Inner City Press -- Investigative Reporting From the Inner City to Wall Street to the United Nations

UNITED NATIONS, August 4 -- The world two most populous and rising nations, India and China, held receptions in the UN's lobby in New York on successive nights. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon attended Tuesday's Indian reception, unlike the previous day's Chinese art exhibition. Asked why by Inner City Press, a UN insider pointed across the lobby at Mr. Ban's chief of staff Vijay Nambiar, formerly India's Ambassador to the UN.

  "When your chef de cabinet asks you," the insider said, allowing his voice to trail off. Another mused that Ban had also skipped last summer's Olympics in China. Given China's veto on the Security Council, including of the second term that Ban's made clear he wants, the strategy's hard to fathom.

  Tuesday night's reception was for portraits by former Indian diplomat Placido P. D'Souza, ranging from executives of Tata Steel and Pepsico through Kofi Annan and Ban Ki-moon. Word reached Inner City Press that one portrait had been taken out of the show  at the eleventh hour. Inner City Press asked Mr. D'Souza himself, who acknowledged that a portrait had been removed. Of whom, he said it did not want publicity. So we will leave this a blind item, including some viewers' guesses by initials: V.N.? K.W.? S.T.?

UN"s Ban and the chefs cooking

  Last Friday July 31, the UN staff Spice Club held its annual fundraising dance in the third floor Express Bar. As in previous years, the music was pumping and the disco lighting swirled. But the dancing crowd was much smaller. Trays of korma and curry were never open, sat unused on Sterno cans. Blame it on the Capital Master Plan, someone grumbled. Blame it on Michael Adlerstein and Ban Ki-moon.

  The latter seems unfair. In the run up to his vacation in his native South Korea, Mr. Ban is working hard, meeting with current UNDP Administration Helen Clark -- though ostensibly not mentioning or aware of the scandal in which his own envoy to the Congo Alan Doss emailed UNDP to show "leeway" with the rules and hire his daughter Rebecca -- and with Tuesday with Ad Melkert, former Deputy Administration of UNDP.

  Melkert came to the stakeout on Tuesday after briefing the Council, and dodged a handful of questions. Inner City Press asked about the Kurdish constitution and the UN's planned Baghdad bunker. Melkert said he was meeting about the latter, and was studying the former. Then he left the stakeout. One wanted to have asked: do you now finally agree with Ban Ki-moon about the public disclosure of UN officials finances? But the moment was gone.

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