Monrovia, Sept. 18 -- There is a number so small it barely registers on the ledger of a $3.45 billion organization: $34,000. It is the least any nation on Earth can be asked to pay the United Nations in a given year - a rate set aside for the world's poorest countries, Liberia among them. And as of mid-September, it is a number Liberia has not paid.

By Rodney D. Sieh, rodney.sieh@frontpageafricaonline.com

The amount is almost beside the point. What it represents is not.

By the United Nations' own public accounting - the Committee on Contributions' Honour Roll, updated as member states settle their books - Liberia's regional neighbors have long since closed this chapter for the year. Cote d'Ivoire paid its assessment, a considerably lar...