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UN Praises
Financial Speculators on Food, Zimbabwe's Role in Social Development
Byline: Matthew
Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS,
May
6 -- Within the UN system there are many views, on issues ranging from
the role
of financial speculation in raising food prices to the place of
Zimbabwe and
its Robert Mugabe government in the world community. On May 2, Inner
City Press
asked the UN's new special rapporteur on the human right to food,
Olivier De
Schutter, about India's proposal to tax commodities future to
discourage
speculation. While De Schutter said it was only his first day on the
job and he
will have to study the matter further, he said that speculation should
be
regulated and curtailed. Video here,
from Minute
22:26.
On the other hand, the head of the
UN's Secretariat for the Commission on Sustainable Development Kathleen
Abdalla on May 6 answered a similar
question from Inner City Press by extolling the positive elements of
the
futures market, which she said are "not always brought up. Her
co-panelist John Pender of the International Food Policy
Research Institute went
further, saying that "speculation plays a positive role, speculators
are
people taking market risk," and opposing regulation of the market.
Video here,
from Minute 12:58.
Both the WFP's
Josette Sheeran and even the Global Compact
chairman have told Inner City Press that financial speculation on
food prices is a problem. So what does
the UN think about the
role of speculation in the food pricing crisis? And why is the
Commission on
Sustainable Development defending Wall Street?
CSD in May 2007, electing Zimbabwe as chair,
where's Ocampo now?
On the
other hand, when Inner City Press asked Ms. Abdalla if there had been
any
impacts of Zimbabwe's chairmanship of the CSD this year, since the
controversy
that surrounded its election a year ago, she said no, the issue has not
come
up, if anything the Zimbabwean chairman has been praised. Video here,
from Minute 25:08.
Inner City
Press asked the U.S. Mission to the UN for its view and follow-through.
Spokesman Ben Chang reiterated the U.S.'s opposition to Zimbabwe
holding the
chair, and noted that Ms. Abdalla as a UN staff may not be aware of the
communications within the member states represented on the CSD. So
which is
it? Watch this site.
* * *
These reports are
usually also available through Google
News and on Lexis-Nexis.
Click
here for a Reuters
AlertNet piece by this correspondent
about Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army. Click
here
for an earlier Reuters AlertNet piece about the Somali National
Reconciliation Congress, and the UN's $200,000 contribution from an
undefined trust fund. Video
Analysis here
Feedback: Editorial
[at] innercitypress.com
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Other,
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in the ProQuest service, and now on Lexis-Nexis.
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2006-08 Inner City Press, Inc. To request
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