UN Sees Somalia Through a Glass,
Darkly, While Chomsky Speaks on Corporations and Everything But Congo
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee at the U.N.
UNITED NATIONS, June 5 -- Most of Mogadishu fell over
the weekend to so-called Islamic Court. They declared victory over the also
so-called Anti-Terror Alliance, also known as warlords. From the Transitional
Federal Government in Baidoa, the warlords were expelled. A corner sees to have
been turned and so at UN Headquarters at noon the question was asked: what is
the United Nations' or its Secretary General's view of Islamic Courts' takeover
of the putative capital of all Somalia?
Four hours later, the answer came in
writing, in three sentence here quoted in full:
"The
Secretary-General continues to be concerned about the violence in Mogadishu and
its environs. He appeals to all sides to stop the fighting and enter into
negotiations. He stresses that all parties to the conflict should resolve their
differences and address outstanding issues in accordance with the Transitional
Federal Charter of Somalia."
To some, the statement is both empty and
besides the point. Already Puntland and Somalialand are hardly in the orbit of
Mogadishu, much less Baidoa. Now Mogadishu falls to Islamic Courts. What may be
being cooked up in the Pentagon is anyone's guess.
East Congo / Monuc
Also over the weekend, reports emerged
that the seven Nepali UN peacekeepers taken prisoner in the Congo had been
released. This came from Nepal's permanent representative to the UN, but turned
out to not be true. The perhaps-accurate names of the Nepalis were, unlike the
soldiers, released: Gir
Bahadur Thapa, Prem Bahadur Thapa, Tuk Jung Gurung, Chhatra Bahadur Basnet, Sher
Bahadur Bista, Jhalak Kunwar and Kale Sarki. At the Secretary-General's
spokesman's
noon briefing, Inner City Press asked for
an update. Unfortunately, they are still being held, was the response. There are
rumblings of military action, and of attempts, not by the UN, to pay ransom.
Still the
US representatives in Kinshasa
characterize events in East
Congo as a sideshow, that will not impact the election slated for July 30. Some
say: wishful thinking.
The
status of the Democratic Republic of Congo was raised to Noam Chomsky on Monday,
when he took questions from the UN Correspondents' Association. Inner City Press
noted that neither Congo or DRC is in the index of the professor's new book,
"Failed States." Mr. Chomsky acknowledged that the DRC is "perhaps the worst
ongoing atrocity in the world" and that it is not mentioned in his book --
because, he said, "I can't think of any sensible way to do anything about it."
He mentioned strengthening the "weak" UN force, and stopping other countries'
interventions. Afterwards, one of Prof. Chomsky's more combative interlocutors
opined that if the U.S. is not the major negative actor, a situation is not of
much interest to the professor. In his answer, Chomsky put it differently,
saying "we should focus on our own responsibilities" and on "our own society."
The UN Correspondents' Association, however, includes journalists from all over
the world. A philosophy that as one of its seven main points urges that the UN
be lead-actor on world crises should have something to say about wars like the
Congo's. And the West is not without responsibility: DRC resource extractors
include U.S.-based Phelps Dodge Mining Corporation, Adastra Mineral f/k/a
American Mineral Fields, Ivanhoe Nickel & Platinum and Canada's Kinross Gold
Corporation, among others.
To Inner City Press' other question, on
the regulation of corporation, Prof. Chomsky replied that corporations are
"private tyrannies" that have come to dominate most stakes. "It is not a law of
nature," he said, "that corporation must serve only their shareholders... What
about stakeholders?"
There was much back-and-forth about the
Middle East, and a prediction by Chomsky that China is ascendant, and that India
will have to choose. (.wmv file being processed; available.) Asked at the end
about the Uighurs in western China, Prof. Chomsky said it could be followed up
by email. We'll see.
In
Congo, Peacekeepers Turned Hostages: Interview with Jean-Marie Guehenno by Inner
City Press
Byline:
Matthew Russell Lee at the U.N.
