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Fake Atomic Scientists for Iranian Doomsday Against Trump Blaming President Trump for their own nuclear disaster. Daniel Greenfield

The Doomsday Clock is now at two and a half minutes to midnight. That doesn’t mean that the world will be destroyed in 150 seconds. All it means is that some people who couldn’t find a better way to get on CNN will enact an ancient left-wing ritual that involves pretending to care about a fake clock.

The ritual moves a fake clock closer to midnight summoning hoarse cries of media anguish.

“Scientists: World Closer to Doomsday Than It’s Been Since the 1950s” is a typical media headline. “The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the keepers of what is called the Doomsday Clock, took a look at the state of the world today and was expected to move the clock one minute closer to ‘midnight.’”

And it’s all Trump’s fault for not believing in Global Warming. No, seriously.

According to the official statement, “Board Marks 70th Anniversary of Iconic Clock By Expressing Concern About “Unsettling” and “Ill-Considered” Statements of President Trump on Nuclear Weapons and Climate Change.”

It was either that or go out for another round of Jagerbombs while actual nuclear scientists in Iran work to build bombs that will kill millions in Tel Aviv, New York or maybe even back in Chicago.

The heavily hyped announcement of the “Doomsday Clock” being the closest to midnight since 1953 (by no coincidence whatsoever the first year of Eisenhower’s term) bombed. Or maybe it was a dud.

The rollout was introduced by Rachel Bronson, the confused executive director of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Bronson has a degree is in political science and her social media feed is filled with childish anti-Trump rants. She is less of an “atomic scientist” than your Aunt Sally.

Rachel informed attendees that John Mecklin, the Bulletin’s editor in chief, was in the audience. “He is the one who pulled together and helped the board develop this statement that accompanied this important announcement.”

John Mecklin’s qualifications for warning that the world is about to end can be found in his past as editor of High Country and Key West. Key West is “a high-end, monthly city magazine devoted to documenting the rich, quirky stories of the Florida Keys.”

He is not an “atomic scientist”.

Three men sat at the table to the right of Rachel. There was the scowling mug of Thomas Pickering. Pickering is a Hillary pal who played a role in whitewashing her role in Benghazi, a former State Department hack with dubious business interests and Iran deal lobbyist with ties to Boeing.

Pickering is not an “atomic scientist”, but he played a role in helping terrorists go nuclear.

At the rickety table, Pickering lobbied for the Iran nuke sellout. The Bulletin had certainly come a long way from its anti-war roots to seating a Boeing man at the table to argue for Iran’s nukes.

“Islam Strengthening in Europe with the Blessing of the Church” by Giulio Meotti

There are now many Catholic commentators who are questioning the Church’s blindness about the danger Europe is facing.

“Islam has every chance massively to strengthen its presence in Europe with the blessing of the Church…. the Church is not only leading Europe to an impasse, it is also shooting itself in the foot.” — Laurent Dandrieu, cultural editor of the French magazine Valeurs Actuelles.

“It is clear that Muslims have an ultimate goal: conquering the world…Islam, through the sharia, their law…allows violence against the infidels, such as Christians….And what is the most important achievement? Rome.” — Cardinal Raymond Burke, interview, Il Giornale.

“[T]hey are not refugees, this is an invasion, they come here with cries of ‘Allahu Akbar’, they want to take over.” — Laszlo Kiss Rigo, head of the Catholic Hungarian southern community.

François Fillon published a book entitled, Vanquishing Islamic Totalitarianism, and he rose in the polls by vowing to control Islam and immigration: “We’ve got to reduce immigration to its strict minimum,” Fillon said. “Our country is not a sum of communities, it is an identity!”

Everyone in Italy and the rest of Europe will “soon be Muslim” because of our “stupidity”, warned Monsignor Carlo Liberati, Archbishop Emeritus of Pompei. Liberati claimed that, thanks to the huge number of Muslim migrants alongside the increasing secularism of native Europeans, Islam will soon become the main religion of Europe. “All of this moral and religious decadence favours Islam”, Archbishop Liberati explained.

Décadence is also the title of a new book by the French philosopher Michel Onfray, in which he suggests that the Judeo-Christian era may have come to an end. He compares the West and Islam: “We have nihilism, they have fervor; we are exhausted, they have a great health; we have the past for us; they have the future for them”.

