News In Brief
| Paris
US in new UNESCO dispute over money due to members
The United States, which intends to withdraw from UNESCO at the end of the year, is involved in a new dispute with the agency over the return to member nations of $80 million in an agency account, Western diplomats said Wednesday. Several other nations were also dissatisfied with replies from the UNESCO secretariat on when the money would be paid, and what would happen to interest earned in the account.
Western officials and sources in the secretariat have suggested that the director general of UNESCO, Amadou Mahtar M'Bow of Senegal, might make use of the anticipated $20.5 million in interest for an anticipated shortfall next year when the United States pulls out of the 161-nation agency. The US provides 25 percent of UNESCO's $374.4 million budget for 1984-85, and about $20 million of the disputed $80 million would go back to the United States.
