At FAO,
North Korean Officials Fly and Run the Show, While UN Jobs Are Allegedly Traded
Byline:
Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS,
January 30 -- In North Korea, teaching a man to fish now includes teaching a man
to fly to Norway, according to the UN's Food and Agriculture
Organization's descriptions of its program to Inner City Press this week.
While UN
agencies including the
UN Development Program and
UNICEF are under
fire for hiring staff referred by the Kim Jong Il government, FAO has gone them
one better. The in-country head of FAO's office in Pyongyang, Myong Hyok Kim, is
North Korean himself, and doubles for example as the DPRK Ministry of
Agriculture's contact on plant quarantine, with a UNDP email address, click
here to
view.
On
January 19, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called for an inquiry into all
activities of UN funds and programs worldwide. On January 22, while narrowing
the inquiry to such issues as payment in hard currency, lack of independence in
hiring, Mr. Ban extended his call for audits to the UN's specialized agencies,
which include FAO as well as the World Health Organization and the World
Meteorological Organization (on which, click
here
for more).
On
January 24, Inner City Press emailed FAO's press office a set of questions,
identical to those answered in a day, for example, by the World Food Program. As
recounted in the UN history, "Bread and Stones," FAO has in the past tried to
dominate WFP. Only last week, FAO put out a food-related study which WFP's
spokeswoman tells Inner City Press WFP "does not endorse because FAO did not
consult with WFP on the final version."
Meanwhile, FAO's Director General Jacques Diouf was said to have played a key
role, after taking calls from U.S. President George Bush, in making Josette
Sheeran Shiner the now-incoming head of WFP. Some wonder, what will Ms. Sheeran
Shiner owe or feel she owes to Mr. Diouf and FAO?
FAO's
Diouf with Azeri President Aliyev
Inner City
Press' initial questions to FAO included one related to job-trading alleged by
Beirut-based UN official Mervat Tallawy of the Economic and Social Council for
Western Asia:
Please confirm
or deny / comment on this response by Mrs. Mervat Tallawy ("MT") of UN ESCWA in
Beirut:
--Did Mrs.
Tallawy recruit and keep employed for over a year one Faroug Idris?
Response: Mrs.
Tallawy says that the answer is yes.
Q: Is Faroug
Idris the nephew of Kamal Idris, Director General of WIPO?
Response: Mrs.
Tallawy does not deny this -- but states that it was not Kamal Idris but rather
Jacques Diouf of the Food and Agriculture Organization who requested that she
hire Faroug Idris.
Click
here for more.
On
January 25, the director of FAO's Communications Division wrote archly back:
Subject: Qs for FAO re audits and North
Korea and procurement
From: Nick.Parsons [at] fao.org
To: Inner City Press
Sent: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 10:51 AM
This is simply to say that we are
considering how we can respond to your request for this very large amount of
information, and I will revert in due course.
Even
before sending this message, FAO's Communications Office contacted the UN in New
York to inquire, it seems, into Inner City Press' right to ask questions, and to
complain about the questions. Only after Inner City Press re-sent the questions
to FAO-Pyongyang's Myong Hyok Kim and the vacationing Michael Stapleton, copying
the FAO's Communications Office in Rome, did responses begin to arrive. To date,
the responses have not addressed the Diouf job-trading questions. Other issues
to be addressed include for example the
controversial pro-biotechnology positions
adopted by FAO, which many says did not consult with civil society and is in
crisis (click
here for
the May 2006 resignation of Deputy Director Louise O. Fresco).
On paying
for North Korean officials' travel, a practice that UNDP has said it will stop,
FAO has provide descriptions of projects which include flying two officials from
the Kim Jong Il's Ministry of Fisheries to Norway, and "study tours abroad" in "OSDRO/DRK/603/SWE
- Support to Agricultural and Horticultural Production and to the Coordination
of Emergency/Rehabilitation Interventions in Agriculture/Food Security in
2006-2008 ($2,334, 430, ending date September 30, 2008)."
Myong
Hyok Kim has worked on these "aquaculture" and official-flying projects. Inner
City Press emailed Myong Hyok Kim days ago seeking comment for this story, but
none was forthcoming. (These email inquiries to Pyongyang, cc-ed to Rome, did
however finally get programmatic answers.)
