BTC
Briefing, Like Pipeline, Skirts Troublespots, Azeri Revelations
Byline:
Matthew Russell Lee at the U.N
UNITED NATIONS, July
13 -- An oil pipelines gambit came to interim fruition on Thursday. The Baku -
Tblisi - Ceyhan curving route, avoiding Armenia, breakaway parts of Georgia and
most Kurdish parts of Turkey, is a testament to its precarious position. At a
briefing at the UN,
Inner City Press asked the
outgoing Ambassador of Georgia Revaz Adamia to explain BP's funding of a 700
person defense force for the pipeline. "They are not soldier," Amb. Adamia
answered. "They are high tech people."
Inner
City Press asked the Ambassador of Azerbaijan Yashar Aliyev about the avoidance
of Armenia. We cannot deal with them until they stop occupying our territory, he
said. "You mean Nagorno - Karabakh?" Not only that, Amb. Aliyev answered. That's
only four percent. Few people know this, but Armenia has occupied twenty percent
of our territory.
But we
digress. The pipeline is more than a tube for oil, the Ambassadors read from
their scripts. A four-minute movie was shown. Later the full 20-minute film was
screened, as waiters served lamp chops and salmon on a skewer. "Bill Clinton was
there at the birth," a Georgian representative said. "He offered American
guarantees so the work would get done. It avoids this" -- he pointed on a map at
Russia -- "and here," pointing to Iran and the Middle East. "If only
Turkmenistan agrees to provide its gas," he said wistfully. He added his view
that Armenia gets away with incursions in Azerbaijan due to U.S. support. It's
an issue rarely touched on at the United Nations.
Georgia
Inner
City Press asked outgoing Georgian Ambassador Ademia where he's going. "Back to
science and business," he answered. "Oil," guess-whispered one wag -- not this
one -- in the crowd.
Full disclosure:
this reporter consumed, on the pipeline proponents' tab, several skewers of meat
and a glass of Borjomi mineral water, named for a national park in Georgia which
environmentalists say is put at risk by the BTC pipeline.
At
the UN, A Day of Resolutions on Gaza, North Korea and Iran, Georgia as Side Dish
Byline:
Matthew Russell Lee at the U.N.
UNITED NATIONS, July
12 -- Just as there are big countries and little countries, at the UN there are
big issues and then other issues, sometimes called non-issues. On Wednesday at
the UN, there were serial stakeouts by the Ambassadors of France and the United
States, off the cuff comments by the Ambassadors of Russia, China and the UK,
and side speeches by the Palestinian Permanent Observer and the UN's head of
peacekeeping Jean-Marie Guehenno.
Taking questions
from a half-dozen journalists at the
noon briefing --
where Inner City Press asked about a UNHCR conflict-of-interest investment with
Ivan Pictet, who's on the UN Investment Committee, click
here for
that article -- was the Special Representative of the Secretary General for
Georgia, Heidi Tagliavini, soon to leave her post and return to Switzerland.
Still she was diplomatic, preferring not to comment on yesterday's outbursts
from Georgia's parliamentary speaker and the Russian ambassador, rather
referring obliquely to "mis-information" being a problem in Abkhazia.
Inner
City Press asked if she views as mis-information the allegations of money
laundering, including for terrorism, in Abkhazia.
"Thank
God my mandate doesn't include bank regulation," she replied. She went on to
describe Abkhazia as a "dark area" where certainly money laundering could
happen. In response to Inner City Press' second question, about South Ossetia,
she described the Abkhazians as more professional, and having a longer
independent history, than is the case in South Ossetia. Asked if Georgia should
be allowed to speak before the Security Council when it is on the agenda, she
respond that she personally thinks that's right, but it is of course up to the
Security Council. In the hall outside Room 226, the Georgia ambassador noted
that Russia should not be able to block Georgia's attendance and speaking, since
these are procedural and not substantive matters. That and a token, a New York
wag replied.
