Exclusive: UN Guterres To Hand Management to Pollard High Flyer to Morocco As Shrugs at Censorship

By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive

UNITED NATIONS GATE, June 8 – How corrupt is the UN under Secretary General Antonio Guterres? 

Inner City Press, banned from entry to the UN now 340 days by Guterres, is exclusively informed that the UN Department of Management top job is set to be given to Catherine Pollard, who lost harassment case after harassment case as head of the UN Office of Human Resources Management (OHRM). 

Then as head of the Department of General Assembly and Conference Management, Pollard arrogantly flew business class to a corrupt South South meeting in Argentina while forcing her staff to fly standard. She took a long say in Morocco at the expensive La Mamounia spa in Marakesha at well over UN DSA rates; she justified it as "accompanying" Morocco's ambassador and censor Omar Hilale, whose mission's bad faith complaint against Inner City Press' reporting was used by Guterres' Alison Smale to justify its ban. 

As Inner City Press was roughed up and push out of the UN, Pollard shrugged. Now she is set to be rewarded, in an increasingly corrupt UN. We'll have more on this.  

   With the UN Office of South South Cooperation so recently exposed as a bribery vehicle in the Ng Lap Seng - President of the UN General Assembly John Ashe corruption prosecution, the vacuous media coverage to date of the upcoming OSSC conference in Argentina has been particularly revealing of the flabby propaganda in which today's UN drapes itself. But now this: Argentina is in a financial crisis and so some months ago informed UN Under Secretary General Catherine Pollard that it would not be able to meet its obligation to pay to fly the UN interpreters to the conference in business class.

  USG Pollard assured Argentina that should could get "her" interpreters to waive their UN right to business class on a trip of this length. But Pollard is not as persuasive as she thought. There was push back, and a secondary crisis loomed.

  Lo and behold, a classic UN solution. Pollard said she could get interpreters to "volunteer" to fly economy - by threatening those who refused with retribution. This Guterres gambit appears to have worked; Pollard brags that enough have volunteers, some cajoled with the promise of a compensated day of rest that all member states, rather than conference host Argentina, will pay for.

  But Catherine Polland, of course, will not herself deign to fly economy. No, she will fly business class as always - as corrupt as the boss of today's UN, the censor, Antonio Guterres, whose spokesman Stephane Dujarric refuses to answer any Press questions on these topics. A fish rots, and continues to rot more and more, from the head. Watch this site.

Background: the Office of South South Cooperation can’t seem to escape the legacy of the John Ashe scandal. When he took the helm in the aftermath, Jorge Chediek promised to completely reform the Office by ordering what ultimately proved to be an unsuccessful audit, catapulting the Office into even more pervasive corruption. Instead of working on agency mandated development work, Mr. Chediek plays tin pot dictator, his staff tell Inner City Press, having formed a sizeable patronage network, which he uses to advance his personal agenda. As a result, an environment of mediocrity and abuse of power prevails in the Office. Over the past year, Mr. Chediek has engaged the services of friends from Latin America, in seeming violation of UNDP regulations.   Since 2017  Chediek has been engaging the services of Bernardo Kliksberg, an Argentinian economist, who according to the Office website is listed as Strategic Advisor for South South Cooperation occasionally writing short news articles for the Office’s website to which Mr. Chediek attaches his name. (In the span of 14 months, Mr. Kliksberg has written 8 articles). This is a seemingly wasteful engagement in line with the general waste of UN resources, as there is already a strategic communications advisor in addition to other senior advisors on Mr. Chediek’s payroll. While rank and file candidates must follow a rigorous UN recruitment process, friends of Mr. Chediek get to jump the line for positions, thanks to his utter disregard for UNDP policy.      According to a Facebook post from April 2018 an MoU was signed between the Office for South South Cooperation and the University of Buenos Aires to establish a chairship of a South South programme at theUniversity, which also happens to be Mr. Chediek’s alma mater. Both Mr. Chediek and Mr. Kliksberg now serve as co-chairs of this programme in the University where Mr. Kliksberg has close ties, having served as chair of several other academic programmes. The chairship, against thecontext of Mr. Chediek already having engaged the professional services of Mr. Kliksberg, is a blatant conflict of interest in violation of UN Staff Rule 1.2 which governs the conditions for outside employment, regardless of whether there is remuneration for the particular engagement. Moreover, appointments like this one violate the UN terms on retention of service, particularly section 3, which outlines the conditions for the contracting of services.      And while Mr. Chediek uses UNDP resources for the services of prolific economists to elevate his stature, the Government of Argentina, recently bailed out by the IMF, plans to drop a few million on an Office of South South Cooperation conference, BAPA+40 this March. Macri’s government may have to answer to the scores of angry Argentinians already fed up with harsh austerity measures as to why it is prioritizing the funding of a conference by a historically corrupt UN office. Mr. Chediek has been using the preparation for this conference to justify the continued retention of his close friends. BAPA+40, which aims to bring international actors together to solve development issues, in reality, is simply a front for Mr. Chediek’s personal ambitions.... 

