Under Obama, UN's Lynn Pascoe May Stay, UNICEF's Ann Veneman Not, Consultant Hired

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/un1obama012009.html

UNITED NATIONS, January 20 -- As Democrat Barack Obama takes over in Washington, one of the questions at the UN in New York concerns the future of officials nominated for their UN posts by George Bush Administration. The head of UNICEF, Republican Ann Veneman, is the subject of much speculation.

She was Bush's Secretary of Agriculture, and a visible Republican before that. Ms. Veneman has avoided the press for extended periods of her tenure at UNICEF, not only during the scandal surrounding her giving the UN's North Lawn for a Madonna fundraising event that benefited, among others, the Kabbalah Center of Los Angeles, but even during a recent AIDS conference in Mexico.

Her office was nearly silent while children were killed in China by poisoned milk. She's isolated, surrounded by American advisers, a well-placed staffer says. He adds that UNICEF staff worldwide are dissatisfied with her leadership, for example in India where she sent an all-male panel to investigate and excuse alleged sexual abuse by the UNICEF country chief, who has been recycled to the UN Development Group.

Now, however, Ms. Veneman had reportedly hired a consultant to extol her good works and ubiquity, all with an eye to convincing the Obama administration that she should remain, including after her term expires.

The argument is that Obama does not want to be seen as partisan, as taking out all Republic appointees. On finance, he has brought in Republican Paul Volcker, for example.

But some compare the energetic tenure at the World Food Program of Republican Josette Sheeran with the less dynamic management of UNICEF by Ann Veneman. While Sheeran began by being defensive about her Moonie past, she proceeded to get to know WFP from top to bottom, as demonstrated at an hour-long press conference at which she took all questions. Veneman, a UNICEF source scoffs, could never do that. Another added, of Veneman, that "she never took off the American flag pin and got to know the UN system."

If someone has to go, these people say, it's clear who it should be. Obama is a proponent of effectiveness as well.

Tipping the balance against Ann Veneman, the sources say, is that incoming U.S. Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice served on the board of the US Fund for UNICEF, and was said to not be a fan of Ms. Veneman's performance. Few are. But Rice will be part of Obama's cabinet. If she allows Veneman to stay on, the commitment she stated during last week's confirmation hearings to the reform and improvement of the UN will ring hollow.

On another American, Inner City Press last week asked outgoing US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad whether to his knowledge Lynn Pascoe will stay on under Obama as the head of the UN's Department of Political Affairs. "I have no reason to believe that he won't," Khalilzad said, a comment his spokespeople later confirmed could be used on the record, unlike his answers on Somalia and UN Reform.

So Pascoe dodges the bullet, but Veneman despite her belated media push is in the line of fire? We'll see.

Footnote: At a UN Development Program reception high above Manhattan on Martin Luther King night, the talk turned from Veneman to whether the US will regain the top job at UNDP, now with Kemal Dervis leaving the agency on March 1. (Dervis also left the reception he was hosting, muttering affably about a situation at home.) Now the talk turns Nordic. In the crowd, angling and perhaps offering posts, was Jan Mattsson the Swede.

Norway's stock is up, both in contributions and its Ad-Hoc role in Gaza. But before Mark Malloch Brown and Dervis, one diplomat pointed out, Americans ran UNDP. Could they both name Veneman's replacement and get UNDP? Or might they pull, in National League and pastime baseball parlance, a crafty double-switch?

And see, www.innercitypress.com/un1obama012009.html

As UN Office of Project Services Wants New Posts, Hides Procurement Audit and Jan Mattsson's Disclosure

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/undp1unops011909.html

UNITED NATIONS, January 19 -- With the world and UN in a financial crisis, an obscure operations arm of the UN, the Office of Project Services (UNOPS) has proposed new Assistant Secretary General and Director-level posts, drawing a rebuke and adverse recommendation by the UN Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Matters. Click here for that.

But apparently that won't matter: sources say that UNOPS Executive Director Jan Mattsson wants the new posts to dole out to gain political favor, including perhaps the top position at the UN Development Program, being vacated by Kemal Dervis. The fix may be in with Ban Ki-moon as well. In preparation is a Secretary General's Bulletin which would give Mattsson even more autonomy on personnel matters. It should be noted that Mattsson has not even followed Ban's call to make basic public financial disclosure - click here for Mattsson's refusal.

Monday at the UN, Inner City Press asked UN Spokesperson Michele Montas if the Secretariat thinks it's appropriate for UNOPS to create these new high level posts, and if so why. Montas did not directly answer, saying instead that "UNDP has its own governing board... They will discuss and reach decisions." Video here, from Minute 15:03.

But Ban is at the top of the system, and said he would reform it. Instead, he has allowed and even encouraged wasteful fiefdoms. He claims he has no power, while quietly preparing a Bulletin to belatedly make that the fact.

Internal sources, beyond telling Inner City Press that "obviously, this generosity to all UNOPS directors are caused by the need for the ED and Deputy ED [Vitaly Vanshelboim] to have many D2s reporting to them so that they could justify the upgrade of themselves" is "a slap in the face to the common UNOPS staff who have borne cuts and dismissal for some time," tell of a damning audit of UNOPS performed as one of the final acts of the UN Procurement Task Force.

A source tells Inner City Press that "a copy of the report was recently given to Mattsson - as I understood, that is the only current distribution. Member states may possibly be able to request a copy - eventually. The cost of the investigation was several $100 thousand (probably between $0.5 and 1 million) which will be charged to the troubled agency."

UNOPS has already been embroiled in corruption scandals, including firing whistleblowers at its Dubai hub and soliciting and spending a slush fund in connection with its shift of jobs from New York to Copenhagen, along with irregularities in the use of Daily Sustenance Allowance. Since Mattsson refuses financial disclosure, would his Deputy Vitaly Vanshelboim be expect to disclose, if given a promotion to Assistant Secretary General?

Most recently, reports from Afghanistan indicate UNOPS involvement in a European-funded hospital that never in fact was built as described. UNOPS stonewalls the press. In fact, its web site does not include contact information for any spokesperson. The UNOPS website brags that it has apppointed its own Ethics Office to protect whistleblower from retailiation, but does not provide contact information for or even the name of the supposed Ethics Officer.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/undp1unops011909.html

In UN General Assembly, Egypt's Gaza Text Beats Ecuador's, No Vote for Cape Verde

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/gaza1verde011709.html

UNITED NATIONS, January 17 -- In the UN General Assembly on Friday night, the question asked was who cares more about the people of Palestine? At the end of two days of debate about the war in or on Gaza, there were two competing draft resolutions. GA President Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann started it, with a what he called a presidential text. This could only be passed by consensus. After close of business on Friday, it became clear if it hadn't been before that there was no consensus. And then the games began.