At
another stakeout, Inner City Press asked the UN's head of peacekeeping
Jean-Marie Guehenno for more information on the release of the final five of the
peacekeeper in Ituri in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Mr. Guehenno
replied that the problem in Ituri is "young men with guns," and that even those
are disarmed can't find a job. He said, in a sanitized on-camera version, that
those negotiated with, Peter Karim, changed from day to day. Inner City Press
asked if in his briefing to the Council about the African Union summit in
Banjul, the issue of the Secretary-General's new deference to a "Mugabe-selected
mediator" came up. Mr. Guehenno replied both that it had not come up, and that
he was not sure if the mediator was Mugabe-selected. Inner City Press asked,
"what is the mediator's mandate? Between whom is he mediating -- Mugabe and the
Blair government in the UK, or Mugabe and the opposition in Zimbabwe?" Mr.
Guehenno said he is not the one to ask, that the question should be directed to
and answered by Department of Political Affairs. Okay then.
The main
action was dueling resolutions: the Qatari resolution on Gaza, not expanded to
cover Lebanon, texts and more texts on North Korea, and forthcoming text on
Iran. In the midst of these, all covered
elsewhere, French ambassador
Jean-Marc de La Sabliere let drop that he met with the Thai candidate for
Secretary-General. Inner City Press pursued at the stakeout the fate of the Gaza
electrical power plant, which UN humanitarian chief Jan Egeland said Tuesday
should be repaired by Israel. Inner City Press asked U.S. Ambassador John Bolton
if he had any comment on this. He replied, "I don't have any comment." Dan
Gillerman, the Ambassador of Israel,
said
that his country has "no intention to punish" civilians, but that he has "no
information on the plant." Inner City Press asked to be updated, and asked OCHA
to amplify Jan Egeland's reference to an "American insurance company" now
possibly barred from paying out on the policy due to sanctions against Hamas.
Who paid the premiums? Especially, after the insurance company became arguably
barred from paying on the policy? Developing....
Feedback: editorial
[at] innercitypress.com
UN Office: S-453A,
UN, NY 10017 USA Tel: 718-716-3540
UN's Corporate Partnerships Will Be Reviewed, While New Teaming Up with
Microsoft, and UNDP Continues
Byline:
Matthew Russell Lee at the U.N.
UNITED NATIONS, July
13 -- The UN under Kofi Annan has increasingly worked with corporations.
Questions have been raised about background checks and safeguards. A day after
Inner City Press reported that the UN's Geneva-based refugee agency had not
known that Swiss banker Ivan Pictet is on the UN Investment Committee when the
UNHCR Kashmir Relief Note placed money with the Pictet Funds India Equity fund,
the agency's spokesman mused, "Isn't the UN Investment Fund based in New York?"
Inner
City Press asked if it would have been helpful to UNHCR if the UN system had a
database of the companies controlled by the outside business people who serve on
bodies like the UN Investment Committee. A Google search for that committee and
Pictet found close to nothing. It appears that there is no easy way to find who
is on the UN Investment Committee.
UNHCR's
Ron Redmond answered that that it would "have been helpful to have that type of
information... For UNHCR to look it up is labor intensive, with all the possible
company names." He later added in writing, "Any additional information on
prospective corporate partners is of course always welcome; it would facilitate
our screening processes." Mr. Redmond states that UNHCR was never required to
ask SocGen to cease using the UNHCR visibility logo, in part because the
brochure that it was on was only intended to be used for a brief period. But
records show that individuals high in UN Headquarters chided UNHCR for the use
of such terms as UNHCR "teams up" with SocGen. Despite this in-house chiding, or
perhaps because the chiders refuse in their defensiveness to comment for the
record, this practice continues in the UN system to this day, literally. Click
here to
view the UN's World Tourism Organization's July 12, 2006 press release, "UN
tourism agency teams up with Microsoft,"
which was published on the UN News Center just as UNHCR SocGen-derilab's April
5, 2006 press release was. They just keep teaming up.
As the UN
increasingly has intercourse with corporations, basic safeguards are still not
in place. Inner City Press has previously reported on the lack of background
checks when corporations are allowed to join the UN Global Compact, and has
twice been rebuffed in requests to interview or ask questions of corporate CEOs
who have come to meet the Secretary General or on other Global Compact business.
