At the
UN, Death Penalty Lurchings, Ban Ki-moon Lunching, Somalia Left for Another Day
Byline:
Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN
UNITED NATIONS,
January 2 -- Cameramen and reporters, spokespeople, staffers and sycophants, the
UN's lobby was crowded Tuesday morning. The new Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
(pronounced Bahn Gee-moon, his spokeswoman Michele Montas told the press) walked
to work with his new chief of staff, Vijay Nambiar. Contrary to announced plan,
he did not speak in the lobby, but rather upstairs at the Security Council
stakeout. The first question of the first work day of the first year was for
comment on the execution of Saddam Hussein. As even Ashraf Qazi, the envoy to
Iraq of Kofi Annan, put it on December 30, "the UN remains opposed to capital
punishment." But Tuesday, man bit dog, or at least a little nibble. "The issue
of capital punishment is for each and every Member State to decide," came the
answer. Clarification was sought, there at the stakeout and then at Ms. Montas'
noon briefing. Is this a new UN policy? No. But why didn't he state the UN's
previous position, of opposition to the death penalty?
Some
point to South Korea having the death penalty on the books, if not in effect.
Others point, as explanations, to the death penalty in use in Permanent Five
nations, from the United States to China to, of course, Russia. Since these
nations held veto power over the election of the Secretary-General, why is the
position surprising? Meanwhile some right-leaning press will support Mr.
Ban's Tuesday position. How well it was considered remains to be seen. We have
been told to await clarification. [On January 3, Mr. Ban
said through his spokeswoman
that he "strongly believes in the wisdom of Article 3 of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, which states, 'Everyone has the right to life,
liberty and security of person.' In that context, he fully endorses the call
made today by Louise Arbour for restraint by the Government of Iraq in the
execution of the death sentences imposed by the Iraqi High Tribunal." Clear? No
so much.]
So too on
the hot war of the day, Somalia. At the noon briefing, Inner City Press asked
Ms. Montas if, since Ethiopian troops are now present in Mogadishu and even
Kismayu, Mr. Lonseny Fall or the Secretariat have anything to say.
"We
expect to have a statement on Somalia, probably tomorrow, or the next day," Ms.
Montas politely replied. "For the time being, the situation is the way it was
stated before you left for the Christmas holiday." Except that control over most
of Somalia has been wrestled from Islamic Courts to TFG / warlords, by the force
of Ethiopia's army and air force.
A visit
to the
UN Political Office on Somalia's website finds
that the most recent update, as of January 2, is from December 13. At that time,
Mr. Fall was calling for restraint, ceasefires, talks between TFG and Islamic
Courts. What's his and the UN's position now? Impossible to know.
Ms. Montas was asked Tuesday, "Is Alice Barcena one of the prime candidates for
the [department of] management position?" She answered, "I cannot say."
Reuters
says yes. And word in the hall has it that OCHA will go to John Holmes of the
UK.
In the UN
basement (see below or click
here
for today's story about the Vienna Cafe), the plasma screens outside each
conference room showed photos of Ban Ki-moon's day, the Kofi Annan and other
non-Ban shots being taken out of the rotation. Workers in the UN cafeteria were
enthused by Ban Ki-moon's visit, that he stood in line and paid a cashier and
stayed for more than half an hour.
Leather
hot seats
More formally, in
his meeting with the Staff Union, the new Secretary-General was told that "the
current internal system of justice of the organization 'fails to meet may basic
standards of due process established in international human rights instruments'"
and that "a fundamental change in the mindset of senior management is required,
from a relationship based on dominance, disregard and fear." This last
characterization is the status quo Ban Ki-moon at the UN Development Program, as
we have
reported in detail.
Where else these dynamics exist is where we are next headed.
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
To
Accommodate Smoking, UN Spends $130,000 on Ducts Faced with Demolition Within
Two Years
Byline:
Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN
UNITED NATIONS,
January 2 -- Practicality, it seems clear, is the better part of diplomacy. How
else to explain the UN spending $130,000 to install for two years a ventilation
duct system for an indoor cafe in which no one is supposed to be smoking?
On the
Saturday before Christmas, while
covering a rare
weekend Security Council meeting at which sanctions on Iran were adopted, Inner
City Press noticed in the UN basement that the Austria / Vienna Cafe had been
walled off. Informal inquiries found that the plan was to ventilate the space
to remove cigarette smoke. This cafe is often smoke-filled, despite a 2003
Secretary-General's Bulletin purporting to ban smoking in the UN, as it is
banned in all public indoor areas in New York City.
