United Nations peacekeepers in the Central African Republic, in April. The Trump administration’s budget proposal would reduce American financial support for the United Nations, including for its peacekeeping operations and international aid programs.
The United Nations said on Wednesday that the Trump administration’s proposed budget cuts would “simply make it impossible” for the global organization to maintain essential operations.
The statement, by a United Nations spokesman, added to the growing criticism of a budget submission for the 2018 fiscal year that would reduce funding of the State Department by roughly a third and cut foreign assistance by about 29 percent.
The spending proposal, which was released on Tuesday, would reduce American financial support for the United Nations, including for its peacekeeping operations and international aid programs. The United States is the organization’s biggest single donor.
“The figures presented would simply make it impossible for the U.N. to continue all of its essential work advancing peace, development, human rights and humanitarian assistance,” Stéphane Dujarric, a spokesman for Secretary General António Guterres, said in response to queries about the budget proposal.
Republicans and Democrats have criticized the proposed budget’s cuts to foreign assistance, saying that such reductions would undercut national security and send the wrong message about American generosity as humanitarian crises are escalating in the Middle East and Africa.
The United States ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki R. Haley, has said the United States wants the United Nations to use American taxpayer money more efficiently.
But she has also expressed opposition to what she has called a slash-and-burn approach to budget reductions and has suggested that final allocations will not be as austere as what has been proposed.
“I was a governor; I had to do an executive budget,” Ms. Haley said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal during a visit to the Middle East this week. “What an executive budget is is the start of a conversation.”
Mr. Dujarric acknowledged that the “budgetary process in the U.S. is complex and lengthy, and it needs to be completed.”
He also said, “We are indeed very grateful for the support the United States has given to the United Nations over the years as the organization’s largest financial contributor.”
The United States contributes 22 percent of the United Nations’ core operating budget of $5.4 billion. That share is set by an international agreement and is based on the size of the American economy. The United States has also been a leading provider of aid to United Nations organizations that rely on voluntary contributions.
Twenty-eight percent of the United Nations’ peacekeeping budget of nearly $8 billion has been paid by the United States. The Trump administration’s budget proposal would reduce the American portion to about 25 percent.
The UN have not been doing their job for years already. They are a bottomless pit of ludicrous expenses. They must cut back on UNHRC, UNRWA and other useless sections, fight against real Human Rights abusers and stop wasting time and money attacking Israel.
UN = the epicenter for the promotion of international Antisemitism.
@ Michael S:
“Trump: I’ll be ‘neutral’ on Israel and Palestine”
BY MARK HENSCH – 02/17/16 09:41 PM EST
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/269806-trump-ill-be-neutral-on-israel-and-palestine
“Huckabee: Israel’s claim to Judea and Samaria stronger than US tie to Manhattan Presidential hopeful on Jerusalem visit says Israel didn’t steal the land and needs settlements for defensible borders; meets Netanyahu, vows to ‘undo’ Iran deal if elected” BY RAPHAEL AHREN August 19, 2015, 6:16 pm
http://www.timesofisrael.com/huckabee-israels-claim-to-judea-and-samaria-stronger-than-us-tie-to-manhattan/
US Presidential Candidate Huckabee: Judea and Samaria Belong to Israel!
https://unitedwithisrael.org/judea-and-samaria-belong-to-israel-huckabee-states/
In Jerusalem, Mike Huckabee Calls West Bank Part of Israel
https://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/08/19/in-jerusalem-mike-huckabee-calls-west-bank-part-of-israel/
Right after reading this, I went out and changed my party registration from independent to Republican so I could vote for Huckabee. You have to change your registration a year in advance in New York, changes only take effect after November election. A lot of late comer Sanders supporters didn’t know that.
I knew ultra-orthodox pro-settler Jews in Brooklyn who laughed at my support for Huckabee and supported Trump. Don’t know why. Also don’t know why Bennett gave that obsequious speech about Trump’s visit. I really prefer Shaked even though she is not next in line.
It seems we finally have a President who is largely keeping his campaign promises. The world is shocked!
I hope the UN is right about Trump’s proposed budget cuts. They should cease most of their so-called work. It would be better still if the US stopped providing any funds for UNWRA.
So what? “Beasts In Blue Berets – The escalating scandal of unpunished atrocities committed by UN “peacekeepers” illustrates that the planetary police are beyond accountability.”
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/POLITICS/UN/peace.html
UNGA adopts 20 resolutions against Israel, 6 on rest of world combined
https://www.unwatch.org/unga-adopts-20-resolutions-israel-4-rest-world-combined/
UNRWA teachers Incite Terrorism and Antisemitism
https://www.unwatch.org/130-page-report-unrwa-teachers-incite-terrorism-antisemitism/
So what? How is the UN not being able to do its job a bad thing?
