July 24, 2002	Wednesday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 13,1423

UNITED NATIONS, July 23: Diplomats and officials at the United Nations were shocked at the Bush administration’s decision to stop its contribution for the UN Population Fund asserting that the move was motivated by domestic politics at the expense of women and children’s health.

Europe, Canada, Japan and the United Nations have been frustrated and disappointed with Bush administration’s decisions to opt out of the Kyoto protocol on climate change and talks on biological weapons.

Most recently, the United States nearly backed out of its participation in the international criminal court.

At the UN, the Bush administration seems to be involved in feuds that have been contentious and left relations between the US and it’s allies battered at a time when US needs them most in the ‘war on terrorism’.

Thoraya Obaid, executive director of the UN fund, questioned why the administration was cutting off aid to all countries, when in the past, the fund has promised not to spend the money in China.

A State Department fact-finding team recommended the administration maintain that arrangement and Secretary of State Colin Powell praised the agency last year.

“Women and children will die because of this decision,” Obaid said. She said $34 million would have been enough to prevent two million unwanted pregnancies, nearly 800,000 induced abortions, 4,700 maternal deaths, 60,000 cases of serious maternal illness and over 77,000 infant and child deaths.

The latest row over funding for the UN agency that runs family planning programmes in 141 poor nations baffled many inside UN headquarters on Monday.

Many diplomats here said that the cutting of UNFPA funding was a rebuff to the US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, who had applauded the programme recently.

At his Senate confirmation hearings last year, Powell praised UNFPA for its “invaluable work.” A State Department fact-finding mission in May found no evidence that the programme “knowingly supported or participated in the management of a programme of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization.”