By
Matthew
Russell Lee,
Exclusive
UNITED
NATIONS,
May 21 -- For
one of the few
UN Under
Secretary
General
seats
remaining
open, as head
of the
Department of
Public
Information,
the leading
named final
candidate is
former Greek
foreign
minister
Stavros
Lambrinidis,
sources tell
Inner City
Press.
Previously
Inner
City Press
learned and
reported on
May 3 that
when a
developing
world
Permanent
Representative
inquired about
the post with
the office of
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon, he
was told that
"DPI will now
be a
European
post," and
that the
finalists were
Italian,
Austrian
and Greek.
Despite
or
because of
Greece's
financial
problems,
Lambrinidis
has emerged as
the named
frontrunner.
If
as is possible
a Brazilian
from the World
Bank system
gets the
Department of
Social
and Economic
Development,
and China
takes the top
of the
Department
of General
Assembly and
Conference
Management and
an Assistant
Secretary
General spot
at DESA, sub
Saharan Africa
will have been
further
under-served
by Ban
Ki-moon,
especially
when Ban's
Deputy is
replaced by
the Swede Jan
Eliasson at
the end of
June when
school
lets out.
There
had been
some
discussion of
American Bob
Orr shifting
to DPI -- he
is known to
what to use
Ban's mobility
or rotation
exercise to
move up from
ASG
to USG -- but
now it seems
the plan is to
try to upgrade
his public
private
partnership
post, which
was at the D-2
level under
Amir
Dossal, to
USG.
Inner
City Press
is told that
even if "extra
budgetary
resources" are
used,
this upgrade
will still
have to go
through the
Advisory
Committee on
Administrative
and Budgetary
Questions
(ACABQ), and
that there
could
be resistance.
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