Inner
City Press sent written questions about the work to UN officials and
spokespeople, before and after New Years. On Tuesday in two separate written
response, Inner City Press was told that the contract was subject to competitive
bidding and that cost of the work was $130,000. To Inner City Press' follow-up
question of whether the work would be destroyed when the now-adopted $1.88
billion Capital Master Plan (CMP) results in the gut rehabilitation of the UN,
the official in charge, Ms. Joan McDonald, replied that "this
work will not be destroyed by the CMP... CMP have confirmed."
But when
Inner City Press subsequently telephoned the CMP's Administration and
Communication Chief Ms. Vivian Van de Perre, she stated that all of the work
being done in the Vienna Cafe will be ripped out. Then why are they paying
$130,000 for the work? "That's a good question," she said, adding that she'd had
the same doubt and asking, "Have you spoken with Joan McDonald?" Well, yes, this
very afternoon:
Subject: Re: Follow-up questions on Vienna
Cafe work
From: mcdonald [at] un.org
To: Inner City Press
Sent: Tue, 2 Jan 2007 3:56 PM
Matthew
Apologies for the delay in response as you
are aware I was out last week...
Q: what consideration was given, and by
whom, to the relation between the cost and the amount of time the ventilation
would be in use, before being destroyed in the upcoming gut-rehab of the space
under the Capital Master Plan?
[A:] This work will not be destroyed by
the CMP. This CMP have confirmed. During the life of the CMP there will be
projects carried out by FMS which are not covered by CMP... We coordinate all
FMS projects with CMP. FYI the review process of this project was like all other
projects through the Chief of FMS and in this particular case I was consulted
and I agreed that the project should go ahead. The work is completed. The
clean up of the area, including furniture and shampooing the carpet will happen
today and tomorrow and the cafe will be back first thing Thursday morning.
A visit
to the area on Tuesday morning by Inner City Press found holes in the ceiling
now covered with sheet plastic. A workman on the scene with a tape measure, when
asked about the work, said that only the asbestos abatement had been completed,
and that the duct work, by
Alex Wolf & Son,
has yet to be done and can only be performed from six p.m. to six a.m., since
the cafe will re-open later this week.
In Ms.
McDonald's above-quoted message, FMS stands for "Facilities Management
Services." In the most recent UN phone book, the director of FMS is Martin
Bender. But Mr. Bender has not been coming in to work, due to an investigation
into his alleged collusion with a UN contractor. (Mr. Bender's replacement,
Andrew Nye, did not respond to telephone and email requests for comment on this
story.) The Procurement Fraud Task Force is interviewing others in Facilities
Management Services. Whether related or not, FMS clearly does *not* coordinate
with the Capital Master Plan, whose spokesperson told Inner City Press on
Tuesday that all of this work will be ripped out.
Smoking:
outdoors in Cambodia, free. Indoors at the UN? $130,000 for two years
In 2003
Mayor Bloomberg prohibited smoking in public indoor areas in New York City.
(More recently, the UN's WHO is a
beneficiary
of Bloomberg's $125 anti-smoking grant.) Kofi Annan followed suit with a
Bulletin, 2003/9, stating that "No smoking shall be permitted in any of the UN
premises at Headquarters." Nevertheless smoking continued, defended in a pinch
by Ambassadors citing diplomatic immunity. Russia's then-Ambassador Sergey
Lavrov was
quoted that
Annan "doesn't own this building," while heading off to smoke in the Delegate's
Lounge.
More
recently, the front line of the smoking battle has been in the area outside the
Security Council chamber. Diplomats and staffers often smoke there. Petitions
have gone up on the wall, with dozens of signatures, alongside lists of the
impacts of smoking. A copy of Kofi Annan's Bulletin that "No smoking shall be
permitted in any of the UN premises at Headquarters" was even posted.
In the
basement, someone gave up the fight. The extent of smoking at what's also call
the Viennese Cafe has been noted online by
NGOs and bloggers of the right
and
left,
and even from
the youth.
It has been pointed out that many more staffers than diplomats frequent the
Vienna Cafe, presumably making the three-year old no smoking policy easier to
enforce. But enforcement, one wag noted, has never been the UN's strength. And
so the contact for the ducts, to suck smoke from the cafe. But when the whole
area is going to be gut-rehabilitated in two years or less, why pay $130,000 to
accommodate smoking, which is already prohibited?
