Social justice in the classroom? That's crazy talk

It's no secret that American education is in crisis.

So you'd think people would welcome any creative way to give our kids a break, as budgets get squeezed, teachers are laid off, class sizes grow and critical thinking skills give way to rote learning by textbook and standardized test. In fact, creativity is actually flourishing against the odds.

In Chicago, Mayor Rahm Emanuel has embraced the prestigious International Baccalaureate program in high schools as a way of expanding the educational horizons of the city's best and brightest. And rightly so: U.S. high schools offering the IB program often find themselves on lists of the best schools in the country.

Something else that's no secret, though, is that certain conservatives love a good culture war and rarely miss an opportunity to trumpet ignorance over learning -- on the basis, presumably, that being dumb as dirt is more authentically American than actually knowing anything.  And so, the Republican Party of Minnesota recently decided that it opposes any state or federal funding for IB. And in Idaho, the Coeur d’Alene School District has decided to pull the IB program altogether.

Why? A leading opponent, lawyer Duncan Koler, told the school board last week that the IB is full of “concepts that are politically charged, such as social justice, sustainability. These are code terms." Code for what? Social justice, that is some crazy talk.

What's really going on is a backlash against creativity in education. The International Baccalaureate, we are told, is some sinister UN-backed plot that promotes totalitarian concepts and seeks, in the words of one anti-IB activist, to “program our children’s minds with new loyalties.” Nicky Kram Rosen, the principal of PS 368 in Hamilton Heights in New York City who is putting Arabic on the curriculum next year, is -- according to one scathing local critic -- part of "a cesspool for panderers and anarchists with an international agenda".

The mindset here is so 2003, that miserable year when Arabs were all terrorists, the French -- originators of the Baccalaureate -- were surrender monkeys, and congressmen preferred freedom fries for their lunch. You could even say it's so 1856, when nativists and Know-Nothings fought against the immigrant melting pot in America's growing cities because they thought that foreigners had nothing to contribute but disease, corruption and suspect ideas. They were wrong then and they are wrong now.

The fact is, the IB program has won wide international recognition for its exacting standards and the breadth of knowledge and critical thinking it demands of its students. High-schoolers who participate are taught a second language -- really taught a second language. They are encouraged to engage in community service and develop understanding and respect for other cultures, not as an alternative to national identity, but as an essential part of life in the 21st century.

A recent University of Chicago study showed that students in the IB program were 40 percent more likely to go to college. Tell that to the New Hampshire legislature, which made a short-lived attempt earlier this year to introduce an anti-IB bill banning any public school curriculum "subject to the governance of a foreign body or organization". The bill passed the New Hampshire State House but died, thankfully, in the Senate.

To be against the International Baccalaureate is to be against learning itself, because that's the beginning and the end of what it offers. More than 1000 universities -- including the US Air Force Academy, the US Naval Academy, and institutions like Brown University, Columbia University, and Stanford University -- recognize the IB Diploma as a mark of academic excellence.

Last time I checked, these were pretty highly regarded national institutions. The Republican party, less so. Read the rest of this post...

Syrian diplomats expelled as bombing continues

Obviously little matters at the UN until China and especially Russia come to agree with any action though Syria's actions have complicated the steadfast support of Russia. Later this week new French president François Hollande will host Russia's Putin to discuss the unraveling situation in the Middle East.

Al Jazeera:

Japan has joined 11 Western countries in expelling Syrian diplomats after the UN said most of the victims of the massacre in Houla village were summarily executed without decisively saying who carried out most of the killings.

The government asked Mohamed Ghassan al-Habash, the Syrian ambassador in Tokyo, to depart "as soon as possible", a Japanese foreign ministry official told AFP news agency on Wednesday.

The US, Germany, France, Britain, Italy, Australia, Canada, Spain, Belgium, Bulgaria and the Netherlands said on Tuesday they were protesting against Friday's massacre in Houla of at least 108 people.

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Amnesty: UN Security Council "increasingly unfit for purpose"

While the alternative (nothing) is worse, Amnesty International is not wrong either with their criticism. Leadership has been bad for years and the UN Security Council is almost irrelevant in times of crisis. It would require a unique event to get them to all agree on anything. Failure to seriously address Syria is only one example though the link provides quite a few others including gay rights in Africa and the international arms trade.

