At the
UN, Dice Rolled on Jan Beagle, Vienna Cafe Called "Disgrace" by Warren Sach, on
Margin of UNDP Scandal
Byline:
Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS,
January 26 -- Laying down a challenge to Ban Ki-moon, the UN's Staff Council
this week passed an Expression of No Confidence in Jan Beagle, long-time head of
the UN's Office of Human Resource Management. Among the grounds are Ms. Beagle's
hindrance of reforms to the UN's archaic system of employee rights and internal
justice. The stakes are high, as Mr. Ban's selection to head the Department of
Management, Alicia Barcena, is a strong supporter of Ms. Beagle. Along with 57
others senior UN officials, Ms. Beagle was asked to submit a resignation letter
earlier this month. If Mr. Ban decide to keep Ms. Beagle on, the Staff Council's
next steps would seem to be pre-determined.
The vote
of no-confidence was taken on Tuesday of this week, on the Wednesday Ban Ki-moon
left on his trip. In his wake the UNDP scandal has continued to develop -- click
here for today's story -- and other, country-specific questions continue to be
raised. For example, on Friday Inner City Press asked Ban Ki-moon's spokesman
for the Secretariat's reaction to South Africa announcing it will not contribute
peacekeeping troops to Somalia. The spokesman replied that troop-contribution to
Somalia will be discussed at the African Union summit on January 29, which the
Secretary General will attend.
Inner
City Press then asked about the call for Ban Ki-moon, at the AU summit, to raise
the issue of disappeared and imprisoned journalists in Eritrea. The spokesman
replied generically that the Secretary General will be raising "human rights."
We'll see.
Mr.
Ocampo, Ms. Barcena, Staff Council not shown
Following
the regular noon briefing, UN Controller Warren Sach took half-and-hour of
questions about Ban Ki-moon now-you-see-it, now-you-don't proposal to audit the
UN's fund and programs. On Jan. 19, Ban Ki-moon called for a worldwide inquiry
into all activities of the funds and programs. On Jan. 22, he scaled it back to
only North Korea, and only on three issues.
Inner
City Press asked Mr. Sach about the scale-back. Click
here for
video, from Minute 24:13; click
here for
today's story about the UNDP scandal and next steps.
After the
press conference was over, and the cameras were turned off, Inner City Press
asked Mr. Sach for his views on and involvement in the work done over the last
month in the Vienna Cafe in the UN's basement, in which a ventilation system for
cigarette smoking, which will be ripped out in less than two years, was
installed at a stated cost of $140,000. Inner City Press has previous called Mr.
Sach and left a detailed message with his secretary, seeking comment.
Friday
Mr. Sach took issue with Inner City Press' previous story, that he had been
"dodging" the question. "I read your text," Mr. Sach began. "I check with my
staff, and you'd called and said you would call back. So it was not calls,
plural."
Inner
City Press didn't ask why Mr. Sach hadn't returned the first call, but rather
sought comment at this late date, when the money is already spent. Mr. Sach
explained that "it is always delicate" to decide what work to do in advance of a
fuller rehabilitation. "I was told that the bulk of equipment that cleans air
will be useable, although not the ducts," he said. He added that "it is a
disgrace to the Organization that it has allowed that to go on for six or seven
years," referring to the smoking in the Vienna Cafe, or perhaps to the lack of
ventilation given that smoking is allowed to go on.
"Why not
then ventilate the seat area by the Security Council?" Inner City Press asked.
Mr. Sach laughed, and then walked gingerly toward the exit. While he is an
accomplished, or honored, road runner, Mr. Sach is recuperating from back
surgery. In light of his impressive verbal gymnastics on Friday, it is time for
the UN Board of Auditors to appear for a press conference and answer the
questions Mr. Sach couldn't or didn't answer. Developing.
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
At the
UN, Dag's Past Is Ban's Present As Uganda Questions Dodged and Asbestos Upon the
Vienna Cafe
Byline:
Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN
UNITED NATIONS,
January 18 -- The past penetrated the present at the UN on Thursday. In the
library auditorium on the south side of the UN basement, a new documentary about
Dag Hammarskjold, "The Vision of a Secretary-General," was screened. There is
footage of reporters' questions being dodged, even then. The film moves from
perceived victories in the Suez and China through impotence in Hungary and then
through the Congo to death, of Patrice Lumumba and then Dag Hammarskjold, in a
plane crash in present-day Zambia.
