In Haiti, UN's Kim Bolduc Is Out, Coke and Clinton Fete Citigroup, Siemens

By Matthew Russell Lee
www.innercitypress.com/haiti1kimcoke040610.html

UNITED NATIONS, April 7 -- In the midst of the UN's response to Haiti's earthquake, it has removed its country representative Kim Bolduc, Inner City Press has discovered.

Told by a source that Ms. Bolduc was leaving Haiti, on March 31 on the sidelines of the Haiti donors' conference Inner City Press asked UN spokesman Martin Nesirky, "do you know if Kim Bolduc is still performing her function as country coordinator in Haiti?" While Nesirky answered "Pass, don’t know," subsequently this came in:

Subject: Answer to your question on Ms Kim Bolduc
From: @un.org
To: Inner City Press

Dear Matthew, Kindly find hereby the answer to your question :Is Ms Kim Bolduc still performing her duties in Haiti?

"Kim Bolduc completed her assignment in Haiti on 30 March 2010".

It is certainly a strange time to have the country representative's "assignment" run out.

Also alongside the Haiti Donors' Conference at the UN, Bill Clinton co-hosted a corporate event for Coca-Cola, promoting a drink called "Haiti Hope."

While the Press was barred from the event, the UN Office of Partnership' roster of 135 invitees, subsequently obtained, lists Nestle executives Paul Bulke and Peter Braback, executives from Citigroup including Vikram Pandit, Siemens and Crescent Petroleum. And so it goes at the UN.

And here's from the April 1 transcript of the IMF, titularly a part of the UN system:

INNER CITY PRESS ONLINE QUESTIONER: At the U.N. yesterday, Mr. Strauss-Kahn said that the IMF has yet to forgive Haiti’s debt. By contrast, the IABD has already forgiven $479 million. Can you explain the IMF’s delay and exactly what Executive Board Meeting it will be when Mr. Strauss-Kahn will actually propose forgiving Haiti’s debt?

MR. RICE: In response to this question, I’d really like to refer you to the statement that we issued yesterday from the Managing Director when he attended the high-level conference in New York City. And on the issue of debt relief, what he had said was that there was a framework--staff was preparing a framework to be put forward for consideration by the IMF Executive Board on the issue of debt relief and the IMF...

Watch this site.
And see, www.innercitypress.com/haiti1kimcoke040610.html

In UN Water, Questions of Coke and Nestle by Press Prove UN Is Fair, UN Claims

By Matthew Russell Lee
www.innercitypress.com/uncorp1water110809.html

UNITED NATIONS, November 8 -- "Water is the new carbon," the UN's Nikhil Chandavarkar told the Press on November 6. Following a debate in the UN General Assembly's Second Committee, he told a press conference that it is important to "set a price for water."

Inner City Press asked him about criticism of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's "CEO Water Mandate" for inviting in corporations like Coca-Cola, Suez and Nestle which are accused of negative impacts on lower income people. Video here, from Minute 38:56.

Chandavarkar said the while the CEO Water Mandate came out of the UN Global Compact, it is not the UN's role to assess particular corporations' behavior, including with respect to water. He said that the UN views the private sector of "one of the nine major groups" and tried to give corporations' view an airing.

When Inner City Press followed up asking if corporations really get only one-ninth of the voice and power on the issue, Chandavarkar turned the questions around. That NGOs protested to Ban about his CEO Water Mandate, he said with a smile, is "a tribute to the UN." Video here, from Minute 41:18.

Chandavarkar went further, telling Inner City Press that the "very fact that you are able to raise the issue shows that we are getting the airing from them."

Apparently the argument is that Inner City Press should be so grateful for being "able to raise the issue" that... it shouldn't raise the issue. And the NGOs who wrote to Ban Ki-moon should realize that this is being used by the UN against their position.

They said that "through the CEO Water Mandate, the U.N. is helping to advance corporate control of water.” The UN says that the letter proves that the UN is fair. Only at the UN...

And see, www.innercitypress.com/uncorp1water110809.html

At UN, Global Compact's Coke and Nestle Under Fire, Advisor Barlow a Transparently Cheap Date

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/un1barlow120908.html

UNITED NATIONS, December 9 -- Coca-Cola's claim to be water neutral is not credible, and the UN's Global Compact is little more than "blue-washing," the UN's new water adviser, Maude Barlow, told the Press on Tuesday. Inner City Press asked her and General Assembly President Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann if during this year they will take on the Global Compact, to try to make it have some standards. Doesn't the Compact ultimately answer to the General Assembly? Video here, from Minute 15:08.

Barlow denounced not only Coke but also Pepsi, as well as Nestle and other "water hunters," as she called them, which take water from aquifers and "put it in plastic and sell it all over the world." Barlow said she opposes bottle water. D'Escoto said that the "murky" role of corporations in the field of water must be clarified or distilled. But what about the Compact?

But Barlow did go further than other advisors and UN envoy in clarifying finances. Inner City Press asked her what part of her travel and mandate are paid by the UN. Hotel and airfare, she answered, adding "I'm a cheap date." Unlike, it must be said, the UN Millennium Project's Eveline Herfkens...

And see, www.innercitypress.com/un1barlow120908.html

At UN, Protests to Corporate Control of Water, As Trial Lawyers Take an Interest in Kabul

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/un2corp032408.html

UNITED NATIONS, March 24 -- While the UN talks of water, corporations with juice enter the building to write their own rules. This is the distillation of a protest letter some 125 non-governmental organizations have sent to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. On Monday at UN Headquarters, Inner City Press asked Ban's spokesperson about the letter, which asked Ban "to withdraw from something called the CEO Water Mandate, claiming that it's run by corporations and it's just an excuse for exploitation of water resources.. Did he receive it and if so, what then?"

