Overview 16

Overview of IO Watch Archive Quotes XVI,
September-October 2008
811a. “Despite the breakdown of UN climate-change talks in Bali last December, the same themes
were still being pushed at last week's meeting in Ghana--but now developing countries have begun to
question the effects on the world's poorest. …
[They] were far more interested in coping with current and future conditions rather than sacrificing
economic growth at the altar of emissions reductions. … Many of the predicted impacts of climate
change, from increased flooding to the spread of infectious diseases, have long been around, killing
millions of people every year--particularly the poorest. …
Governments and international organizations need to focus on true sustainable development,
the kind that helps both the environment and the people who live in it. Climate mitigation schemes, in
contrast, are too often dreamed up by bureaucrats with little appreciation of the local situation. …
People need electricity now, not pipedreams: sustainable bio-mass fuels, meaning dung and
wood, kill at least 1.6 million children a year, by World Health Organisation estimates.
The world's poorest countries must continue to fight for greater realism in the climate debate:
their livings and even their lives depend on it.”
“Franklin Cudjoe and Bright B, Simons, “UN climate plans vs. the poor”,
Myjoyonline.Com News (Ghana), September 1, 2008.
811b. “Environmentalists have long said the world should concentrate on preventing climate change,
not adapting to it. That is changing. …
Two things have changed attitudes. One is evidence that global warming is happening faster than
expected. … Second, evidence is growing that climate change hits two specific groups of people
disproportionately and unfairly. They are the poorest of the poor and those living in island states:
1 billion people in 100 countries. … They are too poor to defend themselves … and (unlike China or
Brazil) their own carbon footprints are tiny. …
An expert calls climate change the world’s biggest regressive tax: the poorest pay for the
behavior of the rich. …
The cost of coping with climate change is in the tens of billions a year for poor countries, … [but
the total pledged to date is only] $300m. … Most adaptation spending should go on what countries are
doing anyway—irrigation, drought-resistant seeds and so forth. …
[The big contribution the poor could make] towards reducing emissions … is the better
management of tropical forests. … [But] forests were excluded from [the Kyoto protocol,] to the chagrin
of the poor.”
“Adapt or die: Climate change and the poor”, The Economist, September 13, 2008.
812. “Ban Ki-moon, one third of the way through his five year term as Secretary General, is
lamenting that nobody is following his leadership. …
While speaking in favor of "One UN" and against turf wars, Ban allowed UN Development
Program Administrator Kemal Dervis to rebuff the UN Ethics Office, which had preliminarily found
retaliation by UNDP. Dervis instead was allowed to create his own, friendly ethics office. Can one lament
turf wars when one allows this fragmentation and duplication of resources? …
Ban also focused on so-called mobility, … [but he] has yet to do anything about the inability of
so-called G or General staff to move in to the professional ranks. And officials expected to leave have
been kept on in other positions. …
[At his rare press conferences, his] Spokesperson carefully chooses who is allowed to ask
questions. … [And] for ten days now, the UN has been under fire for its Myanmar envoy's pro-junta trip,
... [and failing] to meet Aung San Suu Kyi or even General Than Shwe. Ban said it is not about process
but results. In this case, where are the results? There is much work to be done.”
www.iowatch.org 09/12/2008 Page 1 of 29

Matthew Matthew Lee, “As UN’s Ban says nobody follows him, he’s presiding over
chaos on ethics and disclosure”, Inner City Press, September 2, 2008.
813. “The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has agreed a voluntary code of conduct with
sovereign wealth funds (SWF). The deal with 26 countries … will be put to the IMF members at its
October meeting … [covering] issues like transparency, governance and accountability of these huge
funds.
Sovereign wealth funds control assets worth an estimated $2 - $3 trillion, which is expected to
increase to around $10 - $12 trillion by 2012. Many rich countries … have expressed unease that
SWFs may be investing in their economies for political purposes. …
The [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development] has said that any moves against
sovereign wealth funds would be hypocritical, since Western governments have long urged other
countries to open their markets to foreign investment. It is working on a parallel code of conduct for
rich countries who … [receive] SWF investment. …
The rise of sovereign wealth funds is one sign of the shift in the balance of power in the world
economy from Western industrialised countries to new emerging market giants like China and the oil-rich
Middle East.
How the issue is handled will be a crucial test of the way international institutions are responding
to these challenges.”
“IMF deal on sovereign wealth funds”, BBC News, 3 September, 2008. [Note: the
key SWF’s are: Abu Dhabi, $800 billion; Norway, $400 billion; Singapore, $330 billion;
China, $300 billion, and Kuwait: $200 billion. The above efforts are encouraging, but
knowledge of SWF operations and goals is still very sketchy, as shown by two recent
Financial Times (UK) articles: Jamil Underlini, “Beijing’s shadowy pool for buying up
best assets”, September 12, 2008; and Demetri Sevastopulo and Krishna Guha, “Fifth of
SWF’s “unaccountable”, September 15, 2008.]
814. “The United Nations is in bad shape. The Security Council is divided over many crucial issues -
Darfur, Iran, Burma, Zimbabwe, and now, of course, Georgia. … Efforts at reform are nowhere to be
seen. Leadership, from the UN Secretariat or [Member States] is notable only by its utter absence. …
[David Hannay tries] to chart the life and realities of the UN … [and] neatly shows why such
political leadership is hard to come by. The UN is now fearsomely complicated. The fixes to its
institutional problems, including in the Security Council, are going to be horribly difficult to achieve,
requiring as they do consensus among a large group of disparate countries . … And despite its continued
centrality … its institutional and decision-making structures are woefully detached from the realities they
are supposed to be dealing with. …
The UN can be made more open [and accountable, but requires] a very determined and
sustained effort to do this. … Few countries … show any willingness to take on this unglamorous burden.
Instead, most seem content to let the UN slowly deteriorate into sclerosis. The suffering masses of
the world are already paying a price for this neglect.”
Carne Ross, “Decline and fall?: Book Review”, New Statesman (UK), 04 September,
2008. [Note: Mr. Ross is a former British diplomat who also worked for the UN and
now runs Independent Diplomat, an advisory NGO. The book is “New World Disorder:
The United Nations after the cold war – An insider’s view”, by David Hannay [British
permanent representative to the UN from 1990-1995], I. B. Tauris, June 2008.]
815. “The development-aid business is a shambles. Privately, most of the 1,200 delegates …
[agreed, at the first big follow-up forum in Accra] on an accord on making aid more effective, reached in
Paris in 2005. …

The main problem is not … too little aid … [but that it] is fragmenting: there are too many
agencies, financing too many small projects, using too many different procedures. ‘Fragmentation is the
opposite of effectiveness,’ says one expert. …
[Bilateral donors’ aid projects have] skyrocketed from 10,000 to 80,000 over the past ten years
… [and the UN estimated some] 37,000 international NGOs in 2000. … There are almost certainly more
now. …
The Paris declaration aims to cut the use of … [foreign experts] dramatically. … But big problems
remain. In Mozambique, says … one NGO, donors are spending a staggering $350m a year on 3,500
technical consultants, enough to hire 400,000 local civil servants. ‘Aid should strengthen local
capacity rather than spawn parallel aid empires,’ says … another expert. …
[Unless recipient governments publish development programmes that aid agencies can …
[actually use -- only a fifth do now,] -- … aid is likely to remain badly fragmented.”
“The future of aid: A scramble in Africa: Donors and recipients try to get to grips with
the chaos in international aid”, The Economist, September 6, 2008.
816. “Aid to poor nations has slumped even as higher food and energy prices and slowing global
growth have made such assistance more urgent, according to a report released by the UN secretary
General, Ban Ki Moon.
The UN report released Thursday showed that aid had dropped 8.4 percent in 2007, after a 4.7
percent drop in 2006. The Group of 8 industrialized nations pledged in 2005 to donate more than $25
billion to Africa by 2010, but just $4 billion has actually been delivered.”
“News in brief: United Nations, New York”, International Herald Tribune, September 6-
7, 2008.
817. “[UN] whistleblowers … are nearly always nameless, given the UN's record of retaliation. …
[But recently, a former staff member in several UN African posts] approached Inner City Press … asking
that he be quoted by name. He produced UN evaluations of his previous work, and a list of UN system
jobs he has applied for without success, … [including a recent, appropriate post a colleague said was
already pre-selected, and indeed was.] …
‘They've put a red flag on my file,’ [Joseph Owondo] said. ‘I'm a lawyer but they've given me no
chance to defend myself. … "In the UN … people are afraid they'll lose their jobs or have red flags put on
their files and never get a job. This is what's happened to me.’
Owondo paints a bleak picture, even leading, he said, to suicide. "That lady who died out on
the lawn?" he asked, pointing down at the … [UN headquarters] grass. Why does a person come in to
their work if they want to kill themselves? Then a man died for lack of medical attention. We've hit a new
low. Member states have to beat their hands on the table and change things.’
“At UN, from Togo lies to red flags, discrimination and corruption alleged on the record,
‘GA should act’”, Matthew Russell Lee, Inner City Press at www.innercitypress.com,
September 8, 2008. [Note: see also item 822.]
818. “The most brilliant minds should be directed to solving Earth's greatest challenges, such as
climate change, says Sir David King, the former UK chief scientist. …
He suggested that less time and money be spent on endeavours such as space exploration and
particle physics. He said population growth and poverty in Africa also demanded attention.
‘The challenges of the 21st Century are qualitatively different from anything that we've had to face
up to before,’ he told reporters. … ‘This requires a re-think of priorities in science and technology and a
redrawing of our society's inner attitudes towards science and technology. … We will have to regear our
thinking … to remove our dependence from fossil fuels virtually completely.’ …
A British theoretical physicist … [at CERN, however, noted that thousands of physicists] … were
the first … to go online, leading the way for the rest of humanity; … that space exploration and particle

