There are not too many reliable reports and pronouncements coming out of the United Nations, which has become subservient to the whims of some of the worst-run regimes on the globe.  The UN Human Rights Council, for example, has become a joke, solidly in the grip of some of the worst human rights abusers.  The UN General Assembly regularly embarrasses itself with multiple anti-Israel resolutions, while turning a blind eye to real violators of civilized norms. All the more reason to plumb a rare UN document that tells it like it is, even as it puts some of these brutish autocrats under an unsparingly critical lens. I am referring to the annual Human Development Index (HDI) issued by the UN Development Programme.  Put aside the label, it's simply a global report card on living standards in UN member states and some polities that aspire to membership.  The HDI, developed by non-partisan UN technocrats, ranks all of them according to three-main criteria -...(Read Full Post)