From: Tsegai Emmanuel (emmanuelt40@gmail.com)
Date: Mon Dec 21 2009 - 20:20:46 EST
http://www.innercitypress.com/unsc1eriwsguin122109.html
As UN Council Delays Eritrea Sanctions and Guinea, Buries W. Sahara, France
in Mix
By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, December 21 -- With Christmas four days away, the UN
Security Council has scheduled a December 23 vote on sanctions on Eritrea,
delayed at the request of France, while putting off consideration of the
UN's report on war crimes in Guinea, because it is only in French. Meanwhile
the promised briefing on Western Sahara, Moroccan sources gleefully tell
Inner City Press, may not take place at all. Is this any way to run a
Council and world?
Inner City Press asked this month's Council president Michel Kafando of
Burkina Faso what has happened to the briefing on Western Sahara, which
several Council members affirm was agreed to be consensus last week. "We are
still in consultations," Kafando answered. Video
here<http://webcast.un.org/ramgen/ondemand/stakeout/2009/so091221am2.rm?start=00:06:07>,
from Minute 6:07.
Asked when the Council will meet on the already leaked report on war
crimes in Guinea, Kafando claimed that the Council does not yet have the
report. Later at the stakeout it was clarified that until the report is
translated from French into English, the Council will not meet on it.
Whether the translation can be done and distributed by Wednesday is not
clear.
Murkiest of all is the resolution imposing sanctions on Eritrea. Last week
it was said it would be put to a vote on Monday, with Libya abstaining or
voting "no."
UN's Ban with Council members, Sahara briefing not shown
But on Monday a Permanent Five member of the Council told Inner City Press
that "France asked Uganda for a delay." Uganda, an IGAD member, is the
ostensible sponsor of the resolution, and has confirmed France's request.
Inner City Press has asked why France moved for the delay on the Horn of
Africa sanctions resolution without receiving any on the record answer.
Later, sources alluded to some unresolved French hostage issues. Watch this
site.
As UN Official Is Accused of Hiring Relatives in African Mission, DPA Mute
By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, December 21 -- A complaint of systemic nepotism in a UN
mission, in the Central African Republic, has been raised and rebuffed by
the UN Department of Political Affairs. The head of DPA's Africa II
Division, according to whistleblowers, has placed relatives and friends
throughout the United Nations Peace-building Office in the Central African
Republic. Inner City Press, which has reported about the Central African
Republic for three years, has received detailed reports, summarized below.
Rather than simply write the story, six days ago on December 15 Inner City
Press formally asked the director of DPA's Africa II Division Sammy Kum Buo
the following questions:
Mr. Buo -- I am writing a story about this morning's Security Council
session on BONUCA / Central African Republic. I am also covering management
issues in BONUCA and DPA and am writing for you to confirm or deny on
deadline each of the following [about BONUCA staffers]
Is Gabriel Buh Kang a relative of yours? A cousin?
Is BONUCA staffer Ekei a relative of yours? Your niece?
What is the status of Brindou Germain Kabran ?
When in CAR, have you stayed with Brindou Germain Kabran?
Did you still collect DSA? Please provide records.
What can you say about the case of *Gozo Tshamala?*
*On deadline, Matthew*
Mr. Buo is also accused of hiring a former mercenary from Executive
Outcomes, in violation of UN rules. While Mr. Buo has refused to respond,
Inner City Press has discussed the matter with other Mission officials and
finally, on December 21, with Mr. Buo's boss in DPA, Haile Menkerios. Mr.
Menkerios confirmed he is aware of the issue. Inner City Press asked Mr.
Menkerios what DPA's response would be. It is a management issue, Mr.
Menkerios replied, that will be responded to in a management way.
Previously, Mr. Menkerios' boss, and Ban Ki-moon's chief political
official Lynn Pascoe has refused on camera to comment on a rift between
himself and the two top staffers in DPA's Security Council Affairs
branch<http://www.innercitypress.com/undpa2filenote101309.html>,
calling it an internal matter.
But the abuse of UN funds for hiring relatives in a DPA administered
mission is not an internal matter.
UN Day in Bangui, UN nepotism not shown or addressed
There are other brewing DPA scandals, on hiring on other issues, on which
Inner City Press is still waiting for substantive answers. But the matter of
Central African Republic, which is on the Security Council's agenda for
December 21, must now be moved forward on, given Buo's and now Mr.
Menkerios' non answers. Watch this site.