physics are already … developing new technologies for power generation … and waste disposal; … and
that a most important spin-out was indeed the brilliant minds that drifted into other areas of science after
[studying at CERN.]”
Jonathan Amos, “’Climate crisis’ needs brain gain”, BBC News, September 8, 2008.
[Note: the world wide web was originally developed by Tim Berners Lee at the
European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, which has just launched the
biggest experiment ever conducted, the Large Hadron Collider, at a cost of some $8
billion, in Geneva, beneath the Swiss-French border.]
819. “The continuing humanitarian commitment of former United Nations head Kofi Annan has been
recognised by the award of the prestigious Gottlieb Duttweiler prize.
In his acceptance speech, Annan urged his audience to ‘step up to the challenge’ of ‘overcoming
mental boundaries’ with regard to Africa. ‘There are real opportunities opening up for business to both
operate profitably while making a real contribution to improving people's lives,’ he said.
The prize, now worth SFr100,000 ($90,000), was established in 1958 by Gottlieb Duttweiler, the
founder of Switzerland's biggest supermarket, Migros, and a pioneer in providing food at low prices.”
“Annan’s commitment rewarded with prize”, swiss.info.ch News, September 8, 2008.
[Note: for those concerned that Mr. Annan might have any difficulty getting along on his
UN pension, the biggest one ever awarded, it seems that he is still “doing well” by
“talking good.”
820. “United Nations policing is the fastest growing component of the organization's far-flung
peacekeeping operations and officers are increasingly being called on to help fight organized crime,
the top U.N. police adviser said Monday.
More than 12,000 U.N. police officers from 98 countries are currently deployed in 19 U.N. peace
operations, he said, and the number of authorized police officers has grown from 8,315 in January 2006
to 16,900 in January 2008. …
He said preventing, disrupting and dismantling organized crime has become an important
element of U.N. police efforts to help create a safer environment and prevent criminal activities
after conflicts. In Sierra Leone, Hughes said, U.N. police assisted the national police, INTERPOL, and
British authorities in a major drug bust — seizing 703.5 kilograms of cocaine, along with four AK-47
submachine guns, on July 13 at Lungi International airport in Freetown.
U.N. police have also been helping to combat gang and drug crime in Haiti, human trafficking and
financial crimes in Kosovo, drug trafficking in Guinea Bissau, arms trafficking in Congo, illicit timber
trading in Liberia and the illegal economy in East Timor, he said.”
“UN police increasingly fighting organized crime”, Associated Press, in the International
Herald Tribune, September 9, 2008.
821. “At a closed-door meeting late last month in Turin, Italy, United Nations Secretary-General Ban
Ki-moon blasted his top officials, accusing them of crippling the world body through a
combination of self-interest, petty squabbling and egoism. …
‘We get too bogged down in internal or bureaucratic technicalities,’ he told the heads of 27 U.N.
organizations, funds and programs known as the U.N. System Chief Executives Board for Coordination.
‘We waste incredible amounts of time on largely meaningless matters.’
But he has evidently been frustrated and hamstrung by bureaucratic resistance to his initiatives,
which have led to less than impressive results and, in some cases, to various parts of the U.N. declaring
themselves exempt from central Secretariat control and oversight.
Ban told his department heads that they ‘squabble among themselves over posts and budgets
and bureaucratic prerogatives as though as they somehow owned them,’ and he prescribed a series of

simple measures to combat what he called self-interest and turf wars that hamper the U.N.'s
effectiveness.
It remains to be seen whether Ban's cajoling will have any effect.”
Joseph Abrams, “U.N. Secretary-General tears into top officials over bureaucratic bog”,
Fox News, September 9, 2008. [Note: but see also item 823.]
822. “The state of UN management was reflected this week by a turf war in the Advisory Committee
on Administrative and Budgetary Questions … [where] a fight broke out between new Department of
Management chief Angela Kane and … [proponents who would have the new head of UN information
technology] reporting directly to the Secretary General's office. No, Ms. Kane reportedly said, [he] will
report to me. … Go get your stories straight, Ms. Kane was told. This can't sit well with Ban Ki-moon …
[after his recent complaints] about turf wars at the UN. …
It is rumored that Donna Maxfield, who figures prominently in the recent open letter to Ban Ki-
moon, is under consideration for the ACABQ [Executive Secretary] post. Along with putting "red flags" on
personnel files, … she is said to have been adept at inducements, sometimes called jobs for delegates
for votes.
Update of Sept. 12 -- DPKO's spokesman writes that ‘We deny categorically that Ms. Maxfield
has ever provided 'jobs for votes.’ And so we include that denial, and have asked; ‘please state, in the
past three years, any and all individuals hired by DPKO after having served on the GA's Fifth Committee.’
Matthew Russell Lee, “Chaos in UN budget and chain of command, Valencia and
computers, jobs for Prodi and Ross? Tales of ACABQ,” Inner City Press, September 10,
2008.
823. “U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon denied on Thursday that his first year in office had
been a failure and said recent criticisms he made of the U.N. bureaucracy's resistance to change had
been misconstrued. Ban told a news conference he wanted to see a ‘re-energized’ and ‘recharged’ United
Nations where people were more willing to change jobs. …
[He] said some reports had … [suggested] ’that I viewed our first year as a failure. To the
contrary, I think we've made good progress in many areas, particularly when it comes to management
reform.’ …
The United Nations employs some 70,000 people worldwide and Ban said people who had been
in the same post for 10 or 15 years would never show any motivation. ‘I really want to see this
organization re-energized, recharged and full of motivation and full of creativity and versatility, and
multifunctional and multi-skilled,’ he said.
Ban said he had instructed the U.N. management department to launch a pilot program on career
development and training, to make employees more accepting of change. … He also suggested --
apparently jokingly -- that he should simply order the U.N. political and peacekeeping departments to
swap 20 percent of their staff.”
Patrick Worship, “U.N.’s Ban denies failing”, Reuters, September 11, 2008. [Note: that
“good management reform progress” is certainly hard to find, as in the item immediately
above.]
824. “The culture of secrecy and cover-up in the UN, at least in the UN Development Program,
was on display on Friday night. The UNDP Executive Board meeting … [debated] objections to even the
watered-down proposal to let member states see audits of UNDP country programs while withholding
them from the public. …
This falls far short of most Freedom of Information laws, which provide for individuals to gain
access to documents whether or not they fund the underlying programs. Here, roadblocks are being
erected. …

The Board president bragged of … [his] very fun schedule for the weekend and so wanted a vote
on his language of more secret audits. … The draft he circulated also differed from what he'd read out
loud. …
[As the next hour passes,] rationales for secrecy are offered to Inner City Press. … But if a
program is funded by a public body like the UN, how can how the money's spent legitimately be kept
confidential? …
The president finally re-gavels the meeting to order, only to announce that no concensus was
reached. … [He] suspends the session until next Friday. Even the most basic and constrained
transparency can't fly at UNDP.”
Matthew Russell Lee, “In UNDP secrecy plan, even funders must give reasons to see
audit, Board must be notified, resuming September 19”, Inner City Press, September 12,
2008.
825. “The much-ballyhooed Millennium Development Goals (MDGs ) -- which include the reduction
of extreme poverty and hunger by 50 percent by 2015 -- are being seriously undermined by food, financial
and climate change crises. … Halfway to the target date of 2015, ‘it is clear that we are not on track to
meet the goals, especially in Africa,’ [Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon] said. …
The United Nations is expecting over 90 [national leaders] to participate in what is billed as "a
high level meeting" on MDGs … [on September 26. An NGO official] pointed out that … [they] must come
up with a plan of action to end extreme poverty within the next seven years. ‘Without bold leadership,
progress on the goals will go backwards, not forward, at this critical moment,’ she said.
A summit meeting of 189 world leaders in September 2000 pledged to meet all of these goals by
the year 2015. … ‘But many countries are off-track -- none of the goals are likely to be met in Africa, if
current trends continue, and even in middle income countries, large pockets of people still live in extreme
poverty,’ [a new MDG report] added.”
Thalif Deen, “Politics: U.N. warns of impending development emergency”, Inter Press
Service, September 12, 2008.
826. “When the World Bank agreed in 2000 to help finance a $4.2 billion pipeline to tap the
undeveloped oil wealth of Chad, one of the world's poorest and most unstable nations, the agreement
was a novel response to a persistent African quandary: how to make the continent's rich natural
resources pay off for its people, not only for its powerful.
The strategy was to use the World Bank's money and credibility to persuade Chad to dedicate its
earnings from oil to attacking its poverty by building schools, roads and hospitals. That experiment
expired this week. Chad repaid the $65.7 million it owed the World Bank out of national coffers swollen
by more than $1 billion a year in oil revenues, but it had not honored its bargain, the [World Bank] said.
… Thus concluded one of the most ambitious efforts to escape Africa's "resource curse," wherein
the wealth of mineral-rich nations gets siphoned off by corrupt officials. …
"We knew from the very beginning how this would end," said … [an] anti-corruption activist in
Chad who served on … [an independent] oversight panel.”
Lydia Polgreen, “Oil’s curse holds true for pipeline in Chad: Pact with World Bank falls
to corruption”, International Herald Tribune, September 12, 2008.
827a. “The suicide bombing of a medical convoy yesterday [in Afghanistan] raised fears that the
Taliban have begun targeting the United Nations in their campaign to oust Afghanistan's US-backed
government and foreign troops.
Despite many years working in Afghanistan, the UN has not been previously been directly
targeted. … But yesterday a clearly marked white UN vehicle carrying two Afghan doctors working on a
World Health Organisation polio vaccination campaign was rammed by a suicide car bomber near Spin
Boldak. …. Their driver was also killed and 15 people were wounded. …

A few months ago the Taliban added the UN to the list of legitimate targets on its website. … A
serious attack would force the UN to scale back its activities drastically. …
The UN also saw the resignation last month of some of its most senior humanitarian staff
after the US and its allies rejected a plan to split UN aid activities from Unama, a political mission charged
with assisting the Afghan government.”
Jon Boone, “Taliban trains sights on UN as suicide bomber hits medical convoy”,
Financial Times (UK), September 15, 2008.
827b. “The United Nations appealed on Monday for international help to protect U.N. food
shipments in Somalia's pirate-infested waters, warning of shortages if no country came forward.
Heavily-armed Somali gunmen, usually using speedboats, have seized more than 30 vessels this
year, making the waters off the Horn of Africa the most dangerous in the world and hampering aid
shipments. …
The U.N.’s World Food Programme Somalia Director Peter Goossens said … the WFP's food
stock in Somalia was very low. …. "Maybe we can survive a week or 10 days, but if it lasts longer … a
large part of the 2.4 million people we are feeding today … [will face] serious problems.’ …
Goossens said the large vessels he needed to carry food aid for Somalis refused to do so without
escorts. Some 90 percent of all WFP food for Somalia arrives by sea.
Maritime attacks have multiplied as lawlessness increases in Somalia, where there has not been
a working government since warlords overthrew dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.”
Ingrid Melander, “UN seeks Somalia aid escort to ward off pirates”, Reuters, September
15, 2008.
828a. “Leaked documents suggest [the International Telecommunication Union] is drafting

technical standards, … proposed by the Chinese government, to define methods of tracing the original
source of internet communications and potentially curbing the ability of users to remain anonymous. …
The US National Security Agency is also participating in the 'IP Traceback' drafting group, … which is
meeting next week in Geneva. …
The potential for eroding internet users' right to remain anonymous, which is recognised in
international law by [various] groups … has alarmed some technologists and privacy advocates. … [One
electronic privacy expert said] ‘It doesn't appear that there's been any real consideration of how this type
of capability could be misused. … That's really a human rights concern.’
Nearly everyone agrees that there are, at least in some circumstances, legitimate security
reasons … [for tracebacks.] … But implementation details are important, and … [there] are indications
that some ITU members would like to curb internet anonymity more broadly. …
In the US, a formal legal requirement to adopt IP traceback would run up against the First
Amendment, … [and] the ITU's own constitution talks about ‘ensuring the secrecy of international
correspondence.’”
“UN agency investigates curbs on internet anonymity”, Zdnet.co.uk, 15 September,
2008. [Note: a very important issue, but see also the following item.]
828b. “Developing countries are increasingly being shaken down by highly organized, well-
financed criminal gangs operating in cyberspace. In just the past year, intensifying attacks have been
lodged against banks, government agencies, and utility companies in India, Nigeria, Vietnam, and across
the Middle East, … [says an expert for a group that] oversees an early warning system for the Internet. …
The aim was to extort money. So far, no country has publicly admitted to paying up.
The cybercriminals’ weapon of choice is “distributed denial of service,” or DDoS, attacks … when
computers operating together … are weaponized by criminals who remotely control hundreds of
thousands of computers unknowingly infected with malicious code. “DDoS has emerged as an incredibly
powerful tool for organized crime,” [the expert] says.
Freelancing cybercriminals are beginning to lease their massive botnets to the highest bidder,
often larger criminal groups. … Utility companies appear to be Target No.1, especially those in poor
countries. … Their software often relies on commercially available Web applications that lack robust

