On World Toilet Day, ICP Asks UN of Cholera in Haiti, Water SDG, Blue Wash

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, November 19 -- On World Toilet Day, Inner City Press asked UN Deputy Secretary General Jan Eliasson about sanitation in Haiti, where UN Peacekeeping is accused of negligently bringing cholera.

Eliasson talks about Secretary General Ban Ki-moon visit to Haiti and work with the government. He thanked Inner City Press for not asking (directly) about the legal issues. As former UN official Stephen Lewis has publicly said, it appears that UN officials have been told to refer questions about Haiti and cholera, at least legal ones, to the Executive Office of the Secretary General. Click here for that.

Singapore's Permanent Representative Karen Tan, when Inner City Press asked of the place of toilets in the Post-2015 development agenda, pointed to Sustainable Development Goal 6, specifically 6.2 with its direct reference to ending open defecation.

 Michel Jarraud, Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization and Chair of UN-Water,spoke of public - private partnerships. Unilever was praised, leading some to wonder if this might be Blue-washing the toilet.  We'll have more on this.

   

While UN Claims 10 American USGs, French at WMO and IMF Ignored, Egeland's Gone

By Matthew Russell Lee
www.innercitypress.com/unusg2posts082609.html

UNITED NATIONS, August 26, updated -- France has four Under Secretary Generals in the UN Secretariat, while China has only one. Inner City Press asked about and reported this on August 24, after UN Spokesperson Michele Montas announced the hiring of outgoing French ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert as a USG special envoy to Pakistan. On August 26, Ms. Montas unilaterally updated her response, emphasizing that the United States has ten USGs and France has only four.

Inner City Press, which noted U.S. dominance in its August 24 story, nevertheless asked why if Ms. Montas included the heads of UNICEF and the World Food Program among the American USGs, she didn't include the French chiefs of the World Meteorological Organization and the International Monetary Fund:

Spokesperson: Montas:I was asked on Monday about the number of French Under-Secretaries-General (USGs). The United Nations system presently has four French Under-Secretaries-General. Two of them are $1-a-year appointees.

Question: How many American USGs (Under-Secretaries-General)?

Spokesperson: Yes, I have the number for that also: we presently have in the system 10 American USGs, and 4 of them are $1-a-year appointments. And this number includes the heads of WFP [World Food Program], of UNICEF and of UNRWA [UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East].

Inner City Press: And for France, why didn’t you include the World Meteorological Organization, World Trade Organization, not World Trade Organization -- there are a number of UN, there are other UN…

Spokesperson: I have a list of the 82 USGs, 82 of them; from France, I have what I gave you; I don’t have more. I don’t know what the nationality is of some other…

Inner City Press: Le Roy, Guehenno…

Spokesperson: Guehenno is one-dollar-a-year contract. Now, you have the recent appointment that we had of the Ambassador (Jean-Maurice Ripert of France as Special Envoy for Assistance to Pakistan). And, let me see whether I have more, a larger list on that. There are four French Under-Secretaries-General. Philippe Douste-Blazy, who is a dollar-a-year man, Special Adviser on Innovative Financing for Development; Jean-Marie Guéhenno, who is a dollar-a-year man, as a Special Adviser of the Secretary-General on Regional Cooperation; and we have Alain Le Roy, who has a fixed term as Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations.

Inner City Press: How about Dominique Strauss-Kahn of IMF [International Monetary Fund], Michele Jarraud of the WMO, if you’re counting….

Spokesperson: IMF is not counted as being part of the UN system. As you know, the Bretton Woods organizations have a different status

Inner City Press: How about the Global Fund to Fight AIDS; is that a UN Agency?

Spokesperson: The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, yes.

Inner City Press: And, Michel Kazatchkine?

Spokesperson: Do we have to go through all this, Matthew? I told you who the people are who have French nationality, and that’s all I have.

Afterwards, Ms. Montas argued that WMO is not included because it has its own governing board. But so do UNICEF and WFP. To some it appeared that the list prepared for Ms. Montas, which she later provided as background, not to be put online, was skewed to understate French USGs.

The list also does not mention Jan Egeland as a Norwegian USG,* but shows that the UK's Ian Martin has a USG post with the Department of Political Affairs. Inner City Press asked if Joaquim Chissano, who has suspended his mandate to the Lord's Resistance Army impacted areas, is still a USG -- among other things, does he still have a UN laissez passer passport? That are more questions to be analyzed from the list -- watch this site.

* - shortly after publication of the above, Norwegian sources contacted Inner City Press to say that it's known there, where Ban Ki-moon is now slated to visit, that Egeland quietly ended his post-OCHA mediating USG post. But that was never announced by the UN, just as the doling out of a no-work USG post to Jean-Marie Guehenno was never announced, only quietly confirmed when Inner City Press by chance discovered it. What's wrong with the UN?

And see, www.innercitypress.com/unusg2posts082609.html

UN's Climate Chief Yvo de Boer Unaware of WMO's "World Is Cooler" Statement, BBC Controversy

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/wmo1deboer041008.html

UNITED NATIONS, April 10 -- The UN's point man on climate change, Yvo de Boer, on Thursday told the Press he was unaware of comments to the BBC by the secretary-general of the UN World Meteorological Organization Michel Jarraud that the world has not gotten hotter since 1998. "I have not read the articles," he said when Inner City Press asked him. "If I get then and I were to read them, I'd be happy to respond." Video here, from Minute 48:57.

After the press conference, Inner City Press e-mailed him the articles, but nothing. From another UN source, WMO's back-tracking response arrived, in which "in response to media inquiries," Jarraud is quoted that "For detecting climate change you should not look at any particular year, but instead examine the trends over a sufficiently long period of time." De Boer in the press conference affirmed that the IPCCC has "pointed to, no, has shown" that temperatures have risen "since the Industrial Revolution."

The more troubling part of the controversy, from an independent media perspective, is that BBC while initially standing behind its quoting of Jarraud ended up not only changing its story, but not leaving any mark that it had done so. The piece's author Roger Harrabin is quoted in this UK environmentalists' account, and it does not look good. Following threats, he says, "we have changed the headline and more."

While leaving the UN briefing room, de Boer opined that he has in the past asked for headlines to be fixed. But what about the "and more"? We'll await his or the UN's response.

On straight environmental, and independent media, issues Inner City Press asked de Boer about the calls in Bangkok for the UN's International Maritime Organization and ICAO do to more on climate change. De Boer said both of these agencies -- and the WMO, see above -- are expert, but that some countries don't feel they've gone far enough. He pointed out that ships can use fuel or water as ballast, and can fuel-up anywhere, making enforcement difficult. Video here, from Minute 39:10. That and the exclusive jurisdiction of the flagging nation... To be continued.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/wmo1deboer041008.html