Turkey: The Purges Continue by Burak Bekdil

Burak Bekdil, one of Turkey’s leading journalists, was just fired from Turkey’s leading newspaper after 29 years, for writing what was taking place in Turkey for Gatestone. He is a Fellow at the Middle East Forum.

What makes Turkey look more like North Korea than a European democracy is the legal authorities’ reflex to launch probes into anyone accused, without evidence, of terrorist activity or insulting the president.

Philipp Schwartz was a Hungarian-born neuropathologist who worked for the Goethe University in Frankfurt for 14 years until he was fired in 1933 for being Jewish. After his — and other scholars’ — dismissal, he convinced the then decade-old modern Turkish Republic to admit persecuted German professors to positions at Turkish universities. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the secular founder of the Turkish state, enthusiastically agreed to Schwartz’s proposal. Turkey quickly admitted 150 German Jewish professors. Schwartz was appointed as director of the Department of Pathology at the University of Istanbul. More than seven decades after, a German initiative that bears Schwartz’s name is returning the favor.

In the first week of 2017, another 631 Turkish researchers and professors were dismissed from their universities, adding to thousands who were purged during the second half of 2016. Several Turkish scholars are now reversing Schwartz’s path: In the fall of 2016, the Philipp Schwartz Initiative received more applications from Turkey than war-torn Syria or any other country. Turks now account for 46% of all applicants worldwide. As the Brussels-based European affairs weekly newspaper Politico put it: “Turkey loses its brains.”

Turkey’s problem is bigger than just literally losing its brains. The country apparently is also figuratively losing its brains. News headlines are so confusing that often one cannot decide whether he is reading a real newspaper or the Turkish version of The Onion, reflecting a collective, socio-pathological frenzy — ironically Schwartz’s work of science.

An Islamist and militantly pro-Erdogan newspaper, Yeni Akit, ran the photo of what looks like a main battle tank, claiming that this weapons system had been developed by Aselsan, a state-controlled defense company, and was capable of “even stopping an atomic bomb.” Yeni Akit belongs to an “elite” group of media outlets whose editors often find a seat aboard Erdogan’s private jet when he travels abroad for state visits. What is more worrying than the absurdity of Yeni Akit’s claim is that few Turks would question the story’s authenticity.

Austria: Does the Church Really Care about Terrorism? by Judith Bergman

The Austrian Military Intelligence Service has predicted that up to 15 million migrants from Africa could arrive in the EU by 2020.

Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, Archbishop of Vienna, recently admitted on Austrian television that he had come to “rethink” his approach to the migrant crisis: Instead of accepting all the refugees, aid should be given in the Middle East and Africa, so that migrants could stay there.

“Will there be an Islamic conquest of Europe? Many Muslims want that and say: Europe is at the end.” — Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, Archbishop of Vienna, Festival of the ‘Holy Name of Mary’, September, 2016.

Cardinal Schönborn subsequently backtracked, saying that his words had been misinterpreted as an attack against Muslims and refugees: “Europe’s Christian legacy is in danger, because we Europeans have squandered it. That has absolutely nothing to do with Islam nor with the refugees. It is clear that many Islamists would like to take advantage of our weakness, but they are not responsible for it. We are.”

In his Christmas sermon, broadcast live on Austria’s ORF and Germany’s ZDF TV channels, Catholic diocesan Bishop Aegidius Zsifkovics of St. Martin’s Cathedral in Eisenstadt, Austria, pontificated that tightening borders is an “erroneous opinion”:

“Barbed wire, fences and walls are now many people’s answer to the refugees [coming into] Europe. The terror of a few, as last seen in Berlin, reinforce many of us in this erroneous opinion”.

Bishop Zsifkovics declared that we cannot let “Cowardly terror attacks, like that in Berlin, succeed in destabilizing our society, making us colder and less solidary. Let us not allow the terrorists this triumph — we will not be ice cold like them!”

Turkey: Erdogan’s Grab for Absolute Power by Burak Bekdil

Erdogan will effectively consolidate the power of three legislative bodies into one powerful executive office: himself.

Erdogan’s “Turkish-style presidency” is already a presidency with too much power held by one man. If approved at the referendum, the changes will make Erdogan head of government, head of state and head of the ruling party — all at the same time.

It would transfer powers traditionally held by parliament to the presidency, thereby rendering the parliament merely a ceremonial, advisory body.

The opposition looks fragmented and helpless in telling the masses that reforms would concentrate excessive powers in the hands of a leader who has increasingly displayed authoritarian tendencies.

