NEWS
February 18, 2001 | ROBIN WRIGHT, TIMES STAFF WRITER
The scope of Friday's airstrikes on Iraq may have sent a strong signal about the Bush administration's resolve to squeeze the regime of Saddam Hussein, but Washington also may have played directly into the Iraqi leader's game plan. At its heart, Hussein's strategy in the decade since he was forced to retreat from his invasion of Kuwait has been to make Iraq appear a victim rather than a villain.
NEWS
February 15, 2001 | MAGGIE FARLEY, TIMES STAFF WRITER
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell on Wednesday made his first "foreign" visit since taking office--to the international territory of the United Nations--to sketch out how the Bush administration plans to work with the world body. "It's a time of challenges, a time of opportunity and also a time of risk and danger, and we know the important role the U.N. will play," he said after an hourlong meeting with Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
NEWS
February 8, 2001 | NORMAN KEMPSTER, TIMES STAFF WRITER
By a 99-0 vote, the Senate on Wednesday approved a carefully crafted deal with the United Nations to pay off almost $1 billion in unpaid dues, ending an embarrassing standoff that had threatened to brand the United States a deadbeat nation. In exchange for the U.S. agreement to pay the back dues, the U.N. cut Washington's share of the organization's $1.1-billion annual administrative budget from 25% to 22% and agreed to reduce the U.S. assessment for the $3-billion peacekeeping program from 30.
NEWS
December 23, 2000 | From Times Wire Services
The United Nations agreed in principle Friday to reduce the U.S. share of the world organization's budget, a major step toward ending a standoff with Congress that has caused festering resentment and left the U.N. scrimping for the funds that it believes are needed to carry out its mission. Richard C. Holbrooke, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N.
NEWS
December 22, 2000 | From Times Wire Reports
CNN founder Ted Turner has offered to make up the $35-million difference between the dues that the United States owes to the United Nations for 2001 and the amount that Congress is willing to pay. Turner's offer is intended to help Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, clinch a deal for a permanent reduction in the U.S. share of the U.N. budget and to bring an end to Washington's chronic debts to the world body, U.S. officials and a Turner representative said.
NEWS
April 19, 2000 | NORMAN KEMPSTER, TIMES STAFF WRITER
In a decision that is becoming something of an annual tradition, the U.N. Human Rights Commission on Tuesday rejected a Clinton administration resolution that sought to condemn China for political and religious repression. The commission, meeting in Geneva, voted 22 to 18, with 12 abstentions, to take no action on the issue this year. In 1999, the vote was strikingly similar: 22 to 17, with 14 abstentions. Although U.S. officials acknowledge that they had no realistic hope that the U.N.