“Beasts in Blue Berets – The Reality Of The United Nations”
“…the photograph depicts two Belgian paladins of the new world order giddily holding a Somali child over an open flame. Other series of photographs depict UN soldiers kicking and stabbing a Somali, and another soldier apparently urinating on the Somali’s dead body; yet another shows a Somali child being forced to drink salt water, vomit, and worms. A second group of photos published in the July 15th Village Voice shows the dead bodies of bound Somalis — what appears to be the work of a death squad.
One atrocity not caught on camera involved the “punishment” of a Somali child by placing him in a metal container and withholding water from him for two days; predictably, the relentless African heat killed the child. One Belgian UN soldier testified that it was a regular practice to use metal boxes as prison cells, and that other Somalis probably died similarly gruesome deaths…
“…Nor was the Belgian component of the UN’s “Operation Restore Hope” uniquely barbarous. Three members of a now-disbanded elite Canadian paratroop regiment were tried and convicted of criminal charges in the beating death of a 16-year-old Somali boy named Shidane Arone; the three “peacekeepers” had been photographed smiling beside the bloody corpse of the boy, whose hands had been bound. The incident prompted the creation of a Canadian government commission to review that nation’s military and its involvement in “peacekeeping” missions; however, the inquiry foundered on the obstructionism of political and military bodies and produced what Canadian critics call an incomplete and inadequate report.
On August 8th, Italian military officials admitted that Italian soldiers assigned to UN duty in Somalia had also tortured and otherwise abused Somali civilians. According to the Washington Post, “Two generals who led the Italian forces to Somalia resigned in June following publication of graphic reports of sexual violence against a Somali woman, electric torture of a young man and allegations that an officer had murdered a young boy.” Drugs and prostitutes also were allowed to circulate freely among Italian UN troops…
“…Crossette noted that Rwandans accused UN troops “of illicit trading, hit-and-run driving, sexual harassment and criminal abuse of diplomatic immunity they have bestowed on themselves. The disruptive personal behavior of some troops has been a factor in Rwanda’s demand that all peacekeepers be withdrawn from the country….”
Also contributing to that demand is the fact that UN forces in Rwanda actually abetted the worst bloodletting in recent memory — the Rwandan genocide of 1994, in which a half-million Tutsis were annihilated in approximately 100 days. “Many of the mass murderers were employees of the international relief agencies,” testified Peter Hammond of Frontline Fellowship in Holocaust in Rwanda. In one incident recounted by Hammond, Belgian UN troops stationed in a heavily fortified compound in Kigali “deceived the [Tutsi] refugees by assembling them for a meal in the dining hall and then [they] evacuated the base while the refugees were eating. Literally two minutes after the Belgians had driven out of their base, the Presidential Guard poured into the buildings annihilating the defenceless Tutsi refugees.”
When the Tutsi-organized Rwandan Patriotic Front drove many of the worst Hutu murderers from Rwanda into the Congo (then called Zaire), the UN intervened militarily — on the side of the murderers…
“…The market in prostitution — including child prostitution — thrives wherever blue berets decamp…
“…However, as Jennifer Gould learned, the mistreatment of women is something of a UN tradition — the world body’s enthusiastic support for radical feminism notwithstanding. In a report published in the May 20th Village Voice, Gould described the plight of Catherine Claxon, a UN employee who filed the first-ever sexual harassment complaint against the UN in 1991.
“…According to Gould, “UN women describe a godfather-like institution” — a network of cronyism and corruption. “This is compounded by the fact that in some UN member countries, women are treated as chattel instead of as equals.”
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/POLITICS/UN/peace.html
“UN Chief Ashamed of Atrocities Against Women”
The United Nations chief has said he is “ashamed” of atrocities committed against women around the world including those carried out by UN peacekeepers.
http://www.unmultimedia.org/radio/english/2016/10/un-chief-ashamed-of-atrocities-committed-against-women/#.WSb6ehgrJhE
learn to tighten the belt. is the cafeteria free meals, wine, beer etc? let those who travel on u n work fly basic class, no more 5 star hotel, plenty of adequate 2/3 star lodgings, when traveling set a daily meal budget any booze at the employees expense. it would be interesting to see how the monies spent. no more free perks eg hair cuts, taxies, whores, drivers, use the public transport when available. be interesting to see what pension plan is in place for all employees of which the sect gen is one. let the useless u n agencies work from one building overseas, how many buildings used in bern or other swiss cities. turn the abarse refugeges into reg. refugees. big cost cutting right there.