UAE wins seat on U.N. Human Rights Council, garners highest Asia vote.

UAE wins seat on U.N. Human Rights Council, garners highest Asia vote.(AA).The United Arab Emirates succeeded on Monday in its bid for election to the 47-nation U.N. Human Rights Council for a three-year term starting from early 2013. The Gulf state was elected in a secret ballot conducted by the U.N. General Assembly in which 21 candidate countries from 18 geographical groups competed for 18 vacant seats. 
The UAE got 184 votes, the highest vote turnout of the total votes garnered by the four winning Asian countries and the second highest votes of the total 18 winners. Ivory Coast, Ethiopia, Gabon, Kenya, and Sierra Leone were elected from Africa, and Japan, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, South Korea joined the United Arab Emirates from the Asia Group. Estonia and Monte Negro were elected from Eastern Europe, while Argentina, Brazil, and Venezuela secured seats on behalf of the Latin America and Caribbean Group.
The UAE foreign affairs minister, Anwar Mohammad Gargash, welcomed the UAE’s victory. “The win crowned a series of achievements made by the UAE in its human rights record over the recent years, particularly in areas of legislations to uphold and protect fundamental freedoms and legal rights of individuals, rights of women and children and advanced regulations on rights of foreign workforce,” the official said, according to AFP news agency. He added: ‘The UAE win of the seat for the next three years will lay on our shoulder additional onus and commitment to stay our course firmly in consistence with constitutional principles on which the UAE state is built and which place respect for human rights at the top of national priorities.’’ The 193-nation U.N. General Assembly also elected 17 other countries for terms beginning in January. The United States won the most votes of the regional group “Western Europe and Others,” followed by Germany and Ireland.Hmmmm......."Blasphemy laws on their way."Read the full story here.