At the UN, Iran Resolution Passes 15-0 Amid Media Frenzy While Somalia and UN Reform Are Ignored

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

UNITED NATIONS, December 23, 11 a.m. -- With the UN Security Council expected to meet at 11 a.m. to vote and approve a watered down resolution on Iran's nuclear programs, journalists began assembling outside the chamber just after 10 a.m.. Camera-people arrived first, to set up in the area raised above the stakeout. Photographers plugged in laptops to upload the many photos they would take. Print reporters arrived last, grabbing electrical outlets far from the stakeout, but near to the entrance to the Council chambers.

            A new draft, "in blue," was distributed by the UN Spokesman's office. The office had been cleaned from the previous night's party, at the tail end of which Kofi Annan's chef de cabinet Alicia Barcena chatted with reporters, who were nibbling addictively on cheese doodles and pretzels late-bought from a Duane Reade on Second Avenue.

            The draft, S/2006/1010, sponsored by France, Germany and the UK, has 24 operative paragraphs and an annex full of names. It's been reported that the name came straight from Google. Since their assets are to be frozen upon adoption of the resolution, one imagines the money has already been moved. News travels fast.

            Ambassador Mayoral of Argentina was the first to speak to the press, without much effect. UK Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry, more formal, stood at the microphone and said a vote is expected by noon.  The Russian spokeswoman shooed reporters away, saying "You must wait for Ambassador Churkin." When he arrived, he stood smiling but silent down the catwalk to the chamber.

Churkin on a slow day

 "Behind the barricades!" a media accreditation official cried out. Photographers milled, as they did earlier this year during consideration of resolutions on Lebanon and North Korea. There is no such interest in Somalia, even as the country moved to a hot and regional war.

            In the morning's news was word of a class action lawsuit growing from the UN Oil for Food program, against BNP Paribas and the Australian Wheat Board. The UN would have been named, it seems clear, if not for the immunity argument. One hoped to ask Kofi Annan to comment on the suit, but his staffers said he will only come to the UN if a letter's received from Sudan. And if it permits a claim of progress, one assumes.

            Beyond Oil for Food, words spat by Mr. Annan repeatedly this week, other UN reform issues languished, not least the mounting irregularities identified in the UN Development Program by Inner City Press and now others. More on those next week.

            The Council chamber filled and the assembled media milled, as this first interim report went up, just after the going-into-session Council bell rang at 11:12 a.m.. Watch this space.

Update of 11:29 a.m. -- The stakeout buzzed that the Russian spokeswoman spun that, from Part B of the annex, entities involved in the ballistic missile program, one entity has managed to get itself removed: Aerospace Industries Organization (AIO). And inside the Chamber, the talking began...

Update of 11:48 a.m. -- After speeches by the Ambassadors of Russia, the United States and Qatar, the resolution was approved 15-0 as Resolution 1737. Then began statements following the vote, starting with UK Amb. Emyr Jones Parry...

Update of 12:05 p.m. -- The 15-0 came right at the cusp of deadlines for Japanese media. There was groaning as the pre-vote speeches went on. In post-vote speechifying, Chinese Amb. Wang, without his glasses on, explained his country's positive vote. The Iranian representative sat twisting his hands and smirking at the last seat at the Council's round table...

Update of 12:18 p.m. -- As the Iranian Ambassador began to speak, his staffer handed out copies of his remarks. This was seven and a half pages, single-spaced, and came replete with footnotes, unlikely to be read out in the Chamber. But it's sure to soon go online...

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At the UN, Security Council and GA Games and Holiday Spirit As Revolving Door Ban Disappears on Final Day

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

UNITED NATIONS, December 22 -- On the Friday before Christmas, when the General Assembly went deep into the night and the Security Council deferred for one more day a much watered-down resolution on Iran, Kofi Annan's spokesman Stephane Dujarric held what he's called his last press conference. Coincidentally, or not, the long awaited, much-hyped anti-revolving door policy was to be announced. The briefing was begun by Mark Malloch Brown, who praised Stephane Dujarric and then prepared to go. What -- no questions? Well, no. No questions taken at all.

            In his opening presentation, Mr. Dujarric mentioned the new post-employment restrictions. Inner City Press asked him to confirm that there had been a stronger draft, which would have precluded senior UN officials, not only those in procurement, from lobbying the UN for two years after leaving. Mr. Dujarric declined to comment on prior drafts, or who made the weakening change -- that individual had just left the room.

            The earlier draft, dated June 12, 2006, provided that

"Former staff members at the Assistant Secretary-General level or above are prohibited from making, with the intent to influence, a communication to or appearance before any staff member of the United Nations, regardless of level... This prohibition is effective for two years."

