At the
UN, Secrecy Still Reigns, from UNFPA to the Council, from Russia to Ban Ki-moon
Byline:
Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS,
February 1 -- One month now into 2007, and into the term of new UN Secretary
General Ban Ki-moon, on most counts access to information is not what it should
be.
Ban Ki-moon
posted his financial
disclosure and that's all to the good -- although as many have noted, since he
made these disclosures while a South Korean diplomat, it wasn't such a stretch.
The proof may be whether any other senior officials in the Ban Ki-moon
administration make disclosures.
Despite
Mr. Ban's seeming call for transparency at the UN, including its funds and
programs, a sample fund,
UNFPA, has gone to
absurd lengths not to answer questions. The agency -- full name UN Population
Fund -- promised through its spokesman to provide answers on January 22 to
questions about its spending in North Korea. Then the spokesman Abubakar Dungus
decided to go missing. He claimed to be out of the office until January 25,
despite being seen in UN headquarters in this time. Now a full week later there
has still been no response. Mr. Dungus and his boss, Ms. Cagar, have both been
emailed reminders.
Thursday
at the UN's noon
briefing,
Inner City Press asked Ban Ki-moon's spokeswoman about this:
Inner City
Press: Could you say which Funds and Programs the Deputy Secretary-General is
going to visit? Are you going to put out her schedule?
Spokesperson:
She is going first to start meeting the staff in Headquarters. Then she is
going to go on. This is not a process that is going to end next week, it is a
continuing process. It is normal that she meets the staff.
Inner City
Press: Under the previous administration, they would also put out the
Secretary-General’s schedule and also the Deputy Secretary-General’s.
Spokesperson:
The schedule of the Deputy Secretary-General will be put out also, but starting
next week.
Inner City
Press: Eleven days ago we asked UNFPA to describe programmes in the Democratic
People’s Republic of Korea. Their Spokesman said that they would do ten days
ago, and they have not provided anything. We have got the internal audit, and
so we now know what it is. But I am wondering whether, speaking for Ban Ki-moon
or the Secretariat, whether in the sake of transparency, if you think it is
appropriate that a fund or program of the United Nations declines to provide any
information for 11 days?
Spokesperson:
Well, you should ask them once more.
Inner City
Press: I have asked them, yesterday. So I guess, maybe I am asking you to give
some guidance. I know that these programs and funds and agencies are separate,
but I think it ends up reflecting on – if he wants to bring transparency, a
place to start would be with the funds, programs and agencies.
Spokesperson:
I think they have been very forthcoming…
This
UN-prepared
transcript is
less than accurate (click
here for
video), but the upshot is that, when presented with the case of a UN fund
dodging questions for more than ten days, Ban Ki-moon's spokesperson, far from
providing guidance on transparency, reflexively defended the stonewall, adopting
a line from her predessessor (this is more clear in the
audio-video clip,
click
here to
view and see).
Also on
Thursday, the UN Development Program tried to limit access by even the
UN-accredited to a briefing by its Administrator, the elusive Kemal Dervis.
Click
here
for that story. While persistence resulted in opening up the meeting and letting
the sunshine in, when a colleague reporter suggested telling the office of Ban
Ki-moon's spokesperson to get access, the answer was not at all clear. But it
should be, and soon.
Lack of
transparency at UN funds and programs reflects back on the Secretary General. A
decision will need to be made what to do about lawless and unaccountable
behavior at the little fiefdoms that exist, right across First Avenue and on
42nd Street by Grand Central. If Ban Ki-moon does not crack this sleazy cloak
now, if it doubtful he will do so later.
Ban
Ki-moon and Sergei Lavrov: if January was any guide, was this a pact of secrecy?
At
Thursday's noon briefing, the following also occurred:
Inner City Press: In the last news-cycle,
one of the
President Al-Bashir’s advisors has been
quoted as saying that the US
wants regime change in Sudan and is using the international community and NGOs
to bring that about. Has there been any response from the UN to that
statement? There is
another statement,
saying that the International Criminal Court is entirely not needed in Darfur.
Spokesperson:
As I said, we don’t have reactions to press statements or things relayed by the
press.
Inner City
Press: Jan Pronk is out. Is the Secretary-General going to appoint a new
Special Representative for Sudan?
Spokesperson:
Yes, most probably.
Inner City
Press: As part of the restructuring, or faster than that?
Spokesperson:
I don’t know at this point.
This can
and should be distinguished from access to information. Rather, it concerns Ban
Ki-moon's administration's willingness and ability to respond in real-time to
such charges as that they are pawns of a Permanent Five member of the Council.
If Jan Pronk were in place, he would respond in his
blog. When will Pronk be
replaced? Everything's on hold.
At the
end of Russia's month at the head of the Security Council, it must be said that
very little happened. Apparently by design, the Russian Federation had a light
Council schedule, and said little at the stakeout. Despite a seeming Africa
focus in the agenda, when asked if the Chad and
Central African Republic
meeting portended any help to northwest CAR, Amb. Churkin erroneously said yes.
