General Director of UNESCO calls on US to resume financial support of organization

UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova called today on the US to continue
funding the world organization. The financing has been suspended by
Washington after UNESCO adopted Palestine as one of its members, RIA
Novosti cites Agence France Presse.

On Monday, UNESCO adopted Palestine into the organization. Following
this event, US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said that
Washington would not pay a fee of $60 million, which was to be paid into
the account of the organization by the end of November. The Canadian
authorities later announced that they will stop supporting the
organization.

According to the official site of UNESCO, the organization's budget for
2010-2011 amounted to 653 million dollars. Major donor countries of the
organization are the United States (22%), Japan (12.5%), Germany (8.02%),
Britain (6.6%) and France (6.1%). The organization is partially funded by
the private sector.