At
Thursday's noon
briefing,
spokeswoman Marie Okabe was asked if any of the individuals in the Secretariat
who were asked to comment on the UNHCR - Pictet - Societe Generale transaction
had in fact spoken or provided guidance. We're still working on it, Ms. Okabe
answered.
Near six
p.m., Ms. Okabe called Inner City Press and said she had spoken about the
matter, as requested, with Under Secretary General Mark Malloch Brown. "They are
aware of the issues," Ms. Okabe said. "This case highlights the complexities of
the UN's partnerships with the private sector and so current guidelines and
practices of various funds and agencies and programs will be reviewed" to try to
avoid "potential conflicts of interest" and misuses of UN logos.
Great.
But what about the continued "teaming up," now with Microsoft? There's more work
to be done.
[A note on UNHCR's
work about Uzbekistan: the agency managed to visit in Kazakhstan with
Gabdurafikh Temirbaev, the Uzbek dissident threatened with refoulement
back to Tashkent, and has, its spokesman said, gotten a commitment to be able to
review Uzbekistan's extradition request.]
Alongside
UNHCR's work, unlike at the
UN Development Programme, at least UNHCR answered the questions and acknowledged
that things could be better. On UNDP and human rights, on UNDP and refusal to
answer press questions, what will happen?
Zimbabweans
On the
issues surrounding UNDP, the Office of the Spokesman for the Secretary-General
managed to get some response from UNDP to a question Inner City Press asked UNDP
in writing more than a week ago: why does UNDP help the government of Uzbekistan
to collect taxes, given the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights'
finding that this government shot and killed its own people in Andijan in May
2005. Here now is UNDP's response:
"As far as your UNDP/Uzbekistan questions
from the other week, here's what I can tell you... in Uzbekistan and most of the
140 developing nations where UNDP operates, UNDP works with government and civil
society on a broad range of governance projects, including economic reforms, of
which tax administration and fiscal policy are a significant component. Other
governance projects in Uzbekistan focus on gender equality, internet access, and
public administration reform. It may be worth noting that UNDP works in a wide
range of political environments, from Costa Rica to North Korea, with the belief
that UNDP's mandate as a development agency is to work constructively on behalf
of the people of the developing world wherever and whenever possible."
One wag
wondered if UNDP's programs in Uzbekistan might involve technical assistance on
not putting political dissidents in boiling water, as the U.K.'s former
ambassador in Tashkent has testified takes place. And see above, that UNHCR has
managed to visit in Kazakhstan with Gabdurafikh Temirbaev, the Uzbek dissident
threatened with refoulement back to Uzbekistan, where he would face
torture -- perhaps with tax funds UNDP helped to collect. UNDP has still not
even purported to answer the week-old question about
UNDP's funding of
Robert Mugabe's purported "Human Rights Council." Now the Zimbabwe Lawyers for
Human Rights has
called for a boycott.
What was that again, about UNDP working with civil society? To be continued.
Feedback: editorial
[at] innercitypress.com
UN Office: S-453A,
UN, NY 10017 USA Tel: 718-716-3540
Conflicts of Interest in UNHCR Program with SocGen and Pictet Reveal Reform
Rifts
Byline:
Matthew Russell Lee at the U.N.
UNITED NATIONS, July
12, 11:45 am, updated 7 pm -- Eager to "team up" with banks Societe Generale
and Pictet & Company, the United Nations' refugee agency allowed SocGen to use
the UN logo in a way subsequently criticized by UN legal staff, and to invest
Kashmir Relief Notes funds in a Pictet & Cie fund despite owner Ivan Pictet
being a member of the UN Investment Committee. Criticized by other UN units,
UNHCR agreed to cease renting out the UN logo, but said nothing can be done
about the investment with Pictet et Cie.
Inner City Press
first raised these matters in April 2006. Earlier today UNHCR in Geneva finally
responded, confirming but defending the investment in a Pictet fund. UNHCR's
Ron Redmond wrote to Inner City Press that
"based on the information available to us,
there is no conflict of interest created for Mr. Ivan Pictet, managing partner
of Pictet & Cie, and ad hoc member of the UN Investments Committee, by the fact
that Pictet Funds Indian Equities is one of the funds in which KRN funds are
invested. Societe Generale, the issuer of the Note, is solely responsible for
choosing the funds and this selection is based on recognized risk management and
hedging criteria; UNHCR plays a purely passive role as the recipient of a
donation and has no interest in the performance of the Note. Moreover, Mr.
