Zuccoti Park: Speech of Under-Secretary-General Senior Adviser to the Secretary-General on the Millennium Development Goals

Mr. Jeffrey Sachs (United States of America)

Under-Secretary-General Senior Adviser to the Secretary-General

on the Millennium Development Goals and Director of the UN Millennium Project

Ban Ki-moon becomes an added "0" to 7Billion number @ a New York City High School visit

@ a New York City High school students add another Zero (0) to the already long 7Billion number

Heather Simpson forced out of the shadow:- Officially the de-jure Chief of Staff

For those at UNDP who called Heather Simpson the machiavellian schemer who would always be careful NOT to take a picture with Helen Clark while traveling with her around the globe, now is the time to really sh** bricks.

HEATHER SIMPSON (H2)

IS

CHEF DE CABINET

OFFICE OF ADMINISTRATOR

@UNDP

Yes, you heard that well. After the direct threat to Helen Clark from a "powerful government" at the last Executive Board meeting, Uncle Helen could trust no one else at UNDP's cupola with the next move :

CHANGE UNDP

Only Heather Simpson can pull this off. Will she be able to navigate the corrupt waters of internal politics at UNDP... only time would tell. Eventhough, "time" is the only thing Uncle Helen doesn't have. She has a deadline to change UNDP forcefully by end of 31st December 2011.

How can you change a specialized professional network like UNDP, were most of current management has been trained and certified by top "capacity building companies" like MI6, GRU, ASIS, CSIS, FE, SUPO, DGSE, AIVD, ISI, SASS, SEBIN, etc??

Well only a NZSIS certified, who has also navigated the New Zealand politics for almost quarter century can do it.

One thing is for sure, Uncle Helen cannot return in New Zealand and the only way is to navigate her ship in the international waters for "awhile", thus brace up UNDP, you aint seen nothing yet!

Paying the UN to steal a NY park - NYPOST.com

Paying the UN to steal a NY park - NYPOST.com

The United States is going broke, and the United Nations is morally bankrupt. So why should US taxpayers pay for UN bureaucrats to get swanky new offices -- destroying a New York City park in the process?

It’s all poised to happen, if the UN project can clear a key hurdle by Oct. 10.

For nearly a decade, the United Nations and the Bloomberg administration have eyed Robert Moses Playground, a small city park just south of UN headquarters, as the site for a new tower -- as tall as 505 feet -- in which to “consolidate” UN offices now scattered across the city.

The city would sell the park to the UN Development Corp. -- a state public-benefit corporation (on whose board sits Mayor Bloomberg’s sister, Marjorie Tiven) that manages UN real-estate needs. Once the corporation builds the new tower, the United Nations would supposedly vacate UN Plaza 1 and 2, which the city would put up for sale.

The money from these real-estate transactions would go into a special fund for East Side development, which could then cover the $150 million or more cost of completing the East Side “greenway” with an “esplanade” (complete with bike paths, of course) built over the water from 38th Street to 60th Street.

This June, the state Legislature finally cleared the way for the park to be “alienated” for sale as real estate. But that “alienation” won’t happen if a “Memorandum of Understanding” isn’t reached by Oct. 10. Needed are OKs from the mayor, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, as well as the local representatives, Assemblyman Brian Kavanagh and state Sen. Liz Krueger.

Many in the neighborhood pray that one of the politicians will refuse.

The East End Hockey Association, which has played at Robert Moses since 1972, opposes the swap. And Vivienne Gilbert, co-op president of 5 Tudor City Place, says area residents are worried about the project’s effect on their safety and quality of life.

Land next to the park is slated to become housing and office towers, so residents are especially concerned about light and air. The crowding caused by the new development, Gilbert adds, makes it all the more important to keep the playground open as recreational space.

Then there’s security. Not only does the park sit atop the Queens-Midtown Tunnel, but fitting a 39-story tower on the cramped site wouldn’t allow much “setback” from the street. These factors, Gilbert explains, increase the building’s appeal as a terrorist target -- and would require even stricter security in a neighborhood that already sometimes stifles under it.

Kavanagh insists that security concerns will be addressed, and that no plan will move forward unless adequate substitute park space is found; he’s “optimistic that we will work out a deal that is a win for the community.”

But there’s also the bigger picture: a potential multimillion-dollar bill for federal taxpayers.