On paying
in hard currency, FAO does so -- and through UNDP, in volumes that UNDP did not
disclose in its statements about how much was being paid in Euros to the North
Korean government. FAO has told Inner City Press that its
"Staff are paid
in Euro by the UNDP on behalf of FAO. UNDP charges FAO for every transaction it
carries out on behalf of the Organization. As to the Assistant FAO
Representative, upon instruction from FAO Headquarters, with copy to FAO-China,
the UNDP Pyongyang releases the money directly to the staff member, in cash. As
to seconded staff, FAO China prepares Agency Services Requests (ASRs) for
payment of the two seconded staff, and send them to the Regional Office in
Bangkok, which in turn, forwards them to the UNDP in Pyongyang."
On
January 29, Inner City Press asked UNDP whether its statements about the size of
its DPRK payments included FAO and other agencies' funds. UNDP has responded
that "program expenditure information we presented covers only UNDP programs,
not those of other agencies." So, clearly, additional inquiries are needed, and
will be performed. Watch this site.
Because a number of Inner City Press'
UN sources go out of their way to express commitment to serving the
poor, and while it should be unnecessary, Inner City Press is compelled to
conclude this installment in a necessarily-ongoing series by saluting the stated
goals of the Food and Agriculture Organization. Keep those cards, letters and emails coming, and phone calls too, we
apologize for any phone tag, but please continue trying, and keep the
information flowing.
Feedback: Editorial
[at] innercitypress.com
UN Office: S-453A,
UN, NY 10017 USA Tel: 212-963-1439
Reporter's mobile
(and weekends): 718-716-3540
UNDP
Backslides on Audits and N. Koreans' Travel, Scope Expands to UNICEF, WFP, and
UNFPA, FAO and UPEACE
Byline: Matthew
Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS,
January 26 -- The day after the UN Development Program acknowledges it was told
by its Executive Board to more narrowly focus its North Korea programs away from
building the capacity of the Kim Jong Il government, and to become more
transparent, Friday there was already backsliding, on audits and on DPRK travel.
During
the last day of the Executive Board meetings, UNDP's Ad Melkert said that while
he now hopes to finalize some additional availability of audits by the Board's
next session, this will not include management audits, which are the kind that
would have earlier revealed the issues in North Korea, including accepting
government staff and not auditing "nationally-executed," but UNDP-funded,
programs.
After a
press conference by UN Controller Warren Sach about how the audits announced and
then scaled-back by Ban Ki-moon will be conducted, the head of UNDP's
Communications Office, David Morrison, spoke to reporters in the hall. Inner
City Press asked Mr. Morrison to answer a question previously posed in writing,
regarding UNDP's involvement in the August 2006 trip by 10 members of the North
Korean government to Lund University. Mr. Morrison responded that "University of
Peace, part of the UN system, did." Click
here for
University for Peace's self-description, complete with photograph of Council
member Ban Ki-moon.
Mr.
Morrison added that UNDP "may have facilitated travel arrangements" through its
Beijing office. Mr. Morrison stated, rhetorically, "Have we funded travel?
That's what UNDP does."
He continued, "Can I say there is not going to be any more travel? Absolutely
not." So then what, one wonders, is being limited about UNDP's North Korea
program pending the audit? 
Melkert
in Belarus
UNDP's Mr.
Morrison also provided a closely argued distinction between hard and soft won,
stating that even paying in hard won, as apparently the World Food Program does
for half of its national staff in the DPRK, is just the same as paying in Euros,
except the UN gets less for its money because the DPRK is able to set the
exchange rate. Inner City Press asked how the salaries of those seconded by the
DPRK government are set. "There is a negotiated salary," Mr. Morrison replied.
Negotiated how? Since UNDP allowed the North Korean government to order whom to
hire, how could UNDP have leverage on how much they'd be paid?
Warren
Sach was asked when the Secretariat knew of the issues in North Korea. "Only
very recently," Mr. Sach replied, emphasizing that there is an "absolute and
total delegation to the Administrator of UNDP" on financial matters. So who's
holding the bag, one reporter wondered.
