At the UN Pension Fund, Those Investigated Remain
Firmly in Their Jobs, As Outsourcing Proceeds
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at
the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS, February 6 -- Two individuals
against whom action was recommended last year by the UN's Office of Internal
Oversight Services remain working at the UN Joint Staff Pension Fund, part of a
move to outsource management of a portion of the Fund, Inner City Press has
found.
A day after UN Controller
Warren Sach took questions
from UN staff and the press about this proposed outsourcing to an as-yet-unnamed
investment bank, another pension workshop was given at UN headquarters, this
time by Dulcie C. Bull, chief of Operations for the Pension Fund. An
until-yesterday
confidential "Investigation of conflict of interest, favoritism and
mismanagement at the UN Joint Staff Pension Fund" describes how through the
Pension Fund's Paul Dooley, millions of dollars in contacts were given to a
company called Sprig, Ltd, run by Gerald Bodell, who was previously Dooley's
supervisor at Guardian Mortgage Corporation.
Recommendations 1 and 2 of the OIOS investigative report directs that
"appropriate action be taken regarding Ms. Bull" and Mr. Dooley. As confirmed
Tuesday by Inner City Press, both remain working for the UN, despite the OIOS'
findings and recommendations. Both Dulcie Bull -- regarding whom "action"
was recommended by OIOS -- and Mr. Cocheme played their roles. According to the
OIOS:
"Mr. Dooley recommended to Ms. Dulcie
Bull, the Chief of Operations at the UNJSPF and Mr. Dooley's direct supervisor,
that the UNJSPF hire an accounting consultant... He advised her that he had
'identified a contractor with experience' to undertake the necessary work and
recommended that the UNJSPF enter into a five-money contract with Sprig... The
award of these contracts was authorized by Mr. Gieri, Mr. Dietz, his Deputy, and
Mr. Bernard Cocheme, the current Chief Executive Officer of the UNJSPF."
Inner City
Press has been told that former Under Secretary General for Management
Christopher Burnham, before he
left the UN for Deutsche Bank in November
2006, wrote to the Pension
Fund's CEO Bernard Cocheme to ask why the top two recommendations of OIOS had
not been put into action. Apparently no answer was given, because Mr. Burnham is
now gone, for more than 10 weeks, and Ms. Bull and Mr. Dooley remain.
Needed
again: an OIOS briefing in Oct. 2005, Inga-Britt Ahlenius at right
For months, media
including Inner City Press have been requesting a briefing by the UN Office of
Internal Oversight Services. In December 2006, then-spokesman Stephane Dujarric
answered Inner City Press' request by stating that OIOS would provide the
briefing in early January 2007. It is now February, and still OIOS has not
appears to answer questions.
In light of new
Secretary-General
Ban Ki-moon's January 19 call for urgent
audits of all operations of UN
funds, programs and specialized agencies, some now question what action would be
taken even if these audits discover crimes. Already the UN Development Program,
which for months refused to provide access to audits of its operations in the
Democratic People's Republic of Korea, is bragging to other UN agencies about
how it extricated itself from the burst of scrutiny. How much bragging there is
within those still managing the UN Joint Staff Pension Fund
is not fully known.
Meanwhile, Warren Sach's statements on
Monday that the General Assembly overrode the recommendations by the UN's ACABQ
to wait before any decision to outsource management of parts of the pension were
further called into question on Tuesday. Many have suggested a delay of at least
six months, pending completion of a study. "What's the rush?" one pension
beneficiary asked Inner City Press on Tuesday. It's a question not fully
answered by Mr. Sach. Nor despite Monday's requests were copies of the Request
for Proposals or of the short list of bidders provided. 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, the Staff Pension Has a "Bad Odor" While Outsourcing is Still Pursued
Byline:
Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN
UNITED NATIONS,
February 5 -- Relations between UN staff and management, and distrust of
corporations and the UN officials who land there, were both on display Monday at
a meeting about the staff's pension. UN Controller Warren Sach took questions
from the staff about a move to outsource to an investment firm the management of
the over $9 billion of U.S. stocks on the pension portfolio. When the meeting
was over, before taking questions for the press, Mr. Sach sighed that "there's a
lot of disinformation around" and "such a bad odor from last year, it's going to
take time to dissipate... The system is a bit too closed," he said, adding that
"there are no published documents."
But this
largely remains the case. When asked at Monday's meeting how large a management
fee would be paid, Mr. Sach did not have an answer. Mr. Sach was asked what he
would do if Deutsche Bank, the firm where Christopher Burnham, the former Under
Secretary General who pushed this outsourcing, now works bid for or got the
management contract. This question was not answered during the open meeting, nor
afterwards, despite the fact that in his final press conference at the UN,
Mr. Burnham said
he could not imagine working for a firm that would get business from the UN.
Click
here
for video, and
here for
analysis.