security features. ‘Developing-world countries are so far behind in terms of Web security that it’s
frightening,’ says … [another expert.] ‘ If they don’t catch up soon, it could be lights out.’”
Greg Grant, “Net effect: Switch hitters”, Foreign Policy, September/October 2008, p.
123.
829. “A former Nicaraguan leftist official became president of the U.N. General Assembly on
Tuesday, urging that power be given to its broad membership and taken away from the big-power-
dominated Security Council. In a combative opening statement, … Miguel D'Escoto Brockmann called for
a ‘democratization’ of the United Nations and sharply attacked the World Bank and International Monetary
Fund (IMF). …
He announced plans for a ‘high-level dialogue’ to discuss the ‘revitalization and
empowerment’ of the 192-nation General Assembly by giving it powers ‘wrongly accumulated’ in
the Security Council, World Bank and IMF and the U.N. bureaucracy. … He accused unspecified
council members of having an ‘addiction to war’ and of threatening international peace and
security.
D'Escoto was elected unopposed to the assembly presidency in June after no other eligible
country in Latin America, whose turn it was to hold the job, offered a candidate.
Now 75, he was Nicaraguan foreign minister when the Sandinista government of Daniel Ortega
was battling a revolt by U.S.-backed Contra rebels. … But on his election to the U.N. post, D'Escoto said
he did ‘not want to turn this (General Assembly) presidency into a place to take it out on the United
States.’"
Patrick Worsnip, “New U.N. assembly head wants weaker Security Council”, Reuters,
September 16, 2008.
830. “UN Secretary-General [Ban Ki-moon] has remained absent from the great international
conflicts and has blurred the role of the Organization. The United Nations therefore misses the
opportunity to rebuild itself. … [A widely held opinion is] that a fundamental instrument in the effort to free
the UN from its tendency to paralysis is persuasion and the pressure of … [its] head, the Secretary-
General. …
The measure of what a Secretary General ... [can do] is still Dag Hammarskjöld, the Swedish
diplomat who held the position from 1953 until his death in an airplane accident in 1961. He was always
ready to undertake action and defend at all costs the principles of the UN. …
But to seize that moral scenario is not Ban Ki-moon’s style, according to the majority of those
interviewed. … They think that this is the time in which a charismatic voice like a John Paul II or a
Nelson Mandela of world-wide diplomacy is needed. …
‘In the era of globalized media, … [we require] a Secretary-General capable of responding
quickly, to establish the moral priorities and … obtain the political capital to be able to convince and to
lead’ … says a European Ambassador.”
John Carlin, “Ban Ki-moon, the invisible man”, El Pais (Spain), as translated by
UNDP Watch, at www.undpwatch.blogspot.com, September 16, 2008.
831. “[When the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia indicted] Slobodan Milosevic
on May 27, 1999, … many were dismayed … that the indictment … would make the situation in Kosovo
worse. …
Milosevic was contemptuous. … [But he quickly accepted] a peace agreement and the war ended
that month. … Later, a popular uprising swept Milosevic from office and he arrived in The Hague soon
thereafter to face justice.
[Now, there is] a storm of controversy at the Security Council. …
The [International Criminal Court] prosecutor … [has sought] an arrest warrant against Sudan's
President Omar al-Bashir for orchestrating a genocidal campaign in Darfur. … Many member states …

called on the Security Council to defer the case against Bashir, claiming it thwarted prospects for peace.
… To use a deferral for mere political convenience – or worse, to appease the threats of tyrants – would
undermine the fledgling court. …
If the Security Council decides in the coming weeks to interfere with court proceedings, it will
vindicate those who believe politics can trump justice. That will undermine the progress the world has
made so far in bringing the most powerful human rights abusers to justice for their crimes.”
Louise Arbour, “Justice v. politics”, International Herald Tribune, September 17, 2008.
[Note: Ms. Arbour was chief prosecutor at the Former Yugoslavia tribunal and is also the
former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.]
832. “The fog surrounding the activities of private security companies in war zones should be
cleared by a set of guidelines agreed in Switzerland on Wednesday. Experts from 17 countries
approved the recommendations at … a three-day meeting in … Montreux, organised by the Swiss foreign
ministry and the Geneva-based International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
The document brings together and clarifies the current laws and obligations affecting private
military and security companies, known collectively as PMSCs. … [It] not only clarifies the relevant laws,
but also defines a number of ‘good practices’. … It recommends that PMSCs should be regulated and
licensed, and says the staff should be vetted and trained in humanitarian law. …
The issue of PMSCs is relatively new. Until the 1980s states were largely responsible for their
own armed forces, but since then they have increasingly turned to the private sector. …
"The issue of immunity, or impunity, is clearly spelled out in this document, meaning that PMSCs
who have committed misconduct must be tried either in the country concerned or by the contracting state.
… The Swiss government and the ICRC will now distribute the Montreux document as widely as
possible.”
Julia Slater, “Rules of war clarified for private contractors”, swissinfo.ch, September 17,
2008.
833. “U.N. peacekeeping operations can be useful and successful if entered into with an awareness
of their limitations and weaknesses. This awareness is crucial, because there seems to be little indication
that the demand for U.N. peacekeeping will decline in the foreseeable future.
The unprecedented pace, scope, and ambition of U.N. peacekeeping operations have led to
numerous flaws, limitations, and weaknesses that are serious and need to be addressed. The Bush
Administration and Congress need to consider carefully any requests by the United Nations for additional
funding for a system in which procurement problems have wasted millions of dollars and sexual abuse by
peacekeepers is still occurring.
Without fundamental reform, these problems will likely continue and expand, undermining the
U.N.'s credibility and ability to accomplish one of its primary missions: maintaining international peace and
security.”
Brett D. Schaefer, “United Nations peacekeeping: The U.S. must press for reform”,
Backgrounder No. 2182, The Heritage Foundation, September 18, 2008. [Note: the
full, detailed article can be found at www.heritage.org, by search under the author and
title, along with his other very relevant articles about UN peacekeeping and general UN
reform.]
834. “The west's efforts to use the United Nations to promote its values and shape the global
agenda are failing … as reflected in longer-term voting patterns … [showing] the increasing clout of
China, Russia and the Islamic world, according to an audit of European influence at the UN by the
European Council on Foreign Relations ...
The thinktank found that European policies on human rights enjoyed the support of 72% of UN
members a decade ago but only 48% by last year, while the US suffered a steeper collapse from 77% to

30%. … Over the past decade support for Chinese and Russian stances on human rights issues has
soared from less than 50% to 74% in the UN general assembly. …
The setbacks for the west at the UN in New York are compounded by a worse record in winning
the battles for rights and freedoms at the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council. …
The poor European record … contrasts with Brussels' … [boast of] the merits of its "soft power"
attractiveness, and indicates that the EU's huge financial investment in being the world's biggest aid
donor and the UN's biggest funder is not translating into political gains.”
Ian Traynor, “Haemorrhaging of western influence at UN wrecks attempts to push human
rights agenda”, The Guardian (UK), September 18, 2008.
835. “Politicians are going to have to think hard about the lessons of the financial crash of 2008. …
The global financial system will never be the same again. … Ordinary folk will suffer most. Unsurprisingly,
they will blame governments. …
What does the crisis tell us about the nature of the world in which we now live? The messages
are not straightforward; … [but] overall, they speak to a growing tension between global integration
and a shortage of credible international governance. Governments have been left with responsibility
without power. … This time the crisis was made in the US. It is the emerging powers of the east that fear
contagion. …
The tensions are not susceptible to neat solutions. But all point in the same direction.
Interdependence is no longer an abstract noun. Governments need to find ways to reclaim some of the
sovereignty lost to globalisation. That means more global governance: credible international rules.
Capitalism will survive these financial shocks. The risk, though, is of a retreat to economic
nationalism. The stresses of globalisation are visible everywhere. Ultimately, if the politicians want the
liberal market system to work, they will have to make multilateralism work.”
Philip Stephens, “After the crash” Why global capitalism needs global rules”, Financial
Times (UK), September 19, 2008.
836. “[A tussle is] currently taking place within the [UN Development Program’s] 37-member executive
board. … The U.S. and a number of other Western nations that pay most of the UNDP's bills (the U.S.
alone donates roughly $500 million annually) … are concerned that UNDP is still trying to keep its $5
billion operations — and any problems it has with them — under as many wraps as possible. …
UNDP says it is happy to cooperate if only all … [countries on the board agree.] …
Traditionally, UNDP's top managers have considered [its audits] to be ‘management tools,’
and insisted they be kept confidential, even from the governing executive board. … A special
investigation [report on] UNDP's operations in North Korea, … in June of this year, buttressed … [U.S.
charges of mismanagement there.] …
The U.S. … [demanded] that future UNDP audits be made public to member governments on
request. … [China is reported to be a major roadblock. An expert group] charges that the ‘accountability
framework’ presented by UNDP to the board still gives UNDP management too much authority to cover
up its actions,’ … [and the U.S. might cut its funds to UNDP if there is no agreement.]”
George Russell, “International fight at U.N.’s $5 billion anti-poverty agency over
secrecy,” Fox News, September 19, 2008.
[Note: a September 23 update stated that UNDP's executive board approved a version of
an audit-sharing proposal upon a written Member state demand, coupled with written
confirmation that the material would remain confidential. Countries whose programs
were audited would be informed of the request and given "adequate time" to comment on
the audit report, but no right of veto over its sharing.]
837. “The world has changed radically since [the Millennium Development Goals] were announced
in 2000. And the assumptions on which they are based need to be rethought. …

Our top priority should be to provide credible hope where it has been lacking. The African
countries in the bottom billion have missed out on the prolonged period of global growth. … [And the
MDGs] are devoid of strategy; their only remedy is more aid. … I think we should increase it, though … I
doubt we will. But other policies on governance, agriculture, security and trade could be used to potent
effect. …
Above all, with a five-year-old commodities boom transferring wealth to some … [bottom-billion
countries], where are the international guidelines on taxation and investment that might help these
countries convert earnings of depleting minerals into productive assets like roads and schools? …
[The Goals] should now be revised … to focus on the challenge of helping the bottom billion
to converge with the rest of mankind - and on a more realistic time scale. We need … several decades.
This session of the United Nations is an appropriate moment to get started.”
Paul Collier, “Aiding the bottom billion”, International Herald Tribune, September 22,
2008. [Note: Mr. Collier is the author of the widely-praised book, The bottom billion:
Why the poorest countries are failing and what can be done about it.]
838. “World leaders will look to President George W. Bush for reassurance on Tuesday that the US
battle to avert a meltdown of financial markets will not divert Washington from the need to tackle a
range of other pressing global issues. …
The diplomatic words, however, will not disguise the fact that almost 100 heads of state and
government gathered in New York for the annual general assembly debate are focused … on how the
global spread of the financial crisis will affect them. …
A global economic downturn would limit the ability and appetite of rich donor countries to
boost aid programmes that are already lagging behind target. … Mr Ban on Monday called on the
richest states to spend $72bn (€49bn, £39bn) a year on Africa alone to fight poverty and improve living
conditions. …
Mr Bush has had an often abrasive relationship with the UN. … More recently, Washington has
adopted a milder tone, … [but] Indications of how much damage has been done will soon emerge as
permanent members of the Security Council – the US, Russia, China, France and the UK – along with
Germany begin … [discussions on] further measures, if any, to impose on Iran.”
Harvey Morris, “UN leaders to look for reassurance from Bush”, Financial Times (UK),
September 23, 2008.
839. “Wall Street and the Bush administration’s record of financial oversight came under attack at
the United Nations on Tuesday. … “We must not allow the burden of the boundless greed of a few to be
shouldered by all,” said President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil in an opening speech. … Virtually
every president or monarch from around the globe made some reference to the financial upheaval, and
the looming cloud was also the buzz of the back corridors. …
The global financial crisis endangers all our work,” said the secretary general, Ban Ki-moon. …,
“We need a new understanding on business ethics and governance, with more compassion and less
uncritical faith in the ‘magic’ of markets.” …
The extraordinary nature of the outpouring on Tuesday, however, was that it came from some of
America’s closest allies and trading partners. …
African leaders … [emphasized] the importance of continuing aid. … Elizabeth Ohene [of Ghana
said] it would be far better to invest in the education of children … than to use a bunch of fancy financial
engineering to bail out Wall Street and other global financial centers. ‘Believe me,’ she said, ‘it will be
much cheaper.’”
Neil MacFarquhar, “Upheaval on Wall St. stirs anger in the U.N.”, New York Times,
September 24, 2008.
840. “The United Nations is facing one of its perennial crises of confidence. Even … [the most
committed supporters] acknowledge that its legitimacy and effectiveness are in question.