As Heritage Foundation fellow Brett Schaefer noted in a recent paper, the United Nations would ultimately pay the UNDC for the tower -- but Uncle Sam shoulders a fifth or more of the UN budget. Estimates of the project’s cost run as high as $475 million.

Plus, the savings of “consolidating” UN staff into the new tower may not materialize. According to Schaefer, the United Nations pays half the market rate at UN Plaza 1 and 2; the new tower would mean giving up those favorable rents.

If it consolidates at all: Fox News recently reported that Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon has gone on a hiring binge of late, increasing the size of his Secretariat from 2008 to 2009 by nearly 38 percent.

Americans may pay an even bigger price. Typically, the UNDC has financed its development through tax-exempt bonds, which amount to a subsidy from federal, state and local taxpayers. (A spokesman for a coalition of groups championing the project, David Cantor, says the UNDC will use tax-exempt bonds for at most a portion of the building.)

The question, however, is why US taxpayers would pay a dime toward this project. At a time when we’re hugely in debt, and the United Nations is busy pushing Palestinian statehood and fêting Iranian nut-job Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, why should we fork over millions of dollars -- and a city park -- to make the United Nations’ dream of nicer, more convenient offices come true?

Proponents of the project say it’s not a done deal, pointing to hurdles beyond the Oct. 10 deadline. But once such projects get rolling, they become almost impossible to resist.

The best bet would be to stop the project now -- before it’s too late.

Meghan Clyne is managing editor of National Affairs.

At Town Hall, Secretary-General reflects on his vision and the way ahead for UN reform

---

Posted: Wednesday, 14 September 2011, New York | Author: iSeek/David Mimran

The Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, held a Town Hall meeting today in New York with staff from duty stations across the world attending by video conference, to share his reflections on his first term and his vision for strengthening the United Nations during his second term. Questions and comments focused particularly on security, budget cuts and mobility.

“I am honoured to be part of this incredible Secretariat of thousands of different people from different countries working for the same cause”, said Ban Ki-moon in his opening remarks. Mr Ban was accompanied on the podium by the Deputy Secretary-General, Ms. Asha-Rose Migiro and Under Secretary-General for Management, Ms. Angela Kane. Mrs. Ban attended in the audience.

At the beginning of the new General Assembly session, the Secretary-General had invited staff to a Global TownHall meeting to come together and talk about the “state of the world and our United Nations -- where we are, where we are going”.

Before sharing his vision for his second term, the Secretary-General recalled the tragic events of the bombing of the UN House in Abuja: “This attack demonstrates that we now face determined, immoral extremists, opposed to the basic principles of the United Nations, in even low-threat countries around the world”, he said. He pledged to call on Member States to do more to ensure adequate security for UN personnel everywhere.

Staff observed a minute of silence in honour of colleagues lost in the line of duty, including in Afghanistan, Bolivia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti, Nigeria and Sudan.

Reform Plan

The Secretary-General then shared what he called “the state of his thinking”, lessons learned from his first term and the vision for the road ahead.

“My plan is to move from talking about “what” we must do, to detailing “how” we will do it, through a plan of action to be unveiled in January. Over the next five years, I want us to focus on several areas”, added the Secretary-General.

• We need adequate and predictable resources. Austerity is a reality. But if we are doing our part to save, Member States must do theirs to fund.

• We need to make further organizational changes. The Change Management Team is looking at a number of key areas, including information technology, procurement, business processes, and work-life balance.

• We need to make the United Nations a hub of innovation.

• We need to strengthen staff security. You have my commitment on this. Here, too, Member States will have to recognize the need for resources.

• We need to ensure accountability and transparency. And we need to ensure that the Umoja project is a cornerstone of this effort.

• It is vital that professional staff and managers experience several duty stations to understand the full breadth of our organization and ensure that we can deliver our mandates effectively in the most difficult duty stations. This should always be an opportunity, never a burden. That is why we have been consulting with staff representatives on proposals for a comprehensive mobility policy to present to the General Assembly in 2012.

The Secretary-General fielded questions from staff in Nairobi, The Hague, New York, Geneva, Bangui, Beirut, Vienna, Juba, and Santiago, on three mains themes: mobility, staff security, and the 3% budget reduction proposed by the Secretary-General.

