This news week offers a nauseating main course. I'm going to have to start selectively targeting more positive news going forward, because this isn't working. It's not the news, it's me.

Well, in this case though, that's not true. It is the news.

Zimbabwe may become the chair of the UN committee on sustainable development.

Oh, Zimbabwe. The country with a 976.4% official inflation rate (as of 2006), 80% unemployment rate, 80% poverty rate, -4.4% GDP growth rate. Oh, Zimbabwe: transit point for cannabis, South Asian heroin, mandrax and metamphetamines. (That's from the CIA.) Oh, Zimbabwe: source, transit and destination country for women and children trafficked for forced labor and sexual slavery. Zimbabwe: where pimping is safer than politics.

Who cares about a UN committee, really? It is probably not going to be hugely important as far as practical global changes are concerned. But sustainable development? Did I miss something? Either this is some kind of a joke, or else it is a backhanded scheme to reign in on Robert Mugabe by doing this? That would seem like the only reasonable explanation for this, because otherwise this borders on the surreal.

Sadly, however, this kind of association with a dictatorial regime tarnishes not just the reputation of the United Nations, but the reputation of the entire concept of sustainable development. It is not right to misappropriate a concept and associate it with a place that is an antithesis of it. I really, really hope Zimbabwe doesn't actually get elected.

Maybe this is supposed to serve as a warning. Or, as another blogger said, given the economic collapse, at least Zimbabwe's "carbon footprint is admirable."

POSITIVE blog entries next week. I promise.