D'Escoto withdrew his proposal, and immediately called on the representative of Ecuador. She re-introduced d'Escoto's draft as her own, amending it to demand an unconditional withdrawal from Gaza by Israel. Egypt's Ambassador immediately protested, first saying he had held up his name plate -- or "flag," as he called it -- before "the lovely woman" from Ecuador, as he called her, to groans from many in the audience.

Then he criticized d'Escoto for not putting to the vote a compromise he had reached with the European Union, which also referred to the plight of Israeli civilians. The Permanent Observer of Palestine Riyad Mansour also spoke up for this compromise, urging the Assembly to vote on it and not Ecuador's more divisive proposal. Mansour had told the Press earlier in the day that he thought d'Escoto's draft would pass, "but I'm not saying I'm happy with it." Inner City Press video at www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdUAg0q21Qc. D'Escoto adjourned the meeting.

Out in the hallway, the Ambassador of Syria spoke to a group of diplomats by the coffee machine. Inner City Press went to the floor of Conference Room 3 to get a copy of Ecuador's just-printed amendments. Various Ambassadors approached to tell Inner City Press that this was "sad" and "another example of how broken the Assembly is." An Arab diplomat said it would be funny if it were on another topic, but not the bombing of Gaza.

A Western Ambassador, Permanent Five member of the Security Council, said that Israel might be best helped by a vote on Ecuador's draft. D'Escoto's spokesman graciously explained the jockeying about the rules, saying Inner City Press should be rewarded for working so hard, and so late. But many Ambassador stayed to nine p.m. The war in or on Gaza has gone on for more than three weeks.

It finally ended with a whimper, not a bang. Egypt called for and won a procedural vote, to put its proposal before that of Ecuador. Then Egypt's and the EU's draft was adopted, and all that was left to fight about was whose vote was mis-recorded, and who hadn't been allowed to vote. Cape Verde's representative screamed that he had, in fact, paid his dues, and anyway was were Afghanistan and Bangladesh allowed to vote? People laughed, and garbage time was entered.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/gaza1verde011709.html

UNDP Moved on 30,000 Boxes of Records Mid-Investigation, Dervis' Successor Must Answer

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/undp1boxedout011709.html

UNITED NATIONS, January 17 -- Just after the sudden departure announcement of its Administrator Kemal Dervis, the Iran-led Executive Board of the UN Development Program is slated to meet this week in New York. Dervis' tenure was steeped both in secrecy and controversy -- click here for Inner City Press' farewell to Dervis -- and these two come together in an emerging story the Board should be considering this week.

In the midst of the so-called Nemeth Committee's investigation into UNDP's dealings with the Kim Jong-il government of North Korea, UNDP quietly sought bids to move 30,000 boxes of documents out of its headquarters to private locations until at least 2011. Inner City Press has obtained a copy of UNDP's "Terms of Reference" and, beyond the prevalence of mis-spellings not usually found in such formal document, finds therein no argument about why wider UN system restrictions on document outsources are not complied with. Click here for the document.

Earlier this month, Inner City Press asked outgoing US Ambassador to the UN Zalmay Khalilzad a number of questions about unfinished reforms at the UN and UNDP. Khalilzad said that access to past audits remains a problem at UNDP, but claimed that "going forward," UNDP audits will be available on the same terms as those of the UN Secretariat. We'll see.

The US Mission also said that Ban Ki-moon would have preferred having a single unified UN Ethics Office, the one run by the now-isolated Robert Benson, covering UNDP. Why then shouldn't acceptance of this desire of the UN Secretary General be a condition for nomination to succeed Dervis? There are Scandinavian names being thrown around, a Norwegian minister and others. Associate Administer Ad Melkert is said to have disqualified himself. This will be a litmus test.

Footnote: also indicative of UNDP's lack of transparency is the agency's role in the disappearance of the UN's envoy to Niger, Canadian Robert Fowler. He was visiting a UNDP-funded, Canadian-owned gold mine in a remote region of Niger not related to his purported mandate. There was reportedly a UNDP driver, but no security. The UNDP vehicle was found its with doors open and lights on, cell phones still in the car. Inner City Press posted basic questions to UNDP's spokesman, who responded that there will be no comments or information until the "denouement." That was more than three weeks ago.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/undp1boxedout011709.html

Fed's Geithner Evaded Taxes at IMF, Used Statute of Limitations Later, Mishandled Citigroup

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/imf1geithner011409.html

UNITED NATIONS, January 14 -- While working for the UN-affiliated International Monetary Fund earlier this decade, Treasury Secretary-nominee Timothy Geithner did not pay required taxes to the Treasury Department's Internal Revenue Service. This would seem to be problematize, to be diplomatic, Geithner's ability to gain confirmation by the U.S. Senate to oversee the IRS.

This would seem to be problematize, to be diplomatic, Geithner's ability to gain confirmation by the U.S. Senate to oversee the IRS. But Democratic Senators and Barack Obama himself are calling Geithner's an "innocent mistake" which should not impinge on confirmation. Some ask how a financial whiz, head of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, would claim ignorance of basic tax law as a defense.

Worse, Geithner initially hid behind the statute of limitations to refuse to pay $25,000 in taxes for 2001 and 2002: "A three-year statute of limitations had precluded the [IRS] from auditing the 2001 and 2002 tax returns." But his supporters argue that Geithner's expertise is needed to confront the global financial crisis.

But what of Geithner's role, as the President of the New York Fed, in mis-regulating Citigroup, an institution which has already swallowed $45 billion in Troubled Assets Relief Program funds, and billions more in guarantees for toxic loans still on its books? Said otherwise, how can those who oversaw -- or turned a blind eye to -- the origins of the financial meltdown be presented as the only ones who can now save the day?

Also on Citigroup, sources say that the Feds are pushing Richard Parsons to take over as the embattled company's chairman. He ran Dime Savings Bank, part of the now-collapsed Washington Mutual franchise. At Citigroup's annual meetings, at Inner City Press asked questions about predatory lending from the floor of Carnegie Hall, Parsons never spoke up. What did he think of the questions, of Citigroup's venture into predatory lending with Commercial Credit, Associates First Capital and CitiFinancial? The questions should be answered.

Leaving the Federal Reserve Board is Randy Kroszner, who had served the Fed's point Governor on community and consumer issues. A new Fed advisor on these issues was recently withheld from the press without explanation by the Fed's public relations office. Fed chairman Ben Bernanke hides behind the Federal Open Markets Committee news blackout requirements in order to skip speaking to non-financial audiences, but disagrees with and ignored the requirement of public notice and comment while granting bank holding company status to Morgan Stanley, CIT, Goldman Sachs and GMAC.

