"Am I therefore become your enemy,because I TELL YOU THE TRUTH...?"
(Galatians 4:16)

U.N. assembly opens door to enlarged Security Council

UNITED NATIONS-The U.N. General Assembly opened the door on Monday to expanding the Security Council by calling for full-scale negotiations on adding new members to the United Nations' most powerful body.After hours of talks that several diplomats involved in said nearly collapsed, the assembly unanimously passed a resolution approving "inter-governmental negotiations" on expanding the council to begin by February 28, 2009.Several U.N. diplomats described the breakthrough as "historic", saying it greatly increased the likelihood that the council will become larger and more representative of the world of the 21st century.The process of expanding the council began in 1993 when a U.N. working group was given the task of drawing up a plan for enlarging the 15-nation body. But the committee worked on the basis of consensus, something it could never achieve due to disagreements among key members like Italy and Germany.Even if the inter-governmental negotiations strike a deal on enlarging the council, which has the power to authorize sanctions, trade embargoes and military action, the process of ratification by U.N. member states will likely take years and there is no guarantee it will succeed.But diplomats said moving the discussion out of the deadlocked committee early next year and putting it into the hands of the 192 U.N. member states will capitalize on the widely-held view that an enlargement is long overdue."It means that we are now moving from discussion of procedure into discussion of substance," Britain's U.N. Ambassador John Sawers told Reuters.U.N. diplomats said that it would not be difficult to get the support of two-thirds of the U.N. member states needed for approval, provided they can agree on how many seats to add.
To read more go to:
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSN1533301720080916
As in the days of Noah...