UNDP Spent $567,000 on Book to Praise Itself, While
the Well-Placed Feed Off UNDP's Core Budget and Prime Postings
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at
the UN - Fifth in a series
UNITED NATIONS, Dec. 4, lighted edited Dec. 14 -- As more and more
information arrives in the wake of the last week's re-assignment of Brian
Gleeson, the head of the UN Development Program's Office of Human Resources last
week, Inner City Press on Monday sought the history of a history of UNDP. The
author of a recent book, "UNDP: A Better Way?" thanks as his first
acknowledgement "UNDP's past administrator Mark Malloch Brown, who hired me to
write this history. He offered the unbeatable combination of... a good salary
and travel budget."
Mr. Malloch Brown having
declined,
at 10:44 a.m., to take questions, Inner City Press at noon reiterated the
question to the Secretariat's spokesman: how did Malloch Brown decide to have
this glowing history writing, how was the author selected and how much was he
paid? Inner City Press had asked this question in writing, of the Spokesman and
UNDP, on Friday, December 1.
Eighty hours after the question and five
others were asked, the following came in:
Subject: RE:
Questions on deadline for UNDP: financial, hiring practices, complaints of
harassment
From: _ @undp.org
To: Inner City Press
Sent: Mon, 4 Dec 2006 7:38 PM
As promised
earlier today, please find below responses to three of the questions you sent us
on 1 December:
Question:
Please disclose how much UNDP money, and from what source or channel, was used
to produce "The United Nations Development Programme: A Better Way?" by Craig N.
Murphy.
Answer: This
two-year project, which kicked off in summer 2004 following a competitive
application and interview process leading to Mr. Murphy’s appointment as the
official UNDP Historian, cost $567,379. Of this total, $252,000 in salary was
paid to the author over the course of 21 months, $87,639 went to the project
coordinator, $91,559 went to research and editing, $37,299 was devoted to travel
for interviews, and $26,752 for office space. UNDP paid the book's publisher,
Cambridge University Press, $55,452 for copies of the book for distribution to
UNDP's partners and wider network, e.g. libraries. Miscellaneous expenses have
accounted for $16,678 in expenditure. UNDP's financial support to the book came
from the organization’s regular resources. Cambridge paid publicity and
marketing costs.
"Regular resources" appears to
mean UNDP's core budget, money the goal of which is assistance to the poor.
Inner City Press is still waiting to learn UNDP's source of funds for
Jeffrey Sachs' $75,000 a year,
or, separately, the source and possible reimbursement of Daily Sustenance
Allowance (DSA) paid to well-connected UNDP officials for example in Bratislava.
Daily Sustenance Allowance Abuse: An
Austro-Slovak Example
Sources in Central Europe
tell Inner City Press that of
a director of the Bratislava UNDP
Center who organized his commuting life between that city and Vienna in order to
maximize his DSA pay-outs, as high at $300 a day. This individual charged the UN
the daily allowance as if he was in Bratislava although he was in his home in
Vienna, without those costs.
His successor Ben Slay reversed the
process, according to sources. Wanting for personal reasons to be in Vienna, he
had UNDP open an office for him there. (Among other things, the English language
schools were said to be better in Vienna than Bratislava.) Meanwhile he
collected the DSA for his posting in Vienna. Nice work if you can get it, at a
certain level of UNDP, if protected by Administrators of the present or
immediate past.
[Note
of December 14: Earlier this evening the following came in:
Subject: UNDP responses
From: cassandra.waldon [at] undp.org
To: Inner City Press
Sent: Thu, 14 Dec 2006 7:00 PM
Dear
Matthew, regarding the allegations relating to the Bratislava Regional Centre,
Ben Slay has not collected any improper daily sustenance allowance at any time.
We find no suggestion that his predecessor did, either, but because his tenure
ended some time ago, we are pulling additional records out of storage to confirm
this. The Vienna office you appear to be making reference to opened before Ben
Slay even arrived as Director of the Bratislava Centre. Ben Slay sometimes works
from the Vienna office. He does not collect DSA for doing so.