The Guardian:

The UN Security Council is suffering a failure of leadership which makes it seem "tired, out of step and increasingly unfit for purpose", the human rights organisation Amnesty International (AI) says on Thursday as it chastises the "determination" of some permanent member states to shield the Syrian regime "at all cost".

In its 50th global human rights report, AI documents human rights abuses in countries across the globe, noting a worsening discrimination against gay people in Africa and an increase in xenophobic rhetoric by some European politicians.

But after what it describes as a "momentous" year for the region, it is on the Middle East and north Africa that much of the report focuses. Despite "compelling evidence" of crimes against humanity being committed by Bashar al-Assad's regime, it notes, the UN Security Council has not referred the Syrian leader to the International Criminal Court (ICC). Even as the UN's own human rights chief spoke out against the violence, it adds, Russia and China "used their leverage at the Security Council to forestall effective action on Syria".

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UN criticizes Syria for failing to comply with cease fire

The UN is still trying to get the ceasefire back on track but it also still involves unarmed observers. The observer model has failed to deliver in Syria despite multiple attempts though with Russia on Assad's side, the options remain limited for the UN. With violence by the Syrian government continuing - even increasing - it's important for the world community to stay involved. More from The Guardian on the faltering peace process in Syria. Read the rest of this post...

UN accuses Syrian leadership of crimes against humanity

There's a long way to go before this is over, but Assad and the Syrian leadership will eventually either die like Gaddafi or in a prison in The Hague. The Guardian:

The United Nations has drawn up a list of the most senior officials in the Syrian regime, including, it is claimed, President Bashar al-Assad himself, who it says should be investigated for ordering "crimes against humanity" and other gross human rights violations.

The sealed report prepared by the UN-appointed independent international commission of inquiry on Syria has been handed over to the UN high commissioner for human rights.

While it accuses both parties to the conflict of torture and extra-judicial executions, it says that the opposition's rights violations are in no way "comparable in scale and organisation" to the abuses being carried out by the Assad regime, which have led to thousands of deaths.

Read the rest of this post...

US quits UNESCO. Will the ITU, WIPO be next?

As required by a 1990s law, the US has cut off funds to UNESCO after the latter voted to accept Palestine as a full member.

Although the US provides 22% of the UNESCO budget, most of that money goes to UNESCO programs rather than the organization itself. UNESCO provides support services for humanitarian programs funded by the member governments. Setting up an education program in a country like Afghanistan takes a lot of specialized knowledge and infrastructure. Having a ready-made bureaucracy that can be tasked with such programs helps the donors meet their objectives.

Attempting to hold such programs hostage does nothing to improve the image of the US abroad. The US spends $700 billion a year on the military and only $11 billion in foreign aid, 0.19% of GDP compared to a donor nation average of 0.30%. The largest slice, $3 billion goes to Israel and $1.5 billion to Egypt for signing the Camp David accord. $4 billion of the remainder goes to Afghanistan and Pakistan. This leaves less than $2.5 billion for the rest of the developing world put together and only a portion of that is humanitarian aid. The sad fact is that the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation spends more on humanitarian aid each year (over $1.5 billion) than the US Federal government.

The threat to withdraw from UNESCO did nothing to discourage countries voting for full Palestinian membership. In the end the US and Israel lost the vote by 107 votes to 14 with 52 abstentions.

Withdrawing from UNESCO will certainly not help the US but the damage to US interests will be relatively slight. It will mean that the State department has fewer carrots when it needs to rally international support for future US diplomatic initiatives. Withdrawal from some of the other US agencies is likely to have a much bigger effect and cause real damage to US interests.

And of course neither the Israeli government nor the US Israel lobby will offer a word of thanks for the sacrifice the US makes on Israel's behalf.

In effect a stick that was intended to control the Palestinians has become leverage that the Palestinians can use against the US. Abbas can force the US to leave any UN agency he chooses just by applying for Palestinian statehood. These include the ITU, the organization that establishes standards for the international telephone system and WIPO the organization behind international trademark, copyright and patent law.

First the positive news: US withdrawal from WIPO would probably be a good thing. Over the years the US has been the driving force behind a series of moves to appropriate Intellectual Property from the public domain and make it into private property. Republican and Democratic administrations have both been in the pockets of narrow vested interests against the public interest.

