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UN Global Compact Duo Call Food Price Speculation Serious, But No Guidance Offered

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis

UNITED NATIONS, May 1 -- Corporate chieftains on the board of the UN Global Compact met Thursday in a UN conference room. Outside a stakeout microphone had been set up; the press had been told that the CEOs would be available for comment. Only one, however, deigned to take questions from the press, the ex officio chairman of the Foundation for the Global Compact, Mark Moody-Stuart of Anglo-American Mining. Inner City Press asked him if the Compact's board has discussed corporate roles in the food price crisis, including as speculating and profiting on the price rises. "It's an issue of serious concern to companies," Moody-Stuart said, but added that "the Compact cannot offer advice or guidance."  Another reporter wondered, what's it good for then?

            Moments later, Moody-Stuart reversed course and had the Compact "encouraging" companies "to sign up for the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative." Moody-Stuart said of "countries with weak governance" that if you pour aid in, "it leaks away."  He said that even forgiveness, presumably of debt, leaks away. He said he was recently in Norway, with the EITI has established its Secretariat, to meet with major donors to the Global Compact. He praised Norway as a country moving to show how its oil revenues are spent. Audio here, in MP3.

            While not at the UN microphone, Mary Robinson, former High Commissioner of Human Rights, took two questions from Inner City Press. Of the links between financial speculation and rising food prices she said "absolutely," there is one, although the Compact has yet to discuss it. Of the Beijing Olympics, she said that topic was raised at a recent meeting of the Compact's Human Rights Working Group in Boston, that the companies at the meeting noted that protests of the journey of the Olympic torch "had an impact, they are meeting with the Dalai Lama." She said the companies wanted to see avoided any "push of ordinary Chinese toward nationalism," which she said "would be not good for China or for the rest of the world."

Mary Robinson, with UN logo, standards for food price speculators not yet shown

            Moody-Stuart's comments on China were that if the rising costs of food and other "inputs" leads to a slow-down of the Chinese economy, the whole world will suffer.  He said that many Compact members are involved as sponsors in the Olympics, and while "it doesn't mean we should forget the other issues," engagement is what it's all about.

            Meanwhile, the other members of the Compact board did not deign to take questions, with the exception of Petro-Bras' CEO speaking with a Brazilian journalist, and Emirati environmentalist Habiba al Marashi speaking with a regional newspaper. On the board, but not speaking on these issues, were chieftains from Goldman Sachs, Areva, Tata, Lego, Fuji and Deloitte. And so it goes at the UN.

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Click here for a Reuters AlertNet piece by this correspondent about Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army. Click here for an earlier Reuters AlertNet piece about the Somali National Reconciliation Congress, and the UN's $200,000 contribution from an undefined trust fund.  Video Analysis here

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