At UN, Ameerah Haq to Leave, Holl Lute & Pollard in Hunt, Sources tell ICP, Ladsous Redux

By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive

UNITED NATIONS, April 14 -- The head of the UN Department of Field Service Ameerah Haq will leave this Peacekeeping job in October, Inner City Press is exclusively informed by well-placed sources.

  Among the candidates to take over the position, ostensibly co-equal with Herve Ladsous, the fourth Frenchman in a row atop the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, include American Jane Holl Lute and the current head of the UN Office of Human Resources Management, Catherine Pollard.

  Given that the top contributors of peacekeeping troops to the UN are from South Asia -- India, Pakistan, Nepal and Ameerah Haq's native Bangladesh -- it would look strange to have DFS headed by an American while DPKO remains owned by France. Several UN sources muses this would be a perfect time for Ladsous to leave. "Better him than Haq," as one source put it.

  But the alternate theory has Secretary General Ban Ki-moon throwing geographical and ideological balance to the wind in UN Peacekeeping. In this theory, the US would have to give up the Department of Safety & Security -- "he's only an Acting USG," the proponent pointed out -- so as to not have too too many American Under Secretaries General. 

  The shame would be, Kevin Kennedy is one of the better and more accessible USGs, by contrast to Ladsous whorefuses Press questions about rapes and UN Peacekeeping from the Congo to Mali, and about the Hutu FDLR, click here for last week's video.

  It was back in October 2013 that Inner City Press reported that Ladsous was trying to get Haq out, to assert more control. On October 7, 2013 Inner City Press reported, "While an earlier Ban Ki-moon reform involved splitting Peacekeeping into two separate components, DPKO and DFS, now Ladsous wants to dominate both of them, by pushing Haq out of DFS and installing a person of his own choosing. More on that in a future story." This, is that story. And there will be more. Watch this site.

   

As UN Tries to Pick Sell-Outs for Unions of Staff & Scribes, FUNCA Opposes

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, January 23 -- While the UN stillpreaches democracy and even lack of censorship around the world, in two elections held last month inside the UN, disputes and decay were the rule.

  In the UN Staff Union election, in which an incumbent sought to stay on despite term limits, there were charges of illegal polling, and an attempt to stop paying the Elections Services Company.

  Now, that former incumbent has tried to block future UN Staff Union meetings, about Ban Ki-moon's abolition of jobs, saying that only an email account she controls can call them:

Date: January 22, 2014 at 1:43:31 PM EST
To: undisclosed-recipients:;
Subject: Clarification

The United Nations Staff Union calls for official General and Emergency General meetings using this e-mail address since it makes it clear for supervisors that participating staff members should be granted official time release for the duration of the meeting.