A cavalier approach to the law, by both Bernanke and Geithner -- is this what would help to solve the financial crisis?

And see, www.innercitypress.com/imf1geithner011409.html

UN Belatedly Suspends Indian Enron Satyam, Puts Contracts Under Assessment, No Accountability on Oracle Yet

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/un1satyam011409.html

UNITED NATIONS, January 14 -- The UN has belatedly suspended as a vendor Satyam, and has put under review the ongoing contracts of this so-called Indian Enron, including a $6 million deal reached long after the World Bank first suspended the company. On January 13, Inner City Press asked UN spokesperson Michele Montas to explain how Satyam got this contract, why the UN's Inter-Agency Procurement Task Force process, meant to share contractor information throughout the UN system, had failed. Ms. Montas said she was unaware of the controversy. Video here.

Hours later, Inner City Press asked Assistant Secretary General Warren Sach about the scandal. He said that UN affiliated agencies are supposed to inform others of their suspension, by correspondence and through databases, which the World Bank appears to have failed to do.

On January 14, the Spokesperson's Office answered Inner City Press' question-

Subj: Your question yesterday on Satyam
From: unspokesperson-donotreply [at] un.org
To: Matthew Lee [at] innercitypress.com
Sent: 1/14/2009 10:04:28 A.M. Eastern Standard Time

Satyam has been suspended from the UN Secretariat vendor database. The information has been communicated to the UN procurement system and the UN Global Marketplace. Ongoing contracts with Satyam are currently under assessment.

An ongoing five year contract between the UN Secretariat and Satyam for over $6 million began on July 18, 2008, for "talent management software." It is time for the UN to provide further information on how this happened, what will be done and who will be held accountable.

In late December 2008, Inner City Press exposed that the UN purchased 30,000 licenses from Oracle to a computer program called Seibel, a so-called Customer Relations Management (CRM) system, and has left them unused.

That contract is for $7.5 million, of which over $3 million have already been paid to Oracle. But the licenses have never been used, according to UN computer system personnel. These whistleblowers, outraged at the waste and of accountability they say is pervasive, have directed Inner City Press to the documentary evidence of the phantom contract. In the UN's online Procurement database, the information about the Seibel purchase from Oracle is substantially less detailed than from other purchases. For other purchases, the specifications of the procurement are online, often dozens of pages. For this purchase from Oracle, there are no online specifications.

Internal whistleblowers tell Inner City Press that worse than the mis-management that led to the purchase of 30,000 licenses well before they would or even could be used is the cover-up that has occurred afterwards. They also identify as problematic the UN's contracting with EMC Corporation to purchase licenses for a program called Documentum, ostensibly to replace the UN's Official Document System for the UN's "Enterprise Content Management" system, ECM.

The flawed contracting began under the tenure of Eduardo Blinder, who has since migrated to the even less overseen International Computing Center, to which the UN Secretariat outsources much of its work and procurement. More recently, the person responsible for the waste is the Officer in Charge who replaced Blinder, Chandramouli Ramanathan.

In the UN's basement, Ban Ki-moon's Secretariat's CRM and ECM are being considered for the UN's Fifth (Budgetary) Committee. But the Committee members have never been informed of the waste that has occurred. Nor has the Office of Internal Oversight Services, embroiled in its own scandal, done anything.

In a draft of the pending resolution provided to Inner City Press by a budget committee source, the Secretary-General is criticized for proceeding with CRM and ECM before making any proposal to the General Assembly.

Inner City Press has asked Ban's spokesperson Michele Montas about this critique from the General Assembly. Ms. Montas said she would have no comment at all until after the Assembly vote on the resolution which she said might not take place until Christmas Eve. But there has still been no comment. Watch this site.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/un1satyam011409.html

At UN, Outgoing Zalmay Khalilzad Quieter on Congo and Reform, the Price of Being Well-Liked?

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/un1khalilzad011209.html

UNITED NATIONS, January 12 -- With Barack Obama set to take control in eight days, it's the time it seems for revisionist assessments of Zalmay Khalilzad, the outgoing Bush administration's U.S. Ambassador to the UN. Khalilzad is certainly better liked within the UN than his predecessor John Bolton. Liberal and moderates even sense that he is one of them. Some of this is due, however, to disinterest. Khalilzad's interests were Afghanistan and Iraq, to some degree the Middle East -- Africa much less so, and UN reform surprisingly little.

Maybe accomplishments on the first two issues had to be bought by backing off on reform. Khalilzad rarely mentions the UN's largest peacekeeping mission, and the largest global war since the one resulting in the UN: the Democratic Republic of the Congo. One assumes that this prioritization will change under Obama and the Ambassador he has nominated, Susan Rice.

In perhaps another sign of disinterest or priorities being elsewhere, there is Somalia, a peacekeeping for which Condoleezza Rice had projected before the end of 2008. While a resolution is slated to be adopted before January 20, as Inner City Press exclusively reported at New Years, it will be a largely UK-drafted proposal, different than which Condi Rice had said.

Under Khalilzad unlike Bolton, the US Mission became unwilling to comment other than "on background" about UN reform.

There are claims of accomplishing a UN-wide Ethics Program and Whistleblower Protection, as well as public access to information and financial disclosure, at UN Fund and Program like the UN Development Program, but Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon accepted outgoing UNDP Administrator Kemal Dervis' assertion that the UN Ethics Office had no jurisdiction over UNDP or its firing of a whistleblowing employee. While UNDP's Administrator answers to his own Executive Board, now Ban -- and the U.S., to be realistic -- will be naming Dervis' replacement. Why not make accepting the jurisdiction of the UN Ethics Office a condition for being selected?

In one comment that Team Khalilzad allowed to be "on the record," Inner City Press asked Khalilzad if American Lynn Pascoe will be staying as the head of the UN Department of Political Affairs. Khalilzad said he has no reason to believe that he will not.

A senior UN official, asked Monday afternoon by Inner City Press about Khalilzad's general non-mention of the Congo, noted that his wife Cheryl Benard is very interested in the Congo, particularly the issue of sexual violence there. So perhaps there is a divison of labor in the family. They are nice people. Certainly they had their achievements. Why not then be on the record?

What approach will Obama, Hillary Clinton and Susan Rice take? Watch this site.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/un1khalilzad011209.html

At UNDP, Kemal Dervis' Desires, Scandals and Silence Recalled As He Departs

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/undp1dervisout010809.html

UNITED NATIONS, January 8 -- Kemal Dervis, the UN Development Program's Administrator, announced Thursday he will leave the post on March 1, ostensibly for personal and family reasons. His tenure was marked by a series of scandals in UNDP, from funding violent disarmament in Uganda and diamond mining in Zimbabwe to procurement fraud cover-ups and financial irregularities in its North Korea program. Through it all, Dervis largely avoided the media, repeatedly telling Inner City Press that he refused to answer questions in the hallway of the UN, as even the Secretary General and his top officials do. He presided over retaliation, and then fought to keep UNDP exempt from the UN system's Ethics Office.

