UNDP WATCH: USUN

Showing posts with label USUN. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Remarks by Ambassador Joseph M. Torsella, -- On Agenda Item 130: Standards of Accommodation for Air Travel

Click here for this in full @ USUN: http://usun.state.gov/briefing/statements/205608.htm

Ambassador Joseph M Torsella
U.S. Representative for UN Management and Reform

New York, NY

March 4, 2013

AS DELIVERED

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The United States would like to thank Under Secretary General Yukio Takasu for introducing the Secretary General’s report on air travel and the Chair of the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ), Mr. Carlos Ruiz Massieu for introducing the Committee’s report on this subject, as well as Mr. David Kanja of the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) for introducing the OIOS report.

Mr. Chairman,

There is no question that frequent, long, and complex travel by UN staff and representatives is a necessity. Ensuring that they are properly accommodated during their official travel is not only the right thing to do, but the smart thing to do.

However, what recent reports taken together reveal is deeply concerning. The 2010-11 Budget included $72.5 million for travel. In fact, the OIOS reports that for UN Headquarters, Offices Away from Headquarters, and the regional commissions, the UN spent a total of $575 million in travel-related expenses in the 2010-11 biennium. In addition, from July 2009 to June 2011, the UN spent $194 million on peacekeeping travel-related expenditures.
So actual total travel expenses paid by member states during the biennium was $769 million, and the portion funded in the UN’s Regular Budget of $575 million is approximately eight times that amount identified for “travel” in the budget documents we approved.
This raises an important issue, Mr. Chairman, of transparency – or lack of it – in the current UN budget process, which is something we all share responsibility for. But let’s put those numbers themselves into perspective for a minute. $769 million is approximately equal to the cost of a major peacekeeping mission like UNMISS ($840 million), more than one year’s worth of funding for all SPMs ($570 million), nearly as much as the two-year budget for all international and regional cooperation for development ($1 billion), and nearly equal to the entire two-year budget of FAO ($1 billion).
Three quarters of a billion dollars spent on travel over two years warrants close attention, period. When travel composes nearly 11% of the UN’s regular budget, it would be irresponsible for us to not review rules and policies carefully and adjust as appropriate. To his credit, the Secretary-General has proposed a number of recommendations to improve the UN’s policies on standards of accommodation for air travel. Regrettably, however, the General Assembly was unable to agree and make the responsible and urgently needed decisions in the 66th Session.
We have let this languish for far too long and we can no longer afford to talk about the problems; we need to begin solving them. And that is simply a question of our will here in the Fifth Committee, since much of the information needed to take action has been before us for over a year.
So what do we need to do?
First, the policies and rules governing the UN should be harmonized with those found in the civil services of national governments like the United States. For example, my government allows business class only when international journeys exceed 14 hours in total. As you know, the U.S. federal system is the comparator for UN compensation, and we should not pick and choose: if that’s a reasonable comparator for salaries and benefits, it should also be a reasonable comparator for limitations on those benefits. We don’t see any reason why the UN’s current 9-hour rule should not be increased to 14 hours to comport with the U.S. civil service. UN employees, unless there are extenuating circumstances, do not need to fly business class to Vienna or Brindisi, nor do the family members who accompany them on home leave trips.
But the issue is not just about which class the UN’s staff and representatives should travel on. We have known for quite some time now that the UN has a number of very generous and obsolete policies and rules governing the various benefits afforded to its travelers, such as the provision of the so-called “daily subsistence allowances” for flight time. In plain English, what that means is we’re paying to reimburse employees for meals and hotel costs while they’re 30,000 feet in the air. Current UN rules allow for four hours of connection time to be included in the calculation of total trip time, so adding a stopover to a five hour flight can get one an upgrade to business class. And the lump-sum payments alternative, based on a fare class that no longer even exists, has resulted in direct payments to travelers of, on average, nearly twice the actual cost of travel. We cannot afford, and should not tolerate, these egregious and wasteful distortions. The loopholes enabling them should be closed immediately.
To do so requires a comprehensive revision of the UN’s policies, rules and guidelines to its staff, and the Secretary General’s recommendations are an excellent starting point. However, changing the rules is the first step; we also need to give the Organization’s leadership guidance and tools needed to better manage air travel.
First, the Secretary-General needs to do a better job of collecting and analyzing UN-wide information on travel so that he can better set policies to control expenditures and improve services. While we understand the Organization’s management information system shortfalls can make this challenging, we cannot wait for UMOJA or other long-term efforts to fix this problem. The OIOS has repeatedly raised this as one of the most critical gaps that prevents the Secretary-General from executing UN-wide changes effectively. He cannot generate better group purchase policies and strategies and refine air travel rules without a solid understanding of current trends.
To this end, the dashboard the UN Office in Geneva has set up to follow trends in air travel appears to be an excellent practice. UNOG deserves kudos, but this practice should be implemented immediately and system-wide in every other UN office. The provision of online booking tools for UN staff for commonly traveled and standard routes can also assist with providing the lowest fares to UN staff and cut down on red tape.
Furthermore, such tools can help management by benchmarking trends in air travel and providing some of the missing data on air travel patterns. Yet, as the OIOS report notes, the UN is currently not using the online booking tools to which it is contractually entitled.
The recalibration of lump sum payment policies based on actual utilization rates and current market practices, as well as tracking and actually collecting refunds to which the UN is entitled from cancellations and changes are two further areas to seek savings. And with over thirty different travel agent contracts, consolidating UN-wide – or even system-wide –travel requirements to take advantage of economies of scale is critically needed.
Finally, Mr. Chairman, we share the concerns voiced in the ACABQ report regarding the Secretary-General’s latest report on air travel, which shows that the UN has been granting many exceptions to its already very generous rules on travel standards. The Secretary-General reports between July 2010 and June 2012 the UN granted 529 exceptions for its staff and representatives to travel in business or first class instead of economy, nearly 60% more exceptions than in the previous two years. These increasing exceptions simply send the wrong message to the UN system and to the taxpayers who fund it.
Mr. Chairman,
The United States reiterates the importance of the Secretary-General’s leadership on this issue and encourages him to continue to find ways to more efficiently and effectively utilize air travel resources. We call on the General Assembly to approve the changes, proposed by the Secretary General, that have been before us for over a year now. And we look forward to working with colleagues to get the greatest value from limited travel funds, and to have UN personnel and Member States set an appropriate example at a time when so many of our people around the world face economic hardship. Thank you.