There.
One might ask why the "Director of the Bratislava Center" "works from the Vienna
office." One might asked -- and we will -- whether, rather than Daily
Subsistence Allowance, which is about traveling, there is any impact on living
expense / "post adjustment." But we post the UNDP response on this point in
full, the same day it came in.]
While Mark Malloch Brown
declined to answer -- to
put it mildly
-- Inner City Press' questions on Monday, word has reached Inner City Press from
the camp of Malloch Brown that he views certain recent demotions as flowing from
new Administrator Kemal Dervis' antipathy to these Malloch Brown allies and
hires. After having heard this, admittedly second-hand, the following arrived:
From: UNDP
Sources
To: Matthew.Lee
[at] innercitypress.com
Sent: Mon, 4
Dec 2006 6:43 PM
Hi Matthew
If you're
waiting for communications deputy director Bill Orme to get back to you on your
questions to UNDP Administrator Kemal Dervis, you can forget it. The SOB
transferred today from the Communications Office to the Bureau of Development
Policy, another demotion, coming hot on the heels of Brian Gleeson's.
It's the same
Orme who was appointed by Mark Malloch Brown last year without going through
proper procedures. He lacked a master's degree and didn't have enough experience
to substitute, but his friend Gleeson (yes, the same Gleeson) rewrote the HR
policy, lowering the number of years of experience equivalent to a master's so
that he could meet the requirement. His appointment was announced first and then
COA and HR went back to get a quickly made up committee to interview him and
rubberstamp his appointment.
This is also
the same Orme who made morally righteous noises about journalists working for
UNDP and came out with guidelines banning such relationships, when he himself
was hiring journalists to go on field trips and write good things about UNDP.
Another UNDP
communications office abuse: Its outposted staff in Bangkok, Cherie Hart, has
been
there enjoying Thai hospitality for the last six, maybe seven years, when
the usual field posting is just three years. This is by special dispensation of
MMB, who put his friends and cronies in many senior posts... MMB may be gone
from UNDP and soon, hopefully, from the UN, but the shenanigans he perpetuated
live on! More later...
We sure hope more details are
forthcoming. Regarding the re-location of the previously-reported on Mr. William
Orme, Monday evening Inner City Press telephoned UNDP Communications Office
staff for confirmation. This was received, along with a request not to mis-characterize
Mr. Orme's move. Okay then.
As to the Bangkok favoritism commentary
from staff, once Mr. Malloch Brown responded to a politely posed question on
Monday morning about the re-assignment the previous week of Brian Gleeson by
saying "you are a jerk," it is difficult to conceive how Mr. Malloch Brown's
response to these above-quoted will be obtained on Tuesday. But question(s) will
be asked.
Thailand. $567,000 to these writers
could have gone a long way
One continuing difficulty is the cycle of
buck-passing. The Secretariat's Office of the Spokesman routinely declined to
answer any question with a UNDP angle. UNDP, in turn, not only delays, but makes
further referrals. Last week UNDP sent Inner City Press a copy of a Kemal Dervis
email announcing the hiring of a replacement for Kalman Mizsei, stating that the
replacement had worked for the World Bank. Mr. Dervis wrote:
"After a
comprehensive selection process, I am pleased to announce that the
Secretary-General has appointed Ms. Kori Udovicki (Serbia) as Assistant
Secretary-General, Assistant Administrator of UNDP and Director of its Regional
Bureau for Europe and the CIS.... After
short-term assignments in the World Bank, Kori started her professional career."
Here are Inner City Press' December 1
follow-up question, and UNDP's response 80 hours later:
Question: The
Nov. 27 statement you sent yesterday says "After short-term assignments in the
World Bank, Kori [Udovicki] started her professional," etc. Please state what
Kori's assignments were at the World Bank, and to whom she reported, directly
and indirectly.
Answer: Please
contact the World Bank for details on the supervisory relationships during any
time Ms. Udovicki spent there.
