Colum Lynch has the scoop. “The White House budget office informed State Department officials this week that the administration plans to eliminate all U.S. funding to the $326 million International Organizations and Programs account, which provides more than $130 million to the U.N. Children’s Fund, a sizeable chunk of the more than $500 million the U.S. contributed to UNICEF in 2016, and around $70 million to the U.N. Development Program. They were also told to brace for a 40 percent cut to the State Department’s U.N. peacekeeping budget. The U.S. contributed over $2 billion to the U.N.’s $8 billion-plus peacekeeping budget last year.” (FP http://atfp.co/2nHswuh)
Largest Polio Vaccine Campaign Ever in Africa…“More than 190 000 polio vaccinators in 13 countries across west and central Africa will immunize more than 116 million children over the next week, to tackle the last remaining stronghold of polio on the continent. The synchronized vaccination campaign, one of the largest of its kind ever implemented in Africa, is part of urgent measures to permanently stop polio on the continent. All children under five years of age in the 13 countries – Benin, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Guinea, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria and Sierra Leone – will be simultaneously immunized in a coordinated effort to raise childhood immunity to polio across the continent. In August 2016, four children were paralysed by the disease in security-compromised areas in Borno state, north-eastern Nigeria, widely considered to be the only place on the continent where the virus maintains its grip.” (WHO http://bit.ly/2nNBXsw )
UN Peacekeeping is not a charity. It protects America and Americans. (UN Dispatch http://bit.ly/2nNAF0O)
What North Korea Wants (Global Dispatches Podcast http://bit.ly/2nNsxND)