Meetings called using other e-mail addresses, including from individual staff members, are not official Union meetings and do not occur under the auspices of the United Nations Staff Union.

  This situation in New York serves the Ban administration, even as Catherine Pollard meets with its staff in Geneva. In New York  back on December 20, Inner City Press asked the UN's acting deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq:

Inner City Press: On the staff union election that just took place, given that it’s budget crunch time, according to the Secretariat, who is its interlocutor? Who is the head of the staff union, the previous incumbent or the team that was announced as the winner on iSeek?

Acting Deputy Spokesperson Haq: Regarding the staff representatives, it’s ultimately up to them members of the staff to determine who their leadership is. It would not, you know, I don’t think it’s appropriate for this Office to intervene in their affairs.

Inner City Press: So, who do you speak to now? If you had to talk to the staff union, which of the two would you call?

Acting Deputy Spokesperson Haq: They will have, like I said, they’ll have to resolve it. I’m not going to say anything prejudicial to their process, nor do I think that they would appreciate that.

  On December 17 Inner City Press published the results,putting the document online here:

Winner with 430 votes: Ticket 1 [They have thanked voters]

President Stephen Kisambira (DESA/PD)

First Vice-President Emad Hassanin (DGACM/MPD/PS)

Second Vice-President Leonid Dolgopolov (DSS/DSSS/SSS)

2d place with 231 votes: Ticket 2

President Nadir A. Dirar Bashir (DGACM/MPD/PS/DTPU)...

  We will continue to cover that showdown, which is at least competitive. Even more decayed is the UN's Censorship Alliance, which while not even asking the UN to hold a briefing or answer questions about the crisis in South Sudan,re-emerged on December 22 through once and future president Pamela Falk of CBS hyping fashion photographs of herself with Ban Ki-moon.

   Ban's UN hands the first question and more to UNCA, which does not challenge Ban.  Technically they're called the United Nations Correspondents Association, and in 2012 its leaders tried to get the investigative Press thrown out of the UN, pointing at a factual article Inner City Press published about Sri Lanka, the UN and conflicts of interest.

  Ban's Secretariat now admits on Sri Lanka a "systemic failure" - his Deputy Jan Eliasson repeatedly says that -- but UNCA, which still has no rules against trying to throw journalists out of the UN, nor apparently any conflict of interest rules, makes no admission, no reforms.

  It demands the first question at press conferences even if it has nothing to ask, or the answers will never be published.

  Not surprisingly it is in decay. ng a 2009 trip to Sri Lanka with Ban Ki-moon and UK humanitarian chief Sir John Holmes not only didn't report Holmes on the record comment that he deleted all complaining emails from Tamils -- she said the Press reporting this "ruined" relations with Holmes for her and, for example, Reuters. Though over 2000 journalists are accredited at the UN, in December 2013 only 111 even tried to vote in the three days of polling -- and door to door demands to vote for -- the United Nations Correspondents Association. Seven of these ballots failed. The incumbent Pamela Falk of CBS, running unopposed, still managed to not get 26 of the 104 votes cast.

  But as a result of UNCA's "Ball" with Ban, she got herfashion photo in the NYT Styles section and made sure to hype it up, online and in the briefing room before being handed, only to waste, the first of four questions on the South Sudan crisis on December 23.

  Falk's vote total of 78 was lower than the 85 obtained in December 2011 by her predecessor, who was the one who first demanded that Inner City Press remove an article about Sri Lanka from the Internet, click here for that.

 The article UNCA "leaders" tries to censor reported on the previous financial relationship of Sri Lanka's Permanent Representative with UNCA's then president, in the context of this president screening in the UN the Sri Lankan government's war crimes denial film, without asking or the consent of Inner City Press then on the Executive Committee of UNCA.

  No reforms in UNCA were ever instituted after this.