UNDP presumably did due
diligence on Ms. Udovicki's resume, at least to know some specifics about her
"assignments in the World Bank" on which Mr. Dervis' November 27 email
announcement relied. However, Inner City Press will contact the World Bank.
Inner City Press awaits response to three other questions posed on December 1,
and other questions since posed. On one still-not-answered question,
Inner City Press Monday at noon asked the
GA President's spokeswoman:
Inner City
Press: I wanted to follow up on the questions
about the Millennium Development Goals. This thing called the UN Millennium
Project, do you know what the status of it is? I’ve heard that it’s come to an
end to some degree, that particular project. It’s called The UN Millennium
Project?
Spokeswoman: I
know the Millennium Project.
Question: If
you could find out the status and if any and how many of the staffers are
becoming UNDP staffers. That would be very helpful.
Spokeswoman: I
will do that.
While Inner City Press understands that
some additional roadblock are being erected (by UNDP), one way or another this
question will be answered.
Click
here another Inner
City Press reporter from the UN on Monday, "Interlopers
into Somalia Are Discussed, With Chadian Pull-Back, Peacekeepers and Uganda's
Karamoja."
Again, because a number of Inner City
Press' UNDP sources go out of their way to express commitment to serving the
poor, and while it should be unnecessary, Inner City Press is compelled to
conclude this second installment in a necessarily-ongoing series by saluting the
stated goals of UNDP and many of its staff. As they used to say on TV game
shows, keep those cards, letters and emails coming, and phone calls too, we
apologize for any phone tag, especially from overseas, but please keep trying,
and keep the information coming.
Feedback: Editorial
[at] innercitypress.com
UN Office: S-453A,
UN, NY 10017 USA Tel: 212-963-1439
Reporter's mobile
(and weekends): 718-716-3540
As UNDP Questions Mount, Mark
Malloch Brown Calls Them Irresponsible, Answers Only in Vanity Press
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at
the UN
UNITED NATIONS, December 4 -- As
additional information arrives in the wake of last week's sudden
re-assignment of Brian Gleeson,
the head of the UN Development Program's Office of Human Resources, Inner City
Press on Monday morning sought comment from Deputy Secretary-General Mark
Malloch Brown, previously the Administrator of UNDP. It is reported by staff
that Mr. Gleeson repeatedly invoked Mr. Malloch Brown's name to justify what he
called his best practices policies, and stated that Mr. Malloch Brown was going
to make him head of the UN Secretariat's Office of Human Resources and
Management.
In the wide hallway between the UN
General Assembly and Security Council, Inner City Press approached Mark Malloch
Brown with a series of questions, beginning with a request for comment on the
re-assignment of Brian Gleeson.
Mr. Malloch Brown replied, "You are a
jerk. You are the most irresponsible journalist I've come across." And then he
walked away.
Inner City Press called after him that
there were other questions. Many are contained in the first four installment of
this ongoing UNDP series. An additional question, regarding favoritism and
entitlement, involved the use not only of UNDP but also of UNFPA, to dole out to
a Malloch Brown ally a job in Turkey, sources tell Inner City Press, when the
MMB ally's spouse had a UNDP job in Turkey. Numerous staff members have come
forward with complaints of favoritism, abuse and threats of retaliation. If Mr.
Malloch Brown is right, perhaps they are all irresponsible jerks. But
perhaps Mr. Malloch Brown is not right.
Another question, which Inner
City Press raised Friday to the Secretariat's Office of the Spokesman as well as
to UNDP, is how Mark Malloch Brown decided to commission the recent book, "UNDP:
A Better Way?" The book's
author, Craig N. Murphy thanks as his first acknowledgement "Mark Malloch Brown,
who hired me to write this history. He offered the unbeatable combination of...
a good salary and travel budget."
Mr.
Malloch Brown having declined, at 10:44 a.m., to take questions, Inner City
Press at
noon reiterated the question to the Secretariat's spokesman: how did Malloch
Brown decide to have this glowing history writing, how was the author selected
and how much was he paid? Was he paid from UNDP core funds? Beyond the
still-unspecified "good salary" paid to the author,
UNDP retained the copyright.
