The United States is stopping its financial contributions to the United Nations cultural agency Unesco after the Palestinians were admitted to the organisation as a full member. A US State Department spokeswoman, Victoria Nuland, said a $60m payment to Unesco due to be made in November would not go ahead. From Washington, Paul Adams reports.
Washington is in a bind. It regards Unesco as a valuable UN agency and gives it around $70m a year, or a fifth of its annual budget, but it's also bound by strict laws passed in the 1990s by an overwhelmingly pro-Israel Congress. Looking uncomfortable, Victoria Nuland said the administration wanted to continue working with the agency but recognised that its membership would be compromised if it failed to pay its contributions. She expressed concern over the loss of US influence and the possibility that the same scenario might unfold with other UN agencies.
The interim leadership in Libya has named a new prime minister. Abdul Raheem al-Keeb, a businessman from Tripoli, beat four other candidates in a poll held by the National Transitional Council. He's expected to appoint a cabinet in the coming days which will govern Libya and prepare the ground for general elections. Earlier, the Secretary General of Nato, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, took part in events in Tripoli to mark the formal cessation of the bombing campaign that helped topple Colonel Gaddafi.
World News from the BBC
In the United States, the trial has begun of an American soldier accused of leading a renegade army unit that deliberately targeted and killed unarmed civilians in Afghanistan. Staff Sergeant Calvin Gibbs pleaded not guilty to 16 charges at the opening of his court-martial. He's accused of leading what's been termed a "kill team" in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar in 2010. Three other soldiers have agreed to testify against Staff Sergeant Gibbs.