But US withdrawal from the ITU would be very damaging for US interests and could end up threatening the core of the Internet infrastructure. The ITU did not create the Internet but there are many governments that would much prefer that the ITU took over running it. The type of government that uses the term 'information terrorism' for freedom of speech.

The possibility that the Internet might power something like the Arab Spring was understood by Russia and China for at least a decade. The US currently holds a uniquely privileged role in Internet governance. Russia, China, Iran and other members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) have been maneuvering to replace bodies such as ICANN, IANA and the IETF with ITU committees where it would be easier to enact proposals to make the Internet more censorship friendly. Participation in the ITU is critical to US efforts to thwart such moves.

It gets worse. The International Atomic Energy Authority (IAEA) is at the center of US efforts to stop nuclear proliferation. Anyone feel safer if the US seat is empty there? As MJ Rosenberg points out, the US is putting real US national interests on the line in a futile attempt to block a purely symbolic move against Israel.

Participation in the UN agencies is the principal mechanism that allows the US to protect US interests. Giving that up for the sake of some trite point-scoring is ridiculous. There are many governments that would rather like to see less US influence at the UN for a while. For them, threatening to withdraw if Palestine is recognized is not so much a threat as a promise. Read the rest of this post...

Olmert, Livni on the recognition of Palestine at the UN and the Two State solution.

I don't normally bother with US press stories on Israel. CAMERA, AIPAC and others have well organized campaigns that complain about the slightest deviation from the Israel lobby line. I know because the requests for outrage are forwarded to the family mailing list. Since it is assumed that only Zionists care about such stories, the establishment press is happy to oblige. As a result you will get a better understanding of the Israeli position from the lunatic rightwing Jerusalem Post than the New York Times.

But a NYT Op-ed written by a former Israeli Prime Minister is a very different matter. Ehud Olmert's piece today tries to point out the real stakes in the diplomatic maneuvering taking place in the UN:

The window of opportunity is limited. Israel will not always find itself sitting across the table from Palestinian leaders like Mr. Abbas and the prime minister, Salam Fayyad, who object to terrorism and want peace. Indeed, future Palestinian leaders might abandon the idea of two states and seek a one-state solution, making reconciliation impossible.

Tizipi Livni made a related point in a more robust fashion in the Knesset:

"The diplomatic stupidity that characterizes this government is causing it to put the United States into a corner," said Livni, speaking during a special Knesset debate on Monday ahead of the Palestinian statehood bid at the United Nations.

Virtually all the accounts of the Palestinian move presents it as an attempt to put pressure on Israel. I think they are badly mistaken. Abbas is no fool and he knows that Netanyahu is immune to all outside pressure.

For the PLO this is a last, desperate attempt to keep the two state solution alive. By getting the UN to vote to recognize the Palestinian State, Abbas hopes to make the two state solution a fact on the ground.

The two state deal was always a much better deal for the PLO than for the Palestinian people. In return for recognizing the confiscation of land and ethnic cleansing of 1948 as permanent, the PLO would be permitted to rule a Mubarak-style pseudo-democracy in Gaza and the West Bank.

When the consequences of the two state solution are stated in these terms it becomes much easier to understand the rise of Hamas. The 'demographic time bomb' that worries Zionists is the reason that Hamas believes they will eventually prevail.

There is also a demographic time bomb ticking in the US. Despite the Islamophobia in the wake of 9/11, the Muslim population in the US is now 2.6 million and growing fast. The Jewish population is 5.2 million and slowly declining. There is a clear generational divide between older and younger Jews.

Meanwhile the Arab Spring is upsetting the political assumptions of Hamas, the PLO, and Israel at the same time. Hamas can no longer assume that the Palestinian people will acquiesce to their proposed theocratic state. The PLO is going to have to leave power when they lose an election. Israel may no longer be able to claim the support of the West as 'the only democracy in the Middle East'.

The region is certainly changing and it is clear that the current situation cannot hold. But what can replace it?

Update: Fixed the spelling. Read the rest of this post...

Clemons: Obama stance on Palestine’s UN application "has assured the rise of Hamas and the legitimation of violence"

Because this issue may be off the radar for many in the U.S., a little background first.

Earlier this month, in an attempt to break the stalemate with Israel over Palestinian statehood, the PLO decided unilaterally to seek recognition from the U.N. Al-Jazeera (I did some re-paragraphing and added emphasis):

The Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) will go to the United Nations Security Council and seek full membership in the world body next week, despite the looming threat of a US veto, a Palestinian official said.