Footage
from the late 1950s, of heads of state driving up to the UN along a quite
different First Avenue, was interspersed with footage of the UN's peacekeeping
mission that is still in the Congo. The filmmakers, Stig Holmqvist and Goran
Guner, allude to the whispers at the time about Dag Hammarskjold's sexual
orientation, and to the Swedish intellectual elite's dismissal of his posthumous
book, "Markings."
At least
two senior officials who have just left the UN have said they will write books.
Mark Malloch Brown has signed on at
Yale University for
the purpose. He also said at the
UN Development Program
in December that several of the people he brought from UNDP to the Secretariat
will now re-cross First Avenue -- one example is Paulo Galli -- and that he
himself intends to emerge from New Haven with something to "compete" with UNDP.
Jan
Egeland said when he left in mid-December, fresh from direct talks with the
indicted leaders of Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army, that he would sleep more
and write a book. Now he is rumored to be in line for another UN job,
high-level, as Ban Ki-moon's Brahimi. We'll see.
UN's
Dag Hammarskjold library: nothing but old school
The UN's
tradition of dodging of press questions, artfully evidenced in documentary
footage of Dag Hammarskjold, continued on Wednesday including with regard to
Uganda and Ban Ki-moon's proposals. From the noon briefing
transcript:
Inner City Press: On the question of
restructuring. Has the Secretary-General said why he thinks it would be a good
idea to merge Disarmament and Political Affairs? Is he going to make that case,
or is he just going to see whether Member States are going to support the idea?
Spokesperson: I think he is going to make
that case and try to convince…
Inner City Press: Can you say what methods
he will use to convince..? [Actually said: "Can you say what the benefit
would be?" Click
here for
video, from Minute 13:41.]
Spokesperson: Well, I was not personally
part of the consultation process, so I don’t know what was discussed or what has
changed. You will know more about it pretty soon because there will be a
decision taken on that.
Inner City Press: Ok. One more question.
Representative [Joaquim Alberto] Chissano is in Northern Uganda and there are
reports now that the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) is…well,
its own forces are saying that it is back
at war. Has Mr. Chissano had
anything to say about this? Has he received this
letter from the LRA asking
to move the negotiations out of Sudan to South Africa or elsewhere?
Spokesperson: We will check with Mr.
Chissano.
Inner
City Press has asked other staffers earlier in the week about the
letter to Chissano
and was told he had not received it. It was speculated that the letter was sent
to the UN in New York, not to Chissano in the field. Very archaic.
Also deemed archaic by many reporters was the blizzard of buzzwords deployed by
the incoming president of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), Lithuanian
Ambassador Dalius Cekuolis. Inner City Press asked how ECOSOC will oversee and
evaluate, for example, UNDP. Amb. Cekuolis answered by referring to a
"negotiation process" and "modalities and methodologies." Video
here,
from Minute 38:55. Staffer Nikhil Seth subsequently clarified off-camera that
ECOSOC has not "fiduciary" powers to review development agencies. This too is
archaic. At least Amb. Cekuolis committed to consider providing a contact to
answer question that will not depend on the resources and commitment level of
the UN mission of whatever country heads ECOSOC in a particular year. We'll see.
Vienna Cafe Update: Men in Moon
Suits Before and After Lunch
So too
the ongoing construction work in the ceiling above the Vienna Cafe in the UN's
basement. As
Inner City Press has reported,
to accommodate ostensibly non-permitted smoking, the UN is installing ducts and
fans above the cafe, which will be torn out and destroyed in less than two years
under the Capital Master Plan. Joan McDonald of the UN's Facilities Management
had told Inner City Press, incorrectly, that the work would not be torn out, and
in fact that the work was finished. It is not.
In recent days, workmen have been re-taping up sheet plastic over the holes in
the ceiling, so that asbestos would not fall so blatantly on those sitting in
the cafe. Thursday night at 9 p.m., workmen in white moon suits, complete with
gas masks, were working in the holes. If they must be protected in this way,
what about the people who have been eating lunch under the badly-taped up holes
for the past weeks? Developing...
