At UN's WFP, Directors Old and New Are Shielded from
Press As Zimbabwe's Bound for Board
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at
the UN
UNITED NATIONS, February 23 -- At the UN
World Food Program, it is a time of turn-over, and some say of spin. There are
issues to be addressed: the
looting of 450 tons of WFP grain
in Guinea, Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe government reportedly being on the brink of
assuming vice-presidency
of the WFP Executive Board, and
outstanding requests to pose questions to James Morris, who is being replaced as
executive director by Josette Sheeran Shiner.
In this context, Inner City
Press had asked WPF to be kept apprised of the travel schedule and media
availability of both Mr. Morris and Ms. Sheeran Shiner. The latter slipped in
and out of UN Headquarters with, WFP said, no time to take a question. Mr.
Morris, on the other hand, granted at least two interviews last week in New
York, and now
another in
Washington, broadcast Thursday on National Public Radio. After the first two of
these, Inner City Press wrote to WFP to
"reiterate the
previous request to be kept informed of the travel plans, particularly to the
UN's headquarters city, of James Morris, and of any press availability there
might be. The same of Josette Sheeran Shiner -- do you know why she was unable
or unwilling to take any questions before or after her recent meeting with Ban
Ki-moon?"
WFP's response did not address why
despite its standing request Inner City Press had not been told of Mr. Morris'
press availability in New York, or refusal to hold a press conference or even a
stakeout interview. Rather, WFP replied:
Josette Sheeran
had a very busy schedule that day and cannot comment on WFP-related matters
before she actually takes office in April. Mr. Morris will not go on any more
field trips -- he probably will be in DC in mid-March. I have passed on the
other questions to my colleagues in the field and will send you more info soon.
When Jim Morris visited
Zimbabwe in December 2006, it was
reported that
he would be leaving office at the end of the year, and that "
Morris is happy to be retiring
when the number of hungry people in Zimbabwe... is on the decline." That wasn't
true then, and is even more false now. But in Mr. Morris' recent spin of
selected press, no questions or answers on this have been reported.
Mr.
Morris and Mr. Ban - one takes questions and the other does not
One of Inner City Press'
questions concerns WFP's engagements with private corporations. In March 2006,
Inner City Press inquired into WFP's drought insurance program with AXA, asking
which other companies had bid on the WFP contract. Inner City Press was told
this was "barking up the wrong tree." Click
here for
that article. In 2007, Inner City Press asked for an update, and the following
arrived.
Dear Matthew,
here is an update on the drought insurance. In December 2005, WFP entered
into the first-ever humanitarian aid derivative contract with Paris-based
reinsurance company AXA Re. The contract provided for automatic disbursement
of up to US$7.1 million in funding had a weather index reported
significant drop in rainfall against historic averages and thus pointed to
widespread crop failure at the end of the 2006 agricultural season. However, a
severe and catastrophic drought of the magnitude of 2002 or 1984 did not occur
in 2006 and no payout from the weather derivative contract was made.
The 2006
production is the third good season in a row. Although official production and
yield statistics are not yet available, forecasts indicate an increase in
production over the 2005 season. Early verification of the rainfall index
reveals that it faithfully captured events on the ground based on field
reports made by Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development extension
officers, which served as a check on the index's performance.
This first
phase of the project focused on testing an innovative financial tool. The
second phase will focus on developing a sustainable risk-management strategy,
one component of which is to prepare an integrated financial solution for the
three-year period corresponding with the 2008-2010 Productive Safety Net
Program. This plan would make use of coordinated financial instruments tailored
to different levels of risk, thereby providing comprehensive coverage and WFP
will be involved in this process.
Other
development partners have also moved in the direction of securing and
coordinating contingent funds and therefore developing a sustainable
risk-management strategy for Ethiopia.
So, while limiting the opportunity to ask
questions of WFP officials to only a few selected journalists, WFP provides
canned written updates. To be fair, in 2997 the timeliness of WFP's written
responses has improved. But when a requested opportunity to ask questions in
real time was present, WFP played hide the ball. Another recycled summary
was sent to Inner City Press:
This is the
latest on what I have on Guinea looting:
14 February,
2007 -- A fourth World Food Program warehouse was looted on Tuesday morning in
Labe, central Guinea, resulting in the loss of 600 metric tones of rice, yellow
split peas and cooking oil. The value of the food stolen is approximately
US$500,000. This latest incident follows only two days after the looting of
WFP's warehouse in Kankan, which resulted in the loss of 350 metric tons of
food. In Pita and Dalaba, warehouses belonging to WFP's government partners were
also looted, bringing total losses from the four incidents up to nearly 1,000
metric tones valued at around US$750,000. The food was intended for WFP's
school feeding and food-for-work programs in the Labé area. As a result of the
looting, security has been reinforced in the remaining two WFP warehouses in
N'Zerekore and Conakry, where 7,129 metric tons of food is being stored.