Summary:
Subject: BINUCA
From: Name withheld due to retaliation concerns
To: matthew.Lee [at] innercitypress.com
Dear Matthew Please innercity should absolutely look into this matter which
is serious WHAT IS GOING ON IN BONUCA/BINUCA?
DPA has created a new mission called BINUCA to replace BONUCA starting
January 2010 in Central Africa Republic. For more than 9 years, BONUCA a DPA
led mission was plagued with nepotism and favoritism... Of particular
importance is the role played by Mr Sammy Kum Buo, the Director of Africa
II, very famous with his absence of political judgment (remember Rwanda
where he was advising the SRSG Booh Booh) who had succeeded in appointing a
niece called Ekei as Administrative Assistant, a cousin called Gabriel Buh
Kang in the finance section... the recruitment of the security Officer,
Antonio de Jesus a former memeber of Executive Outcome was done in violation
of all the recruitment rule procedures. Buo is trying to maintain in the
mission his friend Brindou Germain Kabran where he lives when he is mission
in CAR despite he, receiving the DSA.. His fellow Cameroonian... Marie
Claire Bikia, recruited as administrative Assistant, is trying to be
promoted Gender assistant. She went several times in Turin for gender
training.
In order to cover this integrity issues, Sammy Kum Buo with the support of
or not of Lynn Pascoe is currently deciding on the future of the staffs by
trying to impress upon the new SRSG, the Ethiopian diplomat, Ms Zewde who is
in her first experience in the UN and doesn't know the administrative
procedure. Sammy Kum Buo would like to keep his cousin, niece and friends
and sacrifying the other staffs. This is UNACCEPTABLE Inner city press
should try to raised this issue
Consider it done, or started. Watch this site.
* * *
As Galbraith Claims He Challenged UN Before Nambiar's Quote to NYT, UN Mute
By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, December 21, updated -- After the UN's chief of staff Vijay
Nambiar was quoted on December 17 that the UN knew its Afghanistan deputy
Peter Galbraith was pitching the overthrow of Hamid Karzai to Joe
Biden<http://www.innercitypress.com/unama2leak121909.html>and this was
"one of
several factors" why he was fired, the UN refused to elaborate. This
continued on December 21, when UN Spokesman Martin Nesirky declined to
comment on Inner City Press' questions about Mr. Nambiar.
Mr. Nesirky, previously answering Inner City Press' question, said that
because Galbraith was challenging his termination, it would not be
appropriate to comment. This was not said at the noon briefing when the
question was asked. Rather, it was inserted later into the transcript.
The next day, Inner City Press asked if Galbraith had launched his
challenge before or after Vijay Nambair's quote. Nesirky said he'd check.
Now Galbraith tells Inner City Press that this challenge was filed on
December 10, well before Nambiar's comment. If true, the UN's stated reason
for now refusing to comment appears in a different light.
Being "tired" of l'affaire Galbraith is one thing. But the issue of fraud
in the Afghan election, and the UN's role in it, should not be allowed to be
buried on now specious legal grounds.
In his e-mail to Inner City Press, below, Galbraith raises an issue of
media ethics. Knowing both sides of this dynamic, Inner City Press for now
simply presents Galbraith's submission, on which we will follow up.
UN's Nambair, back at right, with Gambari's who he's replacing in Myanmar,
Galbraith's action not shown
For now we say: whether one sides with the UN or Galbraith in this
conflict, the issue of fraud in Karzai's election is larger. Watch this
site.
From: Peter Galbraith
To: Matthew.Lee at InnerCityPress.com
Sent: 12/20/2009 1:37:35 P.M. Eastern Standard Time
Subj: Re: Press Q from UN: did you disclose oil interest, if so did UN leak
it?
I filed my action on December 10, before Nambiar's quote. Having failed to
come up with a plausible explanation for my dismissal, the UN now seeks to
use the legal action as a pretext to stop discussing the matter, and the
underlying issue of how it handled fraud in the Afghanistan elections. The
fact that Vijay Nambiar chose to speak out on my case after I commenced
legal action places his quote--and the whole new York Times story--in a
rather different context. At the time he wrote his story about my supposed
plot to oust Karzai, New York Times reporter James Glanz knew I had started
legal action but chose not to share it with the New York Times readers until
a separate story the the next day which carefully did not say when the legal
action began. For the record, there was no plan to oust Karzai and the story
is a complete phony.