At the moment, Erdogan is effectively the absolute ruler. If he wins the vote he becomes the absolute ruler. If he loses, he remains effectively the absolute ruler until he tries again to become the absolute ruler.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s one-man show goes on; he may soon progress from effectively having absolute authority to actually having absolute authority. He would apparently like to put an official seal on his increasingly autocratic regime. If a simple majority of Turks vote “yes” in a national referendum on proposed constitutional amendments in April, Erdogan will effectively consolidate the power of three legislative bodies into one powerful executive office: himself. He would then be installed as a leader with virtually unlimited authority.

Although the current constitution grants him largely symbolic powers, Erdogan has acted as the effective head of the executive branch since he became Turkey’s first elected president in August 2014. He has explicitly — and, it appears, happily — violated the constitution by acting as an absolute head of government. In May 2016, he forced Ahmet Davutoglu, his own confidant and prime minister, out of office; Erdogan evidently suspected that the man was not working hard enough to push for the absolute executive presidential system Erdogan has evidently been craving. Only seven months ago, Davutoglu had won a parliamentary election with 49.5% of the national vote.

Erdogan replaced Davutoglu with Binali Yildirim, who has proven to be more enthusiastic about terminating the prime minister’s office and transferring all powers to an all-powerful president. As Erdogan’s (and Yildirim’s) ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) lacked the parliamentary majority to put any constitutional amendment to public vote, the proposed changes therefore required support from the opposition benches. (A minimum of 330 votes is required in the country’s 550-member assembly, as opposed to 317 seats controlled by the AKP.)

A year ago, that would have looked unimaginable. But a nationalist opposition party, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), made a U-turn from its public pledges of “never letting Erdogan become the executive president,” and decided to support the reform bill. Political observers are still trying to figure out what may have pushed the MHP from one extreme to the other; there is not yet a clear explanation.

Erdogan’s “Turkish-style presidency” is already a presidency with too much power held by one man. If approved in the referendum, the changes will make Erdogan head of government, head of state and head of the ruling party — all at the same time. Erdogan would have the power to appoint cabinet ministers without requiring a confidence vote from parliament, propose budgets and appoint more than half the members of the nation’s highest judicial body. He would also have the power to dissolve parliament, impose states of emergency and issue decrees. Alarmingly, the proposed system lacks the safety mechanisms of checks and balances that exist in other countries such as the United States. It would transfer powers traditionally held by parliament to the presidency, thereby rendering the parliament merely a ceremonial, advisory body.

The Telos Group: The True Identity of the “American Pro-Israeli, Pro-Palestinian, Pro-Peace Movement ” by Noah Summers

In 2014, the Telos Group was outed as an anti-Israel organization not living up to its “pro-Israeli, pro-Palestinian, and pro-peace” self-description.

Instead of building substantive bridges between Palestinians and Israelis, the bridge Telos appears most intent on building is a financial one between America and Ramallah. Telos’s actions demonstrate the organization is pro-PLO/Palestinian Authority, not pro-Palestinian.

Telos is focusing its efforts on enabling a corrupt, oppressive PLO/PA government that has opposed peace on multiple occasions, oppressed its citizens by denying them freedom of speech and protection from religious persecution, and jailed journalists who dare to criticize the PA’s undemocratic government and its abuses of its citizenry — certainly not a pro-Israeli/pro-Palestinian/pro-peace agenda.

Peace with Israel is premised on Palestinians no longer supporting their children engaging in terrorist acts against Israel.

While Khalil appeals to UN Resolution 242’s “inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war” to justify his position on Israeli settlements, he neglects to mention that this “land-for-peace” resolution was premised on the Palestinians halting all violence against Israelis and recognizing the State of Israel.

It is time to call the Telos Group for what it really is: Anti/Anti/Anti: anti-Israeli, anti-Palestinian, and anti-peace.

At least one person was pleased about the Obama Administration’s decision to abstain from the UN Security Council (UNSC) vote on Resolution 2334, effectively establishing the boundaries of a Palestinian state. For Gregory Khalil, the current president and co-founder of the Telos Group, an organization posing as “pro-Israeli, pro-Palestinian, and pro-peace,” it was 12 years coming. His 2004 New York Times op-ed encouraged the US to abstain from exercising their UNSC veto in defense of Israel. In December 2016, the Obama Administration finally acted upon the advice of this former Palestinian negotiation-team lawyer by abstaining from — instead of vetoing — Resolution 2334.