 Inner City Press after withstanding a kangaroo court UNCA proceeding quit the organization and co-founded the newFree UN Coalition for Access, @FUNCA_info, to actually defend the right of free press and free inquiry in and about the UN system.

    In 2012 UNCA "leaders" tried to get the investigative Press thrown out of the UN, as documented by documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. Voice of America asked the UN to "review" Inner City Press' accreditation; VOA said it had the support of Agence France Presse and Reuters, click here for that.

The Reuters first vice president of UNCA spied for the UN, giving them an internal anti Press UNCA document three minutes after promising not to (story here, document here,audio here). 

 While he has stepped off, the Reuters reporter he supervised (and who also tried to get the investigative Press thrown out of the UN) campaigned to get on UNCA's board, demanded on camera in a UN noon briefing to all present, "Have you voted?" It's as if Reuters has a Permanent seat on UNCA's 15-member Executive Committee, like the P5 in the Security Council.

Here are the December 2013 results, compared to votes in December 2011 for the "candidate" or their predecessor

Dec '13 Dec '11

Prez: * 78 [85] Pamela Falk, CBS News TV and Radio

1st VP * 74 [79] Kahraman Haliscelik, TRT Turkish Radio & TV

2d VP * 48 71 Masood Haider, Dawn, Pakistan

* 48 [71] Sylviane Zehil, L’Orient Le Jour

3d VP * 55 [62] Erol Avdovic, Webpublicapress

38 Ali Barada, An-Nahar/France 24

Trez * 81 [71] Bouchra Benyoussef, Maghreb Arab Press

Sect * 79 [81] Seana Magee, Kyodo News

Members at Large:

* 57 1. Nabil Abi Saab , Alhurra TV

* 57 2. Talal Al-Haj ,Al-Arabiya News channel

22 3. George Baumgarten , Jewish Newspapers, Nation Media

* 50 4. Sherwin Bryce-Pease, South African Broadcasting (SABC)

* 51 5. Zhenqiu Gu, Xinhua News Agency

* 69 6. Melissa Kent, CBC/Radio Canada

* 56 7. Evelyn Leopold, Huffington Post Contributor

49 8. J. Tuyet Nguyen, German Press Agency DPA

* 67 9. Michelle Nichols, Reuters

41 10. Edwin Nwanchukwu, News Agency of Nigeria

27 11. Cia Pak, Scannews

*54 12. Valeria Robecco, ANSA

* 54 13. Sangwon Yoon , Bloomberg

  Some of the elected are new and their positions on UNCA Executive Committee members trying to get other (investigative) media thrown out of the UN, and the need to preclude this and UNCA leaders' anonymous social media trolling, are not yet known. (Some not elected were among the better / more diverse candidates.)

When the UN Correspondents Association leaders tried stealthy to get the investigative Press thrown out of the UN, and have failed to institute any reform since, it became the UN's Censorship Alliance. Party on. Watch this site.

   

UNOPS Buries Somalia Probe as Taranco & Pollard Vye to Head It, Ban Ki-moon Son in Law Chatterjee Censorship Tales

By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive

UNITED NATIONS, January 2 -- As 2014 begins, the UN is among other things a shadowy system in which investigations are buried, answers aren't given, and proxies defend.

Take the UN Office of Project Services, on which Inner City Press has previously reported, back to 2009.

   In the middle of 2013 when Inner City Press first reported a scandal in Somalia in which the head there of the UN Mine Action Services was accused of sharing genetic information from bombings with US intelligence, Inner City Press was told that the UN would say nothing under UNOPS finished its investigation.

Six months later on the last day of 2013, Inner City Press asked if the UNOPS investigation -- or is it another cover up? -- was finished yet:

Inner City Press: I just wanted to be sure I ask again about this David Bax in Somalia. There was a UNOPS [United Nations Office for Project Services] investigation, it was about the middle of the year that it was said that it had begun. I wanted to know, you know, if it’s finished or when the idea for finishing it is?