Like you, New York Times readers are smart enough to smell a rat in a story
about an event that supposedly occurred two months earlier but is only
"leaked" after legal action begins. It is too bad, Glanz did not think it
important for them to know that.
I am more optimistic than you that the UN legal system will produce the
accountability that is so important in this matter.
Watch this site.
As UN's Ban "Divides and Rules" G-77, Pachauri's Bank Links Unexamined
By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, December 21 -- While most observers and even participants
describe the Copenhagen global warming talks as a disappointment, UN
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Monday told the Press that they "sealed the
deal" and were a success.
Inner City Press asked Mr. Ban about the scandal erupting around the
undisclosed business interests of the chairman of the UN's Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change Rajendra Pachauri, from the Tata Group through
Deutsche Bank to Credit Suisse, and about the criticism by the chairman of
the Group of 77 and its now 130 member states.
Mr. Ban entirely dodged the first question, paradoxically using it as an
opportunity to praise business. On the second, he asserted that the chairman
of the Group of 77 was not, in fact, speaking for the Group, since others'
of its members spoke more positively.
Moments later, Inner City Press asked Sudan's Ambassador to the UN about
Mr. Ban's comments. "Divide and rule," he answered, calling the Copenhagen
process "climate apartheid." This phrase steps back from his counterpart in
Copenhagen who analogized it to the Holocaust.
Pachauri's conflicts of interest are extensive and emblematic of the UN's
lack of transparency and safeguards.
UN's Ban and Pachauri, financial disclosure not shown
As detailed in the Telegraph
In 2008 he was made an adviser on renewable and sustainable energy to the
Credit Suisse bank and the Rockefeller Foundation. He joined the board of
the Nordic Glitnir Bank... This year Dr Pachauri joined the New York
investment fund Pegasus as a ‘strategic adviser’... He is on the climate
change advisory board of Deutsche Bank... One subject the talkative Dr
Pachauri remains silent on, however, is how much money he is paid for all
these important posts, which must run into millions of dollars.
So, notwithstanding the non-responsive answer Monday morning, does Mr. Ban
believe that Pachauri should make public financial disclosure of these
interests? Watch this site.
* * *
IMF Silent on Climate Change Proposal to Use Its Gold and SDR Interest
By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, December 18 -- While world media reports that the
International Monetary Fund might play a role in climate change adaptation
funding, as proposed by among others George Soros, IMF spokesperson Caroline
Atkinson told the Press on Thursday that how SDRs (special drawing rights)
are used is "up to individual countries." Video
here<http://www.imf.org/external/mmedia/view.asp?eventid=1677>
.
But the proposal involves the IMF using the gold it holds, already
ostensibly directed to less developed countries, for the purpose of
adaptation. So shouldn't the IMF have a response?
Sitting "idle" in the IMF's coffers are $150 billion for just 15
countries. But the IMF apparently doesn't have the funding or staff or
commitment to prepare a transcript of its mere biweekly press briefing the
same day it is held.
Below are portions of the proposal.
Bella Center, venue of climate change talks, IMF not shown
Developed countries' governments are laboring under the misapprehension that
funding has to come from their national budgets but that is not the case.
They have it already. It is lying idle in their reserves accounts and in the
vaults of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), available without adding to
the national deficits of any one country. All they need to do is to tap into
it.
In September 2009, the IMF distributed to its members $283 billion worth of
SDRs, or Special Drawing Rights. SDRs are an arcane financial instrument but
essentially they constitute additional foreign exchange. They can be used
only by converting them into one of four currencies, at which point they
begin to carry interest at the combined treasury bill rate of those
currencies. At present the interest rate is less than one half of one
percent. Of the $283 billion, more than $150 billion went to the 15 largest
developed economies. These SDRs will sit largely untouched in the reserve
accounts of these countries, which don't really need any additional
reserves... The United Kingdom and France each recently lent $2 billion
worth of SDRs to a special fund at the IMF to support concessionary lending
to the poorest countries. At that point the IMF assumed responsibility for
the principal and interest on the SDRs. The same could be done in this case.
The IMF owns a lot of gold, more than a hundred million ounces, and it is on
the books at historical cost. At current market prices it is worth more than
$100 billion over its book value. It has already been designated to be used
for the benefit of the least developed countries. The proposed green fund
would meet this requirement...it could make the difference between success
and failure in Copenhagen.
So shouldn't the IMF have had something to say about the proposals? Watch
this site.