Staff security

The President of the Staff Union in New York, Ms. Barbara Tavora-Jainchill, speaking in the name of a very wide number of unions in the UN System and a variety of duty stations, raised the issue of security and the growing threat to staff, asking the Secretary-General to be more often present in person in tragic circumstances. The Staff Union also asked the SG to create a “staff-management working group on security measures to identify and correct the flaws in the system,” including the issue of housing several agencies and programmes in the same building.

The SG reiterated that staff security was a priority and indicated that he would follow up on meetings that already took place with the Deputy Secretary-General. He added that he was looking forward to improving the relationship between management and staff unions. “The fact that relations have not always been as harmonious as expected” had been a regret during his first term, he explained.

3% Cut in Budget

Answering questions from Staff Unions in Geneva and Vienna concerning the cuts in the budget and their adverse impact on staff, in terms of contracts but also security and health services, Mr. Ban pointed out that we are living “in an era of austerity”.

He added that it was possible to cut “through the fat” without “cutting through the muscles or the bones” and that offices had already been able to come up with an average of 3.7% cut in the budget. “The 3% cut is not across the board, and doesn’t apply uniformly to all offices”, he explained, adding that some departments had been able to offer a voluntary cut of 7%.

Mobility

In response to a question from Bangui and a remark from the Staff Union in New York, the SG indicated that the Secretariat had been tasked by the General Assembly to present a plan on mobility at its 67th session. He added that he would be striving to strike a “balance between continuity and expertise”. “It may be the case that if someone works for 10-15 years in one place, he may become an expert, but we need our staff to be multi-functional”, he said.

Durban III: The Monaco Factor

by Claudia Rosett @ PajamasMedia.com

On Sept. 22, the United Nations will strike a blow for bigotry, by hosting Durban III — the third in what has become a series of UN gatherings dedicated in name to fighting racism, but devoted in practise to whipping up and institutionalizing anti-Semitism. The UN’s so-called “Durban process” singles out Israel for opprobrium. The UN’s first Durban conference, held in South Africa, in 2001, turned into such a mob attack on Israel that the U.S. delegation walked out. The UN’s second Durban “review” conference, held in Geneva, in 2009, had its preparatory committee chaired by Libya, and featured as a star speaker Iran’s Holocaust-denier-in-chief, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The U.S. boycotted that conference, and when Ahmadinejad began to speak, a parade of Western delegates walked out.

Undeterred, the UN General Assembly is now planning to hold Durban III at the UN’s headquarters in New York, timed to coincide with the annual pileup of heads of state who come every September to tie up midtown Manhattan traffic and speak at the UN General Assembly’s annual opening. Preparations are already well-advanced for providing the assembled worthies with a full day of opportunities to “commemorate” the bigotry of the original Durban conference, as Anne Bayefsky of EyeontheUN reports in her latest article on “U.N. Busy Deciding How to Slam Israel.”

The good news — such as there is — is that six countries have now announced they will not attend Durban III: Canada, the U.S., Israel, the Netherlands, Italy, and the Czech Republic all want no part of this Durban grotesquerie. The bad news is that with only half a dozen countries pulling out to date, that leaves 187 of the UN’s 193 member states (South Sudan was just enrolled by the UN as the 193rd member) either unwilling to take a stand for decency, or eager to go ahead with yet another UN festival of anti-Semitism.

What is to be done? Well, sometimes leverage can be found in strange places. So here’s something to ponder. Preparations for Durban III are being “co-facilitated” by two countries, and an odd coupling it is: Cameroon and Monaco.

There’s no point in expecting decency from the longtime dictatorship of Cameroon — which, while serving at the UN as a grandee of Durban III, has reportedly failed to end slavery on its own turf, and has fostered a system that human rights watchdog Freedom House describes as a sinkhole of cronyism, discrimination against women, and “a transit center for child trafficking.”

But what about Cameroon’s Durban III partner, Monaco? Yes, the Monaco of glamor, fashion, and oh-so-up-market Western civilization? The Monaco of the late Grace Kelly, of charity balls, of fancy royal photos and the recent wedding of Prince Albert. Monaco, with its tiny population of just under 36,000, enjoys a lovely rating by the U.S. State Department as a place where in 2010 there were no reports of anti-Semitic attacks or discrimination against any religion.

Surely, if Monaco carries on lending its name and reputation to Durban III, Monaco’s good name is due for quite a downgrade. This is a conference that the U.S., Canada, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic have all decided to spurn because, in the words of the U.S. government: “The Durban process included ugly displays of intolerance and anti-Semitism.” Does Monaco really want to make its mark at the UN as a high-end caterer to anti-Semites?