Founded in 2009 with the original name of the “Kairos Project,” the Telos Group described itself as:

“… a non-profit educational initiative that seeks to educate America’s mainstream faith leaders and their communities about the causes of — and solutions to — the modern conflict that currently ravages the Holy Land.”

A “bio” for Telos Group President and Co-Founder Gregory Khalil reveals:

“Mr. Khalil spent the summer of 2000 in East Jerusalem researching refugee rights under international law — as well as other issues related to final status negotiations — with renowned Palestinian legislator, negotiator, and spokesperson Dr. Hanan Ashrawi.”

By his own account, Khalil later advised the Palestinian leadership on negotiations with Israel, and served four years on the Palestinian negotiating team.

In 2014, the Telos Group was outed as an anti-Israel organization not living up to its “pro-Israeli, pro-Palestinian, and pro-peace” self-description. The following year, Telos doubled down, rebranding with that slogan as their central theme. Their rebranding efforts included unveiling a new logo, revamping their website,[1] and developing a more active presence on Facebook and Instagram. In July 2015, Telos announced on their blog the launch of their newly redesigned website “and a slightly new direction,” with the stated goal to “grow and direct the pro/pro/pro movement in America.”

With baby strapped to back, woman suicide bomber strikes Nigerian market

Nigerian army spokesperson Rabe Abubakar could not confirm that a baby had been used in the attack, and said the woman may have just been disguised to appear as if she was carrying an infant.

The UN children’s agency (UNICEF) said it was the first such incident involving a baby reported in northeast Nigeria. “We are extremely worried about the use of a baby in this callous way,” UNICEF spokesperson Doune Porter told a foreign news agency.

The suicide bombings, which bore the hallmark of militant group Boko Haram, are common in northeast Nigeria, the heart of the militants’ seven-year campaign to create an Islamic state.

The militant group preys on displaced children or young girls it kidnaps and forces them to become bombers, with some unaware they are carrying explosives, aid agencies say.

The use of children as suicide bombers by Boko Haram has surged almost five-fold since 2014, with 19 child bombings, most involving young girls, recorded by UNICEF last year.

Prior to the Madagali bombings, the youngest child used in such an attack was a nine-year-old girl, the UN agency said. The attack in Madagali is one in a series of bombings in Nigeria northeast, mainly Borno state, in recent weeks as Boko Haram steps up attacks with the end of the rainy season facilitating movements in the bush.

However, risk management consultancy Signal Risk’s director Ryan Cummings said Nigeria’s civilian joint task force (CJTF) had stepped up efforts to spot and search suspected bombers. “Several attempted attacks by females bombers have been thwarted (due to the CJTF), limiting casualties,” he said.

Army spokesperson Abubakar said security forces would be extra vigilant and ready to respond to any new strategies used by Boko Haram. The militants’ insurgency has killed about 15,000 people and forced more than two million to flee their homes.http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2017/01/25/with-baby-strapped-to-back-woman-suicide-bomber-strikes-nigerian-market/

In early 2015, the militants controlled an area the size of Belgium but has been pushed out from most of the territory by the Nigerian military with help from neighbouring countries.

Crimes against Humanity: “Normal” Treatment of Middle Eastern Women by Khadija Khan

Mullahs seem to prefer protecting inhuman laws to protecting humans.

Most full coverings for women are black, which absorbs heat, and are made not of cotton but of non-porous cloth – in the scorching heat.

In a province of Indonesia, Aceh, a woman, accused of being intimate with her boyfriend is caned, in front of a jeering crowd. Later, a photograph of the screaming woman is published as a token of pride for the men who had just exacted this “justice” — on her; no consequence for the boyfriend. It was a lesson to remind women to submit to their place in society.

Turkey last year presented a bill for tackling its widespread child-marriage issue: the Turkish government introduced a bill that pardons a rapist if he marries his victim. The victim is not consulted.

All forms of exploiting women are presented as divine law, sharia, in which women have no say, which they are unable to use in their own defence, and which they are forced to accept as their fate.

These are countries where men are not only permitted, but invited, to consider woman a pet — to be killed, burned with acid, benzene or a weapon of choice supposedly to preserve a family’s “honour”.

These laws, put in place by the governments and the clergy, provide a safe escape for criminals, such as those who kill their women and claim it is in the name of “honour”.