Why is Dervis leaving? There are a number of theories. One has it that he had his eye, in the UN system, on the Deputy Secretary General post. Many close observers had been predicted that Asha Rose Migiro would leave in February. But recently word came down that she is staying. And soon thereafter, Dervis announced he is leaving the system. Others less plausible tie his sudden announcement to the North Korea scandal, and Ban Ki-moon's recent trip to Washington.

What will Dervis do next? There's high brow chat of a university post, lower brow talk of filthy lucre or Turkish politics. Perhaps he'll write a book like the one his predecessor commissioned, "UNDP: A Better Way?"

All that said, Inner City Press has a single semi-positive memory. On his way into the Secretariat building one blue-skied day, Dervis stopped and mused that, you only have so many mornings like this in your life, you have to enjoy them. We hope he does -- and that the next UNDP Administrator does a better job. At Thursday's UN noon briefing, Inner City Press asked Ban's spokesperson if he will at least commit to what his predecessor did, releasing a short list of candidates for the post. I don't know yet, the Spokesperson said. We will follow this one.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/undp1dervisout010809.html

At UN, Libya's Gaza Draft Resolution's Naming of Hamas Had Latin Roots, Ninth Vote in Favor

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: Exclusive

UNITED NATIONS, January 8 -- The Security Council's non-permanent members played a larger role than usual in the amendments released Thursday to the Libyan introduced draft resolution on Gaza, Inner City Press has learned. A Latin American member submitted changes, including the naming of Hamas, to Libya at noon on Wednesday.

At six, two Arab Group members told the Latins that the amendments were rejected. But a subsequent call to the Libyan Ambassador revealed the the proposed amendments hadn't even been presented to the Arab Group yet. By 8:30 pm on Wednesday, the amendments were accepted, including the naming of Hamas.

The Permanent Representative of the country submitting the amendment told Inner City Press that to explain for domestic consumption possibly siding with "Libya, China et al," he needs to point to something achieved thereby: the naming of Hamas in the resolution.

Libya's sudden acceptance of the amendments is designed to garner support of non-permanent Council members -- not only the two Latin America countries, Mexico and Costa Rica, but even Austria, which is said to be eager to "break out of the European Union straight-jacket."

The UK and France are promoting themselves, while expecting the entire EU to follow them. From the basement of the UN, the call goes out, where are the Czechs, the EU presidency? To be continued.

On Gaza at UN, Western Placeholder Statement Competes with Libyan Resolution

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/gaza1prst010709.html

UNITED NATIONS, January 7, updated -- With Gaza smoldering from 12 days of bombardment, the UN Security Council's meeting resumed on Wednesday morning. Libya late Tuesday said it would be calling for a vote for its draft resolution. But Western members of the Council were promoting the idea of a non-binding Presidential Statement, to give more time to what can be called the Egypto - Sarkozy proposal, announced Tuesday in Cairo.

Inner City Press obtained a copy of the draft Presidential Statement, and in the run-up to the Council's 3 pm consultations on the text is putting it online here. It "welcomes the French - Egyptian plan" and says that the Council "will take comprehensive action as Egyptian and other international initiatives will materialize."

The mere place-holder statement is seen by many as inadequate in response to the level of death and destruction being visited on Gaza.


Wednesday afternoon, ministers Miliband and Kouchner of the UK and France strutted in front of the Council, while US Ambassador Khalilzad was with Condi Rice in the UN's basement, meeting Arab ministers. UN Envoy Robert Serry, defender of Egypt among others, begged out of a press conference to attend a Ban Ki-moon luncheon with other ministers. Serry is slated to return to the region Wednesday night, with Ban Ki-moon to follow next week. It was a struggle to be or be seen as diplomatically relevant. The Council's consultations loomed -- watch this site for updates.

Update of 3:36 pm -- Condi Rice has passed through the stakeout, making a statement but taking questions on her way to meet Ban Ki-moon. As she leaves a reporter shouts, "Why are you opposing a resolution?" A cameraman answers, "A resolution is not a solution." Another jokes, "to pollution." The media talk is why Associated Press had no one at the Sarkozy's Egypt meeting, and had to follow-up hours late with a story from the AP. Reuters and AFP are happy about that. Competition everywhere. But who had the Presidential Statement first?

Update of 3:49 pm -- an hour after Inner City Press got and uploaded it, a Western Council member's spokesman emerges to hand out the draft statement. "The French - Egyptian plan" has been changed to "the Egyptian iniative and the French mediation." Guess who tried to put the word France first....

Update of 5:29 pm -- France's Ripert emerged to say that there is no unanimity on either their draft Presidential Statement or Libya's draft resolution. "See you tomorrow," he said. It emerged that the Arab Group is meeting at 6 pm to decide how to proceed. Inner City Press asked Egypt's Ambassador to explain the Presidential Statement's turn of phrase, "the Egyptian initiative and the French mediation." What is France's role? I can only speak for Egypt, he said, adding that even he was unclear on France's role.

Ripert, of course, left the stakeout microphone without taking any questions. He then summoned an unwieldy press scrum off-camera. Few could hear him. French diplomacy at its best, one wag quipped. Later a spokesman for the Egyptian foreign ministry said that one of the options is for the Arab minister to leave New York with no text at all. The Security Council has such a bad reputation in our region, he said, it is easy to blame it for anything.

Update of 7:43 pm -- Condi Rice, David Miliband and Bernard Kouchner emerged from Conference Room 7 in the UN's basement and paused briefly at the microphone the UN had belatedly set up. They are staying in New York to keep working, beginning with another meeting in the basement at 10 am on Thursday. Later the UK mission pitched an on the record quote from Miliband: the world needs to hear the unified voice of the Security Council. Amre Moussa came out later and said, there is work to do. An Arab Group Ambassador told the Press to expect voting -- that is, on a resolution -- at noon on Thursday. Others demurred, predicting a stronger Presidential Statement than the French draft, followed by two days of waiting on the Egyptian initative. To be continued.

and see, www.innercitypress.com/gaza1prst010709.html

At UN, Ban's Town Hall Is Stacked with Pre-Screened Questions, on G-to-P Injustice and Permanent Contracts, Few Answers

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/ban1townhall010509.html

UNITED NATIONS, January 5 -- As Ban Ki-moon kicked off his third year as Secretary General, reviews Monday by UN staff outside Ban's town hall meeting were less than glowing. "It was like a Soviet event," one well-placed staffer quipped to Inner City Press, "complete with pre-selected questions and answers read out of a book." Another marveled how "it's a new day every day in Ban's UN," constant reinvention with no memory of previous new beginnings not followed up on.

