UN Rejects Reforms

The UN General Assembly voted to remove a spending cap on it's budget and refused to agree to reforms requested by the US.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. General Assembly lifted the cap on United Nations spending but put off a resolution on management reform that U.S. Ambassador John Bolton rejected as not going far enough.

The resolution, approved late on Friday, removes the freeze on the U.N. budget and averts a financial crisis by paying 14,000 staff over the next six months. But it represents a defeat for the United States because it was not made conditional on reforms.

Japan and Australia joined Washington in "disassociating themselves" from the decision.

The General Assembly measure, adopted by consensus without a vote, follows a budget committee's decision on Wednesday to lift a freeze of $950 million, part of a U.S.-led drive to get approval for a series of management changes.

Also high on the reform agenda is a "mandate review" of some 900 resolutions, programs and directives, more than five years old.

"There is not going to be a management reform resolution tonight," Bolton told reporters. "It was clear there was no agreement on a substantive issue, not enough of a critical mass for a resolution.

"We think it was a mistake to lift the cap. The real metric here is how much reform has been accomplished and the answer remains: precious little."

A initial management reform resolution has been put off until next week.

At issue is an increasing division between wealthy nations, which pay 80 percent of the budget, and developing states, which represent a majority in the 191-member General Assembly as well as the world's population. They fear rich countries want more control over U.N. jobs and programs.

The United States pays 22 percent of the budget, Japan nearly 20 percent and the European Union 38 percent.

While the Bush administration requested $423 million for U.N. dues this year, conservative lawmakers in Congress began to pare down the amount, following testimony by Bolton.

The UN continues to show just how useless it has become. It appears to be incapable of reforming itself and continues it's mad rush to irrelevancy.