The deeper horror is that all these abuses — child marriage, confinement, FGM, rape, torture, and legal discrimination — have accomplices. These enablers are often well-meaning people from the West, “multiculturalists” who are reluctant to pass judgement on other people’s customs no matter how brutal they might be.

Sadly, they are unable to see that they are actually part of the huge jihadi radicalization machine working under the very nose of even governments in the West.

As the British in India effectively got rid the people of the cultural practice of suttee, in which Hindu widows were required to throw themselves on their husband’s funeral pyre, if people would really like to do “good”, they will please help to stop similar crushing practices.

A bitter truth, often glossed over in the name of “tradition,” is the religious teachings and the responsibilities of a Muslim woman. Most glossed over is the violence that men are still allowed to inflict on their women in the name of their religion and culture on such a massive part of the planet.

This brutality not only takes place in ISIS-held territory but across most Muslim societies. All around you, you

Fake News and False Consciousness A Ministry of Truth is an assault on truth. By Rupert Darwall

Britain’s decisive vote to leave the European Union and the election, 20 weeks later, of Donald Trump have sent horrified elites to seek solace in fake news and stolen elections to attempt to explain away these twin popular revolts. At a public lecture in London on Brexit shortly before the presidential election, Princeton professor Harold James seized on a comment that Brexit was the outcome of post-truth politics. “Absolutely right,” Professor James responded. “I completely agree with every word.” It was the world of Silvio Berlusconi and Vladimir Putin, Professor James averred, one described by Peter Pomerantsev in Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia – which was, in the words of one reviewer, “a beautifully written depiction of a fevered, frenzied society, of a city glittering at the edge of darkness.” The history professor was equating the anti-establishment Brexit insurgency with Putin and the state-controlled Russian media.

A rare Brexit-supporting professor was sharing the platform. “I completely disagree,” declared Robert Tombs, a Cambridge historian and the author of The English and Their History. “We’ve never lived in an age of truth.” The two centuries after the invention of the printing press more or less saw the collapse of European civilization. “I just don’t know when there was a time when the people were told the truth by politicians and the press.”

What is new – and troubling – is the use of “fake news” to justify censorship and its use as a tool of social control. After Donald Trump’s election, liberals such as Tom Friedman hailed Germany’s Angela Merkel as the West’s true leader for upholding Western values. Her open-door immigration policy, which helped her garner Time magazine’s 2015 Person of the Year honor, is sometimes explained as reflecting her experience of living under Communism. “In East Germany, we always ran into boundaries before we were able to discover our own personal boundaries,” Time reported.

Sounds nice, but was that fake news? Merkel’s family was one of the few that had moved from West to East Germany. They had the privileges that came from being favored by the Party – two cars, access to stores selling Western goods, travel to the West. “They were élite,” Merkel’s Russian teacher said in a 2014 profile by George Packer in The New Yorker. A former East German colleague described her role as secretary for Agitation and Propaganda of the state youth organization, Freie Deutsche Jugend, at East Berlin’s Academy of Sciences. “With Agitation and Propaganda, you’re responsible for brainwashing in the sense of Marxism,” according to former German transport minister Günther Krause, who rejected Merkel’s claim that her role was mainly sourcing theater tickets for fellow students. “Agitation and Propaganda, that was the group that was meant to fill people’s brains with everything you were supposed to believe in the GDR, with all the ideological tricks.”

Any vestigial revulsion that the former Agitation and Propaganda secretary might have felt at the pervasive censorship of the East German state was quickly swallowed when Merkel sought to co-opt social media firms to help contain the backlash against her pro-immigration stance. In September 2015, she confronted Mark Zuckerberg after her government had complained that Facebook wasn’t doing enough to crack down on xenophobic postings. Last month, her government announced plans for a new law to fine Facebook up to €500,000 for distributing fake news.

The concept of thought pollution, which fake news supposedly feeds, is intrinsically totalitarian. It implies there are those who speak the truth and there are those who do not, casting the latter as enemies of society and, nowadays, of the planet. “We live in a world of radical ignorance,” claims Stanford professor Robert Proctor. “Agnotology” – the study of deliberate propagation of ignorance – is a term coined by Proctor, whose interest in it was sparked by his study of the tactics of Big Tobacco in obscuring the harmful effects of smoking cigarettes.

