At
UN, a Final
Briefing on
Job Loss
&
Foreclosure,
Vos to FAO,
FUNCA Bids Him
Farewell
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
December 18 --
The UN
doggedly
cranks out
economic
advice,
while its
putative
affiliate the
International
Monetary Fund
imposes
condition,
like of
increased
foreclosures
in Ireland as
a bailout
condition.
Tuesday
at
the UN Inner
City Press
asked Robert
Vos of the UN
Department of
Economic and
Social Affairs
about the
IMF's Irish
conditions,
and
about Bank of
England
governor
Mervyn King's
warning about
competitive
down-gradings.
Vos
converted the
first question
into one about
jobs, saying
that loss in
income is what
triggers many
foreclosures.
He mused about
currency
wars.
During his
time at UN
DESA, he has
been a voice
for pro-poor
economics,
complete with
PowerPoint
slides and
embargoed
reports.The
one he and
Assistant
Secretary-Genera
Shamshad
Akhtar
launched
Tuesday is now
out
of embargo,
here.
Now
he heads to
the Food and
Agriculture
Organization
in Rome. Inner
City
Press, on
behalf of the
Free UN
Coalition for
Access, FUNCA,
thanked Voss
for
his many
briefings.
For
example, in
September 2009
Vos fielded
questions
about the UN's
pitch
for $500
billion for
climate
change; Inner
City Press
mused even
then
about how the
UN Department
of
Peacekeeping
Operations was
ceded, now
to France four
times in a
row, in the
form of Herve
Ladsous
UN
officials like
Vos answer
questions;
last minute
political
patronage
fill-ins like
Herve Ladsous
apparently
feel they
don't need to
answer
questions.
That leads to
profiles like
this one, and
more
problematically
to the UN
covering up
and
stonewalling
on mass rape
by its
partners as
for example in
Minova in
Eastern Congo.
But that's
another story.
, 