Splits among the dominant powers in an increasingly divided Security Council have stymied its
efforts to resolve acute problems in countries from Burma to Zimbabwe to Georgia. The difficulties of the
day are confronted, if at all, in world capitals and between competing power blocs, leaving the UN at the
risk of being marginalised.
Elements within the UN bureaucracy, bloated in the view of member states that foot the bill, are
meanwhile accused of resisting reforms aimed at better equipping the organisation to confront modern
realities.
Russia and China, increasingly assertive and backed by allies in the 15-member council, have
been blocking proposals of western states to intervene in internal conflicts. ‘It’s a pretty black horizon,’ says …
a former British diplomat. ‘The geopolitics has changed.’ …
As the secretariat goes about the annual regurgitation of long-forgotten mandates – 9,000 … on
the register since the UN was established in 1945 – the question is whether there will ever be a
democratic agreement among member states to improve the way it all works.”
Harvey Morris, “United less than ever, the world’s nations ponder reform”, Financial
Times (UK), September 24, 2008.
841. “The World Food Programme yesterday announced … [its new ‘Purchase for Progress’
programme, which] will now purchase from the world’s poorest farmers as it broadens its role towards
development from emergency aid. … With some poor countries continuing to need emergency food aid
for decades, the only long-term solution to resolve hunger is to boost local agriculture production,
aid officials say.
Josette Sheeran, WFP head, said that ... ‘The world’s poor are reeling under the impact of high
food and fuel prices, and buying food assistance from developing world farmers is the right solution at the
right time.’
The move reflects a growing consensus that food aid needs to change. A report last July …
[concluded that] the international system of mobilising food relief was antiquated and slowed the
response to emergencies as commodities were shipped from far away. It said that the system imposed
unacceptable cost and inefficiencies.”
Javier Blas, “UN agency vows to buy from poorest farmers”, Financial Times (UK),
September 25, 2008.
842. “Water and sanitation are two of the most pressing problems worldwide. … More than 2.6bn
people lack access to decent sanitation and about 1bn lack access to clean drinking water. … Five
thousand children die every day in the developing world from preventable infections, and … [adults
cannot] go to work. …
If the number of people lacking safe drinking water were halved, at a cost of about $10bn, the
world would benefit by $38bn in extra annual economic growth. …
The Millennium Development Goals include a tough target on water and sanitation, … [but
progress is poor] according to a recent report from WaterAid and Tearfund, two charities. … Only 25 per
cent of water and sanitation aid is directed at the poorest countries … [and] Sub-Saharan Africa is so
far off track on MDG 7 that the goal will not be met until the end of the century. …
The charities warn that targeting aid at education and health without looking at water and
sanitation is short-sighted. [An expert says,] … ‘Unless we address the accountability vacuum in the
sanitation and water sector we may as well kiss goodbye to most of the Millennium Development Goals.’”
Fiona Harvey, “Severe attention deficit”, Financial Times (UK), September 25, 2008.
843. “’Using the bailouts of the international banking system,’ the Chilean President said [at the
General Assembly] , ‘the scourge of hunger on the planet could have easily been eliminated.’ …
Aid officials understandably worry that wealthy nations are falling behind in their promises. [But in
the G8 deal] … three years ago a doubling of aid to Africa was supposed to be contingent on clean
government, and respect for democracy. …

The past few years have been boom years for aid … [but] the aid industry has not been
entirely free of reckless lending, nor even from moral hazard. … [I left it] because I feared it was just
that - an industry weighed down by vested interests. …
[To eradicate poverty, the only answer] is to create jobs. For that you need to create businesses,
which need access to credit, non-punitive tax regimes and recognition of contract law. If those conditions
do not prevail, we should be calling governments' bluff rather than throwing in more cash. ..
We can do a great deal to save people from starvation and infectious diseases. But we need to
demand the same stringency about aid that we do about other government spending.”
Camilla Cavendish, “We can no longer afford to fund the corrupt: The UN rails against
the banks, but the aid industry has been just as reckless in its lending and spending”, The
Times (UK), September 26, 2008. [Note: see also item 850 below.]
844. “A report from the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), a body made up of 60 leading
judges, lawyers and legal scholars from around the world, … is meant to clarify what criminal and civil
laws say about corporate complicity. It offers a surprisingly broad interpretation of how such laws could
be applied. …
Defining corporate complicity in law is becoming more important as a growing number of
companies are accused of involvement in gross human-rights abuses. … But the breadth of the panel’s
interpretation … drew criticism from business. Nor did the report please activists seeking a clear
explanation of how they might hold firms to account. … [But the report’s expert authors wanted to]
suggest areas in which firms might want to manage their risk of liability, which they called the ‘zone of
legal risk.’ …
So the panel’s report is far from being the final word. Meanwhile, the legal landscape is changing.
National governments are being pressed to dust off old laws, or pass new ones, aimed at corporations.
The world is inching toward a definition of corporate complicity, but it is not there yet.”
“Not the usual suspects: Companies and human rights”, The Economist, September
27th, 2008. [Note: the UN system’s legal immunity from the rule of law still
continues to ensure that it has no “zone of legal risk” at all. For the full report covering
the rest of the world, see the ICJ website at www.icj.org.]
845. “Around this time every year, New York’s traffic grinds to a halt as the police make the city safe
for an influx of global dignitaries [for the UN General Assembly.] … But for the past four years they have
been accompanied by … the Clinton Global Initiative. …
This year, the UN is reviewing progress (mostly slow) towards the various Millennium
Development Goals it wants to achieve by 2015. … Meanwhile, the CGI will focus on poverty reduction,
improving water supply and sanitation in the developing world, education and climate change. Despite the
financial crisis, which its founder, Bill Clinton, feared may mean smaller pledges than in past years, it has
attracted a bumper crowd. …
There were fears that Hillary Clinton’s failure to secure the Democratic nomination would remove
one of the main reasons for attending the CGI -- cosying up to the next occupant of the White House. …
[But] Mr Clinton seems relieved that he can now concentrate on building the CGI into a powerful
philanthropic marketplace, where wealthy donors meet social entrepreneurs with bright ideas, and … for
his post-presidential career as a relatively non-partisan international statesman.”
“Billanthrophy squared”, The Economist, September 27th, 2008.
846. “The next [U.S.] President’s … [most mind-bending problem] is global economic turmoil. …
[But] the candidates' answers are oddly present-tense… [and] small-bore. …
… David M. Smick … has a new book on … what [he] calls the Great Credit Crisis of 2007-08. …
[His] diagnosis: The world capital markets are like a house of cards because of a lack of investor
confidence, which in turn is caused by a lack of transparency. …

[He says] the next President, acting with urgency, should convene a successor to the 1944
Bretton Woods conference, which gave birth to a post--World War II international monetary system …
to set transparency standards … [and] provide a buffer when political turmoil disrupts capital flows. …
Smick concedes it won't be easy: ‘Huge amounts of global capital are held by nondemocratic
regimes that aren't in a cooperative mood,’ he says, and democracies have plenty of ‘weak political
leadership.’ … [Still,] ‘The one thing you have to get agreement on is capital flows,’ Smick says. ‘If you
screw up capital flows, the game is over.’ You have to hope that the next President gets a clue -
before the next great financial crisis hits.”
Nina Easton, “The clueless: Why neither presidential candidate knows what’s about to hit
him”, Fortune (US), September 29, 2008. [Note: Mr. Smick is editor of the journal The
International Economy, and his book is The world is curved: Hidden dangers to the
global economy, Portfolio, 2008.]
847. “To the many secretive parts of the sprawling United Nations system around the world that have
been … tarred by financial scandal, irregular management practices and lack of credible oversight, add …
the offices that link the major parts of the sprawling U.N. bureaucracy with the central headquarters and
with each other. …
[The UN network of 26 outlying liaison offices] employed only about 170 people and spent
less than $50 million in the two-year U.N. budget that ended in 2005 … [But as a new report asserts, …
they operate without adequate oversight … and without clearly expressed priorities. They are
frequently leaderless, … [have some] bizarre staffing policies … are in many cases not audited … [but
have produced] ‘known cases of serious mismanagement.’ …
Member states’ … [repeated requests for] information on staffing, budgets and activities of the
liaison offices have been systematically ignored, blunted or stonewalled. …
[The new report considers additional oversight "crucial.’ But] it remains to be seen whether the
U.N. member states will continue trying to … [learn more about] a ‘liaison’ system that seems to prefer
inventing itself on its own.”
George Russell, “UN liaison offices: Secretive and out of control?”, FoxNews,
September 29, 2008. [Note: The article contains an extensive analysis of these
problems. The report referred to, by the UN Joint Inspection Unit, can be found at
www.unjiu.org, as JIU/REP/2007/10.]
848. “A new organization is being unveiled Monday in Vienna that seeks to bolster security at
thousands of nuclear sites around the world in an effort to block atomic theft and terrorism. Its aim is to
promote the best security practices, eliminate weak links in the global security chain and, ultimately, keep
terrorists from getting the bomb.
No single organization now does that for the world’s expanding maze of nuclear sites —
private and public, civilian and military. …
The World Institute for Nuclear Security, or WINS … is starting with … [a small staff of] nuclear
specialists. [It] intends to provide a forum where nuclear security professionals can meet and share
information about how to keep dangerous materials out of unfriendly hands. Its focus will be … [mostly]
on such management issues as how to keep guards alert and how to foil sophisticated attackers. …
Mohamed ElBaradei, the (International Atomic Energy Director,] has strongly endorsed the
institute. … [WINS] is modeled on the World Association of Nuclear Operators, … which [has given]
little attention to preventing nuclear theft.”
William J. Broad, “New security organization will try to prevent nuclear theft”, New
York Times, September 29, 2008.