A half-dozen workmen were onsite at 7 p.m. Tuesday night. Several acknowledged
the absurdity of the work. A man in with an "FMS" badge sewn on his shirt,
unnamed to avoid retaliation, pointed at the holes in the ceiling and said, "For
this, they should have taken the whole ceiling down. Because when they fix this
area, all of the ceiling that's been left will have to do -- it's asbestos. And
they aren't even ventilating the seating area by the back conference rooms,
where people smoke all the time. Why not send them all up to the Ex-Press Bar
and open a window? Or just tell them they can't smoke, like the rest of us?"
To recap,
a UN official who signed off on this work has told us that the work will not be
ripped up by the Capital Master Plan gut-rehabilitation, while a spokeswoman
for the Capital Master Plan has told us unequivocally that the work *will* be
ripped out, "all of it." Even putting aside the issues raised by accommodating
an already prohibited activity, and beyond the she said - she said, one
wonders how a $1.88 billion rehabilitation would not involve the full rebuilding
of this space.
New
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday told reporters that the UN is
"sometimes unfairly criticized" so he is encouraging staff "to have continuous
dialogue with the press." So maybe these questions will be answered.
Watch this site.
On Somalia, Security Council Denies African Union
Position, Calling It a Mere Point of View, Disagreements on Darfur
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at
the UN
UNITED NATIONS, December 27 -- When is a communique
not a communique?
Tuesday in the UN Security Council, meeting about the crisis in Somalia, a
number of council members said they would follow the position of the African
Union, IGAG and the Arab League, which were slated to meet overnight. For
example, Ghana's Ambassador Nanna said, "I am an African, I will follow what the
African Union does." The Council meeting broke up Tuesday night without taking
any action, leading some to question whether the Council, or the most powerful
members on it, were just dallying so that Ethiopia could "finish the job" on the
Islamic Courts, as both outgoing Secretary-General Kofi Annan and U.S.
Ambassador Alejandro Wolff were asked. Here's
video
of Annan;
Video of Wolff.
Overnight,
as reported by BBC,
the AU, IGAD and Arab League issued a communique calling for the removal of
Ethiopian troops. But after the Council again took no action on Somalia on
Wednesday, Inner City Press asked Ghana's Nanna what happened, what about the AU
communiqué?
"Which communique?" Amb. Nanna asked.
The one calling on Ethiopia to withdraw
its troops from Somalia.
"Oh really. We saw that communiqué, but
some of us had questions about it."
Back at the Security Council stakeout,
Inner City Press asked the representative of Qatar if any of the other Council
members had questioned the authenticity of the joint communiqué.
"I wouldn't not like to comment on that,"
Qatar's representative said. Similarly, the Ambassador of Sudan, major AU
member, said he would not take any questions about Somalia.
The
BBC's story about the communique
quotes African Union chairman Alpha Oumar Konare. The BBC has not run any
retraction.
Finally Inner City Press asked the
charge d'affaires of the Baidoa-based Transitional Federal Government of Somalia
if it was his position that the AU / IGAD / Arab League communiqué was somehow
illegitimate. The response began with obligatory praise for the leaders of each
group, including Mr. Konare, as well as of the OIC. Then this statement: "I
have seen that communique. It is the point of voice of the three organizations.
It is not the point of view of the member states."
AU's Konare: Council does not believe him?
Bodes badly for Darfur
And so, again: when is a communique not a
communique? What powers are delegated to the leadership of inter-governmental
organizations like the AU, IGAD and Arab League to take positions during a
fast-breaking emergency? Or could it be, in fact, that the Tuesday statements
about following whatever position the AU and Arab League would take were just a
fig leaf, only true if they adopted a "don't-name-Ethiopia" position?
Inner City Press asked U.S.
Amb. Wolff about the AU communique, and about President Bush' reported call to
Uganda's Museveni. Amb. Wolff said he had not information to divulge on the
latter, and did not answer the former. Video
here.
On the sidelines of the Council stakeout,
a US official portrayed Qatar as alone in demanding language about all foreign
forces leaving Somalia. Another Deputy Ambassador of a Permanent Five country,
asked if the split was 14-1, made reference to "a sizeable majority of the
Council." Qatar's representative, on camera, said it had not been 14 to 1. He
was seen in heated discussions with the Ambassador of Republic of Congo, just
outside the Council chamber. Argentina's Ambassador Cesar Mayoral said he hoped
this would be the last Council meeting of the year. But what about Somali
civilians?