Spokesperson Martin Nesirky: With regard to the investigation you were referring to out of Mogadishu, I don’t believe we have any update on that at this point. Okay.

Well, not okay. First, Inner City Press repeated put this question to the UN Spokesperson in writing, without response. When asked in-person when noon briefing began again, there is without explanation no completion of an investigation UNOPS began six months earlier.

Meanwhile at New Years UNOPS was tweeting self-promotion, but did not respond to the question: where IS the Bax investigation? UNsocial media.

  And so Inner City Press now exclusively reports, from its sources in the system, that among those vying to head this UNOPS going forward are Oscar Fernandez Taranco, who declined move-outs from the Department of Political Affairs in New York to assignments in Haiti and elsewhere, and the head of the UN Office of Human Rights Management Catherine Pollard.

  Leaving UNOPS as we're previously reported is Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's soon in law Siddarth Chatterjee, headed for another promotion as head of UNFPA in Kenya. The UN has at each turn resisted answering questions about these promotions, as even a Chatterjee defender recently (Dec 23) acknowledged. But he while he cited UN stonewalling, he did not mention censorship.

When Inner City Press first reported on this, and it was picked up by media from Chatterjee's native India, that media was contacted and told to take the story down, and to ask Inner City Press to do so. Why? 

  Now a media very close to the UN has filed a bad faith Digital Millennium Copyright Act complaint to get Google to block access to his own leaked email to the UN trying to get Inner City Press thrown out. And so it goes in this UN.

   

In Dysfunctional Elections, UN Is Asked to Remove Polling Station, And By Scribes For TV from Samsung, Despite Environmental Disease Protests

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, December 10 -- With the two elections scheduled this week in the UN, the one in the UN Staff Union features a request to the UN to shut down the polling stations, while the other in the UN Correspondents Association features a request for a Samsung television and little competition -- none for the top two spots. 

  The day before the Union election, those who as Inner City Press reported while publishing the announcement purported to "recall the polling officers" asked the UN to remove the polling stations from the UN lobby:

Dear ASG Pollard,

In addition to my previous communication, may I kindly request that all "polling stations" being currently installed be taken out. The Polling Officers have been legally and officially recalled, so there will be no election.

  But this is contested, with the requester being asked:

How can you convene a meeting of newly appointed unit chairs when in accordance with our Statutes and Regulations 6.14.9 "Each electoral Unit shall elect a Chairperson and such other officers as it may deem necessary whose term in office shall coincide with members of the Council." ( The 44th Council's term ended in June). Where did these new additional Unit Chairs conveniently materialize from? Furthermore, the Polling Officers are operationally independent and neither the Unit Chairs or the Council have the right to interfere with the election process. I can only say you have been ill advised in proceeding in this manner. Finally, you never disclosed who advised you on the rules or explained what rules the Polling Officers have violated that initiated your illegal recall procedure. Your actions in this regard are just causing more confusion amongst staff.

  This back and forth has echoes of the election in Cote d'Ivoire that led to military intervention. By contrast, no Permanent Five members of the Security Council has enough of an interest here for even a public relations intervention, thus far.

   The other "election" -- though four of the six top posts are clean slates with no competition --  is of the UN Correspondents Association, whose more than a dozenboard members participated in efforts to get the investigative Press thrown out of the UN. 

  Nothing has been reformed since; tactics in 2013 devolved into anonymous social media trolling and counterfeit Twitter accounts of the new Free UN Coalition for Access and of Inner City Press.

   An argument is made that the 2013 president of UNCA, Pamela Falk of CBS, is somehow not responsible for this, for trolling done under her watch, and for heading an organization which functions as the UN's Censorship Alliance. This is contrary to the very "command responsibility" principles the two top candidates awaiting coronation have espoused. 

  The decision to accept "through" the UN a Samsung television is defended by referring to some vibrant debate, although there is no record of a vote being taken or even who was present for the debate. 

