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BOLTON HEARING LIVE ON C-SPAN 3

The United States is trying to use the power of the purse to force through badly needed management reforms, and these tactics have provoked a reaction among developing countries.

Last month President Bush issued a rare apology. "Saying 'Bring it on,' kind of tough talk, you know, that sent the wrong signal," he confessed. "I think in certain parts of the world it was misinterpreted." Well done, Mr. President, you've understood that bluster can backfire. Now how about sharing this insight with your ambassador to the United Nations? John R. Bolton, the ambassador in question, has a rich history of losing friends and failing to influence people. He was notorious, even before arriving at the United Nations last year, for having said that 10 stories of the U.N. headquarters...

Kofi Annan is giving commencement addresses on college campuses while Eric Shawn is not, but the author of the new book U.N. Exposed can give graduating seniors greater insight into how the United Nations really works than the secretary-general can. “At heart I am a New York City crime reporter so I came at it [U.N.] as a local reporter,” said Shawn who is a member of the U.N. press corps and a senior correspondent for FOX News. It is like a corrupt city hall, “U.N. World is the inverse of any logical reality,” explained Shawn. One example of such...

President Vladimir Putin gave his annual address to the Federal Assembly on Wednesday, and there are several things that make this year’s presidential address notable. One is that it comes very close to outlining the contours of Putin’s desired political legacy, which could be described as the New Deal and the Great Society mixed together in one strategy for securing a more just and effective distribution of Russia’s new wealth among its people. It is no coincidence that Putin opened his speech with a strongly worded quote from Franklin D. Roosevelt: “We have stepped on toes, and we will continue...

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would have the final say on withholding half of U.S. dues to the United Nations under a compromise plan announced on Monday that aims to overhaul the world body. This compromise takes away the threat of an automatic deduction of U.S. dues unless the United Nations makes a series of reforms, a key requirement of a House bill passed in June. Rep. Henry Hyde, an Illinois Republican who led a congressional delegation to the United Nations, said he now agrees with members of the Senate and his House Democratic colleague...

More than 240 women from over 50 countries accused U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan of failing to promote women's rights and of neglecting gender equality in his U.N. reform plans. Secretary-General Kofi Annan is proposing a shakeup of U.N. management practices. that would create a mobile civil service, allow a one-time staff buyout costing about $100,000 per person, modernize technology and consider outsourcing. The proposal, to be unveiled yesterday, is a response to last year's investigation into the U.N. oil-for-food program, which concluded that the U.N.'s shoddy management was partly to blame for widespread corruption. It is also an effort to...

As a moderate-right conservative, it distresses me to reach this conclusion, because I have always thought that having a place where the peoples of the world could meet and talk would always be a good idea, no matter what. However, the obstructionism, the inefficiency, the anti-Semitism, the arrogance and the incredible waste of resources are one thing, but the scandals involving rape and child molestation and oil-for-food bribes are quite another. As more and more information dribbles out, it has become clearer and clearer that these scandals involve the highest levels of UN leadership, and are widespread and so deeply...

Why the UN needs reform In 1991, the members of the United Nations threw their collective efforts behind the attempt to guarantee peace and to bring free elections to Cambodia. To one of the world's most abused, tragic nations, the UN sent its biggest, most expensive peacekeeping force in history. In about two years, some 20,000 UN troops passed through the unfortunate country, proving again the cliche about too many cooks spoiling the broth _ except that the ''broth'' was the nation of Cambodia. The peacekeeping mission turned into a travesty which failed to suppress the Khmer Rouge, tripled the...

UNITED NATIONS: US Ambassador John Bolton’s drive to crack down on UN fraud and abuse is triggering a backlash from developing nations who fear Washington is trying to wrest control from UN members. The simmering conflict between Washington and the developing nations that make up a majority of UN members boiled to the surface this week when two US congressmen said nonaligned states had “worked feverishly in New York to block the efforts ... to clean up the institution”. “We and our colleagues in the House of Representatives have followed, and will continue to follow, your actions very closely, and...

UNITED NATIONS -- The U.S. ambassador opened Security Council discussions on the next U.N. secretary-general, calling the choice of a replacement for Kofi Annan probably the most important decision the world body will make this year. U.S. Ambassador John Bolton, the council's president this month, called a meeting of the five veto-wielding permanent members Thursday "to get a sense of where the council is, so that we can begin to move forward on the issue." Annan's second five-year term ends on Dec. 31 and his successor must be approved by the General Assembly based on a recommendation from the council....