The announcement was made by Mohammed Shtayyeh, a senior member of Fatah's central committee, at a news conference in Ramallah on Tuesday. Fatah is the largest Palestinian faction in the PLO. His announcement would seem to end months of speculation about the PLO's diplomatic strategy.

"We are going to the United Nations, we are going to the Security Council," Shtayyeh said. "We are going to seek full membership based on 1967 borders." ... Full recognition would allow Palestine to vote at the UN, and to join the International Criminal Court and other world bodies.

Nice — in the U.S. that's called an "end-around," a term from American football.

Read the full Al-Jazeera article for the implications of that move; it's well explained. If you do, note that Hamas, the most militant of the major Palestinian groups, is opposed to the application. Steve Clemons comments on that aspect below.

Al-Jazeera noted at the time that the "PLO will have little trouble securing the required two-thirds majority at the General Assembly". The problem is at the Security Council, where the U.S. has a veto and earlier said it would use it.

Now comes President Obama. On Sept 21, the president stated his opposition to the Palestinian application. SF Chronicle (my emphasis):

U.S. President Barack Obama underlined yesterday (Sept 21) that his position had not budged when he told the gathering of world leaders that "peace will not come through statements and resolutions at the UN." There was little in his words to encourage Palestinians or sway Abbas to change course.

"It didn't really take us forward to anywhere," said Shtayyeh in a telephone interview. "The negotiations themselves are in a crisis. We took this initiative to change the status quo."

Another option open to the Palestinians would be to pursue an upgraded status at the General Assembly, from "entity" to "non-member state," such as the Holy See, the government of the Roman Catholic Church, based in the Vatican. That could enable them to sign international treaties and have cases heard in the International Criminal Court.

Which leaves things as they are. In football terms, Obama stuffed the play for no gain.

Which brings us to Steve Clemons, Washington editor-at-large for The Atlantic. His headline:

Obama Tells Palestinians to Stay in Back of the Bus

Here's the gist of his thinking (again my emphasis):

President Obama, who in earlier years at the UN chastised Mahmoud Abbas, Benjamin Netanyahu, and George Mitchell for not getting more quickly on a constructive peace track, who felt that achieving an Israel-Palestine two state deal was of such strategic significance to the United States that he made it one of the very first out-of-the gate priorities of his administration, has not only offered nothing new to break the Israel-Palestine negotiations deep freeze but has acquiesced to the very narrative that on the negotiations that Israel embraces. For Israel at the moment, doing nothing is best.

Obama continues to parrot the line that peace can only be achieved between the "two parties", that only they can really bring this global ulcer to a close, when they decide to negotiate. The fact is that the status quo of frozen negotiations is benefiting the dominant, settlement-expanding Israel -- and the US, in promising to veto at the UN Security Council Palestine's bid for official state recognition, is playing guarantor to one side, undermining the aspirations of others on the other side of the equation. What if the US had said to Kosovo -- no statehood, no recognition from the US until you resolve all of your ongoing issues with Russia?

Obama's position on this is dangerous in another sense as well. Obama -- who looked to so many early in his rock star style rise to the Presidency as a leader on the level of a Gandhi, or Martin Luther King, or Mandela -- has assured the rise of Hamas, the legitimation of violence in pursuit of Palestinian political goals, by yet again showing that peaceful, non-violent moderates like Mahmoud Abbas ultimately get nothing -- even if they play the role of the "good Palestinian," the one who listens to his masters, who doesn't get too disturbed when humiliated at Israel's border check points and at UN Security Council meetings.

The choice is clear. It's not about supporting Israel vs. Palestine. It's about supporting Israel and Hamas vs. the PLO and Fatah. As Steve Clemons notes, Obama has, in effect, chosen to support Hamas (that's the feisty brother) over the PLO (the one who wants to make peace).

That will have consequences, and not in a good way. Here's a look at those 1967 borders, by the way — third from the left. At the far left is what they started with. At the far right is the situation today.

There's a good side, however. The decision in the U.N. is not made, it's just (endlessly) delayed. The Chronicle again:

The U.S. and Israel have leaned on council members favoring the statehood initiative to abstain from voting, leaving the Palestinians fighting to retain support. Allowing the UN's administrative process to delay the consideration in the 15- member body [the Security Council] will permit the Palestinians to save face and buy diplomats time to look for an alternative that restarts peace talks.

