Posted on 12/07/2005 11:14:11 PM PST by JBGUSA
The chief budget officer of the United Nations said Tuesday that an effort by the Bush administration to delay approval of the institution's budget next month in order to push through reforms would cause a crisis in the organization and cut into essential operations. ''It's a very serious situation,'' said Warren Sach, assistant secretary general and controller. ''It's fragile and creates real problems in terms of the operational capacity of the organization.''
The United States announced last week that it would oppose adoption by the General Assembly of the usual two-year budget at the end of the year unless the costs of new reform proposals were included. John R. Bolton, the United States ambassador, said the 191-nation Assembly should instead approve a three- or four-month interim budget until the changes could be financed.
*snip*
(Excerpt) Read more at select.nytimes.com ...
New York Times -
The chief budget officer of the United Nations said Tuesday that an effort by the Bush administration to delay approval of the institution's budget next month in order to push through reforms would cause a crisis in the organization and cut into essential operations.
Are there any such operations? Inquiring minds must wonder.
New York Times - ''It's a very serious situation,'' said Warren Sach, assistant secretary general and controller. ''It's fragile and creates real problems in terms of the operational capacity of the organization.''
What operations, other than idle talk? What "capacity"?
New York Times - The United States announced last week that it would oppose adoption by the General Assembly of the usual two-year budget at the end of the year unless the costs of new reform proposals were included. John R. Bolton, the United States ambassador, said the 191-nation Assembly should instead approve a three- or four-month interim budget until the changes could be financed.
He argued that approving the $3.9 billion budget now would send a ''business as usual'' message with no assurances that there would be essential changes like the elimination of outdated missions, the overhauling of management, the creation of a peace-building commission and the substitution of the discredited human rights commission with a new human rights council that would deny membership to notorious rights violators.
Mr. Bolton accompanied the announcement with a prediction that if rebuffed, the United States would look to new forums outside the United Nations to settle international problems.
To quote the singer Neil Young, in another context: "Got to get down to it...should have been done long ago".
New York Times - Mr. Sach said such an interim budget would confront the United Nations with a deficit of $320 million in the first quarter of 2006.
Among the options to try to close it, he said, were borrowing from the separate peacekeeping budget, drawing down reserves and freezing recruitment, travel, equipment purchases and salary payments. None of those, he said, would produce nearly enough money and would require approval by the General Assembly, which was opposed to the American move and wary of Congressional threats to withhold American dues.
The bankruptcy courts, and courts which have receivership powers, are alive and well. Their functioning and their ability to dispose of some prime New York City real estate is hardly in doubt. Now, I personally might be inconvenienced by a temporary closure of the FDR Drive (a major artery that runs under the UN) while it's being imploded.
*snip*
New York Times - Secretary General Kofi Annan responded to Mr. Bolton's proposal last week by saying it was essential to the functioning of the organization to have a budget approved this year.
Very urgent. For his son especially.
*snip*
"would cause a crisis in the organization"
Good. The UN is a worthless bunch of bullcr*p.
The US position of insisting on a four-month budget, rather than a two year budget, so as to keep the hammer posed to enforce reforms "would cause a crisis in the organization and cut into essential operations", according to the UN. Wahhhhhhh. Link to full article.
New York Times -
The chief budget officer of the United Nations said Tuesday that an effort by the Bush administration to delay approval of the institution's budget next month in order to push through reforms would cause a crisis in the organization and cut into essential operations.
Are there any such operations? Inquiring minds must wonder.
New York Times - ''It's a very serious situation,'' said Warren Sach, assistant secretary general and controller. ''It's fragile and creates real problems in terms of the operational capacity of the organization.''
What operations, other than idle talk? What "capacity"?
New York Times - The United States announced last week that it would oppose adoption by the General Assembly of the usual two-year budget at the end of the year unless the costs of new reform proposals were included. John R. Bolton, the United States ambassador, said the 191-nation Assembly should instead approve a three- or four-month interim budget until the changes could be financed.