Inner
City Press asked Mr. Sach to explain how the North Korea issues, identified in
withheld UNDP internal audits of 1999, 2001 and 2004, were not even included in
the 374-page most recently public audit of UNDP. Video
here,
from Minute 24:13. Mr. Sach directed Inner City Press to the UN Board of
Auditors, "only they can answer." We'll see.
Inner
City Press has received a response from UNICEF [see above].
Inner City Press asked Mr.
Sach whether UNICEF would be included in the audit, along with WFP, which has
orally represented paying half of its national staff in DPRK in Euros, and UNFPA,
which while refusing to answer is known to pay in Euros, and to have 80% of its
programs in North Korea executed by the DPRK government. Video
here,
from Minute 25:12.
Mr. Sach indicated that all four agencies
will be included in the audit. He decided to name more agencies, other than
mentioning UNHCR. Inner City Press earlier this week asked the Food and
Agriculture Organization, in writing, to explain its North Korea programs. FAO's
spokesman's response was to inquire into Inner City Press' right to ask the
question, and then to archly state "we are considering how we can respond to
your request for this very large amount of information, and I will revert in due
course." We'll be waiting.
Inner City Press asked Mr.
Sach to confirm something Inner City Press has asked UNDP orally and in writing
without any response, that UNDP's chief auditor Jessie Rose Mabutas is now
leaving in mid-February. Video
here,
from Minute 43:53. Mr. Sach responded, "I think it can be confirmed, what you
indicated." There -- was that so hard? Beyond what has previously been reported
about Ms. Mabutas, close observers note that the U.S.'s Ms. Bertini brought Ms.
Mabutas into the UN system at a high level. And yet what is the U.S. now saying
about the quality of UNDP's audits? Developing.
Other Inner City Press
reports are available in the ProQuest service and some are archived on
www.InnerCityPress.com --
At the UN,
Mysterious Deletion from Iran Sanctions List of Aerospace Industries
Organization Goes Unexplained
At the UN, Iran
Resolution Passes 15-0 Amid Media Frenzy While Somalia and UN Reform Are
Ignored
At the UN,
Security Council and GA Games and Holiday Spirit As Revolving Door Ban
Disappears on Final Day
UNDP Not Covered
By Weak UN Post-Employment Restrictions, Dervis and Mizsei and Aid to
the Scapegoated
UN
Post-Employment Restriction Are Watered Down for Senior Officials,
Comparison to June Draft Reveals
At the UN, Curt
Eulogies for Dictator, Revolving Door and Budget Left for the Last Day
UNDP's Dervis
Backtracks on Transparency, Promises Accounting of Funds, Denies Role in
Uganda Abuse
At the UN,
Jeffrey Sachs Answers the $75,000 Question But Not on UNDP, Still
Laudable Goals for 2025
Burundi Spin
at the UN, Amid Coup Trial and Ceasefire Not Implemented, Great Lakes
Commission Moves In
At the UN, Iran
Resolution Goes Blue as Ivory Coast is Traded Away With No Follow-up on
Hmung
At the UN,
Annan's Long Goodbye, With Oil for Food in the Air and Hothouse Musical
Chairs
At Kofi Annan's
Farewell, UNDP Transparency is Raised, and Brian Gleeson Steps Up
At UN
in Beirut, Dueling Charges of Job-Trading and
Tax-Evasion, the Burden of
Mervat Tallawy, Retaliation from Below
UNDP Will Be
Called to Greater Transparency, Says President of Spain, on UNDP's
Board, and Flaws of UNOPS
UNDP's Ad
Melkert Says He Will Finally Increase Transparency, Describes Fraud in
Russia, Dodges Uganda
In Eastern
Congo, Kidnapper of UN Peacekeepers Is Made a Colonel, Clooney And Now
Guehenno Might Stay
At the UN,
Ocampo 1 Says Kony To Jail and Ocampo 2 Sees No Serious Bertucci
Charges, Dueling Parties
