A House committee yesterday voted to slash U.S. dues payments to the United Nations by half if the world body fails to enact sweeping reforms to its budget, human rights arm and peacekeeping missions. By a one-vote margin, the House International Relations Committee rejected a softer Democratic alternative that would have given Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice the power to decide whether to withhold dues. Committee Chairman Henry J. Hyde, Illinois Republican and a co-sponsor of the bill, said anything short of a mandatory cutoff of U.S. funds was an "empty gesture" in the face of such scandals as the...