849. “In good times, unambiguous signs that the structural pillars of a system are at risk are frequently
disregarded or downplayed. The current … [global financial crisis provides] an apt occasion … to
consider warning signs of risk to the global nuclear order. …
[Experts have warned that the 1968 Nonproliferation Treaty] … that has for four decades held
back powerful pressures … is eroding to the point of "irreversibility" beyond which there could be a
‘cascade of proliferation.’
Global trend lines in all things nuclear are worsening. … Nuclear-weapons states have
reemphasized the role of nuclear weapons in international affairs, reinforcing cynicism among many non-
nuclear weapons signatories. … An independent international commission recommends … [that
International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards] be seriously strengthened, … states ‘negotiate binding
agreements that set effective global nuclear security standards,’ … [and that the IAEA’s current $450
million budget be doubled by] 2020 to carry out an expanded mandate. …
[The fact that in four decades] only three additional nations - Israel, India, and Pakistan - have
acquired nuclear weapons provides no grounds for complacency. The warning lights are blinking.
Governments must act now - or we will all suffer the consequences.”
Graham Allison and Ernesto Zedillo, “The fragility of the global nuclear order”, The
Boston Globe, September 30, 2008. [Note: Mr. Allison is author of Nuclear terrorism:
The ultimate preventable catastrophe, and Mr. Zedillo is the former president of
Mexico.]
850. “What’s the dirtiest secret about corruption? Just how little we know about it. Treasuries
are plundered and kickbacks are paid, but the nature and scale of the world’s shady transactions remain
a mystery. Luckily, a little economic detective work is all that’s needed to expose the smuggling,
cheating, and bribing that is hiding in plain sight.”
Raymond Fisman and Edward Miguel, “How economics can defeat corruption”, Foreign
Policy, September/October 2008, pp. 66-74.
[Note: the article provides many insights about experimentation and testing of
corruption-fighting approaches, based on their important new book, Economic gangsters:
Corruption, violence, and the poverty of nations, Princeton University, 2008.
The always-helpful Foreign Policy “Want to know more?” feature also cites James S.
Henry’s The blood bankers: Tales from the global underground economy, 2003, and
Robert Klitgaard’s Tropical gangsters: One man’s experience with development and
decadence in deepest Africa, 1990.
An excellent further expose is Leon Kukkuk’s Letters to Gabriela: Angola’s last war for
peace; What the UN did and why, 2005, discussed at length in the IO Watch Dark Side
feature at UN, corruption, Angola, 1998-2002.]
851. “[Attacks by pirates on ships off the coast of Somalia are] a symptom of the power vacuum inside
Somalia. The country’s ’transitional federal government’ … is powerless to stop … [the attacks,] just
as it cannot halt the resurgent jihadists, some with al-Qaeda connections, who have taken control of
much of southern Somalia. …,. Hundreds of thousands have fled street fighting in the north of Mogadishu
to camps outside the city; some head south to refugee camps in Kenya. …
But it is unlikely, in present circumstances, that UN peacekeepers will ever arrive. If the UN
cannot produce half its promised force for Darfur, despite a detailed plan for one, Somalia stands little
chance of getting any blue helmets at all. …
Few foreign governments have shown much interest in trying to end Somalia’s woes. Diplomats
… [involved] are frustrated and depressed. Meanwhile the suffering is mounting. The UN reckons 3.2m
Somalis now survive on food aid. The piracy means that warships have to escort ships bringing food. If
fighting intensifies, that will be harder—and manipulating food aid could become a weapon, as it was
during fighting in 1991 and 1992, when 300,000 Somalis starved to death.”
“The world’s most utterly failed state”, The Economist, October 2d, 2008.

852. “’We cannot have reform without resources, and we cannot change the way the Secretariat
operates without investment,’ Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro said this morning,
appealing for the support of the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) in dealing with such
priorities as strengthening the Secretariat’s development activities, reform of peacekeeping and
management, and administration of internal justice during the sixty-third session. …
She said that … the Secretary-General, in partnership with Member States, had set out to make
the Secretariat more effective, relevant, accountable and efficient. Most of all, it was necessary to
modernize the Organization’s management practices and administrative backbone. …
She stressed … [that] some 50 per cent of staff [now] worked in the field … [and the Secretary-
General’s] proposals for streamlining contracts, harmonizing conditions of service and … [improving
recruitment to achieve] a flexible and dynamic workforce, able to respond quickly and effectively to
increasingly complex field-based mandates. …
[The representative of the European Union] … emphasized the importance of budgetary
discipline and listed the adoption of new information systems and a new accountability framework
for better management … among the Committee’s main priorities, as well as the Secretary-General’s
proposals for a new human resources management framework.”
“United Nations reform not possible without resources, investments …”, 7th Space
Interactive, October 4, 2008. [Note: an impressive agenda of UN reform proposals.
Unfortunately, however, they have repeatedly been announced and promised by the
Secretariat leadership over the last 15 years, without implementation.]
853. “City of London police are probing whether a landmark United Nations deal to supply life-saving
drugs to Congo was marred by bribery involving two key contractors employed to help prevent
corruption. … British and Danish investigators are examining about $1m … of alleged payments by
Denmark’s Missionpharma … to a British-registered charity that advised the UN on the project. …
The allegations – surrounding a $34m deal to supply HIV and malaria drugs between 2005 and
2007 … – highlight the problems of suspected bribery that still dog multinational companies and
humanitarian aid. … The international Global Fund for disease prevention, which financed the project,
said it was ‘deeply concerned.’ … City police last week arrested two Dutch nationals. …
An article last year in the Global Health Council’s magazine described how the Congo project was
‘harnessing the magic of the marketplace’ to deliver help to a country in which the life expectancy is about
50 years and millions of people had died in the deadliest conflict since the second world war.”
Michael Peel, “London police probe UN-Congo charity deal”, Financial Times (UK),
October 6, 2008.
854. “The struggle against climate change must not follow world trade talks into limbo as risks
mount that the credit crisis will sap commitment to the fight, the U.N. climate chief said on Monday.
Yvo de Boer said he was worried about the impact of the credit crisis on international action to fight
climate change, as U.S. and European governments pour cash into keeping commercial banks afloat. …
‘You can only spend a dollar or a euro once,’ he said. …
De Boer said that U.N. negotiations were still on track but, in the worst case, there were risks of
failing to meet an internationally agreed deadline for a new U.N. climate treaty by the end of 2009 in
Copenhagen. …
‘One alternative would be that we don't manage to meet a deadline in Copenhagen and that we
slide into a WTO-like process that goes on without a clearly agreed deadline, or perhaps even worse that
you get a highly fragmented approach to climate change,’ he said.”
Gerard Wynn and Alister Doyle, “Risks mount for global warming fight – UN”. Reuters,
October 6, 2008.

855. “India has sharply criticised the United Nations and its affiliated organisations for sitting on the
sidelines as the current financial crisis unfolded, saying that the IMF remained helpless despite the
economic meltdown impacting adversely on the developing nations. India called on the world body to
use its universality to coordinate an international response, which is crucial to overcoming the crisis.
During a discussion on the annual report of UN chief Ban Ki-moon, Indian Ambassador Nirupam
Sen attacked the Secretariat for ignoring the economic crisis that is now ‘crushing’ the poor around the
globe and for lacking any vision for the future … [to] help developing countries deal with the serious
looming challenges. …
He branded the report, which … [summarizes] UN work in development, human rights and other
areas … as ‘inadequate if not irrelevant,’ … [and] told delegations … that the document should have
spelled out how the UN could rebuild the global political and economic institutions.
The report, he said, also remained silent on intellectual property rights and how the organisation
could stimulate the stalled Doha Round of talks being held under the auspices of the World Trade
Organisation, another institution ‘approaching irrelevance.’”
“India criticises UN over financial crisis”, Press Trust of India, October 7, 2008. [Note:
the Ambassador is right to be very angry, but then seems to urge UN leadership action far
beyond what the “world body” does and is capable of doing.]
856. “Britain will issue a warning today that a lack of leadership in the UN's handling of
humanitarian emergencies is ‘costing lives’’ and will call for urgent reforms because natural and man-
made disasters are increasingly frequent. …
A senior UNHCR official said yesterday that ‘in every single case’ the job of UN coordinator in
crisis countries was given to the UN official already overseeing development work in that country, even
though … disaster relief require[s] quite different skills and training. …
The head of the UNHCR, António Guterres, said the committee approach to doling out
emergency aid often led to too much red tape. ‘We would like to see further simplification, fewer meetings
and more of a focus on results,’ Guterres said. He … [cited reform efforts … but admitted there was still a
long way to go.
‘In UNHCR I have been confronted with the most dysfunctional career management
procedures that I have encountered in the whole of my professional and political life,’ Guterres said.
‘And the price for this is unfortunately being paid by our staff and by the people we care for.’"
Julian Borger, “Lives lost through lack of leadership in UN response to humanitarian
crises, Britain warns”, The Guardian (UK), October 7, 2008. [Note: very severe
criticisms and urgent UN management reform needs.]
857. “The United Nations is staring at a multi-billion-dollar shortfall in unfunded health insurance
obligations to past and present employees, a gaping financial deficit that has been growing rapidly. …
[The U.N. system has roughly] $4.9 billion in unpaid retirement health insurance obligations … [as
of 2007.] …
[The U.N. now requires employees to serve 10 years rather than five] before qualifying for the
lifetime retirement health insurance benefit. … [Various solutions] have been on the table since 2003. …
[A recently-favored grab bag has included] a onetime contribution of $503.5 million from peacekeeping,
taking money from various medical benefit reserves, plus a further 8 percent charge against employee
salaries. …
[Until the end of 2007] the retirement health care liability was … [merely a non-transparent]
footnote to [the U.N.’s] financial statements. … [In 2007, the General Assembly noted that the
Secretariat had taken seven years to prepare a first report on the extent of the liability,] after an initial
Assembly request in 1997. …
After being presented with [reports in 2003 and 2005,] the General Assembly decided to ask for
more information before taking action — in effect, continuing to sweep the problem under the rug.”

George Russell, “United Nations faces billions in retiree health care obligations”, Fox
News, October 08, 2008. [Note: the detailed article, available at Fox News under
“World,” then “United Nations”, includes links to the detailed total shortfalls, and a UN
Board of Auditors report of February 2007.
This item and the one above expose two very major instances of grave UN
mismanagement that should have been corrected years ago. The health insurance
squeeze and deficit will seriously undermine efforts to attract and retain high-quality new
staff (especially since the UN now emphasizes short-term contracts, but will require staff
to serve 10 years before qualifying for the lifetime insurance benefit.) And UN human
resources management reform plans have already been accurately and severely
challenged as defective – see the IO Watch Overview Quotes XV, item 755. Above, all,
will the UNHCR and UN health insurance crises merely drag along, undermined by the
UN “old boys” and by General Assembly haggling and indecisiveness?]
858a. “Ebola, cholera, plague and sleeping sickness were among … [the ‘deadly dozen’ 12 diseases]
identified yesterday by veterinary scientists from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) as spreading
across the planet because of climate change. The scientists said that wildlife could give an early
warning of the approach of diseases and save millions of people. …
Monitoring networks have already been introduced in parts of the world and have proved
successful in saving lives. … ‘Our long-term vision is a comprehensive monitoring network to watch the
health of wildlife across the globe,’ [an expert] said. …
Animals are regarded … [as a valuable indicator] because they can rarely adapt rapidly enough
for change to pass unnoticed. Changes in the diseases they suffer or the pattern of disease outbreak can
often be the result of climate change. …
[Another expert] said: ‘We are starting to see trends where disease is affected by the climate. We
have a flashing warning sign. Wildlife can be our early warning system.’”
Lewis Smith, “Wildlife gives early warning of 'deadly dozen' diseases spread by climate
change,” The Times (UK), October 8, 2008. [Note: for most people, climate change
remains very abstract, but vivid tracking of the rapidly-evolving problems is available at
the “NASA eyes on the earth” at climate.jpl.nasa.gov.]
858b. “So where is the pandemic? … [This question is often asked] of health experts years after they
warned about a pandemic influenza that could infect up to 35 percent of the world's population. …
A pandemic today, given the large volume of international travel, could reach all continents in less
than three months and … [challenge the world’s medical facilities to cope with a] huge number of sick
people. ] … However, the … [sparse news lately could lull] the public into a false sense of security, …
[which worries the] World Health Organisation (WHO.) …
[An expert] said the avian flu virus continues to mutate. ‘In 1997 there was only one strain, now
there are more than 10 groups,’ he said. … ‘Each new case gives the virus the opportunity to become
more transmissible in humans.’ …
An H5N1 pandemic is still an important possibility … [and developing a vaccine remains crucial]
for pandemic preparedness. …
‘We think we’ve been very lucky,’ said [the expert] that there has been no influenza pandemic
yet. ‘But we have a responsibility to tell the public that they should not stop preparing for it.’"
Stella Gonzales, “WHO warns against ‘bird flu fatigue’”, Inter Press Service, October 8,
2008.
859. “The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has activated an emergency finance mechanism to
help countries hit by the financial crisis.
IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn said the lending procedure would allow the IMF to react
quickly to support countries facing funding problems. The scheme, which was used during the Asian
financial crisis in 1997, will help speed up approval of loans. …