In UNDP's Book,
Strong's Scandals Are Missing, While Workers Complain, MMB Schmoozes the
Korean Mission
At UNDP, Flighty
Rhetoric Founders in Mismanagement, MMB's Net, a Genocidaire and Whither
ECOSOC
At the UN,
Disabled Are Freed from a Footnote, Murky Answers from Gbagbo to Kosovo
to a Genocidaire
Countering UN's
Vanity Press, UNDP Histories from Below, Brussels and Two Views of Omar
Bakhet
At the UN,
Indigenous Indignation, Revolving Door Mysteries and Peace Pipe
Belatedly Smoked
At the UN,
Questions of Congo Mass Graves and Kazana, Mugabe and Forests and Rich
German Ships
UNDP Is
Important For The Poor, and Therefore Must Be Made Transparent
As UN
Speechifies, UNDP Audits Are Still Being Withheld, While War in Somalia
and Sudan, Pronk Blogs On
Waste, Fraud and
Abuse at UNDP in Vietnam, While UN Secretariat Urges Censorship
At the UN,
Questions of Humanitarian Aid and Congo Body Count, Despots' Crackdown
on Dissent
In UNDP,
Questions of Money Wasted, Neutrality Trampled, Russian Office Audits
Withheld and Sachs Expenses
From Baidoa
to the UN, Denials on Ethiopian Troops Being in Somalia, Resolution Is
Passed
Retaliation
Found at UNDP, While Dervis Is Focused on Turkey, In Two Weeks Will Take
Questions
Annan's
Spokesman Silent on 150 Dead in Congo, War in Somalia - But in Loud
Defense of UNDP's $567,000 Book
At the UN,
Interlopers into Somalia Are Discussed, With Chadian Pull-Back,
Peacekeepers and Uganda's Karamoja
UNDP Spent
$567,000 on Book to Praise Itself, While the Well-Placed Feed Off UNDP's
Core Budget and Prime Postings
As UNDP Questions
Mount, Mark Malloch Brown Calls Them Irresponsible, Answers Only in
Vanity Press
In UNDP Series,
Questions of Jeffrey Sachs and Associates Payments, From $1 to $75,000
From Sleaze in
Vietnam to Fights in DC-1, UNDP Appears Out of Control at the Top
On Somalia,
Past Arms Embargo Violations Forgiven in Zeal to Contain Islamic Courts
In UNDP, Drunken
Mis-Managers on the Make Praised and Protected, Meet UNDP's Kalman
Mizsei
From Violent
Disarmament in Uganda to the National Bank of Serbia, UNDP Leaves Others
to Answer for It
UNDP Sources Say
Dervis Fires Malloch Brown-linked Officials, Then Offers Hush-Up Jobs
On Somalia, Fiji
and Oil-for-Food, UN Ambiguity Leads to Hypocrisy and Corruption
At the UN,
Indigenous Rights Get Deferred, As U.S. Abstains, Deftly or Deceptively
At the UN,
Threat and Possible Statement on Fiji Spotlights Selection and Payment
of UN Peacekeepers
At the UN, China
and Islamic Dev't Bank Oppose Soros and World Bank On How to Fight
Poverty
At the UN,
Misdirection on Somalia and Myanmar, No Answers from UNDP's Kemal Dervis
UNDP Dodges
Questions of Disarmament Abuse in Uganda and of Loss of Togo AIDS Grant,
Dhaka Snafu
At the UN, The
Swan Song of Jan Egeland and the Third Committee Loop, Somalia Echoes
Congo
UN Silent As
Protesters Tear Gassed in Ivory Coast, As UNMOVIC Plods On and War
Spreads in Somalia
In the UN,
Uzbekistan Gets a Pass on Human Rights As Opposition to U.S. Grows and
War's On in Somalia
At the UN,
Cluster Bombs Unremembered, Uighurs Disappeared and Jay-Z Returns with
Water -- for Life
From the UN,
Silence on War Crimes Enforcement and Conflicts of Interest on Complaint
from Bahrain
En Route to
Deutsche Bank, the UN's Door Revolves, While Ban Ki-moon Arrives and
Moldova Spins
As Two UN
Peacekeepers Are Killed, UN Says Haiti's Improving, Ban Ki-moon on
Zimbabwe?
Nagorno-Karabakh President Disputes Fires and Numbers, Oil and UN, in
Exclusive Interview with Inner City Press
Inside the UN,
Blaming Uganda's Victims, Excusing Annan on Mugabe, and U.S. Blocked
Darfur Trip
U.S. Blocked
Council's Trip to Darfur Meeting, Brazzaville Envoy Explains After U.S.