He argued that approving the $3.9 billion budget now would send a ''business as usual'' message with no assurances that there would be essential changes like the elimination of outdated missions, the overhauling of management, the creation of a peace-building commission and the substitution of the discredited human rights commission with a new human rights council that would deny membership to notorious rights violators.
Mr. Bolton accompanied the announcement with a prediction that if rebuffed, the United States would look to new forums outside the United Nations to settle international problems.
To quote the singer Neil Young, in another context: "Got to get down to it...should have been done long ago".
New York Times - Mr. Sach said such an interim budget would confront the United Nations with a deficit of $320 million in the first quarter of 2006.
Among the options to try to close it, he said, were borrowing from the separate peacekeeping budget, drawing down reserves and freezing recruitment, travel, equipment purchases and salary payments. None of those, he said, would produce nearly enough money and would require approval by the General Assembly, which was opposed to the American move and wary of Congressional threats to withhold American dues.
The bankruptcy courts, and courts which have receivership powers, are alive and well. Their functioning and their ability to dispose of some prime New York City real estate is hardly in doubt. Now, I personally might be inconvenienced by a temporary closure of the FDR Drive (a major artery that runs under the UN) while it's being imploded.
*snip*
New York Times - Secretary General Kofi Annan responded to Mr. Bolton's proposal last week by saying it was essential to the functioning of the organization to have a budget approved this year.
Very urgent. For his son especially.
*snip*
Well, then they better jump on pushing through those reforms that the US ambassador has presented.
Remember this doesn't include all of the money that flows to them from various US departments and agencies automatically. The dues is symbolic compared to the automatic cash that never stopped flowing.
A very clear majority of the UN members hate the USA as shown in many of their votes. I would think they would be very happy to have the US pull out of the US and move, say, to Paris or Havana. I think that would be a great move for the UN.
Probably will hold up the graft they plan on pocketing.
The UN needs to be scraped. It's an organization of the worlds worst corrupt vultures, a selected, not elected group of elite socialists who want to rule the world according to their delusions.
Peaple need to wake up and realize what a threat the UN has become to our nation's soverenty, of our freedom to elect and govern ourselves.
As already seen, we can't fire anyone in the UN with power like Kofi Annan. They can become very dangerous, corrupt, world wide dictators. Look at the support he has by other corrupt dictators. In turn, they appoint other corrupt elitists to keep themselves in power.
The UN has steped far beyond it's intended perpose, and MUST be destryed.
I haven't said the US should pull out of the UN...in doing so we would lose the veto we have which is one of the last protections for the world from the evil rampant in the UN. I said that if the UN is complaining that the US withholding funding contingent upon reforms in the UN might cause problems, then the UN better get to fixing those problems if they wish to avoid the budgetary problems.
Havana's OK. Paris is too nice. How about Riyadh for their summer home, the mountains of Pakistan for their winter home?
I think its too late to get out of the UN.
Sounds to me like some UN Diplomats are worried their bribe and welfare riches won't show up in time.
Let France make the payments.
The UN is opposed to the US, so why should we be paying them?
a crisis at the U.N.? Are they gonna run out of Jihadi Cakes, Ding-Dongs, and Ho-Hos?
How about a UN exercise in 'fairness' Instead of the US paying for half the budget, I suggest we pay as we go. If things work out as we like, we pay a fee of say, fifty bucks to chip in on the printer's fees.
They may have to stay in 3 star hotels instead of 5 star hotels to collect information about the next crises/problem...that we and the Aussies and others are already confronting headon.
We can still hope. The "death of a thousand cuts" may yet work if we keep at it.
Hope all is working out for you and yours down in NOLA. We got hit hard by Wilma ourselves, but things are back to normal here in Blue-Tarp city.
,,, UN headquarters is getting a major makeover or has had one and there was $US13b in back dues paid just before the campaign on Iraq started, to shut them up. The UN is in NY to stay and it's US funding that's keeping it there.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
