UN makes plea for military helicopters

Source: The Guardian

The head of UN peacekeeping operations has made an impassioned plea to Britain and other European countries for military helicopters – which are badly needed for missions in Africa, notably Sudan.

The UN undersecretary general, Alain Le Roy, told the Guardian that his organisation faced unprecedented demands on its relatively meagre resources. He compared his annual budget of $7.5bn (£4.6bn) for 14 separate peacekeeping missions with the $116bn spent every year on the conflict in Afghanistan and the $41.3tn spent every year on arms sales.

He said he hoped the UK and other countries would at least offer their helicopters and specialist troops to the UN after they end their Afghanistan combat operations in 2014.

India had recently withdrawn 20 helicopters from UN operations for security operations at home, he said.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/26/un-makes-plea-military-helicopters

for billions, and cut the damn defense budget.