Casts a Veto
At the UN,
Council Works Overtime To Cancel Its Trip About Darfur, While DC Muses
on John Bolton
UN Panel's
"Coherence" Plan Urges More Power to UNDP, Despite Its Silence on Human
Rights
On Water, UNDP
Talks Human Rights, While Enabling Violations in Africa and Asia, With
Shell and Coca-Cola
Will UN's
Revolving Door Keep Human Rights Lost, Like Bush's Call and WFP
Confirmation Questions?
On Somalia,
We Are All Ill-Informed, Says the UN, Same on Uganda, Lurching Toward
UNDP Power Grab
On WFP, Annan and
Ban Ki-Moon Hear and See No Evil, While Resume of Josette Sheeran Shiner
Is Edited
Would Moon
Followers Trail Josette Sheeran Shiner into WFP, As to U.S. State Dep't?
At the UN,
Positions Are Up For the Grabbing, Sun's Silence on Censorship, Advisor
Grabs for Gun
In WFP Race,
Josette Sheeran Shiner Praises Mega Corporations from Cornfield While
State Spins
At the UN,
Housing Subsidy Spin, Puntland Mysteries of UNDP and the Panama Solution
In Campaign to
Head UN WFP, A Race to Precedents' Depths, A Murky Lame Duck Appointment
At the UN,
Gbagbo and his Gbaggage, Toxic Waste and Congolese Sanctions
WFP Brochure-Gate? John Bolton Has Not Seen Brochure
of "Official" U.S. Candidate to Head World Food Program
Ivory Coast
Stand-Off Shows Security Council Fault Lines: News Analysis
At the UN,
It's Groundhog's Day on Western Sahara, Despite Fishing Deals and
Flaunting of the Law
"Official" U.S.
Candidate to Head WFP Circulates Brochure With Pulitzer Claim, UN Staff
Rules Ignored
Senegal's
President Claims Peace in Casamance and Habre Trial to Come, A Tale of
Two Lamines
A Tale of Two
Americans Vying to Head the World Food Program, Banbury and Sheeran
Shiner
At the UN, the Unrepentant Blogger Pronk, a Wink
on 14 North Korean Days and Silence on Somalia
At the UN,
Literacy Losses in Chad, Blogless Pronk and Toothless Iran Resolution,
How Our World Turns
Sudan Pans Pronk
While Praising Natsios, UN Silent on Haiti and WFP, Ivorian Fingers
Crossed
UN Shy on North
Korea, Effusive on Bird Flu and Torture, UNDP Cyprus Runaround, Pronk is
Summoned Home
At the UN,
Silence from UNDP on Cyprus, from France on the Chad-Bomb, Jan Pronk's
Sudan Blog
Russia's Vostok
Battalion in Lebanon Despite Resolution 1701, Assembly Stays Deadlocked
and UNDP Stays Missing
As
Turkmenistan Cracks Down on Journalists, Hospitals and Romance, UNDP Works
With the Niyazov Regime
At the UN,
Darfur Discussed, Annan Eulogized and Oil For Food Confined to a
Documentary Footnote
With All Eyes
on Council Seat, UN is Distracted from Myanmar Absolution and Congo
Conflagration
As Venezuela and
Guatemala Square Off, Dominicans In Default and F.C. Barcelona De-Listed
At the UN, North
Korea Sanctions Agreed On, Naval Searches and Murky Weapons Sales
At the UN,
Georgia Speaks of Ethnic Cleansing While Russia Complains of Visas
Denied by the U.S.