* * *
On Food Speculation, UN's Expert Says Nothing's Being Done, S. Korean Land
Grabs from Madagascar to Sudan, Brazil on Ethanol
By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, October 21 -- After many speeches at the UN about the need
to crack down on financial speculation in food, nothing has been done, the
UN's expert on the right to food told Inner City Press on Wednesday.
Olivier de Schutter, a Belgian law professor just back from a visit to
Brazil about, among other things, the loss of land for food to ethanol,
replied that "nothing is moving at the inter-governmental level." This
despite a statement by the G-20 in April favoring the regulation of hedge
funds which present systemic risk. The argument is that commodities index
funds which speculate in food present systemic risk to net food importing
countries. But nothing has been done.
De Schutter spoke about the monopolization of the seed industry, and made
a slew of recommendations for governments. The three top monopolizers --
Monsanto, Dupont and the Swiss-based Syngenta -- are all members of the UN
Global Compact, and claim to comply with human rights. De Schutter pointed
out the antitrust law is directed as national and not global or subnational
markets. It is all very heady but one wonders what effect it has.
Brazil might be one of de Schutter's claims to impact. He spoke glowingly
of President Lula, saying that Brazil has said that only 19% of land can be
used for sugar cane for ethanol, and has committed to monitor labor rights.
But what about, for example, Indonesia and Malaysia?
De Schutter, action on food speculation not shown
After De Schutter's briefing, Inner City Press asked his staffer for an
update on the proposed land grab in Madagascar by South Korea based Daewoo,
which was reputed after the coup in that country. De Schutter had been
scheduled to visit, but it was put off by the coup. The same thing happened
in Honduras. So perhaps De Schutter does have an effect after all, mused one
wag.
Footnote: immediately after De Schutter's briefing, the UN's Haile Menkerios
was scheduled to speak to the Press about Madagascar. While the UN usually
compartmentalizes its work such that a rapporteur looks at land grabs, while
the Secretariat remains on "political affairs" narrowly defined, this land
grab played a role in the change of government. Now it's said the South
Korean deal is being pursued from India, while South Korea appears to have
moved on to 690,000 hectares in Sudan. Watch this site.
Click here for an Inner City Press YouTube channel video, mostly UN
Headquarters footage, about civilian deaths in Sri
Lanka.<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtIW-Kx7QRQ>
Click here for Inner City Press' March 27 UN
debate<http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/18635#>
**
Click here for Inner City Press March 12
UN<http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/18329#>(and AIG
bailout <http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/18329?in=00:60:41&out=00:62:57>)
debate <http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/18329#>
**
Click here for Inner City Press' Feb 26 UN
debate<http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/18035#>
Click here <http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/17772?in=11:33&out=32:56> for
Feb. 12 debate on Sri
Lanka<http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/17772?in=11:33&out=32:56>
http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/17772?in=11:33&out=32:56
Click here <http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/17181#> for Inner City
Press' Jan. 16, 2009 debate about Gaza<http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/17181#>
Click here for Inner City Press' review-of-2008 UN Top Ten
debate<http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/16855>
Click here for Inner City Press' December 24 debate on UN budget,
Niger<http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/16721#>
Click here from Inner City Press' December 12 debate on UN double
standards <http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/16517>
Click here for Inner City Press' November 25 debate on Somalia,
politics <http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/16162#>
and this October 17 debate, on Security Council and Obama and
the UN <http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/15262#>.
* * *
These reports are
usually<http://www.innercitypress.com/un1google021408.html>also
available through Google
News<http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&tab=wn&ie=ISO-8859-1&ned=us&q=%22inner+city+press%22&scoring=d>and
on Lexis-Nexis.
Click here <http://www.alertnet.org/db/blogs/35127/2007/07/17-163632-1.htm>for
a Reuters
AlertNet <http://www.alertnet.org/db/blogs/35127/2007/07/17-163632-1.htm>piece
by this correspondent about Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army.
Click here <http://www.alertnet.org/db/blogs/35127/2007/06/14-091839-1.htm>for
an earlier Reuters
AlertNet <http://www.alertnet.org/db/blogs/35127/2007/06/14-091839-1.htm>piece
about the Somali National Reconciliation Congress, and the UN's
$200,000 contribution from an undefined trust fund. Video Analysis
here<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPe3NcR4yV0>
Feedback: Editorial [at] innercitypress.com
UN Office: S-453A, UN, NY 10017 USA Tel: 212-963-1439
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