  At the December 9 noon briefing Inner City Press asked:

Inner City Press: is there a comprehensive place to go to see what donations the UN receives from corporations? In particular, I’m asking about what I understand to be a donation of television screens or sets from Samsung and I wanted to know, what are the rule applicable to these donations? Is the UN aware, for example, of pretty serious organizing drive in South Korea about occupational diseases at Samsung? What are the rules applicable and is there a database of such contributions?

Spokesperson: I’ll check, Matthew. Thanks very much. Have a good afternoon.

  But nine hours later, there was still no answer.Unaccountability is increasingly pervasive throughout the UN, in ways as small as this and large, for example on the scandal of UN Peacekeeping having brought cholera to Haiti and now refusing to even accept (or confirm denying) service of legal papers.

  At least in the UN Staff Union, when it was claimed last week that a vote was taken to recall the poll officers, a request was made for the names of who voted which way. 

  In the UN's Censorship Alliance,  as documented by ongoing Freedom of Information Act requests including to Voice of America, "UNCA" reached out to the UN to seek the expulsion of Inner City Press without any vote even having been taken.

  There have been no reforms since -- but again, a re-coronation of Pamela Falk of CBS as the 2014 president of UNCA,now known as the UN Censorship Alliance, is set for next week. 

  A midnight defense has been mounted, that Falk has not "done anything" to anyone. But in 2013, she was asked to reign in those UNCA "leaders" who used the organization to try to get the investigative Press thrown out of the UN, as they descended into anonymous trolling social media accounts, counterfeiting the new Free UN Coalition for Access and then Inner City Press.

  Falk's reaction in an on the record meeting was to demand that she not be written about, despite having sought this position, and putting herself forward at every opportunity to ask softball questions the answers to which are most often not published anywhere. Audio here, here and here.

  That United Nations Correspondents Association election also involves indicters and purported judges, and the Reuters successor to the scribe who spied (click here for that). That spying for the UN was done by UNCA first vice president and has not been addressed or acted on in any way. Such an organization is in no position to preach on ethics, journalistic or any other kind.

  This UN Censorship Alliance has just accepted a free Samsung TV, hiding behind the UN's own argument that this is fine. Here's Falk's explanation of UNCA's November 25 "General Meeting" with nowhere near quorum, as provided by an outraged member (Inner City Press quit UNCA and co-founded the Free UN Coalition for Access, yes, FUNCA):

"There was discussion about whether or not UNCA should receive a donation from Samsung and whether or not a Mission was involved. DPI was able to clarify the donation information, which does not involve a mission. This note was received: This is to confirm that once we get the donations from Samsung to the UN, DPI will loan a TV screen to UNCA to replace one of your old ones."

   Now it's said a vibrant debate took place. But only a handful of names are listed as attending, and no vote was taken because there was no quorum for a general meeting.  

Now this UNCA is poised to raise money, $250 a plate, for an event Ban Ki-moon is set to attend, after fielding softball questions two days earlier from his hosts (or censors). Can you say, conflict of interest? And this is another way that senior UN officials remain unaccountable. Watch this site.

   

After Staff No Confidence in Ban, Graisse Can't Get a Meeting, Gettu in Wings

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, April 4 -- Fifty days after the UN Staff Union voted “no confidence” in Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Ban's outgoing chief of the Department of General Assembly and Conference Management Jean-Jacques Graisse can't even get a meeting with his staff.

  On March 28, Graisse wrote to Staff Union leaders as well as Ban officials Susana Malcorra, Catherine Pollard and Franz Baumann, asking for an “emergency” meeting on April 3. He said it concerned the “force majeure” event of Hurricane Sandy, which allowed the UN to move on plans to kill off publishing jobs.

  On April 2, Graisse's office asked, “May we propose to meet for an emergency DGACM staff-management consultation on Friday, 5th April, from 10 to 12 in the morning, in room S-1517, to discuss the current temporary situation resulting from the impact of storm Sandy with regards to the Publishing Section staff? Our invitation to President of the Staff Union to participate in the meeting if she finds it acceptable and useful remains open.”