At the UN,
Deference to the Congo's Kabila and Tank-Sales to North Korea, of
Slippery Eels and Sun Microsystems
At the UN,
Annan's Africa Advisor Welcome Chinese Investment, Dodges Zimbabwe, Nods
to Darfur
At the UN,
Richard Goldstone Presses Enforcement on Joseph Kony, Reflecting Back on
Karadzic
UN Defers on
Anti-Terror Safeguards to Member States, Even in Pakistan and Somalia
Afghanistan
as Black Hole for Info and Torture Tales, Photos and Talk Mogadishu, the
UN Afterhours
Amid UN's Korean
Uproar, Russia Silent on Murder of Anna Politkovskaya, Chechnya Exposer
UN Envoy Makes
Excuses for Gambian Strongman, Whitewashing Fraud- and Threat-Filled
Election
Sudan's UN
Envoy Admits Right to Intervene in Rwanda, UNICEF Response on Terrorist
Groups in Pakistan
At the UN, As
Next S-G is Chosen, Annan Claims Power to Make 5-Year Appointments,
Quiet Filing and Ivory Coast Concessions
Chaos in UN's
Somalia Policy, Working With Islamists Under Sanctions While Meeting
with Private Military Contractors
U.S. Candidate
for UN's World Food Program May Get Lame Duck Appointment, Despite
Korean Issues
At the
UN, U.S. Versus Axis of Airport, While Serge Brammertz Measures
Non-Lebanese Teeth
Exclusion from
Water Is Called Progress, of Straw Polls and WFP Succession
William Swing
Sings Songs of Congo's Crisis, No Safeguards on Coltan Says Chairman of
Intel
Warlord in the
Waldorf and Other Congo Questions Dodged by the UN in the Time Between
Elections
In Some New
Orleans, Questions Echo from the South Bronx and South Lebanon
In New Orleans,
While Bone Is Thrown in Superdome, Parishes Still In Distress
At the UN, Tales
of Media Muzzled in Yemen, Penned in at the Waldorf on Darfur, While
Copters Grounded
US's Frazer
Accuses Al-Bashir of Sabotage, Arab League of Stinginess, Chavez of
Buying Leaders -
Click
here for
video file by Inner City Press.
Third Day of UN
General Debate Gets Surreal, Canapes and Killings, Questions on Iran and
Montenegro and Still Somalia
On Darfur, Hugo
Chavez Asks for More Time to Study, While Planning West Africa Oil
Refinery
At the UN, Ivory
Coast Discussed Without Decision on Toxic Politics, the Silence of
Somalia
Evo Morales
Blames Strike on Mobbed-Up Parasites, Sings Praise of Coca Leaf and Jabs
at Coca-Cola
Musharraf Says
Unrest in Baluchistan Is Waning, While Dodging Question on Restoring
Civilian Rule
At the UN, Cyprus
Confirms 'Paramilitary' Investigation, Denies Connection to Def Min
Resignation, CBTB Update
A Tale
of Three Leaders, Liberia Comes to Praise and Iran and Sudan to Bury the UN
UN Round-up:
Poland's President Says Iraq Is Ever-More Tense While Amb. Bolton Talks
Burmese Drugs, Spin on Ivory Coast
As UN's Annan
Now Says He Will Disclose, When and Whether It Will Be to the Public and
Why It Took So Long Go Unasked
At the UN,
Stonewalling Continues on Financial Disclosure and Letter(s) U.S.
Mission Has, While Zimbabwe Goes Ignored
At the UN,
Financial Disclosure Are Withheld While Freedom of Information Is
Promised, Of Hollywood and Dictators' Gift Shops
UN's Annan Says
Dig Into Toxic Dumping, While Declining to Discuss Financial Disclosure
A Still-Unnamed
Senior UN Official in NY Takes Free Housing from His Government,
Contrary to UN Staff Regulations
UN Admits To
Errors in its Report on Destruction of Congolese Village of Kazana,
Safeguards Not In Place
As UN Checks
Toxins in Abidjan, the Dumper Trafigura Figured in Oil for Food Scandal,
Funded by RBS and BNP Paribas
Targeting of
African Americans For High Cost Mortgages Grew Worse in 2005, While Fed
Downplays Its Own Findings
The UN and
Nagorno-Karabakh: Flurries of Activity Leave Frozen Conflicts Unchanged;
Updates on Gaza, Gavels and Gbagbo
The UN Cries
Poor on Lawless Somalia, While Its Ex-Security Chief Does Business