By the same token, little Monaco could do the world a big favor — by wising up and pulling out of Durban III. As “co-facilitator” of the General Assembly preparations to date, Monaco could punch well above its weight, should it decide even at this late hour to do a U-turn and boycott the conference. Unlike the quisling project of arranging the panel discussions and place settings for Durban III, backing away from the entire “commemoration” would be an act of genuine leadership, and — frankly — self-respect. Is anyone at the State Department making that case to the eminences of Monaco?

UNDP SCANDAL: Global Fund to Fight AIDS - Olivier Chastel: “Belgium awaits the results of the audits”

After suspicion of misuse of funds in certain countries, the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria decided in early 2011 to have the situation investigated by a group of international experts. The group’s report, which was expected in May, will most likely only be available in September.

In addition, the European Commission has not only rescinded its financial support to the Fund, but has also started investigations in various countries. The results of these will be communicated to the group of experts appointed by the Fund.

“If the results of the investigations by the European Commission are positive, then Belgium is prepared to deposit its €21 million contribution for 2011,” stated Minister for Development Cooperation, Olivier Chastel.

Belgium has made substantial contributions to the Global Fund: €12 million in 2008, €16 million in 2009, and €21 million in 2010, which was deposited during the fourth quarter. An amount of €21 million has been planned for 2011. However, Belgium remains active in the fight against AIDS, and Prime Minister Yves Leterme will take part in the 2011 High Level Meeting on HIV-AIDS in New York on 8 June.

“We must get sufficient guarantees that the money allocated to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is being used correctly. This is a matter of good management,” says Olivier Chastel. “The Global Fund is a legitimate institution and I am therefore happy with the decision made in February regarding the establishment of measures to strengthen financial protection and the opportunities to combat fraud.”

U.S. Footing $100M Bill for U.N. Security Upgrade

click here for story on FOXNEWS

By George Russell

Published February 09, 2011 | FoxNews.com

Months after top New York City officials expressed intense behind-the-scenes frustration at the security vulnerabilities at the United Nations headquarters in Manhattan, the U.N. is now planning to spend $100 million -- donated by the U.S. -- on the upgrade.

That has created a new controversy: critics want to know why the U.S. is footing the entire bill, and why that money is not being credited against U.S. dues for the following year.

“If the U.S. overpays the U.N., those funds should be returned in full to the U.S. Treasury,” declared Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., who heads the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “To allow the U.N. to redirect those U.S. taxpayer dollars for unrelated projects is unjustifiable.” Moreover, she says, “by allowing the U.N. to reap the U.S. surplus as a slush fund for construction, the State Department wants to stick U.S. taxpayers with 100 percent of the cost, instead of the 22 percent that the U.S. would be responsible for under normal procedures.”

Ros-Lehtinen is leading a charge in the House of Representatives Wednesday, with a bill that demands the U.N. refund not only the $100 million but the entire $179 million overpayment collected from the U.S. for the United Nations Tax Equalization Fund (TEF), an obscure financial device used to reimburse U.S. citizens who work for the U.N. for U.S. income taxes they pay. (The U.S. is the only major country to levy income taxes on U.N. salaries.)

Ros-Lehtinen calls the refund demand “a small step toward restoring sanity to our U.N. policy and government spending.”

Few expected the bill, which required two-thirds approval, to pass — and it didn’t, failing 259-169. But it is an early salvo in House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s online YouCut campaign to get public backing behind the Republican push to cut the mammoth U.S. deficit. Voters pushed the measure to the head of the queue in an online poll used to set YouCut’s weekly priorities.

There was at least one additional problem with the proposed measure: the $100 million in security money is no longer in the TEF, a senior State Department official told Fox News. It has already been moved by the U.N. into a separate security account. The remainder of the TEF balance will apparently be spent as U.N. financial rules say it should be, as a credit against U.S. dues for U.N. membership next year. According to the U.N., a previous U.S. overpayment was used exactly in this fashion, in 1997.

CLICK HERE FOR THE U.N. FINANCIAL RULE

While the battle over funding the U.N. grows heated, New York City officials are relieved that something is finally going to be done about some of the U.N.’s glaring vulnerabilities to terrorist attacks.