Other Headquarters employees grumbled that other duty stations, from Geneva and Vienna to Nairobi, were given questions first. The head of the New York Staff Union, who had been asked to disclose his question in advance, inquired into the elimination last month of the UN's permanent contracts, and whether this violated the UN Charter. Union officials complained that no real answer was given.

Also from New York, a General Service staff member asked Ban why not extend educational benefits to General Services as well as Professional level staff. Ban answered that the limitation comes from the General Assembly, and that American citizens will not get such stipends unless they move and serve in Geneva or elsewhere. At least there was one seemingly unscripted question. The broader unfairness and waste of talent occasioned by the wall between Professional and General Services staff remains unaddressed.

Inner City Press asked Ban's spokesperson at Monday's noon briefing to respond to this Charter-based argument. The Charter doesn't require or provide for permanent contracts, she responded. The new term is "continuing." But what about whistleblower protection? And what about Article 101 of the the Charter's reference to staff being "permanently assigned"?

Inner City Press spoke with a number of senior UN officials on their way in and out of the town hall meeting. One demanded off the record treatment, when discussing Team Ban's crack down on the Press. Others, however, to their credit made no such request.

Peacekeeping chief Alain Leroy, walking in with his colleague Susana Malcorra, replied about the Lord's Resistance Army that the UN Mission in the Congo must focus in the Kivus, and cannot provide protection to the North. Click here for more on that.

The current Special Advisor on Africa may not long retain that title. "I started with Small Islands," he said, adding that he'd prefer not to be too identified with the Continent. So if Ban in fact complies with the stated wish of the General Assembly, expect a new Africa Advisor.

Controller Warren Sach confirmed that for a time he had been officer in charge of the Department of Management, but not on the day for replying to a report of UN retaliation. The resulting letter to the editor was by Catherine Pollard, "that was December 26," Sach said, "she was in charge." And as the Arab League meeting about Gaza droned on the basement, Ms. Pollard held court in the Delegates' Lounge. Every day is a new day.

Footnote: the Town Hall meeting was closed to the press. Even member states were not, at least as of Monday night, able to access the video. Delegates' link to the UN's intra-net had not been undated so far in 2009. Is this any way to run the so-called World's Body? We may have more on this.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/ban1townhall010509.html

Sangala Jolie: UN Panned, Praised by Fox TV & the New Yorker, "24" and Harr on Chad, Dueling Propaganda

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/un1harrfox010409.html

UNITED NATIONS, January 4 -- The UN couldn't buy better publicity than it received in the January 5 edition of The New Yorker magazine, in a lengthy "Reporter at Large" piece entitled Lives of the Saints, by Jonathan Harr, author of A Civil Action. Harr describes in glowing terms the work of UN system staff in eastern Chad, and adopts without critique their analysis of Darfur. He is treats more lightly the UN's favoritism for Chadian president Idriss Deby, ultimately implying that it is better that Deby stay in power. Despite this, it is a beautifully written piece and may draw more humanitarian workers to eastern Chad, perhaps even to the more forgotten Central African Republic. Stranger things have happened.

Harr approached Inner City Press in UN headquarters in mid-2007. He had been commissioned by the New Yorker, he said, to write anything he wanted to about the UN. He had watched a few UN noon briefings, and now asked Inner City Press for suggestions on what or whom he should cover. Suggestions were made, more briefings attended -- including a July 20, 2007 briefing at which Inner City Press asked Serge Male of the UN refugee agency UNHCR about Chad, click here to view -- and finally Harr told Inner City Press he has fastened on Male, UNHCR and Chad. This was 17 months ago.

In June 2008, still no article having been published in The New Yorker, Inner City Press met Serge Male in Chad. It was a surreal reception on the well-groomed lawn of the French Ambassador, complete with tuxedo-ed Chadian waiter serving whiskey on ice and a small deer frolicking on the lawn. When asked about Harr by Inner City Press, Male nodded but said he had no idea when the article would come out.

Fully six months after that, the article has appeared. It discloses that the in-country reporting largely ended in January 2008, a year ago. What took so long? We understand perfectionism in writing, but this is ridiculous. It not only makes the article less newsworthy, it makes it misleading in ways. Certainly International Criminal Court prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo will like the article, given that it simply posits as the case that Bashir is a genocidaire.

Harr does not, for example, mention the UN's $250 million no-bid contract with Lockheed Martin in Darfur. Lives of the Saints, indeed. Even about Chad, Harr does not mention a major news event in the Chadian NGO world that broken while he was there, the kidnapping of refugee children by the French group L'Arche de Zoe. Harr lucked into that story, and then didn't cover it. But this knowledge makes his purely positive presentation of European NGO workers in Chad feel somewhat forced.

Is it that Harr, having concluded that the humanitarian enterprise in Chad is on balance good, decided that readers couldn't handle nuance or any countervailing facts? Did the UN shepherding Harr around in airplanes and 4x4s create a conflict of interest, or bias akin to the Stockholm syndrome? (Harr was evacuated when battles between Chadian rebels and Deby's forces heated up.)

Perhaps this explains of the disjointed, dare we say under-edited, instances in Harr's article. The town of Abeche, which the UN Security Council visited in June 2008, is first described in the article as "Abeche, one of the largest cities in Chad," then is re-introduced as if for the first time as "Abeche, a town once known among aid workers as a place of drunken weekend revelries and romantic flings." Such moment are more than made up for by similes like comparing a UNHCR complaint line in Chad with "a D.M.V. in a land where people had no motor vehicles."

But if you were a well-known writer well paid to write whatever you wanted about the UN system, why would you turn out a better written version of the type of propagandistic hagiography that the UN itself churns out every day? It's a question we hope that Harr will answer.

Less highbrow but wider seen, Fox TV's program "24" in late November 2008 teased its upcoming seventh season called "Redemption" with a two hour prequel shot in Composite Africa. There were child soldiers, recruited by a General Juma standing in for Joseph Kony. His movement was called the People's Freedom Army, instead of the Lord's Resistance Army. But there were diamond mines -- think Sierra Leone -- and references to exterminating cockroaches, straight out of Rwanda. The country name, made up, is Sangala. Who is funding Juma? A vague and sinister businessman named Jonas Hodges, played by Jon Voight. Some of it feels like an old Seinfeld episode.