After some back and forth, he was told that some in the Union, due to the no confidence vote of January 24, would decline to meet with him. And this turned out to be true:

As stated previously we intend to abide by the vote of no confidence taken by the EGM of the staff. It will be up to the staff to mandate us to meet with the management.

Just to remind all of our fellow DGACM we initiated a dialogue with Mr. Graisse when he first came subsequent to that meeting and the subsequent meeting that included Mr. Baumann, we went back and forth on the issue of the meeting record being falsified and our position being misrepresented. Despite repeated attempts to have this corrected by them and their refusal, this matter is now before MEU. The illegal actions by Mr. Baumann to restructure the Publishing Section without mandate and the pretext of a vague plan in an Annex of a budget proposal was the subject of tribunal orders of Suspension of Action and Interim Relief. To remind you, the Tribunal in Order No. 77 (NY/2013) of 27 March 2013 "order[ed] the Respondent to suspend the implementation of the decision to conduct a recruitment exercise via Inspira, or by any other means whatsoever, for 19 new posts in the Publishing Section, DGACM, for a period of 60 days from the date of this Order or pending a final determination of the substantive merits of the application, if sooner, or until such further Order as may be deemed appropriate by the Tribunal".

It is our position that DGACM has continually acted without regard to any mandates, rules, or staff rights. Let us not waste anymore time meeting with a management in which the staff has no confidence and continue to show bad faith to us. In calling for the meeting, Mr. Graisse stated that "[t]he urgency is dictated by the fact that a number of PS staff currently have no meaningful work assignments - a situation unacceptable to them as well to the management and Member States." This is not a cause for staff-management consultation, but an indictment of the incompetency and failure of the management of DGACM.

The DGACM management must show that it is sincere in establishing proper relations or willing to mend their ways and work to rebuilding trust and the confidence of the staff. Regrettably, I don't see this happening with the DGACM management of Mr. Graisse, Mr. Baumann, Mr. Olafsson, Ms. Chiulli, Mr. Nanadoe and Mr. Shpiniov.

And there you have it. But will it be different with Graisse replaced by Gettu? There's talk of businesses in Addis. Meanwhile Ban himself has been in San Marina, Andorra and Monaco. 

  Ban USG for Peacekeeping Herve Ladsous openly refuses to answer Press questions about spreading cholera and rapes by the UN's partners. 

 Ban's Department of Public Information raided the Press' office, while the president of the UN's Censorship Alliance Pam Falk of CBS took photos. Now DPI won't even give the names of those allowed by it to enter. So it goes at the UN. Watch this site.

Exclusive: After Hurricane Sandy, UN Staff Left With Wet Rotting Paper, Dust Masks, No Haz-Mat Suits, They Say

By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive

UNITED NATIONS, March 14 -- In the aftermath of Super Storm Sandy, UN staff were left “co-located” with wet and rotting paper, then made to work with dust masks while outside clean up crew members had full hazardous material gear.

  This, Inner City Press was told in real-time just after the storm. But it was finally raised to Secretary General Ban Ki-moon chief of staff Susana Malcorra, who passed the issues for response to the chief of Management, Yukio Takasu.

  Earlier today, Takasu gave the UN Secretariat's spin. Inner City Press has exclusively obtained and now published it:

From: USG Yukio Takasu
To: Barbara Tavora-Jainchill [Staff Union]
Cc: Catherine Pollard [OHRC], Jean-Jacques Graisse [DGACM], Kevin Kennedy [DSS], Dmitri Dovgopoly, Susana Malcorra [CdC]/NY/UNO@UNHQ
Date: 14/03/2013
Subject: Re: UN Staff working in potentially hazardous parts of the compound post Sandy

Dear Barbara,

1. Reference is made to the letter dated 20 February 2013 from the Chair of the United Nations Staff Relief Committee for the victims of hurricane Sandy in the City of New York and the Tri-state communities to you, which you shared with us by email on 21 February 2013.