Through Ruleless Revolving Door
At the UN,
Micro-States Simmer Under the Assembly's Surface, While Incoming Council
President Dodges Most Questions
"Horror Struck"
is How UN Officials Getting Free Housing from Governments Would Leave
U.S., Referral on Burma But Not Uzbekistan
Security Council
President Condemns UN Officials Getting Free Housing from Governments,
While UK "Doesn't Do It Any More"
At the UN,
Incomplete Reforms Allow for Gifts of Free Housing to UN Officials by
Member States
Rare UN Sunshine
From If Not In Chad While Blind on Somalia and Zimbabwe, UNDP With Shell
in its Ear on Nigeria
Annan Family
Ties With Purchaser from Compass, Embroiled in UN Scandal, Raise
Unanswered Ethical Questions
At the UN, from
Casamance to Transdniestria, Kosovars to Lezgines, Micro-States as
Powerful's Playthings
Inquiry Into
Housing Subsidies Contrary to UN Charter Goes Ignored for 8 Weeks, As
Head UN Peacekeeper Does Not Respond
On the UN -
Corporate Beat, Dow Chemical Luncheon Chickens Come Home to Roost
Stop Bank
Branch Closings and Monopolies in the Katrina Zone, Group Says,
Challenging Regions- AmSouth Merger
Ship-Breakers
Missed by UN's Budget for Travel and Consultants in Bangladesh, Largest
UNIFIL Troop Donor
With Somalia on
the Brink of Horn-Wide War, UN Avoids Question of Ethiopian Invasion
In UN's Lebanon
Frenzy, Darfur Is Ignored As Are the Disabled, "If You Crave UNIFIL,
Can't You Make Do With MONUC?"
UN Decries
Uzbekistan's Use of Torture, While Helping It To Tax and Rule; Updates
on UNIFIL and UNMIS Off-Message
On Lebanon,
Russian Gambit Focuses Franco-American Minds, Short Term Resolution Goes
Blue Amid Flashes of Lightening
Africa Can Solve
Its Own Problems, Ghanaian Minister Tells Inner City Press, On LRA Peace
Talks and Kofi Annan's Views
At the UN, Jay-Z
Floats Past Questions on Water Privatization and Sweatshops, Q'Orianka
Kilcher in the Basement
In the UN
Security Council, Speeches and Stasis as Haiti is Forgotten, for a
Shebaa Farms Solution?
UN Knew of Child
Soldier Use by Two Warlords Whose Entry into Congo Army the UN
Facilitated
Impunity's in
the Air, at the UN in Kinshasa and NY, for Kony and Karim and MONUC for
Kazana
UN Still Silent
on Somalia, Despite Reported Invasion, In Lead-Up to More Congo Spin
UN's Guehenno
Says Congo Warlord Just Needs Training, and Kazana Probe Continues
With Congo
Elections Approaching, UN Issues Hasty Self-Exoneration as Annan Is
Distracted
In DR Congo, UN
Applauds Entry into Army of Child-Soldier Commander Along with Kidnapper
Spinning the
Congo, UN Admits Hostage Deal with Warlord That Put Him in Congolese
Army
At the UN, Dow
Chemical's Invited In, While Teaming Up With Microsoft is Defended
Kofi Annan
Questioned about Congolese Colonel Who Kidnapped Seven UN Soldiers
UN Silent As
Congolese Kidnapper of UN Peacekeepers Is Made An Army Colonel: News
Analysis
UN's Guehenno
Speaks of "Political Overstretch" Undermining Peacekeeping in Lower
Profile Zones
In Gaza Power
Station, the Role of Enron and the U.S. Government's OPIC Revealed by UN
Sources
UN's Corporate
Partnerships Will Be Reviewed, While New Teaming Up with Microsoft, and
UNDP Continues
BTC Briefing,
Like Pipeline, Skirts Troublespots, Azeri Revelations
Conflicts of
Interest in UNHCR Program with SocGen and Pictet Reveal Reform Rifts
UN Grapples with
Somalia, While UNDP Funds Mugabe's Human Rights Unit, Without
Explanation
UN Gives Mugabe
Time with His Friendly Mediator, Refugees Abandoned
At the UN,
Friday Night's Alright for Fighting; Annan Meets Mugabe
UN Acknowledges
Abuse in Uganda, But What Did Donors Know and When? Kazakh Questions
In Uganda, UNDP
to Make Belated Announcement of Program Halt, But Questions Remain (and
see
The New Vision,
offsite).