The UN is represented, or misrepresented as it were, by a bitter European assigned to a school run by Jack Bauer's / Keifer Sutherland's friend Carl. The UN European judges Jack about torture, but then hides with children in the basement. He did nothing to protect the children from Juma, insisting on being "neutral." (The liberal New York Times opined that "the United Nations peacekeeper with a foreign accent is an appeaser and a coward" and called this a "gratifying caricature.") Finally to save himself he sells out the children to Juma. Ouch -- how does one write a letter to the editor to a television show? And which is more one-sided, Harr's hagiography or Fox's facile caricature?

So Harr's belated article and Fox's Africa conflation are, as relates to the UN, dueling propagandas. They do, however, intersect on one point, a now-standard trope in Western discourse at all levels: the complex(ed) do-gooder working for an NGO in Africa. Running the school in Sangala is one Carl Benton, like Jack Bauer a former agent haunted by extreme interrogations past. (Benton is played by Robert Carlyle, previously deployed to Central America by British director Ken Loach to much the same effect.) Benton is trying to gain redemption for having tortured a detainee to death in Lebanon by saving Sangalese children from recruitment by the warlord Juma.

Meanwhile in Harr's article, Western NGO workers are described as either seekers of adventure or runners from the past. One NGO worker in Chad left unnamed by Harr "is a runner, she said, but offered no details." Perhaps she was a guard in Abu Ghraib. We smell a past-deadline and over-budget movie coming on, and a role for Angelina Jolie. Watch this site.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/un1harrfox010409.html

Vietnam Outlaws News Blogs, Claims Foreign Servers Will Help, UN Security Council Review

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/blogs1vietnam010109.html

UNITED NATIONS, January 1 -- Vietnam in late 2008 moved to regulate the blogosphere, dictating that blogs remain entirely "personal" and not purport to report any news, much less state secrets. The Vietnam government stated that services such as Google and Yahoo will help them enforce these "no news on blogs" rules. While Yahoo did turn in a Chinese dissident blogger to the government in Beijing, and Google has a history of "disappearing" content apparently at its powerful partners' request, Vietnam's claims seem anachronistic.

On December 31, Inner City Press was asked by Vietnam's mission to the United Nations to appear on Vietnam TV to review the country's year on the Security Council, judged to be one of the "Top Ten Vietnam News Stories of 2008." While Vietnam has sought to keep human rights violations from Myanmar to Zimbabwe off the Security Council's agenda, its diplomats have not been unwilling to answer the Press' questions. During Vietnam's presidency of the Council in July, its Ambassador memorably told Inner City Press, when asked about a request for Council action by Cambodia in its UNESCO-enabled border dispute with Thailand, that "meeting postpone, issue disappears."

But in Vietnam itself, the goal seems to be to have news and social critique disappear from the Internet. In November, Vietnam's Deputy Minister of Information and Communications (MoIC) Do Quy Doan argued that "as blogs are personal sites, bloggers are not allowed to use blogs to promote anti-state activities, war and obscenity, or to offend the honor or prestige of organizations and individuals or to release secret state documents."

Doan subsequently signed into law circular 07/2008/TB-BTTT which provides that blogs shall not even "post links which go to information that violate Article 6 of Decree 97/2008, banning anyone who takes advantage of the Internet to deliver distorted information [or] reveal state secrets."

One step down the bureaucratic ladder, the Chief of the MoIC’s Broadcasting, Television and Electronic Information Control Agency, Luu Vu Hai argued that "when we use the press freedom right we have to obey the Press Law and we couldn't use the press freedom right in a non-press environment."

At a press conference about the circular, Doan was asked how the government would "prevent 'black' blogs, blogs that are contrary to Vietnamese customs and habits?" He answered that "most bloggers in Vietnam are using services supplied by foreign service providers... After the circular takes effect in 2009, the two sides will exchange information and cooperate with each other. I think service providers also wish to have a clean Internet environment. I think if state agencies of Vietnam ask for cooperation, Google or Yahoo will be willing too."

Again, we hope this is unlikely, even though Yahoo did turn in a Chinese dissident blogger to the government in Beijing, and Google has a history of "disappearing" content apparently at its powerful partners' request, click here for that.

Deputy Minister Doan went on to note that "some say that blogs are personal diaries. If they are personal diaries, they should be kept for their authors, or their friends or relatives. If they are opened for the public, they are not personal diaries anymore, but become electronic information pages... Blogs don't represent any organization or release orthodox information."

But corporations now promote themselves with blogs. The UN in December invited Inner City Press to make a presentation at an event promoting the use of blogs, click here for the UN's summary of the session. The UN, not only an organization but an entity calling itself "The Organization," brags about its own blogs. Would they be illegal in Vietnam? Will the UN, though its compromised UNESCO or otherwise, say anything about this?

And see, www.innercitypress.com/blogs1vietnam010109.html

At UN, Somalia Peacekeeping Dream Dies a Quiet Death before New Years, US Buckles

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/usun1uksomalia010109.html

UNITED NATIONS, January 1 -- As mortar fire rained down in Mogadishu on the palace of the President, who just resigned, in the UN the Security Council resolution for a peacekeeping force which the United States had said was a priority died a quiet death on December 30. At the Council stakeout on New Years Eve, Inner City Press asked outgoing South African Ambassador Dumisani Kumalo what would happen next on Somalia.

Ambassador Kumalo expressed disappointment that nothing was done by year's end, when he and South Africa leave the Council. Kumalo was the most vocal Ambassador on the Council for engagement in Somali civilians' two decade-long crucifixion. This was the last question he would answer as a Security Council member, and he vowed to continue to advocate for Somalia even once off the Council.

The backstory is that in the run-up to the year-end deadline set by also outgoing U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, Security Council members met at the expert level on competing resolution drafts by the U.S. and the United Kingdom. When Ms. Rice came to the UN earlier in the month, she and UK Deputy Permanent Representative Karen Pierce crossed swords on the practicability of a UN Peacekeeping mission in Somalia, with Pierce as the skeptic.

While most insiders consulted by Inner City Press had expected the U.S. to push for a vote on its resolution by the end of the year, since its passage would be much less likely with South Africa and Italy leaving the Council, ultimately the U.S. backed down, not wanting an open conflict with the UK. Therefore on December 30 it was said that attempts will be made in the new year to somehow merge the conflicting U.S. and UK drafts.

Thus the U.S. which backed the ill-fated Ethiopian incursion into Somalia during the Christmas to New Years period in 2006 ended up further selling out Somali civilians during the same period two years later. On New Years Eve in front of the Council, outgoing U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad did not mention Somalia, only Gaza. The same was done by UK Ambassador John Sawers: Gaza only. Afterwards, Inner City Press tried to get Africa answers but was told that its coverage is too negative. But what about the impacts in Somalia? This will be pursued in the new year.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/usun1uksomalia010109.html

At UN's Gaza Meeting, Croatia Corrects CNN Report They Leave the Council on Jan. 1

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/unsc1nocroatia123108.html

UNITED NATIONS, December 31 -- As the UN Security Council's New Year's Eve meeting about Gaza proceeds and the resolution introduced by Libya circulates, two representatives of Croatia's, the Council president for December, emerged from the chamber and approached Inner City Press. We need your help, they said. CNN just reported that Croatia is leaving the Council tonight. But we have another year. We need to get it corrected.