At the
UN, Silence on Somalia and ICTY Pardon Request, Confidence on Kosovo
Byline:
Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN
UNITED NATIONS,
January 17 -- In Somalia, the one member of the UN-sponsored Transitional
Federal Government who had reached out to the Islamic Courts Union, Sharif
Hassan Sheikh Aden, was ousted from the parliament in Baidoa on Wednesday. It
was
reported
that "Francois Fall, special representative of United Nations Secretary General
Ban Ki-moon in Somalia, refused to comment directly on the sacking."
At UN
headquarters in New York on Wednesday, Inner City Press asked Ban Ki-moon's
spokesman if the Secretariat had any comment or guidance for the UN-sponsored
(some say, UN-created) Transitional Federal Government, in terms of outreach and
inclusiveness. At deadline, no additional comment was received. It is said that
Francois Lonseny Fall will meet Thursday with the UN-sponsored president in
Somalia.
UN's
Fall in Baidoa, heading toward parliament
Inner
City Press also asked, in light of ever-clearer
reports that
Russia would use its veto in the UN Security Council to oppose independence for
Kosovo and reports that the European Union is
offering more talks in March,
if the UN still intends to release its Kosovo status proposal later this month.
As summarized by the UN in its Briefing
Highlights,
"asked about the Kosovo status process, the Spokesman said that Special Envoy
Martti Ahtisaari was still on track to present his proposals shortly after the
upcoming Serbian parliamentary elections." We'll see.
In a
justice (or impunity) story, former Bosnia Serb president Plavsic, in jail in
Sweden following conviction by the UN-sponsored International Criminal Tribunal
for the Former Yugoslavia,
has formally requested a pardon.
Bosnia's ambassador to the UN Milos Prica has supported Ms. Plavsic's
pardon-request. Wednesday Inner City Press asked the UN spokesman if the
Secretariat has any comment, on whether the ICTY's sentences should be served.
The spokesman denied to comment, leaving it up to "the judicial process."
Impunity, anyone?
Inner City Press asked again when reporters will have a chance to ask questions
of the Office of Internal Oversight Services, now that OIOS' presentation to the
General Assembly, the previous excuse, has passed, and also when OCHA's John
Holmes will begin. The spokesman committed to look into both. We'll see.
The
spokesman's office announced that the UN's mission to the Central African
Republic will include a "humanitarian component." Still it appears that this
component, and also the peacekeeping one, will not engage in northwest CAR,
where rebel fighting has driven civilians into the bush. We expect to have more
on this soon.
Other Inner City Press
reports are available in the ProQuest service and some are archived on
www.InnerCityPress.com --
At the UN,
Mysterious Deletion from Iran Sanctions List of Aerospace Industries
Organization Goes Unexplained
At the UN, Iran
Resolution Passes 15-0 Amid Media Frenzy While Somalia and UN Reform Are
Ignored
At the UN,
Security Council and GA Games and Holiday Spirit As Revolving Door Ban
Disappears on Final Day
UNDP Not Covered
By Weak UN Post-Employment Restrictions, Dervis and Mizsei and Aid to
the Scapegoated
UN
Post-Employment Restriction Are Watered Down for Senior Officials,
Comparison to June Draft Reveals
At the UN, Curt
Eulogies for Dictator, Revolving Door and Budget Left for the Last Day
UNDP's Dervis
Backtracks on Transparency, Promises Accounting of Funds, Denies Role in
Uganda Abuse
At the UN,
Jeffrey Sachs Answers the $75,000 Question But Not on UNDP, Still
Laudable Goals for 2025
Burundi Spin
at the UN, Amid Coup Trial and Ceasefire Not Implemented, Great Lakes
Commission Moves In
At the UN, Iran
Resolution Goes Blue as Ivory Coast is Traded Away With No Follow-up on
Hmung
At the UN,
Annan's Long Goodbye, With Oil for Food in the Air and Hothouse Musical
Chairs
At Kofi Annan's
Farewell, UNDP Transparency is Raised, and Brian Gleeson Steps Up
At UN
in Beirut, Dueling Charges of Job-Trading and
Tax-Evasion, the Burden of
Mervat Tallawy, Retaliation from Below
UNDP Will Be
Called to Greater Transparency, Says President of Spain, on UNDP's
Board, and Flaws of UNOPS
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 --
Copyright 2006 Inner City Press, Inc. To request
reprint or other permission, e-contact Editorial [at] innercitypress.com - phone: (718) 716-3540
