Inner City Press

 

In Other Media e.g. Somalia, Ghana, Azerbaijan, The Gambia    For further information, click here to contact us          .

Home -For the Media

Search is just below this first article

Community
Reinvestment
Bank Beat/ RSS Feed
Freedom of Information
Human Rights
Current Campaigns
How to Contact Us

 

Support this work by buying this book

Click on cover for secure site orders

also includes "Toxic Credit in the Global Inner City"

Inner City Press Podcast --



In UNDP, Questions of Money Wasted, Neutrality Trampled, Russian Office Audits Withheld and Sachs Expenses

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN

UNITED NATIONS, December 6 --  As information continues flowing in following the Roshomon-like demotion of the UN Development Program's head of Human Resources Brian Gleeson on November 29, a picture of UNDP is emerging in which the agency makes recruitment and hiring decisions to placate or in a quid-pro-quo with donor nations. UNDP shows staff tables by nationality to the donors, and makes sure to promote to D and upper P rank those from donor nations.

            A snapshot from the Mark Malloch Brown era offered by staff involves expenditure of millions on a "re-branding" campaign, with a new logo and statement and even web site templates. Within months the campaign and templates were forgotten. One staff complained of the waste of "money meant for addressing poverty issues on the ground." Well said.

            It was not possible to ask Mark Malloch Brown, not yet at least, about these UNDP staff members' concerns. On Monday, Mr. Malloch Brown responded to a question from Inner City Press about the re-assignment of Brian Gleeson and other matters by saying, "You are a jerk. You are the most irresponsible journalist I have ever seen," and walking away.  This matter came up at Wednesday's noon briefing, and it appears will be addressed on Thursday. Until it is addressed, it is difficult to understand how to ask questions of Mr. Malloch Brown, who in any event remained Wednesday in Washington. Another question that has arisen concerning the purpose and specifics of his recent trip to not one but two political parties' conventions in England. Some have predicted that Mr. Malloch Brown aims to return to London for a lordship and to be a minister of the government under Gordon Brown. Some allude to a sort of private UNDP, probably to be funded by George Soros and others. A request has been made to UNDP for documents regarding assistance provided by UNDP to the various Soros initiatives, particularly in Central Asia.

            Some in UNDP question the propriety and relevance, for example, of UNDP's joint venture with Mr. Soros for the "provision of salary supplements to a high-profile group of Georgian civil servants," as described UNDP's Bratislava Center's "Governance Reform Program for Georgia 2004 - 2006." Even this document acknowledges that "normally UNDP does not engage in supplementing salaries for government officials," but goes on to say such is allowed in this case due to "the added value of UNDP's neutrality and its significant accountability record."

            On neutrality, Inner City Press has now asked UNDP for information regarding, for example, its funding during the campaigns in Liberia leading to the election of ex-UNDP staffer Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf. While many in the UN System, not without basis, applaud her election, given UNDP's required claims of neutrality, it is imperative that candidates be treated equally, a sentiment reportedly not shared by Ms. Johnson-Sirleaf's soccer playing opponent. When UNDP provides its responses, they will be published on this site.

            UNDP has delayed in providing any information about investigations and audits of its Russia office, in which multiple sources have described to Inner City Press a range of improprieties, from phony billing to strong-arming to get UNDP to sign up for the EU-funded planetarium project to, it is reported, misuse of country office funds by the ubiquitous Kalman Mizsei. Given UNDP's delay in providing any information about the investigation and audits of the Russia office, even prior to today's questions being delivered to UNDP, it is reported here that knowledgeable UNDP sources describe irregularities and audits among others the Honduras office and in the Private Sector Unit of the Bureau of Resources and Strategic Partnerships (which plays a role in the Trust Fund for Iraq), involving credit card fraud. Inner City Press has now formally requested these and other audits.

            Inner City Press has also asked:

Please describe the sequence and basis for promotion(s) given to Casper Sonesson and Lena Sinha (who sources say was recruited under Mark Malloch Brown and has reportedly jumped from P3 in 2002 to D1 status in 2005 with, some of her peers complain, no country office experience).

UNDP: Telling Tales

            In terms of the responses that UNDP has provided, the request to publish their messages in full has been supplemented with a request to also "integrate them into your stories." It seems clear: one or the other. For today, UNDP's December 6 response is provided online in full here, and the response on the Millennium Project-related hiring and compensation questions is also hereby, then analyzed and supplemented with documentary evidence obtained by Inner City Press:

From: cassandra.waldon [at] undp.org
To: Inner City Press
Sent: Wed, 6 Dec 2006 6:27 PM
Subject: RE: Additional Qs re UNDP, response to your Q re deadlines, thank you in advance

Dear Matthew,

Thank you for posting the full text of our note to you of 5 December. We would encourage you to integrate our points into your stories as well, as we believe doing so would present a more balanced picture of UNDP.

We hope the below addresses some of your outstanding concerns. On the Millennium Project:

The Millennium Project was set up in 2002 as an independent advisory body to the Secretary-General, charged with proposing the best strategies for achieving the Millennium Development Goals. It is funded by donors on a voluntary basis and administered by UNDP (contracts, human resources policies, etc.). It has been led since the outset by Professor Jeffrey Sachs. Guido Schmidt-Traub is its Associate Director.

The Millennium Project was designed from the beginning as a time-bound exercise. Its mandate expires at the end of 2006. In order to bolster progress towards the Goals, we have decided to merge the work of the Millennium Project into UNDP. To this end, UNDP has set up a new sub-unit in our poverty group, which will consist of some 20 positions.

