United Nations Population Fund

The Bush administration said Friday it would withhold $34 million in dues from the United Nations Population Fund, acting against the program for the third consecutive year because the administration believes the fund indirectly supports Chinese government programs that force women to have abortions. Officials said they were taking the step because of a U.S. law that prohibits aid to agencies that participate in coercive family-planning practices. Disagreeing with U.N.

The Bush administration said Friday it would withhold $34 million in dues from the United Nations Population Fund, acting against the program for the third consecutive year because the administration believes the fund indirectly supports Chinese government programs that force women to have abortions. Officials said they were taking the step because of a U.S. law that prohibits aid to agencies that participate in coercive family-planning practices. Disagreeing with U.N.

The United Nations launched an $8-million project Friday to provide birth control facilities in Vietnam, which says it must curb its population growth in order to help its emerging economy. The United Nations Population Fund signed an agreement with Vietnam's Ministry of Health covering 1992-1995 to supply Vietnam with intrauterine devices and oral contraceptives and to investigate local birth control use. Vietnam, which has more than 70 million people, says it must decrease its 2.

Re "U.S. Right Squeezes Lifesaving Aid to Africans," Commentary, June 10: Barbara Crossette writes on the effect of the "gag rule" [the Republican ban on giving aid to groups that counsel people on abortion] on the Young & Wise AIDS prevention program in Ghana and on the withdrawal of U.S. funds from the United Nations Population Fund. We Americans ought to be paying more attention. The Bush administration hopes that only its "fanatical faithful" will pay attention but that for the rest of us, these mean-spirited policies will pass under the radar.

More than half the world's projected 6.6 billion people in the year 2006 will be living in urban areas, underlining the prospect of crowded, violent and unhealthy cities, the United Nations Population Fund said in a report released in London. The biggest increase in urban population will be in developing countries, where the pressure on resources will be greatest, it added. "This urban future is inevitable and it should not be feared," the report said.

More than half the world's people will be living in urban areas in 10 years, underlining the prospect of ever more crowded, violent and unhealthy cities, the United Nations Population Fund said in a new report. Of a global population of 6.6 billion in 2006, 3.3 billion will inhabit towns and cities, and the biggest increase in urban populations will be in developing countries, where the pressure on resources will be greatest, the fund said.

Re "Bush Proposes Major Boost in Development Aid," March 15: President Bush is to be lauded for wanting to increase development aid to poor countries by $5 billion. However, development without population stabilization and sustainable use of resources is meaningless. He is to be castigated for using his "ax of evil" in chopping off our country's contribution to the United Nations Population Fund, which offers family planning and reproductive health care, battles transmission of HIV and monitors violence against women and children, particularly in refugee camps in areas of conflict.

Rojda was 13 when she was raped two years ago by a neighbor in this hardscrabble Kurdish province. In order to "cleanse" her honor, she was forced to marry her attacker in an unofficial Islamic-style ceremony. He later was convicted of raping a 7-year-old boy and has been imprisoned. But Rojda's troubles were far from over, according to an account of her ordeal provided by her family and attorneys.

The withholding of $34 million from the United Nations Population Fund is just another in a long line of actions that distance this country from the world community (July 21). Bowing to the political pocketbook dictates another policy that will prove to be hurtful to the most needy. The action was taken based upon a lie that the money funds disapproved-of practices in China. That has proved to be false, yet the administration refuses to release the report. The U.N. Population Fund itself bars funding from going to programs involved in coercion.

President Bush faces a test today that pits his stated concern for the welfare of Afghan and other Third World women and children against a demand by abortion opponents. He will decide whether to release the money Congress appropriated late last year to support health care and family planning in Afghanistan and dozens of other poor countries--or, in a misguided nod to anti-abortion groups, cancel it altogether.

Re "A horrific practice," editorial, Feb. 20 The Times' attack on female genital mutilation is the latest salvo in a decades-long campaign that is essentially a continuation of a simple concept: The West knows best. The logic in this campaign is full of faults. How exactly will ending female circumcision end inequality in Africa? You pointed to those thousands of villages that have given up the practice. OK, are women in those villages any better off? Are they no longer sold off into marriage?