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

FOX NEWS: - Jens Wandel of UNDP leads HLCM into - "taking actions despite not having mandates from member states"

Read this in full @ FOX News: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/03/06/as-financial-backers-get-impatient-un-officials-urgently-work-on-yet-another/#ixzz2MmD27HrE

Alarmed at a concerted push-back by member nations who are getting tired of funding the bloated and ineffectual United Nations, top U.N. managers are urgently trying to figure out a reform plan to repair at least some of their credibility over the next few years.

The exhortation to think big and look beyond the normal endless talk sessions came in a consultative “non-paper” at a two-day closed-door meeting of senior U.N. officials in Turin, Italy, in mid-January. The discussion document also proposed a new propaganda campaign to convince governments and sympathetic legislators that their money was being well spent.

The meeting was intended to brainstorm ideas for a managerial plan to guide the organization over the next three to four years, according to the document.

A copy of the 19-page “non-paper” was obtained by Fox News, which reported last month that wealthier member states were increasingly questioning the way their money is being spent by the U.N.

That impatience was underlined once again on Monday by the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. for management and reform, Joseph Torsella. At a meeting of the U.N.’s finance committee, he noted that the world organization had spent about $769 billion just on travel-related expenses in 2010-2011, “nearly as much as the two-year budget for all international and regional cooperation for development” which is about $1 billion, and “nearly equal to the entire two-year budget” of the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization ($1 billion).

UN Justice: Torsella says "United Nations officials are drunk" !

		UNJustice
		@UNJusticeOrg

#UN Drunk? US Ambassador @USJoe_UN Calls For 'Inebriation-Free Zone' huff.to/14pEhko #UNReform @EUatUN @innercitypress @undpwatch

Thursday, February 21, 2013

Fox News: US, other nations quietly maneuvering to rein in sprawling, inefficient UN system

Read this in full @ Fox News : http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/02/20/us-other-nations-quietly-maneuvering-to-rein-in-sprawling-inefficient-un-system/#ixzz2LXI24p76

Frustrated by the epic inefficiency, sprawling disorganization and free-spending of their money by the United Nations, a group of Western donor nations, including the U.S., has been meeting quietly to develop a strategy to rein in the world organization’s more than $20 billion a year in anti-poverty assistance – which even parts of the U.N. concede hasn’t done much to relieve poverty.