            This provision is entirely missing from the finalized policy, which is limited to "staff members participating in the procurement process." All of the Assistant Secretaries-General, and the Deputy Secretary General, were given a Christmas present three days early: the ability to lobby the UN during the next two years. The DSG will, at least initially, be based at Yale University. But the lobbying will have to be watched, particularly in light of the opaque process by which the initial prohibition was removed.

            Later on Friday, a UN official gave some rationale for dropping the prohibitions on senior officials, giving rise to a drier, stand-alone story, click here to view.

            The mood in the UN briefing room on Friday was like a professor's last day. The journalists, not dissimilar to a school class in a hothouse, thanked Stephane in turn. Reuters regretted being third to AP and Bloomberg -- "as per usual," Bloomberg jibed -- and a wise and wizened Anatolian reporter wished the half-French Steph "bonne chance." Inner City Press said, and meant, "It was a pleasure," a statement that was reciprocated. Then Inner City Press asked about human rights in Zimbabwe, a topic left unaddressed in Kofi Annan's ten years. What about Mugabe's refusal to honor the extradition request for Marian Mengistu?

            "The Secretary-General is against impunity," Stephane said, and meant it. But what does it mean? Peter Karim, who held UN peacekeepers hostage, was given a MONUC-brokered position in the Congolese Army. Joseph Kony of Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army, although indicted by the International Criminal Court, meets with Mr. Annan's humanitarian envoy and is not close to begin arrested. We are all against impunity. And yet it continues.

            Overnight full copies of Paul Volcker's report on UN Oil for Food appeared in the hall outside the UN Spokesman's office. Seven volumes, more fifteen pounds, fine reading for the holiday season.

            But the holiday has yet to being, at the UN. The Security Council scheduled Saturday meetings on Iran and journalists and armed conflict. The GA left until 10 then 11 p.m. it's rubber-stamp approval of committees' reports, including the Capital Master Plan. The funding of investigation of Qana caused much consternation, with the U.S., Israel, Palau and the Marshall Islands voting negative. Where, one asked, was Ivory Coast? Doesn't Gbagbo want the U.S. vote in the Council?

GA on wide screen

  They droned on in the GA: the Fifth Committee adopted this resolution without a vote. May I take it the General Assembly wished to do the same? (A beat.) It is so decided. And then the swinging of the ceremonial gavel we saw given to Jan Eliason.

            From the Security Council itself, it can now be reported: China delayed the resolution continuing diamond sanction on Liberia because of a specific Taiwan issue. To whit, in Brussels a bureaucrat had floated the idea of upgrading Taiwan from observer status in the (blood diamond) Kimberly process. China was so opposed to this it said it would not vote to continue diamond sanctions on  Liberia unless the Brussels wonk recanted. And so it was done. In consultations, issues are traded away and it rarely gets reported. Other examples, to be more fully explored in 2007 are Ivory Coast and Abkhazia, and, we predict, Kosovo.

            Also noted in the week's vote counts is Ivory Coast joining the U.S. and Palau in opposing resolutions. Gbagbo knows which side his bread is buttered on. And he and his wife Simone prepare, it is reported, to throw UN envoy Pierre Schori out of the country.

            In this last week of Security Council action for 2006, several lesser-noticed resolutions are indicative of the Council's flaws. While the Council finally enacted a purported "de-listing" procedure whereby individuals and entities on which the Council has imposed sanctions can try to get off the list, the regime makes a mockery of due process. Instead of providing standards of proof and rules of procedure, it's again a popularity contest and political football. Without the support of (key) Council members, there'll be no de-listing. Pomp and circumstances, a kangaroo court on the west bank of New York's East River, at least as regards the claims of those put on sanctions lists.

            But it is not only a hall of mirrors, our Turtle Bay idyll. As night fell on the second shortest day, the Spokesman's office threw its end-of-year, end-of-term party. The food was chips, the drink red wine and scotch. But the stories were, as the credit card ad has it, priceless. Mojitos and cigars on beaches with ambassadors of Brazil, chefs de cabinet decamping to Mexico for a few days. Why, one asked, does Russia get so few top posts? The USSR used to pay eight percent of the budget, and now barely over one percent, comes the answer. And soon after the party, the GA was to meet, on the dry but crucial scale of assessments. We are family.

            Kofi Annan himself will be at an undisclosed location in New York for the rest of his term, "available if needed," he's said. There's continued suffering in Darfur, accelerating war in Somalia and, as decried in a little-noticed UN press release, increased abductions of school children in Haiti. We'll have more on and around this last in the near future.

At the UN, Iran Resolution Goes Blue as Ivory Coast is Traded Away With No Follow-up on Hmung

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

UNITED NATIONS, December 20 -- The featured bout at the Security Council on Wednesday was all about Iran, a "text in blue" circulating after the sun went down to the ten elected members who were excluded from the draft's negotiation. This exclusion perhaps explains the reference to them as the "E-10." E not for elected but for excluded. Ambassador Peter Burian of Slovakia asked reporters questions if he had felt cut out with the two word, "I agree," adding that "we are not involved in the negotiations" but should have been, "at an earlier stage."