Let's hope Mr. Obama and his team recalculates their choices in time to make a better one. (And let's hope electoral politics doesn't have a place in this.)

The PLO and the U.N. may not have a deadline, but I'll bet Hamas does.

GP Read the rest of this post...

UN to investigate Syrian murder of thousands of pro-democracy protesters

A bit slow, but the UN finally got there. BBC News:

The UN Human Rights Council has ordered an investigation into violations reportedly committed by Syrian security forces during the crackdown on dissent.

It passed a resolution to "urgently dispatch an independent international commission of inquiry" and demanded an end to the violence against protesters.

EU countries and the US say they have prepared a draft resolution calling for UN sanctions against the government.

Read the rest of this post...

"Brother Number Two" Khmer Rouge trial to start in Cambodia

It's taken a very long time for this trial to start. Too long, but at least there is a trial.

The United Nations-backed trial of the four most senior surviving members of Cambodia's murderous Khmer Rouge regime began on Monday, three decades after its "year zero" revolution marked one of the darkest chapters of the 20th century.

The defendants, all now elderly and infirm, were among the inner circle of the late Pol Pot, the French-educated architect of the Khmer Rouge's ultra-Maoist Killing Fields revolution.

An estimated 1.7 million Cambodians - a quarter of the population - were killed through torture, execution, starvation and exhaustion from 1975-1979.

Read the rest of this post...

UN inching forward with investigation into "crimes" in Syria

If they drag their feet any more, nobody will be left alive. Al Jazeera:

The UN human rights chief has called for a full investigation of alleged abuses carried out by Syrian authorities against anti-government protesters.

Navi Pillay, the high commisioner for human rights, said on Wednesday that her office had received reliable reports that up to 10,000 people have been detained and more than 1,100 killed, most of them unarmed civilians.

Pillay told the Human Rights Council in Geneva that there were "numerous cases emerging of the torture and ill-treatment of detainees".

She said human rights campaigners, political activists and journalists had been particularly targeted among those detained.

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Ratko Mladic arrives in The Hague

He was shown a lot more compassion yesterday than he ever showed during the war when they allowed him to visit the grave of his daughter. The Guardian:

"In the detention unit, he will be introduced to the regulations and the rules of the unit and of the tribunal, he will be give a copy of the indictment and then a medical examination," said Nerma Jelacic, the spokeswoman for the International criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia at The Hague.

"He will be held in a isolation cell on his own for at least few days so that his assimilation can be monitored, and after that he will be in a cell in one of the three wings of the detention unit."

After the first few days, Mladic will be able to mix with the prison's other 36 war crimes defendants of various nationalities, including other Serbs, Croats and Bosnian Muslims. They have an exercise yard, computers, televisions, art classes and even massage on request.

In a related story, the young boy who was photographed with Mladic during the war has recently been found. The rest of his male family were killed during the massacre. Read the rest of this post...

UN could bring "crimes against humanity" charges in Libya

The ICC could find itself very busy throughout north Africa and the Middle East in the coming months. Al Jazeera:

The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) says he has unearthed "enough evidence" to pursue up to five warrants for crimes against humanity committed by forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader.

Luis Moreno-Ocampo made the announcement on Tuesday, a day before he was to brief the UN Security Council on his investigation into alleged crimes commited by Gaddafi's forces.

Gaddafi's forces have been battling rebels who are seeking to end the Libyan leader's more than 40-year rule. The fighting has resulted in human misery and led to allegations of excesses being committed against civilians.

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UN fails to sanction Syria

This is sickening.

The deeply divided UN Security Council failed to agree on a European and US-backed statement condemning Syrian violence against peaceful protesters on Wednesday, with Russia saying security forces were also killed and the actions don't threaten international peace.

"A real threat could arise from outside interference or taking of sides," Russia's deputy UN ambassador Alexander Pankin warned the UN's most powerful body during a public session that followed, saying this could lead to civil war.

China and India called for political dialogue and peaceful resolution of the crisis, with no mention of condemnation. And Lebanon's UN Ambasador Nawaf Salam stressed the country's special relationship with Syria, saying "the hearts and minds" of the Lebanese people are with the Syrian people and are suppporting President Bashar Assad's lifting of the state of emergency and reforms.