The donor group’s aim is to produce some kind of workable reform agenda for the bloated system that will actually achieve greater efficiency, less duplication and fragmentation of efforts, less corruption and a greater ability to see where their money actually goes.

So far, the would-be reformers are mostly trying to figure out how cost-efficient U.N. programs are, and what management tools the widely differing U.N. organizations can be pressed into adopting.
The U.N. organizations themselves — including such high-profile entities as the United Nations Development Program, UNICEF, the World Food Program, the World Health Organization and more than 30 others —are not invited to the meetings.

According to a document summarizing one of the closed-door sessions obtained by Fox News, the group of 17 reformer nations is aware that they have a long march ahead to reshape the chaotic U.N. system, make it more rational, or even more financially comprehensible.

Another cause of frustration is the spaghetti-like tangle of ways that donor nations contribute money to the UN system.

The document summarizes the most recent meeting of the reformers in the Swedish capital of Stockholm last November, and also looks forward to their next strategy session, known as the Senior Level Donor Meeting on Multilateral Reform, in Berlin next April.

When queried by Fox News for information about the meeting, a spokesman for Germany’s federal Ministry for Economic Development Cooperation merely acknowledged that the session was taking place.

According to the Stockholm document, the donor nations, which include most major Western European nations, as well as Canada, Australia and the U.S.—but not Japan—are not trying to cut costs, but rather are about “achieving more with available resources.”

In response to questions from Fox News, a spokesperson for Britain’s Department for International Development (DFID), one of the major forces behind the reform exercise, says that “U.N. agencies know that cost effectiveness is an important priority for the U.K.—it is one of the criteria DFID used to assess the value for money of U.N. agencies in the U.K.’s multilateral aid review, which we are updating later this year.”

But in rare public discussions of the exercise, participants from Britain, for example, have also pointed to recent small but significant cuts to the administrative budgets of a few of the bigger agencies, amounting to about 5 percent, as fruit of their nearly year-long efforts.

And Britain has already been more draconian than that. DFID, widely considered to be one of the most aggressively reformist of donor organizations, announced in early 2011 that it would walk out of four smaller U.N. agencies that it had found in its original multilateral aid review had contributed little “value for money” for Britain’s investment, and were ranked “poor” in terms of their impact.
When questioned by Fox News about the British statements on administrative budget cuts, a spokesman for the largest U.N. development agency, UNDP, declared that the organization had cut its proposed 2012-2013 “institutional” budget by about $49 million, “equivalent to a 5 percent reduction” from the previous two-year total.

But the spokesman also said the reductions “formed part of a process initiated by UNDP in exercising budgetary discipline, for example, by eliminating non-essential services and identifying cuts to lower priority functions.”

At Stockholm, the reformist group agreed that “donors and multilateral organizations alike need to look at the causes of proliferation and fragmentation and possible options for their reduction.”
One possible translation: fewer and better-organized U.N. agencies — though the agencies themselves may have different views than the countries who identify that problem.

The U.N. system is a major cause of frustration and confusion for those who pay the bills—as well as those who are supposed to benefit from them. The U.N. system includes 37 agencies and organizations that spend money on “development-related operational activities,” as a U.N. summary document puts it. The biggest is the United Nations Development Program, the U.N.’s anti-poverty flagship, which according to a U.N. study accounted for 33 percent of all of the world organization’s resources for “development-related activities.”

Another cause of frustration is the spaghetti-like tangle of ways that donor nations contribute money to the U.N. system, through annual dues-like assessments, voluntary contributions for specific projects or themes, collective contributions through organizations like the European Commission, or through an increasing stream of private contributions that the governments of wealthy nations do not control.

Another is the U.N.’s awesome inefficiency, both in terms of bang for the buck and in terms of actually alleviating the desperate poverty that opens Western wallets in the first place.

A variety of expert studies, including one published in May 2012,

have rated U.N. agencies at the low end of effectiveness among organizations, governments and institutions around the globe, and ranked them equally as low for their willingness to discuss their finances and operations.