Inner City Press escorted them up to CNN's office. Both of them showed Blackberries full of queries about Croatia's future on the Council. "Half of Europe is watching," one of them said.

Up in CNN, long-time correspondent Richard Roth was diplomatic.* He said if he was allowed to be more at the UN, the reference would not have happened. He promised to correct it.

* - his show Diplomatic License is much missed at the UN

On the way down, the Croatians confirmed to Inner City Press that if the meeting goes until midnight, it would have to be suspended, and the five Council members which unlike Croatia are actually leaving: Italy, Indonesia, Panama, Belgium and South Africa. Then the five new members would have to seated: Austria, Turkey, Mexico, Japan and Uganda. The change makes the Libyan introduced resolution harder to pass, even disregarding the anticipated use(s) of the veto.

The Croatians also confirmed to Inner City Press that they had finessed the Arab Group's December 30 request that the Council's President Neven Jurica write a letter to Israel on behalf of the Council demanding a cessation of air strikes. Instead, Jurica formally handed the Ambassador of Israel and the Permanent Observer of Palestine copies of the three-paragraph press statement he had read out at 2 a.m. on December 28. We could have screwed that one up, one of the Croatians in essence said. There are four more hours to do so, Inner City Press noted. Two hundred minutes, the Croatian corrected. CNN's correction is still awaited, and if seen will be reported on this site.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/unsc1nocroatia123108.html

UN Helps Congo Attack LRA, Can't Protect Civilians Then Disclaims Any Role, as in Kivus

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/un2orientale123108.html

UNITED NATIONS, December 31 -- A UN-supported offensive against the Lord's Resistance Army has been followed by the hacking to death of more than 180 people in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo. On New Years Eve, Inner City Press asked the UN's humanitarian coordinator John Holmes about the UN's role in the offensive against the LRA, with the Congolese army, and what is being done to protect civilians going forward. Holmes said that little can be done, since the UN peacekeepers' presence is limited due to redeployment to the Kivus, except to try to let the LRA know it will be held accountable. Video here, from Minute 36:40.

In fact, the UN has previously bragged about its logistical support to the Congolese Army for its attacks on the LRA. Now the UN Mission in the Congo, MONUC, is trying to distance itself from the results. A MONUC press release on December 30 emphasized that MONUC " neither took part in the planning nor in the implementation of the operations carried out by the coalition against the LRA" but added that "MONUC will do everything in its power to continue to protect civilians, notably by bringing substantial support to the DRC Armed Forces (FARDC)."

Which is it? Does MONUC support the FARDC or "neither take part in the planning nor in the implementation of [its] operations"?

In fact, Ban Ki-moon's Spokesperson has previously told Inner City Press that "MONUC supported the FARDC "with logistics, such as transport, water and food" and "has also helped consolidate and widen the airfield at Dungu, which serves as operational bridgehead for the FARDC and Ugandan troops"of the UPDF.

Now MONUC's press release states that "yesterday, 29 December, 105 troops were transported to Doruma and 60 more today. Moreover, MONUC committed to provide them with logistic support in terms of food stuffs, water, medicines, sanitation and fuel." So let's be clear, some say: if the FARDC troops commit war crimes, the UN has facilitated these.

MONUC went on to recount that "Ms. Leila Zerrougui, Deputy Special Representative of the UN Secretary General in the DRC, met today 30 December 2008 with the DRC's National Security Board, headed by the Minister of Interior Mr. Celestin Mbuyu Kabango [and] told them about MONUC's determination to support the Government's efforts to resolve the situation." What does "resolve the situation" mean? Assist in the elimination of the LRA's Joseph Kony -- the UN's own hand in extrajudicial killing?

Inner City Press asked John Holmes about the LRA's claims, for what they're worth, that the Ugandan Army's "Battalion 105" made up of ex-LRA fighters are responsible for atrocities to blame them on the LRA. How does the UN know it is the LRA? "It's hard to be sure," Holmes said, while calling the idea that the Ugandan Army might be involved "implausible." Those who thought that the International Criminal Court's Luis Moreno Ocampo should have also indicted some in the UPDF, or who are aware of the UPDF's UN-funded torching of huts in Karamoja in the name of forcible disarmament don't find it entirely implausible.

We know the Congo is big, but the UN seems to have a different relationship with the FARDC in the northeast, where it carries them around and cheers them on, than in the Kivus, where the full Special Representative of the UN Secretary General in the DRC Alan Doss this week "voiced his concern over the closeness of the FARDC and CNDP positions in Kibati. He also reiterated his appeal to the two parties 'to refrain from taking any initiatives likely to provoke new hostilities' and took the opportunity to recall to both parties 'the need for guaranteeing free movement of persons and their goods.'" In the Kivus, to the UN the FARDC is just one of two parties. In the northeast, the FARDC is the horse the UN has bet on, and carries to the race. Until things go wrong...

And see, www.innercitypress.com/un2orientale123108.html

On Gaza, UN's "62 Civilian Casualties" Misstatement Goes Global, On Wires, Wall Street and Sky News

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/un62civilians123008.html

UNITED NATIONS, December 30 -- A number of civilians killed in Gaza, 62, that the UN put out on Monday and then later qualified has nevertheless gone all over the world without the qualification attached, thus understating the deaths of non-combatants. UN Humanitarian Coorindator John Holmes on Monday told the Press that "on the Palestinian side, there's something like 320 dead... sixty two of those killed we believe are civilian casualties." Video here, from Minute 7:50. Holmes went on, "that simply encompasses those who are women and children."

Inner City Press asked Holmes, who made the decision to use a methodology which excluded all men? Holmes replied that it is not a methodology, and emphasized that the number is only for women and children. Video here, from Minute 48:34.

But the phrase "62 of those killed we believe are civilian casualties," which Holmes himself read out from a prepared statement, went out on wire services, leavened by what credibility the UN has.

Associated Press reported that "the UN said at least 62 of the dead were civilians." The same phrase then showed up in an article in the Washington Times bylined by Richard Gross, "At least 62 of the dead were civilians, the U.N. said."

Reuters followed in what they called a "Fact Box" that "the Israeli strikes have killed at least 335 Palestinians, including at least 62 civilians."

The Wall Street Journal dropped the phrase "at least" and reported on "casualties, which United Nations estimated Monday at 320 dead, including 62 civilians." From there it continued, from Sky News to Radio Netherlands, from India to Turkey and beyond.