On Sudan, Kofi Annan came to the Security
Council at 3:30 p.m. on Wednesday, and stayed in the Council for more than two
hours. The topic was the December 23 letter than Sudan's president Al-Bashir had
sent to him. Hedi Annabi went in, Ibrahim Gambari came out. Finally Mr. Annan
came out and declared the letter an accomplishment. After Annan left, Sudan's
Ambassador denied virtually everything in the letter. Combined with the
Council's open diss of the AU's chairman Konare, thinks do not look good for
Darfurians.
In the same spot, Annan had taken a few
questions, all about diplomacy and where he'll be for New Year's Eve. He had
mentioned Afghanistan as a "victory" of the Council and UN, but declined to take
a shouted question about Pakistan's just announced policy of planting land mines
on its border with Afghanistan, as a flesh-tearing argument that it is cracking
down on insurgents. The Annan administration's top duo's last minute deletion
from their post-employment restrictions policy, now no longer prohibiting senior
ex-officials from lobbying the UN, again went unexplained. No questions were
asked about the just-filed Oil for Food class action lawsuit by citizens of Iraq
against BNP Paribas and the Australian Wheat Board. UNDP has been asked about
its Somali operations, without response as yet. It would be bad form,
apparently, to ask any questions about how the UN is run. To the next
Secretary-General, then. Here's to 2007.
As Ethiopia Bombs Somalia, UN Security Council Gives
Wink and Nod, Ready to Grin and Bear it on Darfur
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at
the UN
UNITED NATIONS, December 26 -- A skeleton crew at the
UN on Tuesday debated whether to speak the name of Ethiopia, as bombs fell on
Mogadishu. A draft Presidential Statement (PRST) proposed by Qatar was skewered
by the Permanent Five led by the United States. Outside the Council chamber,
Inner City Press asked U.S. Ambassador Alejandro Wolff to whom in the Islamic
Courts Union the Council and the U.S. were speaking.
"We hear from the
Secretary-General's representative," Amb. Wolff answered placidly. Video
here.
But this envoy, Francois
Lonseny Fall, has reportedly only been in Mogadishu once during the course of
his mandate. Tuesday Inner City Press asked Mr. Fall if he had any information
on the reported killing of 50 civilians in the town of Cadado by the Ethiopian
air force. Video
here,
from Minute 1:52. Mr. Fall said, "I do not have any indication... I did not
received any information about the killing of civilians." The Sudanese
representative, likewise, denied harm to civilians, including Inner City Press'
specific questions about the
report of 50 killed in Cadado. We'll see.
Somali
children: bombs from air accepted by Council?
Meanwhile Argentine Ambassador Mayoral
told reporters that the U.S.'s Amb. Wolff told the Council that he would have to
check with Washington on any revisions to the PRST. From the State Department in
Foggy Bottom, spokesman Gonzalo Gallego said he had "no information on whether
the United States has been bolstering the Ethiopian military through delivery of
supplies."
Ghana's Ambassador Nanna was the most
open, or at least the most present. He said he will follow the African Union's
position (and, incidentally, that he would support Nigeria's ex-foreign minister
as Ban Ki-moon's deputy secretary general).
The debate of wording centered on the
draft's Paragraph 2, to which the UK proposed adding a reference to "creating
the conditions for the withdrawal of all unauthorized foreign forces from
Somalia." France, represented by Amb. de la Sabliere himself, proposed adding a
reference "to a possible meeting of the AU/IGAD/Arab League o[n] December 27."
France also wanted to emphasize the need for humanitarian access, a veiled swipe
at the Islamic Courts, whose territory has been labeled "Code 5," or most
dangerous, by UN humanitarian agencies. Whether the UN Development Program
considers all portions of Somalia Code 5 is response to a question long-pending
with the agency.
On Sudan, Kofi Annan is slated to attend
Council consultations on Wednesday on Darfur, specifically on Sudanese president
Al-Bashir's December 23 letter appearing to accept a hybrid force, but only
"through the Tripartate Committee," on which Sudan essentially has a veto.
Just after 7 p.m. on Tuesday, the Council gave up
for the day. Permanent Five spokespeople portrayed Qatar as standing alone in
calling for all foreign forces to leave Somalia. They emphasized that the Courts
should negotiated before any call for Ethiopia to pull back. And Qatar's
presidency of the Council expires in two business 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
Other Inner City Press
reports are available in the ProQuest service and some are archived on
www.InnerCityPress.com --
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