The secret tobacco memo that aroused Proctor’s attention was written in 1969, five years after the Surgeon General’s first report warned of the dangers of tobacco smoking. According to the successor report marking the report’s 50th anniversary, per capita consumption of cigarettes (based on Treasury Department data) peaked in the early 1950s, and blipped up again before starting a multi-decade decline from the early 1960s.

By contrast, the tobacco industry in Britain in the 1950s – at the insistence of the industry’s chief statistician (he had been sacked and reinstated six weeks later) – decided not to dispute the epidemiological evidence linking smoking with lung cancer. Notwithstanding tobacco-industry neutrality, per capita cigarette consumption in Britain continued to rise through the 1960s, peaking only in the mid 1970s, more than a decade later than in the U.S.

Social phenomena can be far more complex – and more interesting – than Proctor’s simplistic morality tale allows. Indeed, it turns out that agnotology is a self-referring idea that, like fake news, is a tool of propaganda. According to Proctor, combating ignorance extends far beyond clarifying the evidence. Inevitably switching from smoking to climate change, Proctor gives the issue an ideological and philosophical framing: “The fight is not just over the existence of climate change, it’s over whether God has created the Earth for us to exploit, whether government has the right to regulate industry, whether environmentalists should be empowered, and so on. It’s not just about the facts, it’s about what is imagined to flow from and into such facts.” (Emphasis added.)

Facts and non-facts do not exist in isolation from their context, something that history teaches above all. From Proctor’s thoroughly researched but morally dubious The Nazi War on Cancer (1999), we learn that “the barriers which separate ‘us’ from ‘them’ are not as high as some would like to imagine.” Himmler, for example, wanted the Waffen-SS to be non-smoking, non-drinking vegetarians and voiced an opinion often expressed by today’s political Left: “We are in the hands of the food companies, whose economic clout and advertising make it possible for them to prescribe what we can and cannot eat.”

Nikki Haley Arrives at U.N., Vowing to Take Names of Opposing Nations New U.S. ambassador says she’ll seek to end U.N. programs deemed obsolete By Farnaz Fassihi

UNITED NATIONS—The new U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley , arrived on Friday with a posture and message that startled many U.N. officials and diplomats and signaled a shift of policy: The U.S., she said, would collect names and respond to countries opposing American interests, and would “do away” with U.N. programs it deems obsolete.

“For those who don’t have our back, we’re taking names—we will make points to respond to that accordingly,” Ms. Haley said to reporters upon arrival.

Ms. Haley presented her credentials to U.N. Secretary General António Guterres and held her first one-on-one meeting with him for 20 minutes. Officials didn’t offer details of what Mr. Guterres and Ms. Haley discussed, but a U.N. official said that the “U.S. has always been an important partner for the U.N. for reform.”

Before the meeting, Ms. Haley vowed “a change in the way we do business.”

“Everything that’s working, we’re going to make it better; everything that’s not working, we’re going to try and fix; and anything that seems to be obsolete and not necessary, we’re going to do away with,” Ms. Haley said.

Some U.N. officials and diplomats said privately they had expected Ms. Haley to strike a more diplomatic tone on her first day. She didn’t ease concerns that the U.S. might significantly cut back on funding for many U.N. programs and pursue a more unilateral agenda. In her Senate hearing earlier this month, Ms. Haley came across as a moderate voice with views on Russia, U.N. funds and international engagement that fell in line with those of U.S. allies.

But on Friday, diplomats said her “tone was tough” and that she projected views more in keeping with the new administration’s pledge to upend and overhaul all things policy, from trade deals to refugee regulations and U.N. programs.

“The U.N. is an institution that is often a difficult one to work with for the U.S. but overall it serves U.S. interest, it’s a place where American values of democracy and human rights are voiced,” said Matthew Bolton, an associate professor at Pace University familiar with U.N. matters.

Ms. Haley has plenty of leverage at her disposal. The U.S. is the largest financial contributor to the U.N., providing 22% of its operating budget and 28% of peacekeeping costs in 16 missions around the world, estimated at nearly $8 billion a year.

Diplomats widely agree that the U.N. needs reform. The organization is weighed down by bureaucracy and procedure. Mr. Guterres began his tenure on Jan. 1 with a promise to improve efficiency through structural reorganizing. Some diplomats acknowledge that a little tough talk from the U.S. could benefit the U.N. and force it to accelerate the much-needed changes. CONTINUE AT SITE