UN Faces US Cut of 40%, Total Cut For Rights Violators As UN's Depart of Public Information Denied Press Any Due Process or Appeal

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, January 25 – As the UN remains unreformed after Ban Ki-moon's ten years ended with corruption, long asked about by the Press, exposed, budget cuts are coming.

 In Washington executive orders are being prepared to cut up to 40% of the US' contributions to the UN, and to fully cut funding to entities blamed for violation of human rights.

  One obvious question is whether the total denial of due process for whistleblowers - already part of US law - and investigative press which covers UN corruption constitutes such a violation.

  For example, the UN Department of Public Information under Cristina Gallach in early 2016 threw Inner City Press out of the UN, dumping its investigative files onto First Avenue, without a single hearing or opportunity to be heard, and no appeal since. 

All this for seeking to cover an event in the UN Press Briefing Room which was nowhere listed as closed, and leaving as soon as a single UN Security officer said the Spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, wanted Inner City Press out.

Gallach had a conflict of interest, having been asked by Inner City Press about her own links with Macau-based businessman Ng Lap Seng, facing trial (like Ban Ki-moon's nephew and brother) on bribery charges.

There are no rules, only the one-person fiat rule of an official dumped on Ban's UN by Spain, where she had previously managed, at most, seven people as spokesperson to Javier Solana. Nothing has been done; eleven months later Gallach still requires Inner City Press to have "minders" to cover the UN Security Council. 

  The cuts, and a new US Ambassador, are coming. Six days after a confirmation hearing in which she called for accountability at the UN, including for peacekeepers' abuses, Nikki Haley on January 24 was confirmed to replace Samantha Power as US Ambassador to the UN.

  This came after at least two business days of no photos replacing those of President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden at the US Mission to the UN. 

  On January 24, Inner City Press asked former UN official, now Swedish foreign minister Margot Wallstrom about Haley's call to defund countries whose peacekeepers abuse. Tweeted video here. There are reforms needed at the UN.

  Back on January 18 before Haley spoke as nominee for US Ambassador to the UN, Senator Bob Corker said he sometimes wondered if just-left Secretary General Ban Ki-moon had a pulse.

  In fact, Ban was quite active in helping his own relatives at the UN, promoting his son in law to the top UN job in Kenya, his brother mining in Myanmar with a "UN delegation," indicted nephew using Ban's name to sell real estate.

  When Haley began, she said the UN has a "checkered history." That's being diplomatic. Consider a head of Peacekeeping who has linked rapes to R&R, video here.

  Consider a head of the UN "Department of Public Information" who did no due diligence over indicted UN briber Ng Lap Seng - then evicted and still restricts the Press which asked here about it. Audit here, Para 37-40, 20b; NYT here.

   In response to questions, Haley praised the UN peacekeeping mission in Sierra Leone, questioned the one in South Sudan and that country's government. She noted that countries make money off their peacekeepers. The case in point, we note, is Burundi, here.

UN Budget Cuts Lead Staff to Invite Ban Nov 27, He'll Be In Vienna (But Back?)

By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive

UNITED NATIONS, November 26 -- Budget cutting proposed by UN Security General Ban Ki-moon, including "outsourcing and off-shoring," has given rise to a staff emergency meeting scheduled to November 27, to which Ban himself has been invited.

  Inner City Press has obtained and puts online the invitation letter, here, and the flier for the meeting, here.

  Back in October, Inner City Press covered the proposed budget cuts, also exclusively.

  On November 23, Inner City Press asked Ban's three top spokesmen, "What is the Secretariat's response to the 44th Staff Council's November 14 letter to the Secretary General raising concerns about staff welfare and working conditions and inviting the SG and senior managers to attend their Emergency General Meeting on November 27?"

  A day later on November 24, Ban's Spokesperson's Office told Inner City Press:

"The Under-Secretary-General for Management has replied to the letter on behalf of the Secretary-General. The letter makes clear the Secretary-General plans a town hall meeting with staff in early January. Before that, the Chef de Cabinet plans to meet staff unions in the Secretariat on 27 November and to hold a global town hall meeting with staff on 3 December. The Secretary-General is traveling on 27 November."

We note that on November 23, Ban's office told correspondents that Ban would

"attend the inauguration ceremony of the King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz International Center for Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue. He will be back in New York on Tuesday, 27 November."

Watch this site.

Footnote: At least Ban's spokespeople provided an answer to the question. By contrast, Ban's chief of Peacekeeping Herve Ladsous openly refuses to answer Press questions. His spokesman Kieran Dwyer on November 23 purported to respond to simple DRC questions which Ban's office forwarded to him by saying "I am looking into this." 

  Sixty hours later, those questions have not been answered, including questions about threats and injury to UN staff in the DRC, occasioned by inaction by peacekeepers under Ladsous' command.

Exclusive: As UN Moves for 5% Cut, Staff Say Not Consulted on Job Loss and Offshoring, Cite US

By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive

UNITED NATIONS, October 9 -- The week before the UN's General Debate, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's chief of staff Susana Malcorra told other department heads to prepare to cut five percent of costs, and to move or outsource jobs, according to a UN Staff Union message to Malcorra obtained by Inner City Press, which is putting the message and reply online here.

   Malcorra replied to the Staff Union the next day (September 21, 2012) that yes, "we have brought together all Senior Leadership to discuss the strategic framework within which we will be working. That is the meeting you refer to in your email to Secretary-General. We had a very constructive exchange with Senior Advisors from New York and all overseas locations."

   But not apparently Staff Union Representatives, who have complained to Ban, Malcora, Kim Won-soo of Change Management, Yukio Takasu of Management and Catherine Pollard of Human Resources that "this would mean that the budget for Executive Offices in departments, the entire Department of Management, UNOG [Geneva], UNOV [Vienna], UNON [Nairobi] and administrative units in Regional Commissions will be cut by 5%."

   Other Staff Union sources describe 10% of jobs to be outsourced, and 10% to be "offshored" -- they say, perhaps self-servingly, that it is strange that the US Administration is supporting these changes that would result in a loss of jobs in the United States and, in many cases, for Americans.

   Yesterday Inner City Press reported, also exclusively, on moves to reduce jobs in the UN Publishing Section in part by not ordering supplies for the GOSS printing machines and, workers there tell Inner City Press, increasingly doing printing jobs "off the books" so that the UN appears more paperless than it is. 

  These cuts are larger, and will be the subject of an upcoming video conference -- and more reporting by Inner City Press. Watch this site.