Among other things, the U.N. complex Conference Building, which houses the Security Council, hangs directly over the East Side’s Franklin Delano Roosevelt highway, while an exit ramp from the same thoroughfare curves around the south end of the complex, near the U.N. library. On the west side of the complex, U.N. buildings are only a few yards away from busy First Avenue.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg and New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly have long been frustrated by the U.N.’s inaction at dealing with the security issues, even as the U.N. complex has been emptied of many occupants while it currently undergoes a $1.8 billion facelift.

As Fox News reported last September, Bloomberg personally wrote to Secretary of StateHillary Clinton about the issue, and other officials bluntly expressed similar concerns to the State Department, which is the official U.S. interlocutor with the U.N. But the behind-the-scenes dialogue about security improvements was apparently never-ending—with one big issue being who was going to pay for any changes.

The decision to use TEF money apparently solves that problem, at least from the U.N.’s point of view, and a senior State Department official made clear to Fox News that the U.S. government was willing to go along.

“In this case the United Nations notified the State Department that it intended to use [TEF funds] for security enhancement,” said U.S. Under Secretary of State for Management Patrick Kennedy. “Since the money was already in their hands, the U.S. had no objection to the use in the upgrade.”

So why is the U.S. picking up the entire tab, rather than the 22 percent share it is paying for the overall U.N. renovation?

“This is being done at the same time as the U.N. renovation, but it is a separate project,” Kennedy told Fox News. It is considered separate because there are “other ways to do the project” that would not involve the U.N. at all, such as closing major New York City thoroughfares. But that, Kennedy said, was “not feasible.”

For its part, the U.N. explained both the security upgrades and the bill-paying by carefully putting the ball back in the U.S. court. In response to questions from Fox News, a U.N. spokesman said that “the present discussion about additional security upgrades reflects heightened security concerns by the Host Country [the U.S.] and U.N. security authorities. The U.S., under its Host Country obligations, is funding these new security upgrades.”

What will the money be used for? State Department officials were understandably reluctant to provide much detail. In talking points provided to Fox News, one official said it would be used in part to “reinforce and reconfigure U.N. headquarters facilities.”

In a letter sent earlier this year to the House Foreign Affairs Committee, however, the State Department indicated that changes are planned for First Avenue and the Conference Building, with additional measures still under consideration.

CLICK HERE FOR THE LETTER.

While no-one is likely to object to the security changes, the U.S.-U.N. deal on the financing of the changes is unlikely to satisfy U.N. critics like House Foreign Affairs chairwoman Ros-Lehtinen.

“The U.N. and the [Obama] Administration are treating this overpayment like found money, but it’s not,“ she had already declared in a press release, pointing to the U.N. rule that says the money should be used as a payment against next year’s U.S. dues. “The $179 million extra that the U.S. paid into the UN Tax Equalization fund should be refunded to the American people immediately.”

Brett Schaefer, a U.N. expert at the conservative Heritage Foundation, agrees.

“The fact that the U.S. has failed to make such a simple request is a disservice to the American taxpayer.”

New York City officials, however, are likely to weigh that against a feeling that something finally is being done to end a bureaucratic impasse that threatens the city.

George Russell is executive editor of Fox News.

Helen Clark's paycheck is...?

starts at:

US $215,108.99

and the above does not include the following:

- Daily Subsistence Allowances for every travel;

• add another aprox: $35,000.00

- Rental Subsidy (full apartment paid by UNDP);

• add another aprox: $72,000.00

- Lunch Money ("working lunch or dinners");

• add another aprox: $200.00-$1,200.00 per day

- Travel Expenses (taxi, chauffeur, etc);

• add another aprox: $100.00 per day

- Keep all Gifts from world leaders;

• priceless

End aprox:

US $320,000.00

And this individual who receives the above from the world tax-payers, dares to say NO - to those who ask for transparency and accountability of UNDP Funds. This is Helen Clarks latest statement on request for investigations on corruption and abuse of Global Funds money run by UNDP:

UNDP cannot provide the Global Fund with access to its internal audit reports, UNDP does, as a standing practice, inform the Global Fund about key audit findings and recommendations resulting from internal audits of Global Fund grants managed by UNDP

Is this what New Zealand calls a national pride ?

The ultimate hoax?

BY SIMEON TALLEY | MARCH 01, 2010 7:30 AM

Is climate change not so much of an inconvenient truth after all?

