Subject: [APFN] Senate Bill 248
Date: Thu, 08 Feb 2001 19:15:52 -0800
From: "F.M.Sielaff" = apsiden@netins.net
com
Organization: Truth Resources http://skybusiness.com/truth_resources

And our U.S. Senate's very first legislative action of this session? Of
course, funding of the U.N. These traitors just won't quit! Note:
"without dissent"!!! But, it still has to go before the House.

We can afford to fund U.N. forces, but we can't afford to fund our own!
Utter traitorous diarrhea!

Courtesy of the AP via Capitol Hill Blue.

+ + +

Senate Votes to Pay Back Dues to U.N.

Thursday, February 08, 2001

By JIM ABRAMS
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Senate held a breakthrough vote to pay U.S. debts
to the United Nations after the world body satisfied its chief
congressional nemesis, Sen. Jesse Helms, that it was streamlining its
operations and reducing America's share of the U.N. budget.

Both the Foreign Relations Committee, which Helms chairs, and the full
Senate voted without dissent Wednesday to release $582 million in back
dues owed the United Nations for its operations and peacekeeping costs.

That's the bulk of the $926 million Congress promised in a 1999 law on
condition that the organization reform its huge bureaucracy and reduce
the U.S. budgetary burden.

Helms, R-N.C., who last year exchanged well-publicized visits with
members of the U.N. Security Council, said Wednesday that while the
United Nations had fallen slightly short of the goals he had set, he
supported release of the money. "This legislation justifiably used the
leverage of the United States to press for reforms, by linking payment
of the United States' so-called U.N. arrears to specific U.N. reforms,"
Helms said.

Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., the top Democrat on Foreign Relations and
co-writer with Helms of the 1999 law, praised his conservative partner
for insisting on the U.N. changes. "Just as only Nixon could go to
China, only Helms could fix the U.N.," Biden said.

The 99-0 Senate vote sends the bill to the House, which has not
scheduled a date for action. Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, did not vote.

At U.N. headquarters in New York, the chief U.N. financial officer,
Undersecretary-General for Management Joseph Connor, promised that the
money will go to satisfy the organization's debts to countries that have
participated in peacekeeping.

"We are delighted that the large arrearage package contemplated in the
Helms-Biden bill has now come a step closer to the transfer of cash,"
Connor said. "We will use every cent to pay down our obligation to some
70 member states who have contributed troops and equipment to U.N.
peacekeeping missions over a long number of years."

The United States paid the first $100 million of the $926 million total
in December 1999, a step needed to keep its voting privileges in the
U.N. General Assembly. The third installment of $244 million would come
next year if the United Nations follows through on pledges to clean up
what Helms called its bloated bureaucracy.

Wednesday's vote, the Senate's first legislative action of the new
Congress, came after the General Assembly concluded lengthy negotiations
last December with agreement that the U.S. share of the operating budget
would drop from 25 percent to 22 percent and its share of the
peacekeeping budget would be reduced gradually from 31 percent to 26.5
percent in 2003.

Key to reaching the deal was a one-time gift of $34 million offered by
American media tycoon Ted Turner to cover the shortfall in the main U.N.
budget created by the reduced U.S. contribution in 2001.

The vote on the $582 million was required because the Helms-Biden
measure of 1999 conditioned release of funds to the United States paying
no more than 25 percent of the peacekeeping budget, slightly less than
what the U.N. agreed to.

That 25 percent cap was first set in 1994 and several members of the
Foreign Relations Committee said Congress should act soon to lift that
ceiling. Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., said most of the peacekeeping
budget goes to U.S. allies who, with the United States reluctant to
contribute troops to peacekeeping missions, are shouldering much of the
manpower burden.

The United Nations contends that, even with payment of the $926 million,
the United States would still be in arrears by some $500 million because
it has not fulfilled its obligation to pay 31 percent of peacekeeping
costs. Congressional agreement to that argument is unlikely.

---

The bill is S. 248.

_________________________________________________________
"I tolerate with the utmost latitude the right of
others to differ from me in opinion"
Thomas Jefferson

"My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.....!"
---- Hosea 4:6
or
"There ain't no knowledge in the SECOND kick from a mule!"
---- APFN ADVISOR

American Patriot Friends Network (APFN)
http://www.apfn.org
APFN EMAIL LIST SUBSCRIBE/UNSUBSCRIBE IN SUBJECT LINE TO: apfn@apfn.org
APFN YahooGroups:
Subscribe: apfn-1-subscribe@yahoogroups.com 
Unsubscribe: apfn-1-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com 
APFN CONTENTS: http://www.apfn.org/old/apfncont.htm
APFN MSG BOARD: http://disc.yourwebapps.com/Indices/149495.html
APFN Petition Page: Petitions to Abolish H-1B, IBT, Reclaim America.
http://www.apfn.org/apfn/petitions.htm
APFN SITE MAP:
http://www.apfn.org/apfn/sitemap.htm



Home Edu.Org.(Worldwide)
http://www.home-edu.org

F.M.Sielaff