So who is responsible? And what will be done to correct this?

While the UN might like to blame sloppy reporting, Holmes used the phrase "sixty two of those killed we believe are civilian casualties." Tuesday, after the UN postponed and then cancelled a scheduled press conference by its Middle East envoy Robert Serry, Inner City Press asked for another briefing by Holmes and Karen AbuZayd of UNRWA, on topics specifically including the numbers and how the decisions were made.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/un62civilians123008.html

Gaza Casualties Disputed, UN Implies Killed Men Are Not Civilians, Ban Takes No Questions

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/un1statsgaza122908.html

UNITED NATIONS, December 29 -- Deviating from the way it reports casualties in conflicts from Darfur to the Congo, the UN on Monday announced that less than 65 women and children have been killed since Saturday in Gaza. Inner City Press asked UN Humanitarian Coordinator John Holmes who had decided to use this methodology, and how it contrasts with that used by the UN and his Office in Darfur and the Congo. It's not a methodology, Holmes answered, we were just trying to be helpful. One wag asked, helpful to whom?

Another UN official, Karen AbuZayd of the UN Relief and Works Agency, said that she too was dubious about the numbers, even that "a good lawyer" had told her not to use them. Inner City Press asked her, in light of her report that Israel's air strikes are targeting "individual houses and individual families," how these are being selected, whether they raise the presumption of extrajudicial killing, and if UN human rights officials such as the rapporteur on the issue Philip Alston -- or the International Criminal Court -- have been contact in this regard.

Ms. AbuZayd described a process in which people receive phone calls telling them to leave their houses, either because there are weapons in the houses -- she questioned how Israel could know this -- or because the residents include perceived Hamas senior leaders. She said her office has not been in touch with the UN's human rights officials, but that she's seen statements she agrees with. Click here for Navi Pillay's statement. UNRWA's web site does not appear to have been updated for these ten past crucial days, or since December 18 as of December 29 at noon, click here for that.

As so often happens at the UN, the questions fell along predictable political lines. As Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was leaving after reading a statement and taking no questions, a correspondent from an Arabic cable channel shouted a question at him. Later a journalist from a Lebanese newspaper asked Holmes, the humanitarian, to explain Ban's call for Arab foreign ministers to use all efforts to bring the conflict to a close. She asked, What did Ban mean? Holmes was unable to answer. Ban said he had to meet "Ambassadors from the region." But this has happened before, the unilateral statement with no questions taken.

A right-leaning US television network, on the other hand, emphasized the firing of rockets at Israel. He also asked why pressure is not brought to bear on Egypt to open the crossing at Rafah. Holmes said its a problem of allowing only "one way" access. But the "Arab street," as they call it, is asking the same question of Egypt, albeit for a different reason. Why imprison civilians in the shooting gallery that is Gaza? Perhaps the UN should at least advocate for women and children, to which they appear to limit their definition of civilian in this conflict.

Holmes noted in an aside that some women may not be civilians. So is the UN's figure going to go up -- or down?

Inner City Press has pursued the Rafa crossing issue with Ambassador of Egypt, to be reported on later today on this site - click here.

As previously reported, Israel's UN Ambassador Gabriela Shalev on December 23 met with Ban Ki-moon. Inner City Press asked Ban's Deputy Spokesperson Marie Okabe, at that day's noon briefing, what the meeting had been about. That the expiration of the cease fire in Gaza would have been discussed seemed obvious. The question was intended to glean whether any statement as to timing had been made by the Israeli Ambassador. "We'll get you a readout," Ms. Okabe said. Video here.

Later on December 23, Ban's Spokesperson's Office sent Inner City Press the following:

From: unspokesperson-donotreply [at] un.org
To: Inner City Press
Sent: 12/23/2008 3:31:10 P.M. Eastern Standard Time
Subj: Your question at noon

Regarding the Secretary-General's meeting with the Israeli Permanent Representative today, it was purely a courtesy call.

"Purely a courtesy call"? That is the phrase used when diplomats who are leaving the UN visit the 38th floor for a final photo opportunity with the Secretary-General.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/un1statsgaza122908.html

At UN, Nigeria Gives Myanmar $500,000, Bypassing UN Programs, Also UN-Transparent

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/joy1myanmar122508.html

UNITED NATIONS, December 25 -- Two days before Christmas, Myanmar's mission to the UN got a gift with no strings attached. In the dimly-lit Indonesia Lounge next to the General Assembly chamber, Nigeria's Permanent Representative Joy Ogwu handed her counterpart from Myanmar Kyaw Tint Swe a check for $500,000. This was Nigeria's response to the UN's plea for funds to continue to respond to Cyclone Nargis, which hit in May.

The UN has been exposed, first by Inner City Press, for allowing the military government of Myanmar to take 25% of aid funds through currency exchange. Nigeria gave its money directly, in U.S. dollars, and apparently with no requirement to report back on how the funds are used. This is the type of hard currency for which Senior General Than Shwe is desperate.

Later on December 23, Inner City Press asked a South Asian diplomat active on the UN budget why he thought Nigeria gave direct. "You make more friends that way," he said. "If you give through the UN, you don't know how your money's used. If you give it direct, you can ask for reports if you want. And if you don't want, that's fine to. You just have a new friend."

There are at least two possible explanations of Nigeria's direct "south to south" contribution. One is that there's a lack of confidence in the UN system as a transmitter of funds. For example, the UN has not even committed to disclosing, in the Consolidated Appeals that it issues, how much it loses in government-required currency exchange. The second is that Nigeria wants a friend in Myanmar, perhaps even a piece of the resources for which China and India, along firms such as Total and even Lloyds, and South Korea's Daewoo, are competing.

Ambassador Ogwu's statement, a copy of which Inner City Press obtained and puts online here, professes Nigeria's "unflinching support for the government" of Myanmar.

In the half-light on December 23, there were only two reporters present. Inner City Press asked Ambassador Ogwu if the UN's envoy to Myanmar, fellow Nigerian Ibrahim Gambari, had played any role in this donation. No, she insisted. She had previous told Inner City Press that her government had invited Gambari to try to mediate the Niger Delta conflict not as a UN official -- that would "internationalize" the conflict, she said -- but rather as a Nigerian personality.

The Myanmar government, too, opposes internationalization, not only in the form of UN peacekeepers, but even election monitors. Ban Ki-moon was told to leave the country when voting in the run-up to the controversial elections, which exclude Aung San Suu Kyi, was held.

The other reporter asked a aide to Kyaw Tint Swe how much the check was for. "None of your business," he replied. Hardly an auspicious beginning to transparency in aid use.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/joy1myanmar122508.html