UNITED NATIONS, May
30 -- In the Democratic Republic of Congo, one UN peacekeeper is dead, three
wounded and seven taken hostage by the forces of Peter Karim, known for hauling
the DRC's resources east into Uganda. At UN Headquarters on Tuesday, Inner City
Press interviewed Jean-Marie Guehenno, Under-secretary general for peacekeeping
(click
here
for WAV file). Earlier,
Inner City Press asked
Secretary General Kofi Annan what is being done to secure the peacekeepers'
release, and how the DRC election, slated for the end of July, can take place in
these circumstances. The
Secretary General replied
that Karim has been implored to release the peacekeepers, and will not have
impunity. He added that the UN is doing the best that it can for the election,
the first in 40 years in Congo.
An hour
later at Kofi Annan's spokesman's noon briefing, Inner City Press asked about
reports that Karim is demanding $20,000 per peacekeeper. We do not pay ransom
for our personnel, the
spokesman replied,
and there will be no impunity. Asked about MONUC's own report that it is
government soldiers who are responsible for most of the rapes in the Congo, the
spokesman referred to training, and repeated that there is and will be no
impunity. That was the word of the day. To inquire further, Inner City Press
asked at the noon briefing if Jean-Marie Guehenno would take questions after he
briefed the council. "We've asked," was the answer.
At 1
p.m., Inner City Press asked Jean-Marie Guehenno as he rushed into the Security
Council if he would answer questions at the stakeout after he briefed the
Council. Mr. Guehenno replied that he was not going in to brief, but rather to
find an Ambassador. It was past three p.m. when the briefing began. Kofi Annan
and Mr. Guehenno went in, and at 4:08, the Secretary General came out, waving.
At nearly five o'clock Mr. Guehenno emerged, with a half-dozen staffers in his
entourage. For eight minutes Mr. Guehenno answered Inner City Press' questions,
all on the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Asked
about the status of the seven kidnapped peacekeepers, Mr. Guehenno said the
militia leader involved would be held personally accountable if the Blue Helmets
are not released. Asked if this militia leader is, in fact, Peter Karim, Mr.
Guehenno replied, that is the assumption. He described an ambush in Ituri in
which one peacekeeper was killed, three injured and seven surrounded and
captured. A helicopter that arrived thereafter could not free them, due to the
surrounding jungle.
Asked to
clarify a recent quote that there are not that many deaths in Congo, Mr.
Guehenno distinguished between "direct" deaths, by shooting or machete, and more
indirect impacts of war, including the breakdown of the state and health system.
Asked if
the elections, slated for the end of July, are on track, Mr. Guehenno replied
"as much as can be," and described logistical and political obstacles. Mr.
Guehenno asked rhetorically, Will it be a Westminster democracy? No, he
answered. He said that what gives him hope, when he goes "beyond Kinshasa," as
the ten Permanent Representatives visiting DRC in the second week of June
apparently will not, is excitement about voting, and the mobilizing of voices
"who have no voice."
"Ituri Explorer" / MONUC
Mr.
Guehenno
Asked
about the calls in Kasai for a boycott of the election, Mr. Guehenno replied
that the leader of the UDPS had been given many opportunities to participate,
but unfortunately has chosen not to. Asked about President Kabila's allegation
that the three dozen foreign bodyguards, including three from Orlando,
Florida-based AQMI Strategy and others from South Africa's Omega Risk Solutions,
were attempting a coup, Mr. Guehenno said he only knows the news he reads. One
wonders if others in a position to impact Congo even read the news. Click
here
to hear Inner City Press'
interview with the UN's Jean-Marie
Guehenno, recorded on a $20 MP3
player and edited on open source audio software, with an voiceover introduction
recorded in an echo chamber on the UN Headquarters' third floor. Watch -- and
listen for -- this site.
On
Congo, Cognitive Dissonance at the UN, While UK Calls for Crackdown on LRA's
Joseph Kony
Byline:
Matthew Russell Lee at the U.N.
UNITED NATIONS, May
26 -- "The election will be credible," responded France's Permanent
Representative to the UN Jean-Marc de La Sabliere to questions Friday on Congo,
to which he and nine other Permanent Representatives will travel next month
after Sudan.
Inner City Press
had asked about reports of mass displacement in Ituri, and about
most observers' skepticism about
current president Kabila's claims that an opponent has attempted a coup with
foreign mercenaries. Amb. de La Sabliere did not answer about the purported coup
attempt, but spoke at length, as the UN's Ross Mountain has, about the number of
polling places and the 25 million people who have registered to vote. "I cannot
answer as to each village, in Ituri or Kivu," he said, "the DRC forced back by
MONUC have done a good job."