For years, we have been subjected to prophets bearing witness to the incontrovertible truth of climate change and global warming. Al Gore — the world’s chief Jeremiah on climate change — has made a career (including a fortune, an Oscar, and a Nobel) persuading the public that the warming of the Earth’s temperature, if left unabated, will surely lead to our doom.

But if the Earth’s temperature is supposed to be getting warmer because of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere, how do you explain this winter? All across the East Coast, winter was a lot more, well, wintery. There wasn’t just heavy snowfalls in New York, but in Houston. This certainly doesn’t seem like global warming. In fact, here in Iowa, we probably could use a little warming to get us through this stubborn remaining month or so of cold weather.

Furthermore, a series of gross errors and scandals have called into question the very science of climate change. In 2009, we learned that scientists at the British Research Center selectively withheld information that might conflict with their findings of historical warming — otherwise known as “climategate.”

And most recently, we have learned that the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report exaggerated claims that most of the Himalayan glaciers would melt away by 2035. The report was also flat-out wrong about the susceptibility of the Netherlands to rising sea levels. The document guides most of what we understand the science to be and what effective responses to climate change should be.

Climate change could be the biggest hoax ever perpetuated. Advocates of cap-and-trade could simply be pulling wool over all our eyes to feed their zealous environmentalism. Could it be?

While critics have gained new ammunition and a new target to attack in the international climate panel, the facts of climate change have consistently remained clear. Human activity is changing the climate in unsustainable ways. The warming of the Earth’s temperature— resulting in melting glaciers and rising sea levels — threatens our ability to exist as we know it.

It’s convenient for climate-change skeptics to point out regional fluctuations in weather, but the reality is that this decade has been the hottest since modern records have been kept. And 2009 registered as the second warmest year we have on record. These are not the findings of scientists in European capitals, but of NASA (not to disparage Europe or scientists from Europe). Even the U.S. Defense Department recognizes that climate change exists and poses a threat to our national security.

While many people have come to understand climate change and global warming to be synonymous, there is some difference between the two. Global warming refers to a rise in temperature; climate change refers to changes in the Earth’s climate. So warming temperatures will increase the rate of evaporation from the ocean, putting more moisture in the atmosphere, creating the heavy snowfall we just saw in the Northeast. And that’s exactly the point: It’s not only rising temperatures, but abnormal weather that can be attributed to climate change.

But what about those errors in the climate-panel report? Well, science must be rigorous and held to a high standard. But the panel is not a body that conducts primary research; it collects and presents the scientific consensus of the overwhelming majority of the science. So errors within the report don’t undermine the science of climate change at all. To disprove the science of climate change, you would have to refute the body of work that has been done on the topic for several decades from scientists all over the world.

Climate-change deniers have used recent controversies to suggest that action be shelved until later or that nothing be done at all. But the truth is that we really can’t wait. The longer that we do, the more inconvenient it will be economically and politically.

The current generation — those born after 1980 — is often referred to as Millennials. And most of you, being a part of this group, get it: Climate change is a fact, and we have to act now.

UNDP seeks to defend Helen Clark

The Inquiring Mind

Click here for Story

Yesterday Adam drew attention to some NY media criticism of one Helen Clark. Adam’s post was the result of an item on Morning Report.

David Farrar had a post on this as well, later in the day. Mr Farrar pointed out that with the exception of Morning Report none of the other NZ media had apparently mentioned the story. Farrar notes as well that media covering the UN in NYC do not appear to be so compliant as NZ media were.

Today on Morning Report was another item on Helen Clark and the media issue. No it was not HC on the phone from the US but a UNDP Communications wallah, who had obviously been set the task of hosing this issue down. Again he did not seem to get tough questioning. The line he spun was that HC travelled a lot and gave interviews etc when overseas. Yet the main issue raised yesterday that HC does not front to the main UN press corps in NY was not dealt with, nor the issue of reporter management in Adam’s view.

Also Radio NZ allowed 7 mins 48 seconds of airtime for the rebuttal as opposed to 4 minutes 18 seconds for the original piece.

Oh and still have not seen any other media coverage.