Pictet's membership in the UN Investments Committee was unknown to all parties
involved in drawing up this investment product, and we trust therefore that the
decision to include a fund managed by Pictet & Cie was taken in good faith."
Whether this
is in keeping with current and proposed UN standards of ethics and transparency
will be seen in coming days. Whether the stated lack of knowledge of Mr.
Pictet's membership on the UN Investment Committee comports with minimal
corporate or competence standards is also in question. The problem is a wider
one: in a defensive internal memo reviewed by Inner City Press, UNHCR lawyer
Helmut Buss argues that UNICEF similarly partners with FIFA and NIS Petrol Co,
and that the World Food Programme does the same with TNT Airways and the World
Rugby Board. Nevertheless, UNHCR has agreed to drop the logo use and the "teams
up" language deployed in its
April 5 press release.
The investment in a fund controlled by a member of the UN Investment Committee UNHCR defends, including by pointing out that
Morgan Stanley's Francine Bovich
is also on the UN Investment Board, while the UN does much business with
JPMorgan Chase. (Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase, despite the comment
reference to Pierpont, are not related companies.) The UNHCR memo's argument is that it's too
complicated or burdensome to avoid conflicts of interest. UNHCR's earlier
justification to Inner City Press argued that "we are
not talking about the usual procurement procedure," when talking about an
investment in a fund controlled by a member of the UN Investment Committee.
This
conflict-or-reform debate has included at least in the carbon copies Deputy Secretary-General Mark Malloch-Brown,
who appears to have agreed that UNHCR's actions were improper. The paper trail
may be important. The story began with a
UNHCR press release on
April 5 of this year, headlined "New corporate
investment scheme helps fund UN quake relief efforts" and stating that "the
United Nations refugee agency has teamed up with two Swiss investment
companies in a scheme that will benefit its earthquake relief operation in
Pakistan. The joint project launched by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR),
Zurich-based Societe Generale Corporate & Investment Banking, and derilab s.a.,
a derivatives company, will allow investors to participate in a financial
product that affords a unique opportunity to support reconstruction and relief
efforts."
Inner City Press
inquired into the release and published a round-up
article on April 11 questioning
the partnership: "It might well be on the level. But
it's not yet clear that if it weren't, the scheme would not proceed. It would
help if the follow-up questions were answered."
Inner City Press' article included at length the
statement of UNHCR's Olivier Delarue:
From: Olivier
Pierre Delarue
To: Matthew.Lee [at] innercitypress.com
Sent: Thu, 6 Apr 2006 14:18:54 +0200
Subject: Re: Fwd: Press inquiry concerning how Societe Generale Corporate &
Investment Banking, and derilab s.a were selected for participation with UNHCR
I work in
UNHCR's Private Sector Fund Raising Service as Senior Corporate Relations
Officer and your query about this fund raising initiative was forwarded to me...
Based on the previous exchange of email you sent, your focus seems to be on the
procurement and bidding process done by the UN. This particular initiative,
however, is a fund raising project first proposed by corporate entities and
aimed at raising funds for UNHCR's humanitarian program. Therefore, as with any
fund raising project, we are not talking about the usual procurement procedure.