Earlier
on Friday at the UN, at a briefing on
children's right to HIV and AIDS treatment,
the president of World Vision International Dean Hirsch had answered a question
from Inner City Press about the lack of AIDS treatment in Congo by stating that
"the DRC is the greatest tragedy on earth," comparing it to Darfur.
The two
statements, made three hours apart from the briefing podium in Room 226 of UN
Headquarters, lead to cognitive dissonance. Does the continuing level of
violence and underdevelopment in the Democratic Republic of Congo make it the
world's worst tragedy? Or is everything looking up, at Amb. de La Sabliere and
Ross Mountain have it, in light of an election scheduled for July 31, into which
the UN is clearly invested? At what point does wanting the election to go well
become whitewashing the world's world humanitarian crisis? And how can a
Security Council member or mission declare, in advance of their visit as well as
of the election, that an election "will be credible"?
At the Security
Council briefing, UK Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry responded to Inner City Press'
question regarding the Lord's Resistance Army that the LRA has "wrecked havoc"
leading to (among other things) one and a half displaced people; he reiterated
that Kony has been indicted by the ICC and that the indictment should "be
implemented" and Kony should "face justice." The spokesman for the Secretary
General, who the previous day had said he'd inquire and get a response, provided
one late Friday, quoted here in full:
"Northern Uganda
continues to experience an enormous humanitarian crisis with 1.7 million
Internally Displaced Persons resulting from more than 20-year old conflict. The
Lord's Resistance Army activity is one of the most violent and vicious ever seen
and it is in everybody's interest to implement the International Criminal Court
indictments against its leaders. We are aware of contacts mediated by Sudanese
VP Salva Kiir to arrange for a political solution to the LRA. The Ugandan
Government insists its amnesty applies to all LRA elements with the exception of
its two top leaders Joseph Kony and Vincent Otti. Although recognizing the LRA
phenomena has to be addressed from a comprehensive military as well as
humanitarian, political, social and economic perspective the overall focus
should be on protection of the innocent, respect of human rights and fight
against impunity."
There it
is. In other UN news, David Balton, with the long-winded title Chair of the
Review Conference on the Agreement for the Conservation and Management of
Straddling and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks, predicted that Japan will be
signing on to the agreement "in a week or two," but that outside the agreement
remain large fishing counties such as China, Indonesia, Philippines and South
Korea. He indicated his awareness of reports of the rogue trawlers Isabella,
Carmen, Rosita, Eva and Juanita being serviced in Germany, Lithuania and Poland;
his co-briefer Fernando Curcio responded that the European Commission is acting
on this, and promised to provide documents in a week or so.
Asked by
Inner City Press if any fishing industry participants are members of the UN
Global Compact, and if the Global Compact has had or could have any role in
rooting out illegal, unreported and unregulated (UII) fishing, Mr. Balton said
not to date, but that it might be worth asking the Global Compact.
Speaking
still of global, in the future tense, at Friday's Global Movement for Children
briefing, UNICEF executive director Ann M. Veneman also answered on Congo,
stating that she'd been to DRC this year and speaking passionately about the
rape of children there. Responding to a question from Inner City Press about the
more than 50 member states which have not provided any response to UNAIDS'
survey, Ms. Veneman
encouraged attendance
next Tuesday at a May 30 UNAIDS press conference.
Conflict Cocoa in Cote D'Ivoire But Maybe No Election; In Security Council, Late
Night on Timor L'Este; In Kosovo, UN Uses Tear Gas Though the Spin
Byline:
Matthew Russell Lee at the U.N.
UNITED NATIONS, May
25 -- In Cote D'Ivoire, thirty percent of cocoa production leaves the country
through informal channels, according to the UN's Abdoulaye Mar Dieye. This
constitutes, among other things, tax evasion. Inner City Press inquired at
Thursday's
briefing into the use of child labor in cocoa production, an issue on which
Nestle and ADM have been sued. Abdoulaye Mar Dieye responded by referring to a
study that's about to come out. In a subsequent interview he suggested that
cocoa production might need something akin to the Kimberly process on conflict
diamonds. (Click
here for
information on the Kimberly process).