The IMF has already sent a mission to Iceland, where the government has taken control of its
three biggest banks. … But he issued a stark warning against countries acting unilaterally to fight the
crisis. …
Mr Strauss-Kahn said the events of the past few weeks were beginning to take their toll on
emerging economies as credit lines were cut and as trade was being hit by slowing demand in Western
economies.
He said the IMF was ready to assist any country in need of funding through its emergency aid
mechanism, set up in 1995 to help Mexico stabilise its financial system after a crisis of confidence.”
“IMF takes action to stem crisis”, BBC News, 9 October, 2008.
860. “A new World Bank report on Thursday named 28 countries … facing financial strains due to
high food and fuel costs and now from a cascading credit crisis. …
Among the ‘fiscally vulnerable’ countries are Jordan, Cambodia, Lebanon, Jamaica, Eritrea,
Ethiopia, Tajikistan, Madagascar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Rwanda, Malawi, Ivory Coast, Fiji, Haiti, Seychelles
and Mauritania. …
‘Over recent weeks, attention has focused on the size of financial packages, and on the impact
on Main Street,’ [World Bank President Robert Zoellick stated.] … ‘There are Main Streets all over the
world. We must look beyond the financial rescue to the human rescue,’ he added. …
The bank has been warning that the ‘double jeopardy’ of higher food and fuel prices could push
100 million people deeper into poverty. …
Zoellick said G7 industrial countries were ‘far behind’ promises they made at … [the 2005
Gleneagles] summit of world leaders, … where they pledged to double aid to Africa by 2010.
‘The poorest cannot be asked to pay the biggest price,’ Zoellick said.”
Lesley Wroughton, “World Bank names 28 financially strained states”, Reuters, 09
October 2008.
861. “[UN sources … [say] that budget cuts of a minimum of two percent have been ordered UN-
wide. UN Controller Jun Yamazaki told the Press on Thursday that the fall in value of the U.S. dollar
has cost the UN some $200 million dollars. …
He acknowledged that the real UN budget is approximately $1 billion higher than the $4.2 billion
biennial package adopted in late December by the General Assembly. How the new [two-percent] cuts …
impact this is not known. …
In fact, some are beginning to question the wisdom or at least timing of the UN's impending
plan to empty and gut-renovate its headquarters in this financial environment. [But UN top manager
Angela]. Kane said the UN has already signed leases and is on the hook to pay top dollar for relocation or
‘swing’ space. But in this environment, deals are broken all the time.
At Ban Ki-moon's October 7 press conference, there was widespread skepticism that the $16
billion in commitments for the poor [that the UN] announced in September will actually be paid out. …
Even if it is not meaningfully speaking on the meltdown, the UN is feeling its pinch.”
Matthew Russell Lee, “UN orders budget cuts as Wall Street meltdown creeps north,
Iceland and pledges in doubt”, Inner City Press, October 9, 2008.
862a. "’Accountability is a state of mind,’ UN Management chief Angela Kane said Thursday, quoting …
[an unnamed UN member state representative.] The Ban Ki-moon Administration's so-called
Accountability proposal was criticized by UN budget advisors as vague and relying on overpriced
consultants. … [She responded that] ‘You're absolutely right, … they didn't take a positive view. Not
everyone understands what we are trying to achieve.’ …
But on an eminently simple issue, of filing required personal financial disclosure, … [in 2007 172
officials refused to file it.] … That's voluntary, Ms. Kane said. Yes, but recently Ban Ki-moon bemoaned

that he tried to lead by example and no one followed. What is being done to turn that around? It wasn't
answered. …
‘We want to be more accessible,’ Ms. Kane said when asked if she will move forward on [her
predecessor’s] promise to implement a UN Freedom of Information policy. … [But] in terms of when at
least any right to UN information might exist, Ms. Kane neither specified when it might kick in nor when
become effective: she emphasized that a recent policy in the UK will take five years to phase in.”
Matthew Russell Lee, “UN's road to accountability is murky and long but reporters are
invited by management's Kane,” Inner City Press, October 9, 2008.
862b. “[UN management head Angela Kane] … has urged Member States to support a series of
proposals designed to change the way the world body operates, and in particular to enable it to attract,
recruit and keep the high quality staff that it needs. …
[She hoped this year that] ‘the final push will come’ to enable the General Assembly to
accept [Ban Ki-moon’s proposals] … particularly to reform human resources management, including
streamlining contracts, harmonizing conditions of service and improving the recruitment process. … The
Organization currently has 15 different types of contracts … [and] the aim is to reduce … [that] to three.
… Another key element of human resources reform is improving the recruitment process, which
… ‘takes too long’ [for selection.] … ‘Right now it is, I think, 162 days. But … I think the number was 370
days… just four years ago.’ …
The proposals to improve human resources management are part of a broad range of measures
to build a stronger and more effective UN, which also involves improving accountability and
oversight, setting the highest ethical standards and providing staff with access to internal justice,
among other things.”
“Senior UN official seeks support of States in changing way Organization operates”, UN
News Service, 9 October 2008. [Note: recruitment time reduction is an old refrain:
for several decades the Secretariat has spoken of progress in it reduring it from 300 or
400 days to a much smaller number. Accountability, oversight, ethical standards, and
internal justice are also endlessly marked for improvement without much change. A long-
urged revision of internal justice processes, at least, is to come into effect in 2009, but
many do not expect much real change in its ineptitude.]
863. “[The Millennium Development Goals] … are designed to respond immediately to critical needs
within the developing world, and particularly in Africa … by 2015 … [but they are far from being met.]
There are many reasons for these delays, and they lie on both sides of the ‘developmental
divide.’ … But the largest and most influential group of developing nations has added an ill-considered
and wholly gratuitous burden to the challenges of the MDG: they have selected the Sudan government,
which continues to perpetrate genocide in Darfur in front of the eyes of the world, to be their chair in the
coming year. …
The Group of 77 now has 130 members (77 was the number at its inception in 1964), including
virtually every African nation. … It was the African countries' turn to pick the chair of the organization, and
… [they were] supported by China … [and] the member states of the Organization of the Islamic
Conference. …
The symbolism of the choice is intensely dispiriting. For it comes at a time when the head of
the regime faces a likely arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court---for crimes against humanity
and for genocide in Darfur.”
“Millennium development grotesquery”, The New Republic (US), October 10, 2008.
864. “Poor management and inadequate accountability are plaguing construction projects
valued at nearly $30 million … at the United Nations' Gigiri complex in Nairobi, according to a new report
[by the UN Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions. …

It states that oversight of the planned upgrade and expansion of the Gigiri facilities is ‘neither
adequate nor well-implemented.’ The report urges that ‘strict internal control measures should be put in
place and competent leadership should be assigned to the project.’ …
A representative of the Group of 77 developing countries faulted ‘insufficient guidance’ from UN
headquarters in New York. … [He stated] that as a result of the problems besetting the Nairobi projects
the UN itself was ‘potentially exposed to significant risk’ … that is ‘unacceptable.’ ….
The criticisms come in the wake of a reported agreement by secretary general Ban Ki-moon to
elevate the status of the UN's Nairobi programmes to match that of its operations in Geneva and Vienna.”
Kevin J. Kelley, “Report faults UN complex expansion job”, The Nation (Nairobi),
allAfrica.com, 10 October 2008.
865. “An EU-commissioned study … puts the annual cost of forest loss at between $2 trillion
and $5 trillion … [based on] the value of the various services that forests perform, such as providing
clean water and absorbing carbon dioxide. …
Study leader Pavan Sukhdev emphasised that the cost of natural decline dwarfs losses on the
financial markets. … ‘It's not only greater but it's also continuous, it's been happening every year, year
after year,’ he told BBC News.
As forests decline, nature stops providing services which it used to provide essentially for free. …
So the human economy either has to provide them instead … or we have to do without them. Either way,
there is a financial cost. … The greatest cost to western nations would initially come through losing a
natural absorber of the most important greenhouse gas. …
A number of nations, businesses and global organisations are beginning to direct funds into forest
conservation, and there are signs of a trade in natural ecosystems developing, analogous to the carbon
trade, although it is clearly very early days.”
Richard Black, “Nature loss ‘dwarfs bank crisis”, BBC News, 10 October, 2008.
866. “The world's finance ministers, gathered here this week … will rightly lament the collapse of
global trade talks and Africa's halting development progress. But what Africa needs far more urgently …
is to clear the customs red-tape, corruption, transport monopolies and the like that keep the continent
disconnected and destitute. …
A greater obstacle than tariffs is the high cost of moving products across Africa's borders.
These costs … are higher in sub-Saharan Africa than anywhere else in the world. …
The red-tape is bewildering. … Customs delays in sub-Saharan Africa are the world's longest.
… Informal barriers and divergent transport standards compound delays and costs. … [And] backwards
transport regulation leads to high prices and poor service. …
In short, Africa needs a pro-poor trade agenda that tackles these trade costs through simplifying
customs procedures, increasing transparency, removing roadblocks and corruption, improving regulatory
frameworks and injecting competition into transport services … [through] aid-for-trade pledges, … private
sector and foundations, … coordination, … [and above all] African ownership. …
A targeted trade facilitation agenda could have an immediate and meaningful impact on
growth prospects for Africans … [without] the agreement of 153 disputatious trade ministers.”
Rod Hunter, Africa’s expensive borders”, International Herald Tribune, October 10,
2008.
867a. “Developing countries said on Friday they could fall victim to the global credit crunch that
began in the West and blasted industrial nations for not living up to promises for aid. The Group of 24 …
said the world economy faced its most difficult situation in years. …
[Its chairman] said the United States had come up with a $700 billion rescue package in a week,
yet it could not make good on promises of increased aid from a poverty summit in 2005. … Many
African countries are angered by the prospect that the crisis could undo years of hard-won

