UN threatened with budgetary shutdown

"Less than two weeks before a Dec. 31 deadline, the United Nations is in danger of beginning the new year inauspiciously - without an approved budget and unable to pay staff salaries.

United Nations - "I am not sure if the light in this room can and will be on," U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan told reporters Wednesday.

"Annan was hinting at an impending financial crisis which could shut down the world body, dimming the lights in the 39-story U.N. Secretariat, come January.

"'I really, really hope that member states understand the implications of a budget crisis and will do everything to avoid it,' the secretary-general said at his year-end press conference.

"The potential crisis has been sparked by implicit threats by the United States that it will not support the U.N.'s biennial budget for 2006-2007 if member states refuse to back proposals for a radical overhaul of the world body, including management reforms.

"Since the budget is traditionally approved by consensus by all 191 member states, a single country can withhold its support, thereby throwing the entire process into disarray.

"John Bolton, the abrasive U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, has said the U.N.'s biennial budget for 2006-2007 should be shrunk into a three-month budget giving member states a deadline of Mar. 31 to agree to a set of U.S.-inspired reforms.

"But the 132-member Group of 77, comprising developing countries, is refusing to conform to artificial deadlines or rush into a decision under threats.

"Last month, Bolton warned U.N. member states, specifically the 132 developing nations, that if they don't play ball with the United States, Washington may look elsewhere to settle international problems."
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Tagged: bolton, united+nations