The book, perhaps not surprisingly, effusively praises Mr. Malloch Brown. It is
reminiscent, to one UN-immersed reader, of the "Great Book" of Turkmenbashi, the
President for Life of Turkmenistan, a volume known as
Ruhnama.
From the field, UNDP Resident
Representatives have over the weekend written to Inner City Press with
congratulations for its series on UNDP, which began with a November 29 report on
the reassignment of Brian Gleeson. In that report, Inner City Press noted that
there were competing theories for Gleeson having been told to resign. More
specific information has arrived, that while UNDP is authorized to have some 65
officials at the D-2 level, a recent check found more than 110 officials
received D-2 payments and perks. This played a role, as it would in nearly any
other organization, in making a change at the top of the Office of Human
Resources.
Additionally, a letter to a funder
nation, purportedly dated November 4 and giving a seven- to ten-day window to
respond, was delivered to the nation's representatives after the deadline, a
snafu also cited in the re-assignment of Mr. Gleeson.
[Paragraph excised, see Note below.]
It is reported that Mr. Malloch Brown
brought Brian Gleeson into UNDP as a consultant on efficiency, and that this
later became a high (and high paying) job at UNDP. This is similar to the
current process by which associates of
Jeffrey Sachs are
being put onto UNDP's payroll outside of UNDP's normal recruitment and hiring
procedures.
As one specific example, for
this mid-day report, Inner City Press is informed that Guido Schmidt-Traub,
still
listed
on the
web site of the UN Millennium Project,
is already working at and paid by the UNDP Poverty Group. Meanwhile, sources
tell Inner City Press, the post Mr. Schmidt-Traub has been given is still
purportedly being advertised to create the appearance of a normal recruitment
process. More on this in forthcoming reports. UNDP's Communications Office,
along with Mr. Kemal Dervis, was asked about this on the morning of Friday,
December 1, in written questions reference a deadline of later that day. On
Monday the response has been that the questions will be answered sometime this
coming week. To date, the candor of the responses, the delay and obfuscation,
are not acceptable. Perhaps they are, to adopt a phrase from the hallway,
irresponsible.
MMB
w/ FM of Uganda
(click here for
earlier analysis of UNDP's role in ongoing violent disarmament)
Regarding Mr. Malloch Brown's impact on UNDP
staff in Vietnam, again for example, the following arrived last week:
Subject: Update
on Brian Gleeson Story, for Mr. Matthew Russell Lee
From: [Name
withheld upon request]
To: matthew.lee
[at] innercitypress.com
Sent: Fri, 1
Dec 2006 3:44 AM
Dear Mr.
Matthew Russell Lee,
I write as
Vietnamese staff member at UNDP Viet Nam. I wish remain anonymous to protect my
job, but I feel is my duty to write you about other linkages with Mr. Brian
Gleeson and high salary appointments by Senior Management in our Country Office.
The story on
Mr. Brian Gleason is quite demoralizing for many UNDP staff who carry out their
duties with honesty, integrity and fairness... our senior management approved a number of high paying international
appointments without following required procedures and regulations of UNDP.
Many of us
national staff know that former Resident Representative at UNDP Viet Nam Mr.
Jordan Ryan (a close friend of Mr. Mark Malloch Brown) and the Deputy Resident
Representative of Operations Mr. Neil Reece-Evans (a close friend of Mr. Brian
Gleeson) collaborated to recruit through the "back door" an American friend from
the past Mr. Jonathan Pincus at very high paying job in our office.
Mr. Brian
Gleeson was informed but he choose to ignore. Mr. Jonathan Pincus then use
similar procedure to hire his friends in the office and on projects. [Click
here for more.]
[For the record: On Dec. 4,
three days after this story was published, UNDP wrote that "Hiring at the
Vietnam country office takes place according to standard UNDP procedures.