Disarmament
Abuse in Uganda Leads UN Agency to Suspend Its Work and Spending
Disarmament
Abuse in Uganda Blamed on UNDP, Still Silent on Finance
Alleged Abuse in
Disarmament in Uganda Known by UNDP, But Dollar Figures Still Not Given:
What Did UN Know and When?
Strong Arm on
Small Arms: Rift Within UN About Uganda's Involuntary Disarmament of
Karamojong Villages
UN's Selective
Vision on Somalia and Wishful Thinking on Uighurs
UN Habitat
Predicts The World Is a Ghetto, But Will Finance Be Addressed at
Vancouver World Urban Forum?
UN's Annan
Concerned About Use of Terror's T-Word to Repress, Wants
Freedom of Information
UN Waffles on
Human Rights in Central Asia and China; ICC on Kony and a Hero from
Algiers
UN & US,
Transparency for Finance But Not Foreign Affairs: Somalia, Sovereignty
and Senator Tom Coburn
Human Rights
Forgotten in UN's War of Words, Bolton versus Mark Malloch Brown: News
Analysis
In Praise of
Migration, UN Misses the Net and Bangalore While Going Soft on Financial
Exclusion
UN Sees Somalia
Through a Glass, Darkly, While Chomsky Speaks on Corporations and
Everything But Congo
Corporate Spin on
AIDS, Holbrooke's Kudos to Montenegro and its Independence
The Silence of
the Congo and Naomi Watts; Between Bolivia and the World Bank
Human Rights
Council Has Its Own Hanging Chads; Cocky U.S. State Department Spins
from SUVs
Child Labor and
Cargill and Nestle; Iran, Darfur and WHO's on First with Bird Flu
Press Freedom?
Editor Arrested by Congo-Brazzaville, As It Presides Over Security
Council
The
Place of the Cost-Cut UN in Europe's Torn-Up Heart;
Deafness to Consumers, Even by the Greens
Background Checks
at the UN, But Not the Global Compact; Teaching Statistics from
Turkmenbashi's Single Book
Ripped Off Worse
in the Big Apple, by Citigroup and Chase: High Cost Mortgages Spread in
Outer Boroughs in 2005, Study Finds
Burundi: Chaos at
Camp for Congolese Refugees, Silence from UNHCR, While Reform's Debated
by Forty Until 4 AM
The Chadian
Mirage: Beyond French Bombs, Is Exxon In the Cast? Asylum and the
Uzbeks, Shadows of Stories to Come
Through the UN's
One-Way Mirror, Sustainable Development To Be Discussed by Corporations,
Even Nuclear Areva
Racial
Disparities Grew Worse in 2005 at Citigroup, HSBC and Other Large Banks
Mine Your Own
Business: Explosive Remnants of War and the Great Powers, Amid the
Paparazzi
Human Rights Are
Lost in the Mail: DR Congo Got the Letter, But the Process is Still
Murky
Iraq's Oil to be
Metered by Shell, While Basrah Project Remains Less than Clear
Kofi, Kony,
Kagame and Coltan: This Moment in the Congo and Kampala
As Operation
Swarmer Begins, UN's Qazi Denies It's Civil War and Has No Answers if
Iraq's Oil is Being Metered
Cash Crop: In
Nepal, Bhutanese Refugees Prohibited from Income Generation Even in
their Camps
The Shorted and
Shorting in Humanitarian Aid: From Davos to Darfur, the Numbers Don't
Add Up
UN Reform:
Transparency Later, Not Now -- At Least Not for AXA - WFP Insurance
Contract
In the Sudanese
Crisis, Oil Revenue Goes Missing, UN Says
Empty Words on
Money Laundering and Narcotics, from the UN and Georgia
What is the Sound
of Eleven Uzbeks Disappearing? A Lack of Seats in Tashkent, a Turf War
at UN
Kosovo: Of
Collective Punishment and Electricity; Lights Out on Privatization of
Ferronikeli Mines
Abkhazia:
Cleansing and (Money) Laundering, Says Georgia
Post-Tsunami
Human Rights Abuses, including by UNDP in the Maldives
Citigroup
Dissembles at United Nations Environmental Conference
Other Inner City Press
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