Anonymous ID: ea79aa May 16, 2020, 2:43 p.m. No.9203310   🗄️.is 🔗kun

China upset about US being $1 Billion in arrears in UN funding

(why fund an enemy?)

 

United Nations (AP) – China is going after the United States over more than $1 billion that the Trump administration owes the United Nations in unpaid dues for its regular operating budget and arrears for the separate budget for the U.N.’s far-flung peacekeeping operations.

 

The unusual singling out of the U.S. non-payment by China’s U.N. mission comes as President Donald Trump continues to accuse Beijing of not being open about the coronavirus when cases were initially reported in December and early January.

 

A U.S. Mission spokesperson said China “is eager to distract attention from its cover-up and mismanagement of the COVID-19 crisis, and this is yet another example.”

 

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in early April that the United Nations faced a cash crisis because of non-payment of dues by member states, which has been exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic.

 

He said in a letter to the U.N.’s 193 member nations that “unpredictable cash inflows, exacerbated by the global crisis posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, seriously threaten” the U.N.’s ability to do its work. He announced a temporary hiring freeze and urged all countries to pay their past and present dues.

 

China’s U.N. Mission said its acting deputy ambassador, Yao Shaojun, spoke at a U.N. General Assembly’s budget committee meeting Thursday titled “Improving the Financial Situation of the United Nations,” and stressed the importance of all U.N. member nations fulfilling their financial obligations, citing the U.S. arrears.

 

“Facing tremendous economic and fiscal pressure from the COVID-19 outbreak, China, the second largest contributor to the UN regular budget and peacekeeping budget, has managed to pay all assessed contributions in full,” the mission quoted Yao as saying. “It shows China’s concrete support to the cause of the U.N. and the work of the secretary-general.”

 

The United States funds 25% of the regular U.N. budget, while China pays 12%. Of the 193 member nations, 91 had paid their dues in full as of May 13. China paid $336.78 million for the regular budget on May 1.

 

U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Friday there is still $1.62 billion unpaid for the U.N.'s 2020 regular budget and $2.12 billion outstanding for the peacekeeping budget. He did not give the U.S. arrears.

 

China’s Yao called the United States “the largest debtor,” saying it owed about $1.16 billion to the regular budget and $1.3 billion to the peacekeeping budget.

 

The U.S. Mission spokesperson, who was not authorized to speak publicly, said the United States recently made a payment of $726 million toward its peacekeeping assessment “and per practice will pay the bulk of its assessment at the end of the calendar year.”

 

Because the U.S. fiscal year runs from October to September, not January to December, it has always paid U.N. dues late in the year.

 

The U.S.-China dispute has been escalating over the pandemic, which has circled the globe causing over 300,000 deaths.

 

Trump suspended U.S. funding to the World Health Organization in early April, accusing the U.N. health agency of failing to stop the virus from spreading when it first surfaced in China. He said the agency “must be held accountable,’’ accusing the WHO of parroting Beijing.

 

The U.S.-China dispute over the WHO has blocked the U.N. Security Council, the global organizations’s most powerful body, from adopting any resolution on the pandemic.

 

China strongly supports the WHO and has insisted the agency’s role in tackling the pandemic be included in any resolution. The U.S. insists on making no mention of the WHO and including a reference to “transparency” on the coronavirus outbreak, which China opposes.

 

China’s U.N. Mission said Beijing has decided to donate $30 million more to the WHO in addition to the $20 million it already gave the agency to support its work on COVID-19.

Anonymous ID: ea79aa May 16, 2020, 2:51 p.m. No.9203404   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>3409

'They want to punish her': Glenn Greenwald flames media for refusing to defend Catherine Herridge against Biden campaign attack

 

The founder of a liberal-leaning media outlet is defending a CBS reporter who was attacked for breaking the news of a request from 16 individuals to unmask the identity of then-national security adviser Michael Flynn.

 

Speaking with Fox News host Martha MacCallum on Friday, the Intercept co-founder Glenn Greenwald praised reporter Catherine Herridge for her "extremely reliable" reporting on the Russian collusion narrative in spite of attacks from 2020 Democratic candidate Joe Biden's campaign staff.

 

"I think Catherine Herridge is a reporter of the highest integrity and professionalism," Greenwald told MacCallum. "I find it extremely ironic because every time President Trump has insulted or attacked a journalist popular among mainstream media outlets, they proclaim that the republic is coming to an end, that it's an assault on the free press."

 

Greenwald said Herridge is being attacked because she has presented facts that run counter to prevailing narratives in the media about President Trump's administration.

 

On Wednesday, Biden's senior adviser, Andrew Bates, attacked Herridge after the released list of names who had received the Flynn unmasking document included the Democratic front-runner.

 

"Here, we have the Biden campaign viciously attacking a reporter who is as straight of a shooter as it gets," Greenwald said. "She doesn't really ever editorialize, she doesn't squabble with anybody, she just reports documents that are true."