Jonathan Pincus, a tenured professor at the University of London, was recruited
in 2004 as Senior Country Economist in a transparent and competitive process. He
was not previously known to any senior staff at the UNDP Vietnam Country Office.
Dr. Pincus is a widely recognized expert in his area and has made substantial
contributions to UNDP and the wider UN system’s work in Vietnam. With respect to
the staff letter posted on your website, UNDP has been a leader in establishing
channels through which staff can air their grievances or report misconduct
without fear of retaliation. Among other measures, UNDP has put in place an
anonymous fraud hotline and a mechanism to file complaints on sexual harassment
and abuse of authority." And see Inner City Press's December 7 article, the
eighth installment in this UNDP Series, also on Vietnam - click
here to view.]
Regarding Kalman Mizsei, by many accounts
chased out of UNDP
earlier this year after multiple complaints of sexual harassment -- including
having brought and hired young women from Central Europe and then applied
inappropriate pressure -- it now appears that Mr. Malloch Brown was among those
who heard or tolerated Mr. Mizsei's racialist rant in a taxi in South Africa in
2002. "Zero tolerance" for some and not for others, it appears.
The UNDP produced, Malloch Brown-commissioned book
"UNDP: A Better Way?" refers, at 297, to the UN Millennium Project's "Jeffrey
Sachs, the economist
whom Malloch Brown had bought in." Given that Mr. Malloch Brown declined, at
10:44 a.m., to take questions, Inner City Press at noon asked this question of
the spokeswoman for the president of the General Assembly, who'd been speaking
about the Millennium Development Goals: what is the status of the UN Millennium
Program, and how many if any of its staffers are being hired by UNDP and on what
basis? If not from Mr. Malloch Brown and the Secretariat, and if only after
already days-delay from UNDP, then from the General Assembly President's always
professional spokeswoman, an answer should soon be forthcoming.
News analysis: When now outgoing U.S. Ambassador John Bolton called a
Malloch Brown speech the most irresponsible act by the Secretariat he'd seen,
Inner City Press asked
Amb. Bolton to compare the speech to Rwanda. But hyperbole is not limited to one
side of the debate. Among the UN press corps, even some supporters of Mr.
Malloch Brown opine that the questions he faced about his
living arrangement have left
him too quick to conclude that any questioning or investigating of the UN must
come from the far right (viz. his references to Fox News and Rush Limbaugh
earlier this year.)
In 2005, Mr. Malloch Brown pointedly advised journalists to question their
motives. But as seen for example with UNDP's attempt to cover-up that a
disarmament program it funded in Uganda resulted in human rights abuses, trying
to mislead, intimidate or insult the press doesn't help an institution nor its
real-world constituents. As the UN's Jan Egeland
again
confirmed in agreeing to respond to Inner City Press' questions on Monday, the
abuses in Eastern Uganda continue, with nary a word for example on
UNDP's Uganda web site. On disarmament, UNDP's
presumably non-irresponsible web site Uganda website still
trumpets the government's
round-up of guns in May 2006,
reciting that "Mr. Cornelis Klein, outgoing UNDP
Resident Representative, hailed the GoU for having taken a lead in the SALW
[Small Arms and Light Weapons] program by, among others, establishing the
Ugandan National Action Plan on SALW."
Jan Egeland's
response on Wednesday about Eastern Uganda's Karamoja region should go online
here soon.
[Dec. 7 note - In the
above, certain details have been removed so that there is less distraction from
the subject of this series: the UN Development Program. According to the
Secretariat's spokesman's December 7
lecture,
these were the details which led to the December 4
comments of the
Deputy Secretary-General, ex-Administrator of UNDP. While the paragraph
now-missing above was only reported after Mr. Malloch Brown's comments,
and therefore cannot have formed a basis for Brown's comments, they are excised
in order to keep the focus on UNDP. Back to the substance - click
here for a list of the most recent
articles.]
Other Inner City Press
reports are available in the ProQuest service and some are archived on
www.InnerCityPress.com --
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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