Latvian Ambassador to UN Speaker Event and Other Chapter News
(Re-print of email message sent 1-23-11)
Dear UNA Brooklyn Chapter Members and Interested Parties:
A belated Happy New Year to you and your families. It’s my hope, and I undertake, to improve on the work that we started last year in making the Brooklyn Chapter more active and influential in bringing attention to the importance and good works of the United Nations. On to business…
Please mark your calendars: The Latvian Ambassador to the United Nations, Normans Penke, has agreed to speak at a UNA Brooklyn event on March 16th to be held at our home base: the Brooklyn Campus of the Long Island University. The event will go from 7-9pm. The Ambassador will speak at 7p, followed by a Q&A period, which should last to about 8p, at which time coffee and dessert will be served.
Thanks to Peg Byron’s editorial and media relations skills, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle published an Op-Ed about the UN submitted for the UNA Brooklyn Chapter: http://www.brooklyneagle.com/categories/category.php?category_id=10&id=40740.
New leaders in the House of Representatives are proposing legislation that could dramatically hinder US/UN relations; UN Secretary General will meet with members of congress to defend UN’s record. Specifically, the new Chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida, has introduced legislation to make funding for the UN fully voluntary, which would be a major departure from the current practice under which the United States, like all other members of the UN, pay assessed contributions based on their economic output. Congresswoman Ros-Lehtinen believes such measures are necessary to bring greater reform to the UN. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will meet with congressional leaders to explain that significant UN reforms have actually occurred under his tenure, and cutting funding to the UN will not serve U.S. national interests.
We’ve experienced the damage that an anti-UN Congress can inflict on our national security interests. The damage is subtle but pervasive: our international influence declines when our allies and other member-states of the UN see the U.S. shirking its treaty obligations to the UN. Due to this new wave of, or return to, reactionary policies and politics in Congress, your support for and work with the UNA has become far more important.
Gabriel Levitt
President
UNA Brooklyn Chapter