2. I am pleased to provide the following clarifications to concerns raised in the letter:

3. The letter states that:

a. UN staff indicate that they were asked to perform cleanup and maintenance duties without proper protective gear and/or health and safety guidance, although black water and increasing mold spores were evident.”

Comments: On 2 and 16 November 2012, advice was communicated to departmental Executive Officers by the Director of Facilities and Commercial Services Division (FCSD), in conjunction with Medical Services Division (MSD), informing them of planning for temporary relocation of staff and clean-up activities, and providing instructions on the means of protection required for staff who needed to enter into any flood-affected area. This included use of eye protection, gloves and N95 masks as advised by MSD. This advice was further communicated by supervisors of the various departments to their respective staff.

b. Some staff also noticed that contractors, performing similar duties alongside staff, were wearing full protective hazmat gear and equipment.

Comments: As per normal practice, contractors from the professional cleaning company initially wore full protection gear; within a few days, however, it was clear that this was not required and they no longer wore this gear. It is emphasised that the level of protection recommended for our staff, i.e. N95 masks and gloves, was adequate for the risk.

c. One FMS supervisor finally held a first information meeting on 19 November. It was at that time that those staff were given one disposable face mask.

Comments: As noted above, the Director of FCSD communicated with departmental Executive Officers as early as 2 November 2012, which was repeated on 16 November 2012. This information was further communicated to their staff by DSS, DGACM, DPI and DM supervisors. .

d. Furthermore, it has been pointed out that wet and mold-laden paper and other material made hazardous by the storm had been co-located with staff. This persisted for several months until its recent removal.

Comments: One of the main concerns during the cleanup was disposal of damaged material. Early disposal of wet items was essential. While some of these items had to be retained pending validation for insurance purposes, specific areas were identified for storing these items so that drying was maximised, and the impact on clean areas and exposure of staff was limited.

e. Some staff continue to work in areas with moldy vents/shafts that have not been assessed or cleaned since Sandy.

Comments: The 3B area has been independently assessed as having clean air with spore counts well below limits required by local host country law, as communicated to departmental focal points on 21 December 2012 and confirmed again as recently as 27 February 2013. We have no knowledge of moldy vents or shafts, and if the Staff Union has evidence of specific locations where this might be the case we would appreciate FMS being informed.

f. While many staff members of FMS visited the Medical Service immediately after the storm, other have also visited private doctors because they are already experiencing some health problems. Because of the potential for future problems, it is important to ensure that information regarding UN staff tasked with working in affected areas be properly documented. We have learned from other environmental disasters (nature or man-made), which resulted in the release of environmental toxins, adverse health effects may not manifest for months and sometimes years.

Comments: A total of fourteen (14) staff members approached the Medical Service in the aftermath of Sandy to seek advice. One FMS staff was provided restriction not to work in 3B. MSD has also confirmed that if staff entered the 3B areas, without the benefit of the protective equipment (gloves and masks), it does not automatically mean that they will have a problem. Most bacteria, molds and chemicals cause immediate problems, not problems that occur months or years later. Notwithstanding the above, MSD will be sending individual emails to those staff who are known to have been in the 3B area either for clean up or to retrieve their personal items, providing them this information and inviting them to visit the Medical Service should they have any concerns. A separate communication will also be posted on iseek for the general information of all staff.

5. Please rest assured that the safety of our staff is of primary importance to us, and we will continue to take the necessary steps to ensure that this is not compromised.

Yukio Takasu

   Is this acceptable? Ban has asked to meet with Staff Union officials next week. Some are refusing to go. Those who do, will they seek public retraction of the claim that New York UN staff are selfish? Will they address and rebut the above? Watch this site.