The legislation under debate and facing a vote Friday would withhold half of U.S. dues to the U.N.’s general budget if the organization doesn’t meet a list of demands for change. Failure to comply would also result in U.S. refusal to support expanded and new peacekeeping missions.
Before the final vote, legislators discussed the seating of such human rights abusers as Cuba and Sudan on the U.N. Commission on Human Rights and the oil-for-food program that became a source of up to $10 billion in illicit revenue for former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, R-Neb., proposed an amendment under which the United States would use its influence to ensure that any member engaged in acts of genocide or crimes against humanity would lose its U.N. membersship and face arms and trade embargoes.
“Over the years, as we listened to the counsels for patience, the U.N.’s failings have grown,” said House International Relations Committee Chairman Henry Hyde, R-Ill., sponsor of the measure. “The time has finally come where we must in good conscience say ‘enough.’”
Hyde was joined by lawmakers with a litany of complaints against what they said was the U.N.’s lavish spending, its coddling of rogue regimes, its anti-America, anti-Israel bias and recent scandals such as the mismanagement of the oil-for-food program in Iraq and the sexual misconduct of peacekeepers.
The bill lists 39 reforms sought. They include cutting the public information budget by 20 percent, establishing an independent oversight board and an ethics office, and denying countries that violate human rights from serving on human rights commissions.
The secretary of state would have to certify that 32 of the 39 reforms have been met by September 2007, and all 39 by the next year, to avoid a withdrawal of 50 percent of assessed dues.
U.S.-assessed dues account for about 22 percent of the U.N.’s $2 billion annual general budget.
The financial penalties would not apply to the U.N.’s voluntarily funded programs, which include UNICEF and the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.
We try to help the savages in the third world and they just fuck us up the arsehole again and again and again.
British charity Oxfam has had to pay the Sri Lankan government $1m in import duty for vehicles used in tsunami reconstruction work.
Paperwork had kept the 25 four-wheel drive vehicles idle in the capital, Colombo, for a month.
The Sri Lankan government told the BBC News website the aid had been duty-free until the end of April but was now needed to prevent “market distortions”.
Nearly 31,000 people died in Sri Lanka when the tsunami struck on 26 December. Half a million were made homeless. Oxfam told BBC News the 25 Indian-made Mahindra vehicles were essential in ensuring it could reach the poorest communities over rough terrain and bad roads.
Sri Wanka does not manufacture any automobiles so it was not possible to buy them locally. A spokesman said: “Clearly Oxfam would have preferred not to pay this tax on the vehicles and we did everything we could to have the tax waived.
"However the government has turned down our request and the laws of the country dictate that we must now pay the normal import tax.”
The spokesman said the incident would not affect the way Oxfam worked in Sri Lanka.
Britain’s Daily Telegraph said Sri Lankan customs had charged $5,000 a day while the vehicles were processed.
Oxfam was given the choice of handing over the vehicles to the government, re-exporting them or paying the 300% import tax. Indeed they look at us in the west, see us as weak and do their level best to humiliate us and take advanage of our good natures whilst at the same time trying to make us feel guilty over whatever shit has happened to them. Fuck em I say.
Not on the commie run BBC as its a good story about IRAQ!
First Woman Gets Silver Star Since WW II
WASHINGTON (AP) - A 23-year-old sergeant with the Kentucky National Guard on Thursday became the first female soldier to receive the Silver Star - the nation’s third-highest medal for valor - since World War II.
Sgt. Leigh Ann Hester, who is from Nashville, Tenn., but serves in a Kentucky unit, received the award for gallantry during a March 20 insurgent ambush on a convoy in Iraq. Two men from her unit, the 617th Military Police Company of Richmond, Ky., also received the Silver Star for their roles in the same action.
According to military accounts of the firefight, insurgents attacked the convoy as it traveled south of Baghdad, launching their assault from trenches alongside the road using rifles, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades. Hester and her unit moved through enemy fire to the trenches, attacking them with grenades before entering and clearing them.
She killed at least three insurgents with her M4 rifle, according to her award citation. In the entire battle, 26 or 27 insurgents were killed and several more were captured, according to various accounts. Several Americans were also wounded in the firefight.
“Her actions saved the lives of numerous convoy members. Sgt. Hester’s bravery is in keeping with the finest traditions of military heroism,” her award citation reads.
“I’m honored to even be considered, much less awarded, the medal,” Hester told the American Forces Press Service, a military-run information service. “It really doesn’t have anything to do with being a female. It’s about the duties I performed that day as a soldier.”
Hester, a native of Bowling Green, Ky., joined the Kentucky Army National Guard in April 2001 and moved to Nashville in 2003, according to a biography provided by the Army. She works as a retail store manager. Her unit deployed to Iraq in November 2004 and remains in the Baghdad area, escorting convoys and assisting the Iraqi Highway Patrol.
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