US, Israel lose voting rights for failing to resume funding: UNESCO

PARIS (Xinhua) - The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) announced Saturday that the United States and Israel lost their voting rights at the organization for not paying due contributions since November 2011.

The United States and Israel stopped to pay their dues to the UN cultural organization in protest of UNESCO's decision to accept Palestine as its 195th member.

The US payments account for 22 percent of the UNESCO's budget. The withholding of the contribution made the organization a loss of $220 million over the three years from 2011 to the present.

According to the rules of UNESCO, the US and Israel automatically lost their voting rights after they failed to meet the crucial deadline for resuming funding or submitting an explanation for its arrears to the organization by Friday.

The APX Commission of UNESCO proposed to suspend the voting rights of the United States and Israel as well as other three non-payment members, which was endorsed by the 37th plenary session of the General Conference of UNESCO.