Additional military guards have been assigned to the N'Zerekore depot. This
food is for distribution in the Liberian and Ivorian refugee camps in Guinea's
Forest region, where WFP is currently feeding around 15,000 people.
On February 20, Inner City
Press asked Security Council president Peter Burian about whether the Council
will put the situation in Guinea on its agenda. Click
here for
video. On February 15, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stopped and took questions
from Inner City Press and others about Darfur. Click
here for
video.
How can it be that diplomats like
Ambassador Burian, and even Ban Ki-moon, stop and take press questions openly,
but Mr. Morris at the end, and Ms. Sheeran Shiner at the beginning, cannot?
WFP's director will sooner or later have to answer.
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 WFP,
It's Hurry Up and Wait for Josette Sheeran Shiner, and Delays in Nepal
Byline:
Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN
UNITED NATIONS,
January 4 -- On the first working day of 2007, the new UN Secretary-General Ban
Ki-moon
showed up to work in New York.
On the third working day of 2007, the new head of the UN World Health
Organization, Dr. Margaret Chan, selected in November,
showed up to work in Geneva,
as the new U.S. Congress, elected in November, convened in Washington.
And in
Rome, seat of the UN World Food Program, whose new Executive Director Josette
Sheeran Shiner's confirmation was rushed through purportedly because James
Morris wanted to leave at the end of 2006, Ms. Sheeran Shiner was nowhere to be
found. On January 4, WFP put out a press release listing James Morris still
acting as executive director. But the
UN's own news service of November 7 had
announced that " Mr. Morris...
remains in office until the end of the year" and that " Ms. Sheeran will take
office at the beginning of 2007 as WFP’s new chief, the food agency said." So
what changed? Thursday no one would say. It's as if the previous UN comments,
including those used to rush through Ms. Sheeran Shiner's confirmation, never
existed. But click
here
and see below.
WFP's
Morris with clowns in Rome - but where is Josette Sheeran Shiner?
During the
controversy in
September surrounding Josette Sheeran Shiner's selection to replace James Morris
as head of the WFP, Inner City Press was repeatedly told by UN officials that
the reason for pushing to confirm Ms. Sheeran Shiner even in Kofi Annan's final
lame duck months was that Mr. Morris wanted to leave WFP at the end of the year.
This was offered as explanation for then-U.S. Ambassador John Bolton's
conflicting position that Kofi Annan should make no appointments running past
the end of 2006, and then his and the U.S.'s support for Josette Sheeran Shiner
for a five year term.
Inner
City Press pointed out that Mr. Morris' term ran through April, and so there was
no reason to rush through an appointment on a lame duck basis. But Inner City
Press was told that Mr. Morris was leaving at the end of the year, hence the
rush. Ms. Sheeran Shiner's confirmation was
reported, by an affiliate of her old
employer the Washington Times,
as meaning she would start on the first day of January, 2007: Morris "will turn
over the position at the beginning of 2007, four months before his tenure
expires." Mr. Morris' December trip to Zimbabwe included
reports that he was leaving at the end of
the year: "World
Food Program Chief Executive Officer James Morris was expected in Harare on
Sunday for a final 24-hour visit before he retires from the post at the end of
the year."
Then on
January 4, WFP put out a press release listing Mr. Morris as still acting as
executive director. Inner City Press emailed WFP in Rome, the contact on the
press release, but was told the individual listed on the press release is on
annual leave, and was referred to WFP's New York office, which insists despite
all previous statements on the matter at UN Headquarters that Mr. Morris
always planned to leave in April. Now this revisionist tale is being foisted
on Headquarters. But as the spokesman at the time knows, the defense of the lame
duck recommendation of Ms. Sheeran Shiner was that it had to be done by the end
of the year. Now it all seems a bait-and-switch, even sketchier than before. A
new low? Oh but they just keep coming...
In pre-Josette
WFP news, Inner City Press asked the agency on Thursday about two situations in
one country: Nepal. There are
barriers to providing food to the rebels,
pending disarmament; there are shortfalls in service to the
Bhutanese refugees in
the country. (Click
here
for a previous Inner City Press story about these refugees.) On Thursday
morning, Inner City Press asked WFP in Rome and New York for an update on both
situations, and was sent in response
this Internet link.
It's a nice site, but it's no update. What's going on? To be continued.
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 --
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