Welcome to the IGO Watch Monthly Newsletter for December

What a tumultuous year it has been for everyone! First of all, we would like to thank all of you for the support you’ve given us this year, which has enabled IGO Watch to further grow in 2020 and continue our vital task of keeping a watch on international governmental organizations!  We hope that you are excited and hopeful about what is to come in 2021. As for us, we wish to continue providing you with news and updates about IGO activity around the world. Make sure to follow us closely on Facebook and Twitter and stay tuned for exciting news as we expand our presence and activities throughout the New Year!

While we enjoy our winter holidays, let’s also take a look at the most important activities by IGOs around the world this month.

TURNING TO THE EAST

In confirmation of something that should come as no surprise to anyone following us, a senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, stated that the special COVID-19 session of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly was pre-engineered to serve the Chinese Communist Party’s purposes and to allow Beijing to spread propaganda within the global agency. At the same time, the annual choice of who will steer the United Nations Human Right Council (UNHRC) has sparked controversy with a last-minute, China-backed bid for presidency by Bahrain. This is seen by many as an effort by China, Russia and Saudi Arabia to put compliant states in control of as many UN bodies ahead of greater involvement by the new U.S. administration. The UNHRC is probably the most fertile ground for such an endeavor, having been extremely biased in the way it approaches world issues, and having a plethora of regimes with traditions of state-sponsored human right abuse among its ranks. As an illustration, since its creation in 2006, the UNHRC has almost made more resolutions condemning Israel than on the rest of the world combined. Beijing, which continues to put millions of Uyghurs into concentration camps, is destroying all freedoms in Hong Kong, and just last week sentenced a journalist to 4 years in prison for the “crime” of truthfully reporting about Covid, being a key player in the Human Rights Council should be an utter disgrace at all times. But their attitude of complete indifference to the principles of the UN was perhaps best expressed earlier this month, when a German UN envoy, during his last scheduled UN Security Council meeting and after more than 40 years as a diplomat, appealed to China to free two detained Canadians for Christmas, prompting China’s deputy UN envoy to respond: “Out of the bottom of my heart: Good riddance.”

IT’S BEEN A FULL YEAR

Speaking of Chinese Influence, it is completely unacceptable that the World Health Organization’s (WHO) probe into the origins of coronavirus hasn’t been completed for nearly a year. The WHO announced that its team of international experts will travel to China in January to investigate the animal origins of coronavirus. Given that China refusing to admit that their lack of transparency did not worsen the global outbreak and that the virus originated outside of the country in the first place, the only certain thing that will come out of the WHO probe is that we will have to take the results with a grain of salt. A lack of transparency isn’t the only issue just when it comes to WHO’s activities in China during the pandemic outburst. As we learned this month, a UN epidemiologist who denounced the WHO’s withdrawal of a report on Italy’s coronavirus response said that he filed an internal ethics complaint with the WHO in May after he said he was pressured by a senior WHO official to falsify data to obscure that Italy hadn’t updated its influenza pandemic preparedness plan since 2006. We are not holding our breath it will be taken with the seriousness it deserves.

DYSTOPIAN TYPE OF CONTROL

The European Union (EU) unveiled a landmark legislation that forces tech giants to abide by strict rules if they want to do business in the European market. This draft legislation, titled the Digital Services Act (DSA) and the Digital Markets Act (DMA), outlines specific regulations that seek to limit the power of global internet firms and is the latest in line of EU attempts to amass control of the online domain. If the EU continues with its efforts to overregulate large digital companies, the costs will simply be passed on to small businesses and consumers, bringing larger issues than the most recent removal of stickers and polls on Messenger and Instagram, a particularly nonsensical result of the EU’s poorly written and deeply flawed “ePrivacy” directive. But, as we have so far learned, the EU has an insatiable need for additional revenue streams in order to fund its wasteful, populist agenda, such as this month’s “World’s Largest Green Stimulus” – a €672 taxpayer-funded spending spree, ostensibly to fight the effects of Covid, but in a reality where 37% of which goes to “climate-sensitive” projects.

Partner Spotlight: The Taxpayers Protection Alliance

The Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA) is a non-profit non-partisan organization dedicated to educating the public through the research, analysis and dissemination of information on the government’s effects on the economy, and is the founder and co-ordinator of IGO Watch. TPA, through its network of taxpayers will hold politicians accountable for the effects of their policies on the size, scope, efficiency and activity of government and offer real solutions to runaway deficits and debt.

Ultimately recognizing that the greatest power of change rests with the millions of Americans across the country who are ready for a smaller, more accountable government, TPA is a catalyst for connecting taxpayers to their elected and non-elected officials.

See Something? Say Something!

Our wish for 2021 is to further develop our network of regional coordinators from countries around the world to help us distribute information on social media, write blog posts and op-eds, and provide us with on-the-ground information from their regions. If you have any tips about stories, or would like to become a regional coordinator, please send us an email!

Happy Holidays and Best Wishes for 2021,

IGO Watch Team

 

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