And as recently as last month, the United Nations Development Program’s executive board learned from its own internal evaluators that their organization’s anti-poverty efforts often have “only remote connections with poverty.”

The maze-like complexity of the U.N. system is one reason why the donor nations who will meet in Berlin have put the issue of “proliferation and fragmentation” high on their list for reform. How they hope to do that is still unclear. According to the document obtained by Fox News, Germany’s federal Ministry for Overseas Cooperation and Development, or BMZ, will lead discussion on the issue by means of a study of “the incentive structures” beyond the increasing bureaucratic tangle.

The Stockholm document also underscores the remarkable amount donor nations do not know about the welter of U.N. organizations, which do not keep track of costs or program spending in similar ways, do not manage their efforts or staff effectively in terms of results, do not conduct audits in similar fashion, and do not promote or enforce the same rules on combating corruption.

As just one example, in Stockholm, donors “discussed the lack of capacity in [U.N. executive] boards with regard to audit expertise,” which was highlighted in a study by host Sweden. (The U.N.’s drastic lack of such expertise has also been highlighted by a U.N. watchdog, which also pointed out that the auditors are often overly dependent on the people they are supposed to be auditing.

The Stockholm conclave agreed that “there was a continued need to discuss reform and to form coherent messages to drive change,” as well as continued “coordination among donors” and even “clarity on what success looks like.”

The donors have also agreed to institutionalize themselves through an organization they created a decade ago, known as the Multilateral Organization Performance Assessment Network, or MOPAN. This year it will establish its own permanent Secretariat.

CLICK HERE FOR THE STOCKHOLM DOCUMENT

The big question — which is unlikely to be answered at Berlin in April—is whether a new organization of U.N. donors with another strange acronym will truly help to cut back on the bewildering U.N. bloat and inefficiency — or add further to it.

George Russell is executive editor of Fox News and can be found on Twitter@GeorgeRussell

Click here for more stories by George Russell

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Joe Torsella of USUN admits failure: "United Nations is at 8.6% overbudget"

Sunday, November 4, 2012

High level group reaffirms commitment to develop framework to fight global poverty

Click here for full story @ UN DPI: http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=43410&Cr=mdgs&Cr1=#.UJaIroXK49A

The three Co-Chairs of the Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on the Post-2015 Development Agenda jointly address journalists. From left: Prime Minister David Cameron of the United Kingdom, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, President of the Republic of Liberia, and Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, President of Indonesia. UN/M. Castro (File Photo)

2 November 2012 – The panel tasked with advising on the global development agenda beyond 2015, the target date for achieving the anti-poverty targets known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), today reaffirmed its commitment to work together on a framework to combat poverty.
“We had a lively, constructive and very productive set of discussions,” said Prime Minister David Cameron of the United Kingdom, one of the three co-chairs of the High-level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2015 Development Agenda after the panel’s second meeting in London.
According to a news release, discussion among the Panel members covered human development, jobs and livelihoods, and how to reach the marginalized and excluded. The three-day meeting also allowed Panel members to gather input from international civil society, private sector representatives and global youth, answering Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s call for transparency and inclusiveness in its consultations.

Click here for full story @ UN DPI: http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=43410&Cr=mdgs&Cr1=#.UJaIroXK49A

Saturday, October 27, 2012

'Boycott them!' UN rapporteur slams companies aiding Israeli settlements

Click here for this in full @ RT.COM: http://rt.com/news/un-boycott-us-companies-israel-299/

The illegal Ulpana outpost, adjacent to the Beit El Jewish settlement. (AFP Photo / Gali Tibbon)

A special rapporteur for the UN’s Human Rights Council has called for a boycott on all companies involved with Israeli settlements until they adhere to international rights standards. Israel and the US have condemned the move.

In a report presented to the UN General Assembly, American professor Richard Falk said that many US, European and Mexican companies appeared to be violating international human rights and humanitarian laws. The companies are allegedly exploiting Palestinian resources, helping Israel construct illegal settlements and providing security for settlers.

Falk said the call for a boycott is an effort to take infractions of international law seriously. He said the pace of Israeli settlement building has accelerated and that Israel has ignored UN resolutions condemning the practice, so “there is a sense that what the UN says doesn't count.”

