[Al Jazeera] UN Security Council has agreed to a major reduction of peacekeepers in Sudan's Darfur region after US pressure led to a $600m cut in the UN budget for peace operations.The council on Thursday unanimously adopted a resolution drafted by the UK that will cut the number of troops and police serving in the joint African Union-UN mission known as UNAMID by at least 30 percent.
| An Nahar adds: |
...an organization originally established to war on dictatorships which was promptly infiltrated by dictatorships and is now held in thrall to dictatorships...
will spend $7.3 billion on peacekeeping in the coming year, down from the current $7.87 billion -- roughly a seven percent cut -- according to diplomats familiar with the negotiations.
The United States, the biggest financial contributor to peacekeeping, had sought a nearly $1 billion cut to the bill and the European Union
...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing...
had also pushed for savings to bring costs down to $7.3 billion.
| The United Nations will spend $7.3 billion on peacekeeping in the coming year, down from the current $7.87 billion -- roughly a seven percent cut. |
...first woman to serve as Governor of South Carolina, and the second Indian-American governor in the country, after Bobby Jindal of Louisiana. At the age of 39, Haley is the youngest current governor in the U.S., a distinction formerly held by Jindal. She is a Republican, which really grates on the Dems...
claimed victory in a statement, saying "just five months into our time here, we've already been able to cut over half a billion dollars from the UN peacekeeping budget and we're only getting started."
Hardest hit by the cuts will be the UN missions in Sudan's troubled region of Darfur and in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
...formerly the Congo Free State, Belgian Congo, Zaire, and who knows what else, not to be confused with the Brazzaville Congo aka
Republic of Congo, which is much smaller and much more (for Africa) stable. DRC gave the world Patrice Lumumba and Joseph Mobutu, followed by years of tedious civil war. Its principle industry seems to be the production of corpses. With a population of about 74 million it has lots of raw material...
, the two costliest operations with budgets that run over $1 billion. The United Nations has shut down its mission in Ivory Coast and is planning to pull its peacekeepers out of Haiti in the coming months.
A Security Council diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity said however there will be "cuts across the board" in the 13 peacekeeping missions as a result of US pressure.
Washington pays 28.5 percent of the peacekeeping budget and 22 percent of the UN's core budget of $5.4 billion.
The deal falls short of the request from UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who had asked for $7.97 billion for the annual budget which runs from July 1 to June 30 of next year.
The deal is expected to be approved by the UN General Assembly on Friday.