(Click here for the CAR
alarm story.) "I'm not going to comment on that," was said again and again
by Vitaly Churkin. As simply another example, did China stall the renewal of the
UN's mission in Haiti due to issues of Taiwan? "It didn't come up in the
Council," was Amb. Churkin's standard answer. But other P-5 diplomats confirmed
that this was indeed
the issue, and it has since been reported, by Sankei's always-intrepid
Abigail Somma, that Haitian president Preval sent an envoy to New York, to meet
with Chinese Ambassador Wong and figuratively kiss his ring. So why the secrecy?
Perhaps
it is missions' right. Wednesday's night at the Russian mission, the security
was tight for what is the customary end-of-Presidency reception. Japan's
Ambassador Kenzo Oshima, for example, when his month came to an end, raised
several cups with the press corps. (Now it's said that, after Vietnam, Japan
will get the next Asian group turn at the Council, instead of Mongolia. Food for
thought, and for questions.) So too with Peru's Ambassador. At the Russian
mission on 67th Street, there were metal detectors and detailed lists of
invitees. Perhaps the presence of Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov explained it.
And inside as is so often the case in UN-world, some diplomatic hair was let
down. But the candor came too late, after the month was over. We will report
tomorrow on the Slovakian Ambassador's pitch. February is short, but it could
not be more arid. Let the sunshine in, from the Council to the funds and
programs to Ban Ki-moon's 38th floor. If not now, when?
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, Crime of Aggression Does Not Fit Somalia, Two Refuse to Quit and UPeace Is
Debated
Byline:
Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN
UNITED NATIONS,
January 31 -- Within the UN's orbit there is a Working Group on the Crime of
Aggression, whose current task is to provide a
definition,
for the International Criminal Court. Wednesday Inner City Press asked the
Ambassador of Liechtenstein, Christian Wanaweser, whether in Somalia the acts of
the Islamic Courts Union, the Ethiopian Army and the United States' aerial raid
on southern Somalia would constitute aggression. He answered that it "depends if
it can credibly be argued as self-defense, otherwise it would appear quite clear
to fall under the definition" of aggression. Video
here,
from Minute 7:55.
The
definition will be limited to states -- "you have to have a government and a
defined territory," Amb. Wanaweser said. The Islamic Courts Union to some degree
had both. But the Transitional Federal Government, then in Baidoa and now
installed in Mogadishu by Ethiopia's Army, is deemed the lawful government. And
thus possibly an ICC defendant.
And yet
such status is not final. Inner City Press asked Amb. Wanaweser for his view on
UN officials like Jan Egeland meeting with Joseph Kony and Vincent Otti, under
indictment for war crimes with the Lord's Resistance Army. "It's a problem of
perception," Amb. Wanaweser replied. Video
here,
from Minute 24:06. "It's the argument about peace versus justice. this is the
starkest example, the one you have brought up. But I don't the two concepts are
mutually exclusive." Many people say that; one voice which stands out is that of
Richard Goldstone, who answered Inner City Press' question by saying that the
Security Council is free to suspend the indictments for up to a year, but until
that is done, there should be no meetings without attempted arrest.
Aggression
is discussed, Afghanistan in foreground
Amb.
Wanaweser's press conference was more like a salon, in which he chatted with
reporters who he called by first name, and answered with gestures that would not
be caught on audio, not subject to quotation. For a small country, or
principality, Liechtenstein is something of a UN player. In December 2006,
Liechtenstein's penthouse apartment on 40th Street and Second Avenue was the
venue of a surreal UN-world party, with open bar and view downward on the
Secretariat building and UNDP. One wag jokes that the apartment was larger than
Liechtenstein itself. Others more darkly questioned where the money comes from.
On Wednesday Amb. Wanaweser asked rhetorically, "Eight million euros, is that a
lot of money? I don't think so." In UN-world, everything is relative.
At the
noon briefing on Wednesday, it was said that only twenty of the fifty-eight
officials asked to submit resignations have done so. Many reporters ran out of
the room, saying this was the story of the day. Later the spokesperson said the
twenty figure referred only to Under Secretaries General. Later still, it was
said that of 55 asked to resign, all but two have. What happened to the
previously stated 58? And who are the two? We'll see.
Inner
City Press asked for Ban Ki-moon's positions on Cote D'Ivoire, where
Resolution 1721 is being left behind,
and on the
troop contribution shortfall for Somalia.
On the first, a list of meetings is to be provided, with perhaps a statement to
follow. On the second, the spokeswoman said to ask the African Union. But
where's Lonseny Fall?
Questions
arose for the second time this week about University for Peace. Inner City Press
raised the issue on Monday, in connection with UNDP and travel for North Korean
officials. Click
here
for that article. New GA spokesman Ashraf Kamal produced a flow chart on which
UPeace does not appear. He later provided a name, Narinder Kakar, previously
UNDP's Maldives representative.
But in Costa Rica, a Ms. Molina has for the second time promised answers, at
latest by tomorrow. We'll see
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