U.N. union seeks own probe of Algeria attack

U.N. union seeks own probe of Algeria attack

Washington Times

By Betsy Pisik - NEW YORK — The U.N. Staff Union leadership decided to authorize $150,000 to underwrite its own investigation of the al Qaeda attack on the organization's Algeria headquarters, saying that it has little confidence in the official survey group appointed by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

The Staff Union, which represents some but not all of the organization's New York employees, made the decision late last week, according to a member present, days before Osama bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, declared the United Nations a legitimate target of violence.

"The United Nations is an enemy of Islam and Muslims: It is the one which codified and legitimized the setting up of the state of Israel and its taking over of the Muslims' lands," al-Zawahri said in an audio file released on sympathetic Web sites Tuesday.

Responding to a question about the innocent people killed by al Qaeda bombings in Algeria, Iraq and Morocco, al-Zawahri responded, "We haven't killed the innocents — not in Baghdad, nor in Morocco, nor in Algeria, nor anywhere else."

He later added, "If there is any innocent who was killed in the mujahedeen's operations, then it was either an unintentional error or out of necessity."

An Algerian terrorist group aligned with al Qaeda slammed a car bomb into the U.N. compound in Algeria's capital city of Algiers on Dec. 11, killing 22 and wounding 40, one of two deadly attacks that morning.

Insurgents similarly destroyed the U.N. compound in Baghdad in August 2003, killing 17 staff members, among others, and triggering the organization's temporary withdrawal from Iraq.

Al-Zawahri, answering questions submitted online by the organization's friends and members, vowed that bin Laden is alive and well, and vowed to attack Jews both in and outside of Israel.

In Romania for the NATO Summit yesterday, the U.N.'s Mr. Ban told worried staff members that the allegations made by al-Zawahri are "baseless and false," according to officials traveling with the secretary-general.

In New York, spokeswoman Marie Okabe said Mr. Ban discussed the message with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and "dismissed" it.

"Both noted, contrary to that message, the contributions that the United Nations has made to the Muslim world," she told reporters.

Diplomats also were aghast that the United Nations, again, was singled out.

Al Qaeda figures have explicitly targeted the United Nations since at least 2002, when bin Laden called the international organization a tool of the Western powers.

The United Nations shuffled its security office in 2005, appointing the former head of Scotland Yard's counterterrorism office to oversee staff safety in the field, reinforce headquarters buildings, and adopt minimum security standards. That office's budget and size also were doubled.

Mr. Ban appointed a new team of seven law-enforcement experts and diplomats to survey staff security around the world. The panel was appointed in the wake of the Algiers bombing, but is not specifically assigned to determine why such a well-anticipated tragedy was not countered.

It was not immediately clear last night when the Staff Union's alternative investigation into the deadly bombing on the Algiers offices will commence, nor who will work on the project.

Staff Union President Stephen Kisambira refused to comment.

Independence of U.N. Probes in Doubt

Turtle Bay
By BENNY AVNI | March 31, 2008

There are troubling signs that two ongoing U.N. investigations may be less thorough and independent than advertised.

The events the two U.N. teams are examining could hardly be more different. One was a vicious terrorist bombing in Algiers that targeted the United Nations as a symbol hated by jihadists and resulted in allegations of U.N. and Algerian security lapses. The other surrounds reports that the main development arm of the United Nations violated its own rules by cozying up to the North Korean regime and its leader, Kim Jong-Il.

The U.N. Development Program’s cooperation with the government of a country known at Turtle Bay as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea seemed so cozy, in fact, that detractors begun calling the joint operation “UNDPRK.” As more and more articles appeared in the press on the UNDP-North Korea relationship, which the Wall Street Journal dubbed “Cash for Kim,” Secretary-General Ban, the UNDP administrator, Kemal Dervis, and the UNDP board of directors launched a full investigation.

In September, the “Independent Investigative Review of UNDP Operations in DPRK” was established, headed by a former Hungarian prime minister, Miklós Németh. The team was supposed to submit its report “if at all possible before the end of 2007.” It quickly dropped this ambitious deadline, however, and earlier this year promised to deliver its results by the end of March. But as the investigators pored over the documents and data, they realized they needed another postponement. The target date is now “before the end of May.”

Is procrastination or thoroughness to blame for the delays? Let’s hope it’s the latter. Privately, however, some are raising questions about at least two team members who may have UNDP ties. Agency officials have dismissed those ties as “tenuous,” saying they don’t violate the team’s mandate.