In my capacity
as Senior Corporate Relations Officer, my role is to work on creating new
partnerships with the corporate world in order to increase our donor base and
receive greater financial and expertise from the private sector. In this
particular case, Derilab s.a. approached us in the aftermath of the earthquake
in South Asia and proposed to assist us pro bono in finding new ways of raising
donations from the financial market for this emergency. As this was never done
in the past, a financial product which incorporated a charity/donation component
was not easy to build. Derilab presented the project to all the major banks
involved in structured and derivative products. Only Societe Generale showed a
serious interest in working on this new concept. As matter of principle, UNHCR
screens all new partnerships with the private sector. Societe Generale, the only
bank to show an interest for this project, was screened. As a result of our
careful review, Societe Generale was screened positively for various reasons,
including their participation in the UN Global Compact. Please note that in the
case of this initiative, UNHCR is only a receiver of donations through this
financial product -- but is not endorsing the product itself
The phrase "we are not talking about the usual
procurement procedure" may have been an understatement, given the investment
with a company controlled by an individual who is a member of the UN Investment
Committee. Regarding the last above-quoted phrase, even the UN Headquarters
staff who subsequently questioned UNHCR's program apparently found dubious this last point:
the use of the phrase "teams up" implies an endorsement, the question-memo
noted. ICP reiterated its broader questions to UNHCR in Geneva on June 1,
including directly to Mr. Delarue, to whom UNHCR's spokesman's office also
forwarded the request.
Several UN officials contacted Inner City
Press about its initial story. Subsequently UN staff in New York wrote to UNHCR
in Geneva, demanding an explanation including of the seemingly violative use of
the UN logo contrary to GA Resol. 92(I) of 1946. More than a month later,
UNHCR's Helmut Buss sent back a multi-page memo, acknowledging the investment in
Pictet Funds Indian Equity Fund, and that Ivan Pictet is on the UN Investment
Committee. Mr. Buss claimed to have determined that this conflict had been
stumbled into "in good faith," and that avoiding conflicts would be difficult,
given for example that
Morgan Stanley's Francine Bovich
is also on the UN Investment Board.
How
will conflicts of interest be avoided in the future? More than 12 hours before
initial publication of this report, Inner City Press put these questions to UNHCR in
Geneva, as well as to Ivan Pictet by fax at his place of work. Inner City Press' request for UNHCR's comment stated that "while it
shouldn't need to be said, Inner City Press has been appreciative of UNHCR's
responses, when received, on refugee-related questions on Zimbabwe, Uzbekistan,
etc.. This inquiry, which began in April and was attempted to be concluded in
June, is neither anti-refugee nor anti-UNHCR. As many have said, transparency is
good for the UN system, in the long run. In this short-run, this is a formal
request for UNHCR's written comment as quickly as possible."
In the
short and medium-run, UNHCR has declined to answer press questions about this,
back in April, in early June, and now. What will happen in the longer run
remains to be seen.
At 8:15
a.m. New York time, 12 hours after sending its written request for comment,
Inner City Press telephoned UNHCR deputy spokeswoman Jennifer Pagonis in Geneva and
reiterated the request for comment. Ms. Pagonis indicated that the request had
already been forwarded to Mr. Delarue for response by midday. But since he had
been asked back in early June to comment on developments of which Inner City
Press was even then aware, and he did not respond, to await Mr. Delarue's
belated second response seemed neither necessary nor appropriate. "It is not really
about Mister Delarue," Inner City Press explained to UNHCR's Jennifer Pagonis.
"It's about UNHCR and the wider United Nations." Subsequently, the following
was received:
From: REDMOND [at]
unhcr.org
To: Matthew.Lee [at]
innercitypress.com, BUSS [at] unhcr.org, DELARUE [at] unhcr.org
Sent: Wed, 12 Jul
2006 11:01 AM
Subject: Re: Request
for comment asap on UNHCR / Societe Generale's Kashmir Relief Note/ Pictet Funds
- on deadline
Dear Mr. Lee,
Olivier Delarue and
colleagues have looked into your questions and their reply follows.
- Use of UN name and
logo: UNHCR has not authorized Societe Generale to use the UN name and logo, nor
of the UNHCR official logo, both of which are indeed protected under GA/RES/92(I)
of 1946. In line with the "Guidelines on Cooperation between the United Nations
and the Business Community", issued by the Secretary-General on 17 July 2000,
however, UNHCR has, for the sole purpose of the raising of funds for UNHCR,
allowed SocGen to use, on its brochure announcing the KRN, the UNHCR "visibility
logo" with the addition "in support of". For your information, Article 16 (d)
(ii) of the a/m Guidelines authorizes the use of the name and emblem "to assist
in the raising of funds for the Organization".