The spokesperson answered, "I don't have the letter at this point." Click here for transcript. Later in the day, Inner City Press was e-mailed a notice that the letter had been received. Later still, a paragraph was inserted into the transcript:

"The Spokesperson later added that the letter had been received and, according to the United Nations Global Compact Office, the Mandate's purpose is to provide a platform for companies and stakeholders to share knowledge and emerging practices with respect to water stewardship and sustainability. Regarding a 5 March event, which the letter reportedly alleges was a meeting between corporations and their allies to map out their plan of action for the CEO Water Mandate, the Global Compact Office notes that the learning-and-dialogue session brought companies together with a range of stakeholders, including non-business attendees and representatives from various United Nations agencies. The Spokesperson added that the Global Compact Office has said, 'The UN Global Compact Office has long recognized and stated that voluntary initiatives cannot be a substitute for regulation or government action. Rather, the two are complementary, with voluntary platforms such as The CEO Water Mandate providing a space for learning and innovation.'"

But, the activists question, innovation in what? Spin? As Inner City Press previously reported from the UN, Coca-Cola's purported exoneration in India was in a study which Coke itself funded. At Dow Chemical's last appearance at the UN, also on the issue of water, non-violent protesters were hustled off the UN's grounds, and the press told not to cover it -- click here for that story, and compare to Monday's affirmative answer by the UN Spokesperson's to Inner City Press' question if it is "the UN's position that people have a right to protest right in front of the UN building without being arrested." The UN's blithe partnership with corporations continues apace, with its Global Compact rebuffing in this case a letter from more than 100 NGOs from all over the world, without the UN spokesperson, even in a canned response belatedly-added to the briefing transcript, identifying the "non-business attendees" of the meeting alluded to. The Global Compact says, "Non-business attendees included: World Wildlife Fund, The Nature Conservancy, Plan Malawi, the Pacific Institute, as well as the following UN agencies: UNICEF, UNDP, UNEP, UN OHCHR, and UNESCO. A summary of the working conference will be available in early April." We'll be waiting...

A more directly political "public-private partnership" recently on display at the UN was last week's session in the Dag Hammarskjold Library auditorium about the "Partnership for Justice Reform in Afghanistan," followed by a reception sponsored by the Arent Fox and Bingham law firms, and "Quinn Emanuel Trial Lawyers." This last is ironic or surprising, given that the event was sponsored and promoted by the U.S. Department of State, in an administration which loudly castigates trial lawyers. But, hey, they're a business too...

And see, www.innercitypress.com/un2corp032408.html

In UN's Corporate Frenzy, Western Union Dismisses Immigrants' Remittance Boycott, Coke Exonerates Itself in India, UNICEF Plays Footsie for Good

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/un1corp022508.html

UNITED NATIONS, February 25 -- The UN system's partnering with the corporate world has reached a fever pitch, with safeguards still in evolution, virtually non-existent in such entities as the US Fund for UNICEF and the U.S. Committee for the UN Development Program. At a panel discussion on Monday, Inner City Press asked the CEO of Western Union about a boycott by a coalition of immigrant groups based on over-priced wire services. "There will always be issues that occur," was the pat response, followed by a reference to Western Union's "advocacy" to keep immigrants in the U.S. --hardly surprising, given its business model -- and its philanthropy. Video here, from Minute 2:36:39.

As was demonstrated on February 21 at the UN, at a briefing by Leena Srivastava of the New Delhi-based group The Energy and Resources Institute, TERI, corporate funding of non-profits has many motives. Coca-Cola funded TERI to review it use of water in India, and the resulting study was reported as exonerating Coke and militating for its continued sales on college campuses. Inner City Press asked Ms. Srivastava if it wasn't a conflict of interest, to study Coke with Coke's money. "Who else would pay for it?" she asked. Video here. But Pepsi is also a TERI funder. Or, more productively, perhaps the student boycotters should have been approached for funding.

While UNICEF has strenuously avoided in-person responses about its role in giving the UN's North Lawn to Gucci earlier this month, for a fundraising event that Gucci claimed was to celebrate its opening of a store on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue, UNICEF's Hilde Johnson was on Monday's panel. Inner City Press asked about the Gucci event, and Ms. Johnson replied that while UNICEF used the so-called "FTSE-4-Good" principles, it has no control over US Fund for UNICEF, which fronted the Gucci event. But then stop the Fund, like the national committee in Germany, from using the logo to bring it into disrepute.

Since the Gucci event, a number of ambassadors for major UNICEF-funding countries have approached Inner City Press with their concerns about the event, that UNICEF would feel it needed money so much as to make the UN look bad. Maybe UNICEF and the wider UN will learn from this. It appears clear that the US Fund for UNICEF, which never answered follow-up questions about the event, feels it has nothing to learn, just more lawns and logos left to trample. Likewise, the U.S. Committee for UNDP has on its board of directors a representative from UN (and military) contractor Lockheed Martin, the safeguards regarding which Inner City Press has asked UNDP, without answer.

After Inner City Press asked Ms. Johnson of UNICEF for a response, it was quickly told that it shouldn't have been allowed to ask a question, despite a previous moderator inviting questions from throughout the ECOSOC Chamber. Ms. Johnson's answer could barely be heard over the threat, "Should I call security?" This is the free press at the UN these days.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/un1corp022508.html