At UN, Of Global Fund & Blazy, Jim Kim, Malaria & Myanmar, Ban On the Run?

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, April 23 -- At malaria day at the UN on Monday, questions of gaps emerged and were largely dodged. Inner City Press asked Jeffrey Sachs about the resistant strains of malaria, starting along the Myanmar - Thailand border. He replied that resistant is a misnomer, it's a product of mono therapy.

  Ray Chambers promoted a company in Geneva which he says may solve this problem. But until it does? Inner City Press asked Chambers about the Global Fund scandal, and when it will be back up and running. By the beginning of next year, Chambers said. And until then?

  Gabriel Jaramillo, former Banco Santander and Sovereign Bank executive, was supposed to be at the press conference but wasn't. So Inner City Press went to a chicken lunch in the re-opened replacement Delegates' Dining Room. There, Jaramillo said he would keep his answer short, "because my chicken will get cold."

  Chambers, another finance titan, spoke up incoming World Bank chief Jim Yong Kim and even praised Philippe Douste Blazy and UNITAID, whose project to raise money with airplane tickets not only failed but was exposed as corrupt. Click here for Inner City Press' first exclusive story. So much for accountability.

  A representative of Medecins Sans Frontieres in the audience spoke up about a major increase of malaria in the Democratic Republic of Congo. (Inner City Press asked where and was promised a press release tomorrow). Note that the UN has stonewalled on its waste of funds in Walikale in Eastern DRC in the "Meece's Mills" scandal exposed by Inner City Press, here.

  The representative of the Gates Foundation, contrary it seemed to Jeff Sachs' downplaying of the resistant strains in Myanmar and Thailand, said these are a problem.

  Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, it was announced, would speak to the press about Myanmar at 5:30 pm. Then a 5:45 photo op with the Azeri Ambassador was added. Fifteen minutes for presentation and questions? Resistant, indeed. Watch this site.

As Kim Tapped for World Bank, Tales of Ocampo, Rice & Sachs, Ban Switch

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, March 23 -- Two weeks ago at the UN there were two reported candidates to head the World Bank: Jeffrey Sachs and US Ambassador Susan Rice.

Now there are none, what with the Obama administration nominating Jim Yong Kim. There is only as one of two competitors to Kim among with Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala a former UN official, Jose Antonio Ocampo, who left the UN five years ago amid charges he's turned a blind eye to corruption by Guido Bertucci, who he supervised. Such lack of accountability has continued with Ban Ki-moon.

Back in 2009, two of Ban's closest advisers told Inner City Press they were worried that a potential triple switch could cost Ban a second term at the UN. China would take over the World Bank from the US in 2012, the theory went, and because Asia could not control both the UN and World Bank, Ban would have to go, perhaps back to South Korea as a politician.

The Europeans would give up the IMF -- this was before the final DSK scandal -- in order to take over the UN, under this theory.

Nearly all mainstream media reports of today's Obama nomination note the Kim was born in Korea. So much for Ban's advisers fears. At the UN on Friday, several diplomats complained (despite Kim being an American) that "South Korea is getting too much, the UN and the World Bank." Sort of.

One anti-American diplomat ascribe Seoul's double play to it being "a US lackey." But the Wall Street Journal and others touted Sakong Il as a possible replacement for DSK.

Two weeks ago Inner City Press asked Susan Rice if she was World Bank bound. "C'mon," she replied, "I have a great job."

Sachs on the other hand refused to answer if he should be viewed as an "inside the UN" candidate, and declined to answer questions about Senegal and Malawi. (One wonders what he'd say of this week's coup d'etat in Mali).

Both Rice and Sachs tweeted congratulations to Kim, with Sachs essentially standing down. Perhaps he'll say he only ran to block Larry Summers. Perhaps in the triple switch theory above, Summers would have gotten the IMF, to play DSK there. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.

As Jose Antonio Ocampo left the UN in December 2006 -- in fact at the reception of Ban Ki-moon, who replaced Ocampo with Sha Zukang on China -- Inner City Press asked Ocampo about the Bertucci scandal, and "is he staying?"

"How can I say?" Ocampo said, in Spanish.

"Who makes the decision?"

"You're right that I do. But so far I haven't seen any serious accusations," Ocampo said.

After mentioning some, Inner City Press asked Ocampo to comment on rumors that the Chinese want DESA. "There are many rumors about posts," Ocampo answered.

Now he's running for the World Bank. But here's a summary of l'affaire Bertucci:

Inner City Press in 2007 asked Sha Zukang, Ocampo's replacement whose now himself slated to leave in June, for an update on the Office of Internal Oversight Services investigations of DESA: Guido Bertucci, the Thessaloniki Center for "Public Service Professionalism," and consultants' contracts. Sha Zukang pulled out a piece of paper and read out from it. "My colleague provided this, anticipating some questions from you," he said. "Don't ask further questions, I don't know the details."

In sum, OIOS released its audit of the Thessaloniki Center on August 2, 2007. While Sha Zukang said that DESA has fully implemented Recommendations 3 and 4, and part of the first recommendation, it is significant to consider the one still unacted upon:

"The Department should establish accountability for the inefficient use of consultants, including the irregular sign-off of a consultant's contract indicating that deliverables had been provided when no such deliverables had actually been received."

This is as good a definition of corruption as any. But where was the accountability? Perhaps now. Watch this site.