Although Falk admitted that further investigations were necessary to determine severity of the violations, the US and Israel were quick to condemn the report, accusing the UN special rapporteur of bias against Israel and calling for his removal.

Click here for this in full @ RT.COM: http://rt.com/news/un-boycott-us-companies-israel-299/

Friday, October 26, 2012

US Ambassador Torsella goes after UN Salaries - argues with Ian Richards on twitter

-------

United States rejects the latest report by Mr. Richard Falk, UN Special Rapporteur for the Palestinian Territories

Click here to read this @ US Mission to the UN: http://usun.state.gov/briefing/statements/199727.htm

Statement on Richard Falk
Susan E. Rice
U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations
U.S. Mission to the United Nations
New York, NY
October 25, 2012

The United States rejects the latest report by Mr. Richard Falk, UN Special Rapporteur for the Palestinian Territories. His call for a boycott of private companies is irresponsible and unacceptable.

Throughout his tenure as Special Rapporteur, Mr. Falk has been highly biased and made offensive statements, including outrageous comments on the 9/11 attacks.

Mr. Falk’s recommendations do nothing to further a peaceful settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and indeed poison the environment for peace. His continued service in the role of a UN Special Rapporteur is deeply regrettable and only damages the credibility of the UN.

Friday, October 12, 2012

Joe Torsella of USUN worried about his latest performance at United Nations (blames discounts on developing countries for sharp rise in US contributions)

5 Oct

‏@USJoe_UN

1/3 The U.S. pays 22% of the #UN regular budget, more than the next 2 largest contributors, Japan and Germany, combined. #UN101

Friday, October 5, 2012

Joe Torsella attends 5th Cmmtt meetings - seem to have lost his mojo - asks for tips on what to say at 5th Cmmtt

Tips for Ambassador Torsella - at 5th Cmmtt :

1. Demand full disclosure and publication of all United Nations lists of registered vendors;

2. Demand full disclosure and publication of all UN Procurement awards - LIVE;

3. Demand that all UN/UNDP procurement managers provide and sign full disclosure agreements and that their organigrammes, names and TORs are made public and published in all UN/UNDP webpages;

4. Demand that United Nations to have one consolidated VENDOR Registry - and not 196 country registries;

5. Demand that UN/UNDP publish yearly Vendor Evaluation forms in UN/UNDP websites;

Thursday, September 27, 2012

Heritage Foundation: Living the High Life at the U.N.

By Brett D. Schaefer
September 25, 2012

Click here to read this @ Heritage Foundation: http://www.heritage.org/research/commentary/2012/09/living-the-high-life-at-the-un

Tomorrow, President Obama will make his fourth address to the United Nations General Assembly. According to tradition, the U.S. leader will follow Brazil, which will officially kick off the start of the 67th session as the first speaker of the “General Debate.” Later that week, heads of state from Malawi, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, and Haiti will take their turn at the podium.

Why highlight these countries? They are among a select group of 49 “least developed countries” (LDCs) that receive substantial reductions in their assessed contributions to the U.N.

How low you ask? Currently, the minimum assessment is 0.001 percent of the organization’s regular budget. That works out to and annual assessment of $25,852 per LCD.

By contrast, the U.S. is assessed 22 percent of the regular budget--$567 million for 2012. Thus, the U.S. assessment is more than 22,000 times that of the least assessed countries.

But that’s not all. LDCs are eligible for a travel allowance to attend the General Assembly. That’s right; the U.N. budget includes $2.2 million ($1.1 million per year or about $23,000 per eligible country) to pick up the travel expenses of five people to attend the General Debate.

All told, after credits and travel allowances are applied, about two dozen countries pay roughly $500 to $1,000 annually in U.N. dues. Other countries also benefit from the travel subsidy, but have a higher assessment.