To complete the integration by the end of the year, UNDP management is using an expedited competitive recruiting process for five lead positions. These five positions have been advertised and are in the process of being filled.

Five other positions do not require a competitive process under UNDP recruitment procedures and will be filled with people currently working for the Millennium Project.

All other positions will be recruited according to standard UNDP recruitment procedures, and this process is on-going.

For the record, Jeffrey Sachs will continue to be involved with the UN’s effort on the Millennium Development Goals. As of 1 January, he will serve as Special Adviser to UNDP on the Millennium Development Goals. His salary will continue to be $75,000 per year.

            Working backwards through this 250-word statement, it must be noted that beyond the surprise of some UNDP staff members that "Dollar-a-Year" Jeff is in fact charging $75,000, this figure does not include travel and other expenses, called Daily Subsistence Allowance. While Inner City Press has now asked for the more complete numbers, it has obtained a document entitled "The MDG Support  Project for MDG-Based National Development Strategies," initially dated October 20, 2006, and revised November 9. Therein, the budget for Senior Advisors is $224,000. The total budget is presented as $6,059,000, with $2,889,000 coming from UNDP's core budget and $3,170,000 called "non-core."  It says that

"The integration of the UN Millennium Project staff into UNDP including the continuation of the country MDGS coordinators and the contributions to the Nairobi and Bamako-based teams are funded through corporate resources. RBA is contributing $350,000 out of its allocation from unused WSSD Trust Fund resources...The unspent balance (about $3.50 million) of the World Summit on Social Development (WSSD) Trust Fund has been and will be used to kick-start the roll-out of the initiative in compliance with the signed WSSD Trust Fund Agreement."

   Inner City Press has requested a number of Trust Fund Agreements from UNDP. The above-quoted document is signed and will ostensibly be directed by Selim Jahan, described as the deputy to the UNDP Poverty Group's Nora Lustig. On Ms. Lustig, while UNDP on December 5 stated that "Ms. Lustig was hired in April 2006 to Head UNDP’s Poverty Group following a transparent and competitive recruitment process.  All staff hired into the Poverty Group since Ms. Lustig’s arrival have been recruited via UNDP’s standard procedures."

  UNDP's above-quoted December 6 response speaks of "an expedited competitive recruiting process" -- only dubiously "UNDP's standard procedures." Staff at the Poverty Group answer the question if Guido Schmidt-Traub is already working there with one word: "Yes." So why hold a competition if the job has already been awarded?

            As to Ms. Lustig, Inner City Press has now asked when her position was advertised, whether Ms. Lustig was a candidate, and whether she was "on the short list." Inner City Press has been told that Ms. Lustig was "head-hunted" by Kemal Dervis *after* the selection group had held a process, and contrary to the panel's recommendation. Is *this* UNDP's standard procedure? Similar questions have been asked regarding job(s) awarded to one Ligia Elizondo. And some of the other questions asked:

Re "UNDP: A Better Way?" please state the source of funds expended in connection with the book, core or other, whether any fundraising was done for the book (and if so, who made the fundraising outreach, to whom, and with what results). When copies of the book are sold, what happens with the money? And to what specific multilateral institutions and books were referred to in the statement that UNDP's expenses are in line with other multilateral institutions?

From the book, including because UNDP is the copyright holder, please answer these [ ] initial questions:

Page 336 of the book recounts some of the actions of "UNDP's east European bureau chief, Kalman Mizsei." Please provide a complete copy of and background to any 2002-03 letter by Mr. Kalman Mizsei praising UNDP's Russia office for its "resource mobilization" and please provide all information about and background to Mr. Mizsei leaving UNDP earlier this year.

Given that page 303 of the book refers to Mark Malloch Brown "turn[ing] to Brian Gleeson," please provide information on [the] events of November 29 with regard to Mr. Gleeson.

Please explain and document the report at the top of page 304 (of the softbound edition) that "In one country, 'there was a guy running a sex Internet business from his office' but his Res Rep defended him, "'Come on, he's been here sixteen years and has children, I can't get rid of him." Within a few months... both he and the Res Rep were gone."

Please state as quickly as possible the background for [ ] being sent from New York  to UNDP Uganda, and separately whether any complaints were filed against [ ] while Resident Representative in Uganda.

            And so the questions continue, and the series will go on.

 Again, because a number of Inner City Press' UNDP sources go out of their way to express commitment to serving the poor, and while it should be unnecessary, Inner City Press is compelled to conclude this second installment in a necessarily-ongoing series by saluting the stated goals of UNDP and many of its staff. As they used to say on TV game shows, keep those cards, letters and emails coming, and phone calls too, we apologize for any phone tag, but please continue trying, and keep the information flowing.

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

Google
Search WWW Search innercitypress.com

Other Inner City Press reports are available in the ProQuest service and some are archived on www.InnerCityPress.com --

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 archived on www.InnerCityPress.org

For reporting about banks, predatory lending, consumer protection, money laundering, mergers or the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), click here for Inner City Press's weekly CRA Report. Inner City Press also reports weekly concerning the Federal Reserve, environmental justice, global inner cities, and more recently on the United Nations, where Inner City Press is accredited media. Follow those links for more of Inner City Press's reporting, or, click here for five ways to contact us, with or for more information.

            Copyright 2005-2006 Inner City Press, Inc. To request reprint or other permission, e-contact Editors [at] innercitypress.com - phone: (718) 716-3540