 

Greenwald criticized Herridge's colleagues in the media who often rush to express "their solidarity as if they've been shipped off to the gulag" anytime Trump is critical of them but who are now turning their backs on a reporter who has been seen by many to be fair and accurate over the course of her career.

 

"For years, there's been no dissent and no questioning tolerated in the mainstream media when it comes to the Russiagate scandal, the Mueller probe, and she doesn't play that game," said Greenwald. "And that's why they want to punish her."

 

Greenwald suspects that Herridge is being targeted because she has released a number of high-profile scoops that discredited the narrative that members of the Trump administration were conspiring with Russia to throw the 2016 presidential election.

 

"Over the last month, there has been a series of newly released documents that have been in strong tension with the conspiracy theories about Trump and Russia that have prevailed in the media world for three years now," Greenwald said.

 

Greenwald said attacks on Herridge's credibility will be used to scare journalists, who are witnessing massive layoffs across their industry, into not questioning things that could get them fired.

 

"Imagine if you're a young journalist and you see jobs disappearing, the last thing you want to do when you look at how they're treating her, is step forward and question any of these kind of pieties or orthodoxies that the media is peddling," added Greenwald. "I think it's really an attempt by the Biden campaign where no one is allowed to be off-note or off-key."

Anonymous ID: ea79aa May 16, 2020, 2:52 p.m. No.9203409   🗄️.is 🔗kun

>>9203404

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/they-want-to-punish-her-glenn-greenwald-flames-media-for-refusing-to-defend-catherine-herridge-against-biden-campaign-attack

Anonymous ID: ea79aa May 16, 2020, 2:55 p.m. No.9203448   🗄️.is 🔗kun

Colorado COVID-19 death count down almost 25%, as state differentiates 'dying with,' 'dying from'

State authorities faced criticism for classifying as COVID-19 death a man with astronomical .55 blood-alcohol content.

 

Colorado health officials this week implemented a more precise coronavirus data metric to measure deaths from the virus in that state, one that sent confirmed COVID-19 fatalities tumbling by a full 25%.

 

Public health officials in the state elected to start distinguishing between individuals who died directly from the disease and those who simply died with the virus in their systems. Authorities in that state had faced criticism this week for classifying as a COVID-19 death a man whose blood-alcohol content registered an astronomical .55.

 

With the new system in place, confirmed coronavirus deaths in Colorado plummeted from 1150 to 878, a drop of almost 25%.

 

Following the change, the Colorado governor's office said it "fully supports" the effort to more accurately tabulate the number of COVID-19 deaths in the state, though the governor said the new number will likely rise as backlogged fatalities from the past week get entered into the state system.

 

The state's coronavirus dashboard lists 21,232 confirmed cases of the virus there as of Saturday afternoon, with over 3,800 hospitalizations. Over 90% of deaths in the state were of individuals 60 or older. Deaths appear to have peaked there on April 25.

 

https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/coronavirus/after-changing-its-counting-guidelines-colorados-confirmed-covid-19#article

Anonymous ID: ea79aa May 16, 2020, 3:02 p.m. No.9203510   🗄️.is 🔗kun

Trump fires State Department watchdog who played minor role in impeachment

 

President Trump late Friday dismissed State Department Inspector General Steve A. Linick, who played a minor role in last year's impeachment drama and was sharply critical of Hillary Clinton’s email scandal.

 

The president's decision was transmitted in a letter to congressional leaders saying he no longer had the "fullest confidence" in Linick, who has served as the State Department's chief watchdog since he was appointed by President Obama in 2013.

 

Over the last few weeks, Trump has fired a handful of federal agency watchdogs as he seeks to reshape the inspector general community with his own appointees.

 

Officials said Ambassador Stephen Akard, a career diplomat who currently heads the State Department's Office of Foreign Missions, has been named to replace Linick.

 

Linick drew brief headlines last October when he provided to Congress a folder of documents that Rudy Giuliani, Trump's personal lawyer, had given the department alleging possible wrongdoing in Ukraine. The episode was one of many cited by Democrats as they pursued impeachment against Trump.

 

Democrats have howled about several of Trump's decisions to replace holdover Obama appointees in recent months. And Friday night was no different.

 

"Shameful. Another late Friday night attack on independence, accountability, and career officials. At this point, the President's paralyzing fear of any oversight is undeniable," Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., tweeted.

 

https://justthenews.com/government/white-house/trump-fires-state-department-watchdog-who-played-minor-role-impeachment

 

Trump TRAP

(interdasting considering the crimes that occured during her tenor)

Throughout the tenure of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (which lasted until February 1, 2013), there was no permanent inspector general at the State Department, nor did President Barack Obama nominate anyone for that position while Clinton was Secretary.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inspector_General_of_the_Department_of_State#Vacancy_during_Clinton_tenure