The idea behind this subsidy, indeed behind the incredibly low assessments of many U.N. member states, is that poor developing countries lack the financial means to send representatives the General Assembly or pay anything more than token amounts for the U.N. Indeed, the minimum assessment has been lowered several times to allow developing countries to “meet their priorities at home.”
Unfortunately, the leaders of these “poor” countries often fail to emulate this prioritization while hobnobbing in Turtle Bay:

• President Joyce Banda of Malawi will make her first trip to the U.N. General Debate this year. She will not be alone. According to the Nyasa Times, a “huge delegation that has accompanied the President including traditional leaders, clerics, Members of Parliament, relatives and ruling People’s Party cohorts.” The projected cost is 308 million Malawian Kwachas (over $1 million).
• During the 2011 General Assembly, President Ernest Bai Korom of Sierra Leone occupied—12 rooms—two entire floors of the Hyatt 48Lex. The hotel internet rates shown for the week of this year’s General Debate lists rooms from $1,596 per night to the penthouse suite at $5,596 per night.
• The New York Post reported last year that Rwandan President Paul Kagame stayed in the $16,000-per-night presidential suite at the Mandarin Oriental.
• Haitian president Michel Martelly was criticized last year for skimping on official meetings, while attending private dinners and parties.

This extravagance is not unusual. The New York Post article on Kagame details other delegations’ expensive hotel stays and even more expensive shopping sprees as does one published earlier this month on the Huffington Post. Indeed, New York hotels make a killing this time of year, jacking up rates in the knowledge that nearly all of the 193 U.N. member countries will be sending high level delegations that prefer to stay in penthouses close to Turtle Bay.

But this raises some basic questions.

Is it really necessary for countries whose populations are extremely poor to send large delegations to New York at enormous expense? Haiti, Malawi, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and many other U.N. member states have per capita incomes around $2 per day or less.

The Malawian government justified its trip saying it “is a rare opportunity for the president to garner support from development partners world over to assist Malawi.” Other governments similarly argue that it is really these side meetings that matter.

But must they go in person, every year? Bear in mind, these countries have diplomats permanently stationed in New York to represent them. What about video conferencing with or telephoning donors? Moreover, most bilateral and multilateral aid donors have embassies and missions in Malawi and other developing countries. Their very purpose is to meet with the government and facilitate cooperation.

Additionally, if these nations can afford tens of thousands, even millions, of dollars for penthouse suites and large entourages to go to the U.N. each fall, why do they need $23,000 in travel allowances from the U.N.?

Finally, shouldn’t it cost a nation more to belong to the U.N. than it does for them to send their president to New York City each fall for 15 minutes on the global soap box?

The vast disparity between financial obligations is a key reason why U.N. reform and budgetary restraint are so difficult. When countries pay virtually nothing into the U.N., it is little wonder that they pay scant attention when its budget increases or its programs are mismanaged.

Just a few things to ponder when you see someone haranguing the assembled leaders at the U.N. this week or get stuck in Manhattan gridlock arising from endless motorcades.

--Brett D. Schaefer is the Jay Kingham Fellow in International Regulatory Affairs at The Heritage Foundation (www.heritage.org).

Click here to read this @ Heritage Foundation: http://www.heritage.org/research/commentary/2012/09/living-the-high-life-at-the-un

Saturday, September 22, 2012

Foreign Policy: Obama's drive-by U.N. diplomacy

Read full post at Foreign Policy: http://turtlebay.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/09/21/obamas_drive_by_un_diplomacy

By Colum Lynch

President Barack Obama has placed multilateralism and the United Nations at the forefront of his foreign policy.

But he's just not that into it right now.

Earlier this year, Obama rebuffed a request by Ban Ki-moon to attend the international U.N. Summit on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro. And next week, Obama will give short shrift to world leaders converging on midtown Manhattan for the annual diplo-talk fest that is called the U.N. General Debate and what most were hoping would allow a face-to-face meeting with the American president. As it turns out, they'll barely get a glimpse of him...

Read full post at Foreign Policy: http://turtlebay.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/09/21/obamas_drive_by_un_diplomacy

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Our Non-Entity U.N. Ambassador Perfect For Obama

Click here to read full article on Investors.com

Rice: A weak U.S. voice at the United Nations. AP View Enlarged Image

Foreign Policy: Our current U.N. ambassador is like the schoolmarm who never gained control over her unruly class. Even when she does talk tough, it doesn't penetrate the noise.
Does anyone know who Ambassador Susan Rice is? Certainly no one remembers anything she has ever said during her more than 3-1/2 years as America's voice within that corrupt nest of vipers in the Turtle Bay section of New York City.
Last Wednesday, in a quintessential example, the ambassador complained that terror state Iran was not being helpful in its dealings with terror state Syria.

Click here to read full article on Investors.com