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.S. Ambassador John Bolton's drive to crack down on U.N. fraud and abuse is triggering a backlash from developing nations who fear Washington is trying to wrest control from U.N. members. The simmering conflict between Washington and the developing nations that make up a majority of U.N. members boiled to the surface this week when two U.S. congressmen said nonaligned states had "worked feverishly in New York to block the efforts … to clean up the institution." Tensions escalated after Bolton, who holds the rotating presidency of the 15-nation Security Council in February, scheduled council meetings...

THE United Nations has drawn up plans to privatise the bulk of its staff at its New York headquarters or have their work done more cheaply overseas. The move is in response to mounting demands for reform from the United States, its biggest paymaster. The Business has learned that Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general, has commissioned a study into the outsourcing of the department for General Assembly and Conference ­Management, the main UN ­decision-making body whose officials issue about 200 documents a day in six languages. The move comes as the UN grapples with the oil-for-food scandal in which...

At one level, the United Nations is merely the latest variant on the Congress of Vienna held almost two centuries ago—a venue where the great powers sit down to resolve the problems of the world to their mutual satisfaction. Unfortunately, unlike Lord Castlereagh, Prince Metternich and Talleyrand, none of whom would be asked to audition for a “We Are The World” charity fundraising single, the UN has become the repository of all the West’s sappiest illusions of one-worldism. Let me give an example. Nearly three years ago, the space shuttle Columbia crashed, and Katie Couric on NBC’s Today show saluted...

Earlier this month the Pakistani ambassador to the United Nations, chafing over a U.S. plan to salvage the discredited Human Rights Commission, exemplified why the very idea of U.N. reform looks more and more like a gothic fantasy. The ambassador was indignant at the notion that states under U.N. sanction for rights abuses should be kept off a newly created Human Rights Council. "The presumption that a country is a violator of human rights is very subjective," complained Munir Akram. "If you want to create criteria...that exclude certain countries, why not those that don't support trade liberalization or that don't...

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The U.S. ambassador to the U.N. pushed Tuesday for all five permanent Security Council members to have the right to sit on a new Human Rights Council. Negotiations to replace the present rights council is now the dominant reform topic at the U.N. Past rights councils have included notorious human rights abusers such as Zimbabwe and Cuba. The panel now has 53 members. U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said the permanent council members - United States, Russia, China, France and the United Kingdom - should also be on the Geneva-based rights panel would make it a better...

The UN budget for the biennium 2006-2007 was adopted by the General Assembly at the 11th hour by consensus. The total price tag was $3,799,000,000, 22% of which comes from American taxpayers. For the first time, the resolution adopting the budget attempts to tie dollars to UN reform: "the Secretary-General, while adhering to the existing procedures regarding the annual assessment of Member States, is authorized to enter into expenditure of a first tranche, limited to 950 million dollars, as an exceptional measure."But the following phrase adds: "The General Assembly, in order to ensure the availability of resources for programme delivery,...

Diplomacy: Remember the fuss about John Bolton, how Democrats stalled his confirmation as U.N. ambassador and depicted him as a threat to the world order? Well, his recess appointment is having a salutary impact. That's not how it was supposed to turn out, at least according to the Democrats and the media hysterics. Bolton was the tough-talking undersecretary of state who was once so impolitic as to quip that it wouldn't much matter if the top 10 stories of the East River edifice were knocked over. Mix in some rumors about Bolton bullying State Department subordinates — a delicious fantasy,...

After advising his yet-unnamed successor to grow "thick skin," Secretary-General Annan yesterday appeared to have thinned his own, lashing out at reporters who asked about United Nations and Annan family scandals. Mr. Annan refused to allow a London Times correspondent, James Bone, to ask a question, accusing him of being "an embarrassment" to his profession. The eruption...reflected frustrations...poor supervision of the oil-for-food program...failed to move on such world events as the Darfur genocide... none of the U.N. reform ideas championed by Mr. Annan were implemented beyond window-dressing. Mr. Annan's...remark that the Iraq war was illegal. The comment did not sit...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 8 (UPI) -- U.S. Ambassador John Bolton's demand for reforms at the United Nations before approving its budget is winning support from congressional Republicans. Whatever it takes," said Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., told The Washington Times. "We desperately need to reform that body." Bolton reportedly wants the world body to overhaul its operations by creating an ethics office and increasing the oversight of its activities. But the General Assembly could approve the budget unless Bolton gains majority support. U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., will try to get congressional support to help Bolton force reform, a spokeswoman...