Abdoulaye Mar
Dieye reiterated the recent
statements of
Gerard Stoudmann that elections by the October 31, 2006, deadline are "still
technically feasible," although they would require bending if not breaking some
procedural rules; he acknowledged that the deadline might not be met. Abdoulaye
Mar Dieye stated that there are 700,000 internally displaced people in Cote
D'Ivoire (OCHA's
web site put
the figure at 500,000.)
Guiglo per UNHCR
On another
displacing issue further east in Africa, with the government in South Sudan
offering to mediate between Uganda and Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army,
Inner City Press asked Kofi Annan's spokesman if the Secretary-General, now in
Bangkok, has a position on whether South Sudan should arrest Kony, who has been
indicted by the International Criminal Court.
It was
said that a response will be forthcoming.
What are the
odds? A day after the UN's Soren Jessen-Petersen
denounced as misinformation
reports of attacks on Serbs in Kosovo, in the village of Krushe e Vogel / Mala
Krusa stones were thrown at two Serb defense lawyers. he UN Police responded
with tear gas. The previous day's
press release had
"analyzed 1,408
Kosovo Serb convoys that were escorted by the Kosovo Police Service (KPS) during
January to early May this year. It was found that there had been six incidents
of stone throwing at these convoys and police had made five arrests in those
cases."
That is, less than
four-tenths of one percent of convoys were attacked. So what were the odds of it
happening the very next day? TInner City Press raised the incident at the
noon briefing; the questions, both unasked and unanswered, is why the UN attempt
to spin in some areas while remaining silent on many others, for example on the
"clandestine" violator of the arms embargo in Somalia and the metering of oil in
Iraq.
As the
meeting of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues winds down, a briefing was
held and these numbers presented: 1200 indigenous representatives attended along
with 55 member states. Three of the states, the U.S., Australia and New Zealand,
openly spoke out against the draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous
Peoples, not only against the notion of requiring the consent of indigenous
people to projects on their land but also the reference in Article 3 to the
right to self-determination. Inner City Press inquired into Indonesia's
position on self-determination for indigenous people, in light of West Papua.
The chairwoman responded that Indonesia was not involved in the drafting process
in Geneva, nor in this Permanent Forum meeting. Asked about the issues of
missionaries, conversions and adoptions, under the rubric of loss of culture,
Forum member Wilton Littlechild said the matter is not only in the draft, but
also before the Commission on the Rights of the Child. In a separate interview
in the basement outside Conference Room 2, Mr. Littlechild described several
class actions in Canada on these issues, alleging cultural genocide. Since the
treatment by courts of claims of cultural genocide is an open question, one
wonders if the Declaration -- in one its 19 perambulatory paragraphs or 45
articles -- shouldn't address the need in nations' laws for just such a cause of
action.
Finally,
on Timor L'Este, events in Dili were murkily described at the Security Council
stake-out at 5:40 p.m. by the UN's head of peacekeeping Jean-Marie Guehenno.
"Often we leave too early," he said. Inner City Press asked if events in Timor
L'Este might cause a rethinking of fast UN pullouts from such locations at
Burundi. "Generally," Mr. Guehenno answered, "one should not be penny-wise and
pound-foolish." He added that before leaving, one should make sure that the
majority and the minority get along in a democratic fashion. Yes, one should...
The Security
Council was to re-convene at 10 p.m.. Knowledgeable correspondents ascribed this
to the need for the Chinese delegation to get word from Beijing; drained
correspondents awaited the recently-dancing Chinese press attache, past
deadline.
In the lull at the
Security Council stakeout, informed / uniformed sources opined that next month
World Cup soccer games will be broadcast in the lounge outside the Security
Council, but not outside ("If it was still Mr. Lavrov [as Russian envoy to the
UN] and it was up to him, it would be on TV in the Council too," one said).
At 9:56 p.m., a
spokesman for China passing through the stakeout explained they had to call
their Ministry, and didn't want to wake people up. "Now it's 10 a.m. in Beijing,
we've gotten our instructions, it should all go quickly now." -Filed 9:58
p.m. Eastern
At 10:10 p.m., a
passing spokesman disclosed that, with the word "warmly" dropped, it is being
passed. -Filed 10:11 p.m.