economic gains, and by the West's lack of oversight of its financial sector after years of lecturing to
developing countries about the importance of prudent economic policies. …
The G24 said their economies were resilient but they worried about increased financial contagion
that could reverse capital flows, raise funding costs, and shift investor sentiment. For developing
countries, the G24 said the priority was to safeguard economic stability. …
The grouping called on the IMF to design a new liquidity instrument before the 2009 spring
meetings that would help emerging markets prevent or deal with crises.”
Lesley Wroughton, “Developing nations blast West for failed aid promises”, Reuters,
October 11, 2008.
867b. “When Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was asked by reporters whether the U.N.'s cash-
strapped development agenda would survive the global financial crisis, he pointed out that … [in
September] world leaders meeting at the United Nations had pledged about 16 billion dollars towards
fighting poverty and hunger. … He was reminded that one European Union official had warned last
month that donors who promise to meet their pledges are just ‘lying.’ …
[An Ambassador] says the present global financial crisis would have ‘a major slowing down
effect’ ... [on the momentum] for the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals by 2015 … [and
that] the upcoming U.N. conference on Financing for Development in Qatar in late November would
face ‘a serious challenge in getting a worthwhile outcome in favour of the developing countries.’ …
‘Given this existing lack of political will and commitment, it will not be surprising to see rich
nations use the financial crisis, a result of their own policy failures and the lack of effective regulatory
mechanisms for Wall Street, to renege on their pledges, while their financial crisis trickles outside their
borders to impact communities and the working poor worldwide,’ [a development expert] added.”
Thalif Deen, “Finance: Meltdown could derail U.N. development agenda”, Inter Press
Service, October 15, 2008.
868. “‘Icelandic Pancakes Folded with Jam of Mixed Berries and Whipped Cream’ read the stylish
calligraphy on a little white card atop the dessert buffet in the U.N. Delegates Dining Room. Iceland is
locked in a tight race with Austria and Turkey for two rotating seats on the Security Council that are
reserved for the mostly European bloc, and the luncheon spread last week was part of its charm
offensive.
Electric moments have become rarer around the U.N. Secretariat in recent years, but a hotly
contested Security Council vote still creates buzz. Even as members grumble about the declining
relevancy of the Security Council, designed circa World War II, more and more nations seek to wield the
influence gained by winning a seat at the council's iconic horseshoe-shaped table.
‘It is one of the major plum goals for foreign policy in any country,’ said Colin Keating, a
former New Zealand ambassador. …
It is a bit like applying for a prestigious college: You have to prove you are well-rounded … first
showing active interest in peace and security issues … working to improve the environment and alleviate
poverty … [and,] finally, throwing a good party certainly does not hurt.”
Neil MacFarquhar, “Iceland lays on the charm for a seat on UN council”, International
Herald Tribune, October 13, 2008. [Note: a follow-up article reported that on October
17 Turkey, Austria and Japan won, defeating Iceland and Iran, to join Uganda and
Mexico in the five rotating seats on the 15-seat Security Council.]
869. “[A UN Independent Panel on Accountability has reported that] a dysfunctional United Nations
security management system, a lack of adequate supervision and training, and significant lapses in
judgment and performance all played a major role in the 2007 terrorist bombings of UN offices in
Algiers, which killed 17 staff members.
It also found that the UN ‘phase system’ for grading security risks in Algeria had been ‘seriously
compromised’ through politicization due to the country’s aversion to any indication that it was not secure,
… [and] a pre-occupation by UN security officials with countries like Afghanistan and Iraq. …

The panel [recommended] administrative measures against six individuals and disciplinary
proceedings against four others. …
[It cited] ‘a lack of adequate supervision and training and the recruitment process’ [resulting in an
imbalance of senior and middle managers not well suited to the UN] ‘and the threats that it faces.’
The panel cited a failure to fulfill core responsibilities both upward in the hierarchy and downward
to the field … [and that] ‘In the field, … a dysfunctional relationship among key actors combined with
passive and ineffective teamwork resulted in a false sense of security and a lack of urgency.’”
“Zacklin report points basic security fault lines, confusion …”, UNforum at
www.unforum.com, 15 October 2008.
870a. “Congo, it seems, is finally facing its horrific rape problem … after years of denial and
shame. …
European agencies are spending tens of millions of dollars building new courthouses and prisons
across eastern Congo, in part to punish rapists. Mobile courts are holding rape trials in villages deep in
the forest. …
‘We’re starting to see results,’ said a UN official. … The number of those arrested is still tiny …
and often the worst offenders are not caught because they are marauding bandits who attack villages in
the night, then melt back into the bush. … But grassroots groups are trying to change the culture here,
especially the taboo against reporting rapes. …
Poverty, chaos, disease and war are the constants of eastern Congo. Many people believe the
rape problems will not be solved until the area tastes peace. But that might not be anytime soon.”
Jeffrey Gettleman, “Congo finally confronts rape epidemic”, International Herald
Tribune, October 17, 2008.
870b. “In Kaniola, they have coined a new term: reviolé. Re-raped. … The epidemic of rape in the
Democratic Republic of Congo … has flared in a vicious new outbreak in recent weeks with renewed
fighting in the country's troubled eastern region. …
Today there are local organizations … in nearly every town, and much more donor funding
available; la lutte contre la violence sexuelle has, in fact, become something of a cottage industry here.
And yet for Congolese women, almost nothing has changed. … ‘The issue is not taken seriously
by those in power – the state doesn't get involved,’ said [an activist.] ‘The rape here has never been
discussed in parliament or by cabinet. Our penal code still doesn't include being raped [and brutalized.]
… They think it's a women's problem; they have other priorities.’
‘We have a MONUC base but we can't turn to them. When we have a problem they say, ‘We are
here for observation only,'’ said [another activist.] … In fact, the UN mission in Congo has a Chapter 7
mandate from the Security Council that authorizes it to use any means necessary to protect civilians. It
almost never does.”
Stephanie Nolen, “Rape again rampant in Congo”, Globe and Mail (Canada), October
17, 2008. [Note: see also items 879a,b and 884 following.]
871. “The widow of a British engineer found hanged in a Congo hotel room while on a dangerous
… [UN mission in August 2000] has been awarded a £143,000 (about $250,000] payout in a ruling that
is highly critical of a department then run by Lord Malloch Brown, now a Foreign Office minister.
[A Kenyan government pathologist concluded that Joe Comerford, 41, appeared to have been]
murdered. However, … [the insurers refused to pay after the UN Development Program presented] a
biased report implying his death could have been suicide.
The UN’s administrative tribunal severely criticised … [UNDP’s] ‘callous’ treatment of his wife
and said that the case was ‘seriously mishandled.’ Mark Malloch Brown … said ‘There was no way I
felt I could personally resolve the matter.’ …
[His wife, who fought an eight-year legal battle, has three children, and] still works for the UN.
[She] said last week: ‘I never wanted a battle with the UN. All I ever wanted was to try and find out what
really happened to Joe and to achieve a measure of justice.’

UNDP said … it would pay the compensation ‘without delay.’”
Graham Duffill, “Lord Malloch Brown’s running of UN unit damned over Congo
‘murder’”, The Sunday Times (UK), October 19, 2008.
872a. “United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Saturday supported French President
Nicolas Sarkozy's call for global financial crisis talks and offered to host them at the UN
headquarters in New York. Ban believed that ‘holding the summit at the United Nations, the symbol of
multilateralism, will lend universal legitimacy to this endeavor and demonstrate a collective will to face this
serious global challenge.’”
“Ban Ki-moon offers to host financial crisis talks at UN”, chinaview.cn, October 19,
2008.
872b. “Monday, the president of the U.N. General Assembly said in New York that he would
establish a high-level task force to suggest steps to reform the global financial system to reflect 21st
century economic realities -- including greater clout for developing countries. Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann
said there is growing recognition that the current financial turmoil cannot be solved through piecemeal
responses at the national and regional level but requires coordinated global efforts that are best led by
the United Nations. He announced Monday that Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz …will
chair the task force.”
Alexander G. Higgins, “UN: Financial meltdown will cost 20M their jobs”, Associated
Press, October 20th, 2008.
872c. “Foreign Minister Franco Frattini, has made Rome the candidate for the seat of a meeting
between countries which share Italy's ‘vision’ about the necessity of a global reform of the UN. The
proposal was advanced during a meeting in Islamabad with his Pakistani colleague. … [He] underlined
that with Pakistan there is a total ‘sharing of the need to aim at the United Nations for more efficient and
rapid responses to global challenges, and for this reason it is necessary to have a total reform.’"
“Frattini proposes reform meeting in Rome”, AGI News (Italy), October 20, 2008.
872d. “Heads of state from across Asia and Europe called for a coordinated response to the global
financial crisis in a two-day conference in Beijing, an event that underlined China's growing role as a
diplomatic counterweight to the United States. … They tilted toward more regulation in their meetings., …
A joint statement issued at the conference did not suggest how to accomplish this, but it said ‘necessary
and timely measures should be taken.’"
Keith Bradsher, “Asians and Europeans seek joint response to crisis”, International
Herald Tribune, October 27, 2008. [Note: diplomats and politicians rush to host
meetings. But it seems that among international organizations, only the G 20 and the
IMF will become seriously and rapidly involved (see items 875 and 878 following.]
873. “[A U.N. Procurement Task Force report] … has uncovered five new cases of corruption, fraud
and mismanagement involving $20 million in contracts throughout the international body, … the latest
cases in a three-year investigation into U.N. purchasing that has exposed more than $630 million in
[tainted UN] contracts. …
The task force[’s mandate] … expires Dec. 31. It will leave behind 150 incomplete cases,
including 50 cases involving fraud or corruption.
Established in January 2006 to investigate corruption in U.N. procurement, … [the task force]
has secured misconduct findings against 17 U.N. employees, sanctioned 22 companies and provided
evidence leading to the conviction of a top U.N. procurement official.
But it has butted heads with U.N. departments that found its methods too aggressive, and … the
U.N. Office of Legal Affairs has resisted task force recommendations to pursue criminal charges
against corrupt U.N. officials and contractors … and to recover ill-gotten profits. …