- Potential conflict
of interest: Based on the information available to us, there is no conflict of
interest created for Mr. Ivan Pictet, managing partner of Pictet & Cie, and ad
hoc member of the UN Investments Committee, by the fact that Pictet Funds Indian
Equities is one of the funds in which KRN funds are invested. Societe Generale,
the issuer of the Note, is solely responsible for choosing the funds and this
selection is based on recognized risk management and hedging criteria; UNHCR
plays a purely passive role as the recipient of a donation and has no interest
in the performance of the Note. Moreover, Mr. Pictet's membership in the UN
Investments Committee was unknown to all parties involved in drawing up this
investment product, and we trust therefore that the decision to include a fund
managed by Pictet & Cie was taken in good faith. In any event, Mr. Pictet had no
involvement whatsoever in UNHCR's decision to accept the funds thus raised by
SocGen. Finally, you may also note that the volume of this investment (US$1
million shared over a number of funds, only one of which is Pictet & Cie's)
cannot be considered to benefit Mr. Pictet in any substantial manner.
- Screening of
Corporate Partners: Societe Generale is a member of the Global Compact .
Moreover, our research at the time demonstrated that Societe Generale was rated
over the past years as one of the best banks in the world, and the best in terms
of derivative products. For your information, private sector partnerships are a
relatively recent addition to UNHCR's fundraising strategy. In its dealings with
the private sector, UNHCR consistently bases itself on the a/m Guidelines issued
by the Secretary-General. In addition, UNHCR is in the process of installing an
advisory board to ensure even more checks and balances. This process, by the
way, was already on the way before the KRN was even first considered.
Derilab, finally, is
not a signatory to the Global Compact. It is a very small Swiss company
consisting of former bankers, that offered to provide its expertise in the
highly specialized field of derivative products to come up with innovative
approaches that could increase UNHCR's ability to raise funds from the financial
market.
Apologies for the
delay in getting back to you. The past month is one of the busiest times of the
year at UNHCR.
Regards, Ron Redmond
Head, Media Relations
& Public Information, UNHCR Geneva
Update 1 p.m. July 12
-- Asked at
the noon briefing if UNHCR is correct in invoking in its defense of this
program and investments Kofi Annan's "Guidelines on Cooperation between the
United Nations and the Business Community," spokeswoman Marie Okabe said that
UNHCR has submitted a detailed response and that she, and presumably for now the
Secretariat, have nothing to add to it. While UNHCR's written response was, as
always, appreciated, on-the-record inquiries will continue, first into whether
this UNHCR program, SocGen's initial use of the logo and the investment with
Pictet & Cie, are viewed within the Secretariat and elsewhere as comporting with
current and proposed standards of transparency and ethics. Inner City Press is
aware of views within the Secretariat, not close to the ground, which are at
odds with UNHCR's positions and actions. These views are being solicited,
on-the-record.
If Ambassadors to the
UN, even from the Permanent Five, answer questions at the Security Council
stakeout about their positions on such issues as amnesty for the Lords
Resistance Army's Joseph Kony, and who should repair the Gaza electrical power
plant, the Secretariat should answer regarding this UNHCR program. Watch this
space [and see Report of July 13, 2006, above.]
Inner City Press'
earlier story on this, followed by UNDP - Uganda, etc.
Inner City Press
Global Inner Cities Report - April 11, 2006
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee at the UN
UNITED NATIONS, April 11 --
An
inquiry to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, about what they
called a financial "scheme" with
Société Générale and derilab s.a., resulted in the following answer:
From: Olivier
Pierre Delarue
To: Matthew.Lee
[at] innercitypress.com
Sent: Thu, 6
Apr 2006 14:18:54 +0200
Subject: Re:
Fwd: Press inquiry concerning how Societe Generale Corporate & Investment
Banking, and derilab s.a were selected for participation with UNHCR
I work in
UNHCR's Private Sector Fund Raising Service as Senior Corporate Relations
Officer and your query about this fund raising initiative was forwarded to me...