All this for
six minutes (in Real).
At 10:23 p.m.,
Japan's envoy expressed hope that the UN will not have to reconstitute a
peacekeeping force, but stated that when Ian Martin reports back, this too may
be considered. There was much joking about returning to dinner, with references
to Chinese takeout, and Japanese tea. Some looked for stronger fare. -Final
filing
10:25 p.m. Eastern
At
the UN, Too-Rosy Light on Myanmar, More Clarification on Timor L'Este
Byline:
Matthew Russell Lee at the U.N.
UNITED NATIONS, May
24 -- Myanmar was illuminated, briefly, by rosy light at the UN Headquarters on
Wednesday. Following his visit to Myanmar including its new capital Pyinmana,
the UN's Ibrahim Gambari told journalists that Aung San Suu Kyi, who he called
A.S.S.K., is in good health, that the military regime is working well with the
UN's anti-drug office and, generally, that things are looking up. Inner City
Press
asked
Mr. Gambari if he raised to the regime the issues of press freedom, and of the
Karen and stateless people, and about reports that Myanmar is defaulting on
payments to the state-owned Ukraine arms supplier UkrspetsExport and on
construction of its new capital in the jungle. Mr. Gambari said his visit was
not about the defaults (or, by implication, about arms sales), but he was
willing to describe his one hour visit to the new capital, stating that although
most ministries have moved there, it is still fairly empty. Mr. Gambari made an
analogy to when his country, Nigeria, moved its capital. But the Myanmar
regime's move seems not about rural economic development, but rather about
staying in power.
Refugees
from Myanmar (c) UNHCR
Relatedly,
Mr. Gambari was repeatedly asked about his and Kofi Annan's involvement in
seeking an endgame for the Mugabe era in Zimbabwe. While the spokesman turned
questions away, Mr. Gambari appeared to respond that he's involved, then backed
away. We talk to a lot of people, was essentially the answer. Ah, diplomacy.
Also
diplomatic was the UNAIDS director's spin on more than fifty countries' failure
to respond to UN surveys on AIDS. At a briefing on Wednesday he characterized
such an inquiry as pessimistic. While tomorrow can always be a better day, for
the UN to excuse failure to provide basic information seems counterintuitive.
On an
issues
raised at
the noon briefing, the UN's reaction to disturbances in Timor L'Este which has
now invited back in foreign forces from four countries, in light of the critique
that the UN left too quickly, the Secretary General's spokesman subsequently had
an answer,
on-
and off-line. It was the U.S. and Australia which wanted to pull out when they
did. He also stated, in the briefing, that the UN would not look kindly on the
reported coup attempt by foreign mercenaries in the Democratic Republic of
Congo. Well, unlike on Somalia and even Montenegro, it is a response. On
Tuesday
as Monday, the spokesman declined to comment substantively on the weekend's vote
in Montenegro, despite Russia and now Serbia conceding the result.
An
observer noted that perhaps the UN made little of Montenegrin's vote for
independence because the victory and credit for the peaceful transition, so far,
is for the European Union and even Serbia. Another noted that Timor L'Este is
considered one of the UN's coups, so to speak, so perhaps the UN is reticent to
highlight the temporary unraveling of things there. But what explains the lack
of information from Somalia, in particular from the UN's envoy Francois Lonseny
Fall? Most recently his office still has no comment on the UN-backed
transitional government inviting in peacekeeper -- from which it seems fair to
infer that the UN was not involved in this development. He still has no comment
on the attempted sale by the breakaway region of Puntland of mineral rights to
the Australian company Range Resources Ltd. In fact, the UN system insists on
characterizing those who flee into Puntland as "internally displaced persons"
and not full fledged refugees. (Click
here
for the wider humanitarian issues.) It was however observed: if you're going to
play politics and put more energy into always siding on a one-state solution for
Somalia, you should at least fully play the game and both be involved in seeking
peace(keepers) and in speaking out against a breakaway region's sale of
resources to a first world corporation, in what others in the UN have called a
vulnerable conflict zone. If the UN doesn't speak on these matters, who will?In Brussels --
The
Place of the Cost-Cut UN in Europe's Torn-Up Heart;
Deafness to Consumers, Even by the Greens
Byline:
Matthew Russell Lee, in Brussels
BRUSSELS, April 28 --
Ears ringing with the talk of waste within the UN system, an Inner City Press
reporter yesterday visited the consolidated, scaled back and renamed UN Regional
Information Center (UNRIC) in Brussels, to see how an early attempt at
cost-saving is working out.