That mandate says team members should “not seek nor accept supervision or guidance” from anyone at the UNDP or the United Nations, and should “at all times avoid any conflict of interest or appearance of conflict with UNDP or its officials or personnel.” By definition, they should have no U.N. ties.

The team’s chief of staff, Ji Mi Choi, has never worked directly with UNDP or the United Nations, the agency’s spokeswoman, Christina LoNigro, said. But Ms. Choi did serve as chief of staff at Columbia University’s Earth Institute and was top assistant to the institute’s director, Jeffrey Sachs. A prolific writer on development issues, Mr. Sachs has advised a former U.N. secretary-general, Kofi Annan, and has worked with Mr. Annan’s deputy and former UNDP administrator, Mark Malloch Brown, on such cornerstone UNDP projects as the U.N. Millennium Project.

Another member of the independent team investigating the North Korea program, Mary Ann Wyrsch, is chairwoman of the UNDP’s Audit Advisory Committee, created in 2006. Did the body Ms. Wyrsch heads do a good job overseeing and advising the UNDP on its North Korea program? Ms. Wyrsch may face that question during the team’s investigation.

In the aftermath of the December 11, 2007, suicide attack on the U.N. headquarters in Algiers, Mr. Ban appointed a retired Algerian-born U.N. official, Lakhdar Brahimi, to lead an “independent panel on the safety and security of United Nations staff worldwide.” Skeptics wondered whether Mr. Brahimi, known to be loyal to his former bosses both at the United Nations and in the Algerian government, could ever find fault with either. But he may not need to: His mandate, carefully arranged between Turtle Bay and Algiers, might be too broad to investigate the specifics of the December attack.

“Without accountability, there is impunity,” the president of the U.N. Staff Union, Stephen Kisambira, told Mr. Ban in a letter expressing U.N. staffers’ dissatisfaction with the makeup of the Algiers investigative team. “We ask that you not be complicit in a cover-up,” he added. “The staff is sick and tired of the impunity extended by the office of the Secretary-General to senior managers for their failings.”

To allay such concerns, the two investigative teams will have to show that their efforts have not added up to a cover-up, as usual. Despite the worrisome signs, let’s wait for the outcome of both.

bavni@nysun.com

Rentgate damages reputations

27-03-2008
by political editor John Tyler

Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen had some explaining to do in parliament on Thursday. Members of the opposition accused him of misinforming parliament in a scandal involving a former Dutch politician, the United Nations, and a luxury New York apartment.

The controversy centres around former Labour Party Development Minister Eveline Herfkens, and a rental subsidy she received from the Dutch government while working for the UNDP. Starting in late 2002, Ms Herfkens received $7,000 per month to pay for a luxury apartment in New York City. Over the years, her living arrangements cost the Dutch taxpayer $280,000.

Against UN rules
It came to light last year that this arrangement was against UN rules. For this and other reasons, the UNDP put Ms Herfkens on non-active status, and both the UN and the Dutch government opened inquiries to find out who was responsible.

On the basis of his own inquiries, Foreign Minister Verhagen informed parliament that it was not possible to ascertain who had initiated the subsidy construction - Mrs Herfkens or the foreign ministry.

But this week a member of the Socialist Party produced an internal foreign ministry memo, dated October, 2002, in which the ministry seems to suggest the subsidy construction. This led to the accusation that Minister Verhagen was holding something back.

Mr Verhagen vehemently denies that he has been less than fully cooperative. He says prior to the October memo, there was at least one meeting between Ms Herfkens and foreign ministry officials.

"It's absolutely not true that I misinformed parliament. I told parliament that it's not obvious which side took the initiative for getting the rental subsidy. I can't see, in all the documents, who took the initiative, Ms Herfkens or the government."

MPs want their money back
In addition to finding out how this situation came to pass, a majority in parliament would also like Herfkens to pay the money back. Mr Verhagen says the chance of this happening is very small. She has already declined a request to return the subsidy voluntarily, and the Foreign Minister thinks the government does not have a good legal case to force her to do so.

But many parliamentarians disagree. Member of parliament from the Conservative VVD party, Arend Jan Boekestijn, says he will submit a motion requiring Herfkens to reimburse the government, and he thinks a majority in parliament will support it.

Asked how Minister Verhagen comes out of the affair, Mr Boekestijn replied:

"Weakened. But that's also his own position because he admitted that the foreign ministry did a very bad job."