            When P-5 Ambassadors de la Sabliere of France and Emyr Jones Parry of the UK emerged, they said that they are open to feedback, if other members want "a conversation." But voting is slated for Friday.

            On Wednesday in Abidjan, Ivorian strongman Laurent Gbagbo in a speech said that the UN-established buffer-zone should be eliminated, and that the UN "should leave soon." In light of the recent UN Security Council resolution demanding that Gbagbo finally hold elections, this speech gave rise to questions later on Wednesday at UN Headquarters in New York. Kofi Annan's spokesman first spoke vaguely about "the process," then in response to Inner City Press' question, more specifically about the Gbagbo speech. Video here. From the transcript:

Inner City Press: On Ivory Coast, Gbagbo gave a speech in which he said the buffer zone should be eliminated, and essentially, many people say, he wants to attack the rebels again.  Is there something more, it’s not just that the process isn’t going forward.  It’s that he said that the UN process and the resolution are not, have accomplished nothing for Ivorian.  Are either the envoys there or the Secretary-General going to say something more than "it's going too slow?"

Spokesman: We're obviously very concerned that no unilateral moves that would take place outside of the agreed framework of the road map that’s been agreed by the Security Council, with the African Union and ECOWAS.  The UN has been in touch with all the political parties to move together along the lines of the road map.

              Later in the UN's second floor, Inner City Press asked French Ambassador de la Sabliere what the Security Council would do. Reference was made to issuing a Presidential Statement or PRST. But when Inner City Press asked the Council's president for December, Qatar's Ambassador, he said the Council is too busy working on Iran, he's aware of no PRST. Another Council diplomat said France is taking the lead, and that because of the Iran negotiations, some others in the Permanent Five are given France more leeway on Ivory Coast than has recently been the case, apparently a trade-off for a harsher stance on Iran.

            A respected UN source, to whom this scenario was described, said "Welcome to the UN" and asked how this is different than the horse-trading in the U.S. Congress or many other national legislatures. But are pork barrel project to fill potholes in Oklahoma City different than peacekeeping forces in Abidjan?

Happier days in Cote D'Ivoire

            At Wednesday's noon briefing by Kofi Annan's spokesman, there were substantially more questions than answers, on issues ranging from Nepal to the Hmong refugees threatened with refoulement from Thailand back to Laos.  From the transcript:

Inner City Press:  In Nepal, part of the peace agreement, there's been a threat by the Maoists to call a national strike.  Is the envoy there, or anyone, what is the UN's position on whether the Government should have appointed ambassadors before the Maoists?

Spokesman:  I don't have anything specific on that, I'm sorry.

Inner City Press:  There was a letter by Mrs. Coomaraswamy, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, stating that there is no question of her reappointment, her appointment runs through 2008.  So, I guess I'm wondering with all these [Special Representatives of the Secretary-General] SRSGs, what is the process, is there any process for review by the next Secretary-General or do those terms just run?

Spokesman:  The contracts of the [Under-Secretary-General] USG's end, if I'm not mistaken, early next year.  For the SRSGs, their contracts -- some of them run longer, they're all on different terms.  Obviously, it'll be up to the next administration to decide how to proceed with those appointments or the retention of those people.  But, I can't speak to the post-1 January world.

   This will be re-visited in the "post-January 1st world," from which responses are awaited. And now regarding the Hmong:

Inner City Press: These Hmong, people that have left Laos and are in Thailand, governments in both Laos and Thailand have said that they are going to be returned to Laos, they say that they're facing death and attacks by the Laotian military.  I'm wondering, [Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees] UNHCR has said something.  Is there some way to find out thorough your office what is the status of that and what is actually?

Spokesman:  We can check with UNHCR. 

And finally, this question foreshadowing in the next day or two:

Inner City Press: On this anti-revolving door policy, is it going to be definitely announced before?

Spokesman:  I would very much like to be able to announce it before the end of this week.

Inner City Press:  Can you highlight to us, if there are any other policies that are going to be finalized before the end of the year or before your last briefing?  Is there anything else on your radar screen?

Spokesman:  Yes, the two issues I do expect to announce something on -- one is the revolving door policy and the other is the agreement having to do with the handling of the papers from the Volcker Committee.  We’d like to get those two things out and done with before 31 December.

            As previously reported, Inner City Press' sources, as confirmed by a P-5 diplomat, indicate that a draft anti-revolving door policy that would have prohibited lobbying for two years is being watered down, by one of the 38th floor's powers in his final days...

Other Inner City Press reports are available in the ProQuest service and some are archived on www.InnerCityPress.com --

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

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