On
narrow, car-filled Rue de la Loi, just passed the European Commission, the UNRIC
is tucked in on the 7th and 8th floors of a stately building in the Residence
Palace compound. Outside are construction zones, the city literally torn-up to
build office space for the ten new EU members. Inside UNRIC it is spacious, with
hardwood floors and uncaptioned photos of each Secretary-General. The UNRIC's
deputy director is an engaging Dane who is among other things the answer to the
UN system Jeopardy question: who was the spokesman for the president of the
General Assembly when the World Trade Towers were demolished by hijacked plane?
Who is... Jan Fischer. Mr. Fischer also served the UN in Iraq in 1993, along
with a stint in Australia. He knows the System, and the context of the
cost-cutting he's witnessed at the UNRIC.
The
travel budget the more than half-dozen country desk officers based in Brussels
is $16,000 for six months. This has resulted in fewer trips to the countries
covered by each desk officer, and even to them staying with family and friend on
such trips. There's a striking correlation between surname and country covered:
Carlos Jimenez for Spain, Fabio Graziosi for Italy, Dimitrios Fatouros for
Greece and so forth. The desk officers were once "national information
officers," which required this consonance. Now that they've had to move to
Brussels, they've been "professionalized," in the parlance of the UN civil
service. Still some stay with friends and family on their UN trips back home.
In
Brussels some 15,000 journalists cover the doings of the European Union and to
some degree NATO. It is hard, Jan Fischer says, for UN news to break through.
They hold press conferences, and briefings by visiting UN envoys, from conflict
diamonds to the rights of the child. Across from the well-guarded United States
embassy, there's a storefront for UNICEF, with its tell-tale blue sign. The UN's
refugee agency, it appears from a list, has a dozen Brussels employees, seeking
EU funding for their far-flung operations. UNRIC tries to get their stories
told. Mr. Fischer says he'd rather say too much than too little; he suggests
that the media not abandoned UN staffers who go off script and speak their
minds. It's a plan that makes much sense, and one that we will follow. This
series of occasional visits with continue from Inner City Press, consonant with
the cost-cuts as they come.
Footnote: in a
third-floor room in the European Parliament on April 27, Green party delegate
Heide Ruhle listened while nodding to consumer advocates despairing of non-bank
input into the pending Consumer Credit Directive. When asked, with an
administrative colleague, about merger review in the Euro zone, the Green
response was that review by particular nations is outmoded. Will Brussels'
review consider predatory lending? That remains unclear.
Other Inner City Press
reports are archived on
www.InnerCityPress.org -
AIDS Ends at the
UN? Side Deals on Patents, Side Notes on Japanese Corporations,
Salvadoran and Violence in Burundi
On AIDS at the
UN, Who Speaks and Who Remains Unseen
Corporate Spin on
AIDS, Holbrooke's Kudos to Montenegro and its Independence
(May 31, 2006)
Kinshasa Election
Nightmares, from Ituri to Kasai. Au Revoir Allan Rock; the UN's
Belly-Dancing
Working with
Warlords, Insulated by Latrines: Somalia and Pakistan Addressed at the
UN
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
In Liberia, From
Nightmare to Challenge; Lack of Generosity to Egeland's CERF, Which
China's Asked About
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
At the UN, Dues
Threats and Presidents-Elect, Unanswered Greek Mission Questions
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 Congolese
Chaos, Shots Fired at U.N. Helicopter Gunship
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
Who Pays for the
Global Bird Flu Fight? Not the Corporations, So Far - UN
Citigroup
Dissembles at United Nations Environmental Conference
Other Inner City Press
reports are archived on
www.InnerCityPress.org -
For reporting about banks, predatory
lending, consumer protection, money laundering, mergers or the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), click
here for Inner
City Press's
weekly CRA Report.
Inner City Press also reports weekly concerning the
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on the United
Nations, where Inner City Press
is accredited media. Follow those links
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