Following
the meeting, Inner City Press asked Mr. Sach about this Burnham commitment. "I'm
not sure he can bind Deutsche Bank," Mr. Sach replied. "He must be highly
valuable, if they can forego business to have him." Inner City Press asked for
the list of bidders, or those on the short list who got the Request for
Proposals, as well as for a copy of the RFP. For the RFP, Inner City Press was
referred to the administrative officer of the UN Investment Management Service,
Chieko Okudo, from where another referral was made. Hours later, the RFP had
still not been produced, and Inner City Press was told that neither would the
list of bidders be released. Similar difficulties in obtaining answers and
documents arose last year during Inner City Press'
reporting on the conflicts raised by UN
investment fees being paid to Pictet & Cie.,
whose Ivan Pictet serves as an "ad hoc" member of the UN Pension Fund's
Investment Committee, on which now sits a Vice Chairman of Merrill Lynch and
former directors of Morgan Stanley and Commerzbank.
That
there are causes of concern can be found in an until-now confidential report of
investigation by the UN's Office of Internal Oversight Services. In OIOS'
"Investigation of conflict of interest, favoritism and mismanagement at the UN
Joint Staff Pension Fund," the complaints of two whistleblowers were considered
and upheld.
UN's
Sach
Specifically, OIOS
confirmed that through the Pension Fund's Paul Dooley, millions of dollars in
contacts were given to a company called Sprig, Ltd, run by Gerald Bodell, who
was previously Dooley's supervisor at Guardian Mortgage Corporation. According
to the audit:
"OIOS found no evidence that UNJSPF [the
UN Pension Fund] considered candidates other than Sprig for any of these
contracts. Similarly, there is no evidence that UNJSPF made any checks on the
background of Sprig independently (for example by requesting a D&B report on
Spring) or that UNJSPF attempted to independently determine whether Mr. Bodell's
fees were consistent with those charged by other consultants."
The audit
reports that Sprig was "operated by Mr. Bodell from the basement of his home,"
but nevertheless was given a higher score for "Web experience" than the
accounting firm of Deloitte & Touche. Sprig's contract for "Strategic
Information Technology and Management Consulting Study" was signed for the UN by
Sanjaya Bahel, who was since by indicted and most recently had his bail revoked.
A subsequent contract amendment for Sprig was signed for the UN by Andrew Toh,
an Assistant Secretary General who is currently under investigation and for that
reasons has not been asked to resign by new Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. The
audit concludes with the recommendation that "any contracting and procurement
activities undertaken by the CEO of the UNJSPF comply with the Pension Board's
directive that they be limited and only under exceptional circumstances."
Flash-forward to June of 2006, a period of time regarding which two starkly
different versions were presented at Monday's meeting. The Staff Council
referred to documents which challenge Mr. Sach's presentation of himself as
having opposed an earlier attempt to outsource Pension Fund business. After the
meeting, Inner City Press asked Mr. Sach about these documents. Mr. Sach showed
a copy of a memo from Chieko Okudo to then-Under Secretary General Christopher
B. Burnham, on which was scrawled at the bottom of the first page an instruction
to "do this by the book, -CBB." Mr. Sach said that some had circulated copies of
this memo with the bottom notation removed.
Inner
City Press has obtained copies of emails from the time at issue, which tell a
different story. After a decision was made to "liquidate" a small capitalization
fund managed for the Pension Fund by Lombard, Odier, Darier and Hentsch (LODH),
an internal debate ensued whether the liquidation contact could be given without
bidding to the Northern Trust bank, which was already the global Custodian of
the Fund. Despite the questions raised, by July 5 Northern Trust's Vice
President Robert Ernst wrote to two individuals at the UN that the liquidation
was finished, "would you like sales proceeds to remain in the LODH portfolio, or
transferred out to your own cash accounts?"
Before
this liquidation, taking the position that this would require a formal bid-out
procurement process in a June 13, 2006 email was Yavar Khan, who wrote to Ms.
Okuda that:
"Chieko: I do have a problem with your
memo. The memo needs to state the complete additional services to be performed
other than NT [Northern Trust] act as the Master Record Keeper. Recently, a
number of changes and additional services outside the original scope have been
requested to be undertaken by Northern Trust. All this has been undertaken in a
non-competitive environment.... The organization is now open for criticism if we
continue to expand the scope of NT, which was not originally envisaged. This can
lead to other banks suggesting that we have not been open and transparent..."
But it is
now not only "other banks" who are complaining about a lack of transparency. The
majority of questions directed to Mr. Sach on Monday were critical in nature,
asking "why fix it if it isn't broken" and why hand money to an outside firm.
Later
the question was asked, can we see the Request for Proposals, and know what
firms are on the short list? No such information has been provided. Mr. Sach was
asked if by outsourcing, the UN wouldn't lose control, including over the social
impact of its investments. Mr. Sach answered than even an outsourced, indexed
fund could be screened. He gave the example of eschewing investment in tobacco
-- ironic, given his admittedly heavy-hearted admission of having approved the
UN spending $130,000 to on a ventilation
system for smoking in the UN's Vienna Cafe.
And the "bad odor from last year" to which Mr. Sach referred will take still
longer to dissipate. The rising question is what Ban Ki-moon will do.
Developing.
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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