Voice from the Commonwealth Commentary, World Views and Occasional Rants from a small 'l' libertarian in Massachussetts
"If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest for freedom, go home and leave us in peace. We seek not your council nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen." - Samuel Adams
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Praise for Voice
"A smart fellow...I do like, recommend and learn from Barbera's blog." -Roger L. Simon
"Your blog is bullshit"- anonymous angry French reader.
Japan, the second-largest financial contributor to the United Nations, plans to cut its support by one-quarter in coming years, senior officials say.
At the UN, Japanese officials say they are angry that the world body has failed them on two counts: the UN has yet to remove a clause from its founding charter that describes Japan as a "former enemy" nearly 60 years after the end of World War II; and Japan, with the world's second-largest economy, has yet to win a permanent seat on the UN's Security Council.
Japan's $US1billion slice of the UN budget is more than the combined payments of four out of five of the permanent members of the Security Council: Britain, China, France and Russia. Only the US pays more.
This on top of the foreign aid cuts last year.
Tokyo has cut its overall foreign aid budget over the past three years by 15.5per cent, or $US1.3billion. Last year it ceded the title of the world's largest donor of foreign aid to the US.
Good for them for realizing that getting their own economy running again is more important than continuing to fuel the UN bureaucracy. And luckily for them, they are a media darling so hey will not come under the attacks that the US would for similar announcements.
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