights offender.

Team Obama sites Obamacare and its lawsuit against Arizona as shining examples of US human rights progress in a UN assessment report that will be submitted to the UN Human Rights Council which includes such grand examples of human rights as Angola, Bahrain, China, Cuba, Gabon, Jordan, Kyrgyzstan, Libya, Mauritania, Qatar, Russia and Saudi Arabia.

“Clinton’s failure to mobilize America to confront foreign terror after the 1993 attack [on the World Trade Center] led directly to the 9/11 disaster.” According to Morris, “Clinton was removed, uninvolved, and distant where the war on terror was concerned.”

Under the cloak of Washington’s indifference, Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chávez is making steady progress in cementing strategic relations with China, which is eager to eclipse U.S. presence in a key, mineral-rich South American economy. Russia is a source of weapons and foreign policy clout, Iran is abetting Chávez’s shadowy nuclear program, and Cuba is managing a system of internal control and repression in Venezuela.

The Pentagon voiced alarm over China’s military buildup, saying it was expanding its advantage over Taiwan and investing heavily in ballistic and cruise missile capabilities that could one day pose a challenge to U.S. dominance in the western Pacific.

U.S. naval planners are scrambling to deal with what analysts say is a game-changing weapon being developed by China — an unprecedented carrier-killing missile called the Dong Feng 21D that could be launched from land with enough accuracy to penetrate the defenses of even the most advanced moving aircraft carrier at a distance of more than 1,500 kilometers (900 miles).

The US and South Korea’s plans to hold joint military exercises pose a major danger to the region, Pyongyang says.

The triumph of democracy in Honduras marked a turning point. The recent election results in Colombia; the remarkable economic, political, and social progress of Peru, the new conservative governments in Panama and Chile; Felipe Calderón’s handling of a complex political situation in Mexico; and the increasingly blatant authoritarian excesses of Venezuela and its satellites—all of this has created an adverse environment for Chávez and his cohorts.

Former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton on the growing financial tension between the U.S. and the rest of the world.