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No-fly over Libya gains momentum

Obama is officially on board.

The United States has thrown its weight behind the Arab League's call for a United Nations no-fly zone over Libya, where government troops backed by fighter jets are battling rebels seeking to remove Muammar Gaddafi from power.

Washington, which would play a leading role in enforcing any no-fly zone, called the declaration an "important step", but it stopped short of commitment to any military action and made no proposal for a swift meeting of the UN Security Council.

The Arab League's call for a no-fly zone was announced on Saturday by Oman's foreign minister, Youssef bin Alawi bin Abdullah, at a press conference which followed a meeting of the bloc's ministers in the Egyptian capital, Cairo.

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ICC to open investigation against alleged crimes against humanity by Gaddafi

With all of the technology available today, the ICC should have a lot to work with quickly. Al Jazeera:

Mr Ocampo, at a news conference, will name names, people to be targetted in a full scale inquiry into possible crimes against humanity. It is almost impossible to think the Colonel will not be top of the list.

As well as presenting "preliminary information as to the entities and persons who could be prosecuted", the prosecutor will "put them on notice to avoid future crimes".

Human Rights Watch says hundreds have been killed in the crackdown against the revolt which began last month, and tens of thousands of people are desperately trying to get out of the country.

Mr Ocampo only began working on Libya after the United Nations Security Council asked the ICC to establish if there were grounds for a full investigation.

Read the rest of this post...

UN votes for sanctions against Libya

They are also referring the case to The Hague for review. If Gadaffi survives the uprising, he is stands a good chance of living out his days in prison if the reports are as accurate as most believe. MSNBC.com:

The U.N. Security Council Saturday unanimously imposed travel bans and asset freezes on Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, members of his family and inner circle amid continuing attacks on anti-government protesters.

The council imposed an asset freeze on Gadhafi, his four sons and one daughter and a travel ban on the whole family along with 10 other close associates. The council also backed an arms embargo.

The resolution adopted by the 15-nation body also called for the immediate referral of the deadly crackdown on demonstrators in Libya to the International Criminal Court in The Hague for investigation and possible prosecution of anyone responsible for killing civilians.

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UN warns on record high food prices around the world

There is no single reason for the rise but rather, many contributing factors such as population growth, weather and of course, traders making a short term buck. The Independent:

Food riots, geopolitical tensions, global inflation and increasing hunger among the planet's poorest people are the likely effects of a new surge in world food prices, which have hit an all-time high according to the United Nations.

The UN's index of food prices – an international basket comprising wheat, corn, dairy produce, meat and sugar – stands at its highest since the index started in 1990, surpassing even the peaks seen during the 2008 food crisis, which prompted civil disturbances from Mexico to Indonesia.

"We are entering danger territory," said the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation's chief economist, Abdolreza Abbassian.

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UN to investigate Bradley Manning claims of mistreatment

Surely treatment like this only happens "over there" and not in America, right?

The United Nations is investigating a complaint on behalf of Bradley Manning that he is being mistreated while held since May in US Marine Corps custody pending trial. The army private is charged with the unauthorised use and disclosure of classified information, material related to the WikiLeaks, and faces a court martial sometime in 2011.

The office of Manfred Nowak, special rapporteur on torture based in Geneva, received the complaint from a Manning supporter; his office confirmed that it was being looked into. Manning's supporters say that he is in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day; this could be construed as a form of torture. This month visitors reported that his mental and physical health was deteriorating.

The Pentagon denies the former intelligence analyst is mistreated, saying he is treated the same as other prisoners at Quantico, Virginia, is able to exercise, and has access to newspapers and visitors.

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UN drops 'sexual orientation' from protected minorites list

Stupid decisions like this undermine the UN's credibility. The Guardian:

The issue will come to a head today when the general assembly votes on renewing its routine condemnation of the unjustified killing of various categories of vulnerable people.

It specifies killings for racial, national, ethnic, religious or linguistic reasons, and includes refugees, indigenous people and other groups.

But because of a change promoted by Arab and African nations and approved at committee level, the resolution drops "sexual orientation" and replaces it with "discriminatory reasons on any basis".

The US government says it is incensed at the change, as are gay rights campaigners. "Even if those countries do not support gay rights, you would think they would support our right not to be killed," said Jessica Stern of the New York-based International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission.

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