By
Matthew
Russell Lee,
Exclusive
UNITED
NATIONS,
November 6 --
As fights
about the UN
budget gather
steam, the
next head of
the Group of
77 is set to
be named:
Bolivia,
multiple
sources tell
Inner City
Press. There
is growing
anger at
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon and
his budget
proposal.
"Game
on," one G77
Permanent
Representative
told Inner
City Press.
The G-77
sources say
the timing is
propitious,
including
given
Bolivia's
standing up on
issues like
the searching
of President
Evo Morales'
plane.
They say,
again speaking
exclusively to
Inner City
Press, that
while in the
past the UN
Secretariat's
budget
proposals were
closer to the
side of the
developing
world, and
then richer
countries
tried to scale
them back, now
"Ban Ki-moon
has sided in
advance with
the rich."
This
puts G77 in
the position
of having to
fight on
budget
proposals
right from the
beginning. A
similar
process is
going on in
the UN Staff
Union, as
Inner City
Press reported
last night.
Ban is
proposing
budget cuts
and the
elimination of
posts -- that
is, jobs.
Similar cuts
are proposed
in the UN
Development
Program and
also UNICEF,
with talk of
"nodes," under
Anthony Lake,
outsourcing
and
off-shoring
jobs from New
York. These
were denounced
by many
speakers at an
October 31
meeting of the
Staff Union. Click here
for that.
Various
sides
in the morning
said that the
staff, to
oppose these
cut-backs,
will have to
reach out to
the Fifth
(Budget)
Committee --
that is, to
the Group of
77 side. This
has been done
in the past. Y
ahora,
Bolivia. Watch
this site.
, 