Based on the previous exchange of email you sent, your focus seems to be on the
procurement and bidding process done by the UN. This particular initiative,
however, is a fund raising project first proposed by corporate entities and
aimed at raising funds for UNHCR's humanitarian program. Therefore, as with any
fund raising project, we are not talking about the usual procurement procedure.
In my capacity
as Senior Corporate Relations Officer, my role is to work on creating new
partnerships with the corporate world in order to increase our donor base and
receive greater financial and expertise from the private sector. In this
particular case, Derilab s.a. approached us in the aftermath of the earthquake
in South Asia and proposed to assist us pro bono in finding new ways of raising
donations from the financial market for this emergency. As this was never done
in the past, a financial product which incorporated a charity/donation component
was not easy to build. Derilab presented the project to all the major banks
involved in structured and derivative products. Only Societe Generale showed a
serious interest in working on this new concept.
As matter of
principle, UNHCR screens all new partnerships with the private sector. Societe
Generale, the only bank to show an interest for this project, was screened. As a
result of our careful review, Societe Generale was screened positively for
various reasons, including their participation in the UN Global Compact. Please
note that in the case of this initiative, UNHCR is only a receiver of donations
through this financial product -- but is not endorsing the product itself.
Inner City Press responded with follow-up
questions, including regarding Societe General's long embroilment in a money
laundering scandal, and asked:
-is membership in the Global Compact the main
screen UNHCR applies to its corporate engagements, whether philanthropic or in
procurement? What are the other "various reasons"? Did your careful review of
Soc Gen -- just as an example -- include the issues raised by the money
laundering allegations sketched below, including those in Nigeria (we're aware
that Soc Gen has not been convicted of anything, but that wouldn't seem to be
the standards for a careful review).Again, these questions don't go to the
merits of how the funds are used by UNHCR -- as an aside, hats off for your work
in the Balkans and with Return, Afghanistan, etc.
- is derilab s.a a signatory to the Global
Compact? (I'm aware I could look it up, but the question also includes -- if a
company is not a signatory to the Compact, what else do you look at?)
Neither question
has yet been answered. A Web search for derilab reflects that nearly all of the
"hits" are about its recent "scheme" with UNHCR. It's own
web site says
only
"derilab(R) was recently founded by
experts in the field of financial derivative and structured products. derilab's
focus is to provide it's [sic] customers with key information on derivative and
structured products. derilab also advises on the structuring of financial
products."
It might well be on the level. But it's
not yet clear that if it weren't, the scheme would not proceed. It would help if
the follow-up questions were answered.
Other Inner City Press
reports are archived on
www.InnerCityPress.org -
UN Grapples with
Somalia, While UNDP Funds Mugabe's Human Rights Unit, Without
Explanation
In North Korean
War of Words, Abuses in Uganda and Impunity Go Largely Ignored
On North Korea,
Blue Words Move to a Saturday Showdown, UNDP Uzbek Stonewall
As the World
Turns in Uganda and Korea, the UN Speaks only on Gaza, from Geneva
North Korea in
the UN: Large Arms Supplant the Small, and Confusion on Uganda
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 in Denial on
Sudan, While Boldly Predicting the Future of Kosovo/a
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?
At the UN, a
Commando Unit to Quickly Stop Genocide is Proposed, by Diplomatic Sir
Brian Urquhart
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
At the UN,
Internal Justice Needs Reform, While in Timor Leste, Has Evidence Gone
Missing?
UN & US,
Transparency for Finance But Not Foreign Affairs: Somalia, Sovereignty
and Senator Tom Coburn
In Bolton's Wake,
Silence and Speech at the UN, Congo and Kony, Let the Games Begin
Pro-Poor Talk and
a Critique of the World Trade Organization from a WTO Founder: In UN
Lull, Ugandan Fog and Montenegrin Mufti
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
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
Federal Reserve,
environmental justice,
global inner cities, and more recently
on the United
Nations, where Inner City Press
is accredited media. Follow those links
for more of Inner City Press's reporting, or, click
here
for five ways to
contact us,
with or for more information.
Copyright 2005-2006 Inner City Press, Inc. To request
reprint or other permission, e-contact Editors [at] innercitypress.com - phone: (718) 716-3540