The U.N. Board of Auditors conducted an inquiry following allegations by Singapore. … [It]
cleared the task force of violating due process rights … [but] also played down the extent of wrongdoing,
saying the task force ‘did not expose widespread corruption.’”
Colum Lynch, “U.N. cites $20 million in fraud”, Washington Post, October 21, 2008.
[Note: so it appears that the “troublesome” task force will be disbanded, UN “legal
eagles” will continue to protect bad managers from accountability, and the UN will return
to an understaffed internal oversight office which cannot nearly cover the cases left
behind, nor the new ones continually emerging. The article provides many details, as
does a related article on the political battles over stronger fraud and mismanagement
reviews: see Patrick Worship, “U.N. seen slow to address corruption”, Reuters, 23
October, 2008.]
874. “The United Nations … headquarters staff of approximately 15,500 is apparently relying on a
battalion of retirees to fill important vacancies. The cost of keeping codgers on its payroll … has
soared from $33 million in 2004-2005 to $50 million in 2006-2007. …
[This appears to violate the UN’s own limits on allowable retiree earnings in addition to their]
U.N. pension, and how long they can be kept on the job. Those rules were seemingly designed to prevent
double-dipping by former workers, or the filling of jobs that might otherwise go to full-time staff.
But one small group of … [135] higher-level professional and administrative employees, … pulled
in $11.4 million. About 130 averaged nearly $40,000 a year … [and] five persons at the assistant
secretary general level averaged more than $100,000 a year atop their pensions. …
The U.N. system is now agonizing over … a bill as high as $4.9 billion for [its] health care
insurance liabilities, which will get worse. … [But] the life for retired double-dippers at the U.N. … [may
improve] in the years ahead, even as the organization suffers through a severe financial crisis brought on
by the demands on its pension system.”
George Russell, “Going gray – and making it pay – on Turtle Bay?”, Fox News, October
21, 2008. [Note: This is a long-standing staffing abuse in Secretariat operations (an
earlier study even found an 80-year old retiree still working.) Beyond the pension mess,
any reduction in overall UN staff in a worldwide recession will probably quite probably
involve firing younger staff so the literally “old boys and girls” can stay comfortably on.
More details in this article and two reports thereon can be found at www.foxnews.com
under “World” and then “United Nations.”]
875. “After the UN Development Program had defended paying salary to Georgian President Mikheil
Saakashvili since Inner City Press exclusively reported on it, on Wednesday UNDP Administrator Kemal
Dervis belatedly acknowledged that payments to such high officials ‘raises questions’ and ‘may not be
desirable.’ …
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov denounced the program as a ‘privatization of the UN.’
Wednesday Inner City Press asked Dervis to respond to the criticism.
While quickly saying, "I fully agree with the Russian foreign minister," Dervis did not step away
from processing such money for [George Soros’ Open Society Institute] or other -- apparently any other --
private foundation. UNDP takes a fee in such deals, although in recently months UNDP's spokesman has
repeatedly declined to provide information about the fees UNDP charges. Ironic in light of this
stonewalling, Dervis three times said that programs like that in Georgia ‘must be transparent.’
This seems to be a pattern with UNDP, which was criticized in the UN's recent reports about the
December 2007 bombing of UN premises in Algiers. Yet Dervis has yet to take any questions on UNDP's
actions before the Algiers bombing. … Transparency, indeed.”
Matthew Russell Lee, “UNDP’s Dervis admits paying Saakashvili unwise, dodges on
Congo security and Kosovo fees”, Inner City Press, October 22, 2008.

876. “The US is to host a summit of world leaders to discuss the financial crisis and reshaping the
global economic system next month. …
Following calls from European leaders such as Gordon Brown, British prime minister, and Nicolas
Sarkozy, France's president, the White House said on Wednesday it was planning a meeting of the heads
of state of the G20 group of countries in Washington on November 15.
‘The leaders will review progress being made to address the current financial crisis, advance a
common understanding of its causes, and, in order to avoid a repetition, agree on a common set of
principles for reform of the regulatory and institutional regimes for the world's financial sectors,’ said … [a
US spokeswoman.].
The G20 members include some of the countries most affected by the crisis in the developed
world as well as emerging markets such as Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, South Korea,
Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and Turkey.”
James Politi and Daniel Dombey, “US to host G20 world summit over crisis”, Financial
Times (UK), October 22, 2008. [Note: for more on the G20 group, which seems by
far the best multilateral group for this (and perhaps other global crisis) tasks, see
Overview Quotes XV, item 760c, and www.g20.org/G20.]
877. [An excellent new article on the UN’s perpetual inability to hold anyone accountable for any
wrongdoing was written by a former UN whistleblower concerning the UN oil-for-food program. He
worked in that program as “the kid” who assisted Benon Sevan, the UN under-secretary-general
responsible for the program. Among his insights and conclusions is the observation from Hunter
Thompson that “in a closed society where everybody’s guilty, the only crime is getting caught.”]
Michael Soussan, “Mission implausible”, Prospect Magazine (UK, November issue), 23
October 2008. [Note: the full article is available in the IO Watch Dark Side feature
UN, O-F-F whistle-blower, 1997-2000 .]
878. “September and October are shaping up to be hard months in a precarious year. A meltdown in
financial, credit and housing markets. The continuing stress of high food and fuel prices and the dangers
for poverty and malnutrition. Anxieties about the global economy. …
We must modernize multilateralism and markets for a changing world economy. … The New
Multilateralism will need to be a flexible network. It must maximize the strengths of interconnecting
institutions, public and private. It should be oriented around pragmatic problem-solving that fosters
cooperation. …
We should consider a new steering group including Brazil, China, India, Mexico, Russia, Saudi
Arabia, South Africa and the current G-7, that holds regular formal and informal dialogues. … [It] should
evolve to fit changing circumstances … so that global problems are not just mopped up after the fact, but
anticipated. The steering group .. [would] work through established international institutions, but the core
group will increase the likelihood that countries draw together to address problems.
Multilateralism is a means for solving problems among countries, with the group at the table able
to take constructive action together. Fate presents an opportunity wrapped in a necessity: to modernize
multilateralism and markets.”
Robert B. Zoellick, “Redefining multilateralism”, International Herald Tribune, October
24, 2008. [Note: Mr. Zoellick is president of the World Bank Group.]
879. “Until last week, the IMF had been embarrassingly absent from the financial turmoil. … Now, as
one country after another descends into crisis, the world’s economic firefighter has at last been called into
action—despatching teams to parts as different as Iceland and Pakistan.
The IMF remains the institution most suited to dealing with such crises. It has $255 billion in
uncommitted usable resources and the ability to elicit funds from countries that may be reluctant to act on
their own. … Critics have argued that the IMF is overly hung up on conditionality. … However, the fund

needs to be flexible and it has indeed rethought its approach in recent years. It now aims to impose policy
prescriptions only when absolutely critical to a programme’s success. …
There are also doubts about whether the IMF’s instruments are quick and flexible enough for the
full range of crises. … The fund is thinking about a special short-term liquidity instrument. … [It] needs to
move fast, to use the right tools, and to propose policies that are tailored to each country’s economic
situation.”
“The IMF: No strings attached: The fund is back. It needs to keep alert”, The Economist,
October 24th, 2008. [Note: the IMF was indeed teetering on the brink of irrelevance
just eight months ago (see Overview Quotes XII, item 614.) But now it will be a key
global agency, as detailed in many other articles in late October. See, for instance:
Mark Landler, “IMF crafting rescue plan for emerging economies”, International Herald
Tribune, October 25, 2008;
Alan Beattie, “IMF could soon run short of firepower” and “The world’s credit union”,
Financial Times (UK), October 28, 2008; and
Mark Landler, “IMF joins the Fed in helping to bolster healthy countries”, International
Herald Tribune, October 31, 2008.
880a. “UN peacekeeping forces are engaged in heavy fighting against rebels in eastern Democratic
Republic of Congo.
[UN mission head] Alan Doss told the BBC that helicopter gunships and armoured units were
supporting the Congolese army. … The clashes followed reports that hundreds of protesters had attacked
the mission's headquarters, saying the UN was not doing enough to protect them. …
The UN is trying to help government forces prevent rebel troops loyal to renegade general
Laurent Nkunda from advancing on Goma, capital of North Kivu province. ‘We can't allow population
centres to be threatened,’ Mr Doss said. ‘We had to engage.’ …
[Nkunda’s] rebels attacked Goma last December. Hundreds of them died as the UN used
helicopters under its mandate to protect civilians. A peace deal was signed … at the end of January.
… About 200,000 people fled their homes after fighting resumed in the area in late August. The
United Nations says many refugees are malnourished and some are dying of hunger.”
Mark Doyle, “UN joins battle with Congo rebels”, BBC News, October 27, 2008.
880b. “With rebels closing in and artillery shells raining down, the United Nations said it decided on
Tuesday to extract its aid workers who were holed up in the eastern Congolese village of Rutshuru.
But the attempt to evacuate roughly 50 aid workers trapped in the battle zone … was halted
after furious villagers attacked the armed convoy and blocked the road. …
The situation has deteriorated over the past three days in eastern Congo. … The peacekeeping
troops were overstretched in trying to protect the civilian population. … Mobs of civilians stoned the
bases of United Nations forces in both Goma and Rutshuru. …
In New York on Tuesday, the United Nations Security Council strongly condemned the offensive
and called for a cease-fire. … [UN mission head Allen] Doss appeared before the Security Council this
month, pleading for an increase in the 17,000 troops he has … [in Congo], with about 6,000 in the area
around Goma. …
The fighting near Goma had made it too dangerous to distribute food in the rural areas, said
[Marcus] Prior, the UN food program spokesman. In Goma, operations had been suspended because of
the level of hostility against the United Nations.”
Jeffrey Gettleman and Neil MacFarquhar, “U.N. blocked from pulling workers out of
Congo”, New York Times, October 29, 2008.
881. [Two UN system-wide staff groups recently appeared before the UN system’s High-Level
Committee on Management (HLCM) to discuss staff thoughts and concerns about items on their agenda.
CCISUA and FICSA highlighted the need for “a return to the basics” on accountability,
communication, equity, and justice, as well as concerns with erosion of salaries, strengthening

system-wide audit and evaluation, senior leadership training, a recent survey by the International Civil
Service Commission including staff recruitment and retention issues, enhancing staff-management
relations and staff representation in the UN system, and – critically, security issues of UN system staff
worldwide.]
“Statement by CCISUA at HLCM” and “FICSA statement at HLCM”, UNDP Watch,
October 27, 2008. [Note: the full statements are available at
www.undpwatch.blogspot.com, and the two groups’ websites are at www.ccisua.org and
www.ficsa.org.]
882. “Nearly three years after the United Nations launched a highly publicized effort to crack down on
fraud and waste, especially in its scandal-torn multi-billion-dollar procurement department, the clean-
hands offensive is slowing down. And, its own watchdogs warn, other major areas of the U.N.
bureaucracy are suffering from an alarming lack of scrutiny. …
[In the annual report of the Office of Internal Oversight Services on its] activities from June 2007
to June 2008, … OIOS chief Inga-Britt Ahlenius ... highlights an ingrained U.N. culture of managerial
laxity, confusion, bureaucratic resistance and, on occasion, spectacular incompetence that if left
unaddressed does not bode well for the U.N.'s reputation — or probity — in the future. …
Among the highlights: poor data collection [to measure performance]; … foggy and inconsistent
use of the most basic UN terminology; … some … important [UN] funds and programs lack [sufficient]
auditing staff; … [serious operational questions about the U.N. pension fund;] … [the UN] human
resources department does not do criminal background checks on employees hired for less than a year
[(currently some 1,400 people]; … [and even where OIOS finds serious mismanagement], U.N. top
managers have been loath to take action.”
George Russell, “U.N. reports show scrutiny in short supply at world body – but reasons
for it abound”, Fox News, October 29, 2008. [Note: access to this OIOS report and the
OIOS final Procurement Task Force report (see also item 873 above) are available at
www.foxnews.org, via “World”, “United Nations, and “UN reports show laxity …”.]
883. “On Wednesday, the 15-member [U.N. Security] Council opened its eighth open debate on
"Women, Peace, and Security" at U.N. headquarters in New York. … Many women's advocates fear
that this year will again see little more than ‘lip service’ paid toward making [Security Council
resolution] 1325 reality. …
According to the U.N. report on Women, Peace, and Security, there have been gains in the broad
areas for action set out in the resolution. … However, a gap between policies and implementation of the
resolution remains, in particular at the national level. …
The report says that only 10 member states have developed specific national action plans
for implementation of the resolution and five more are in the process of developing such plans.
‘We have a long way to go in ensuring women's equal participation and full involvement in all
efforts for the maintenance and promotion of peace and security, particularly in conflict prevention and
resolution, equal representation in security institutions and decision-making bodies, as well as ensuring
women's protection from sexual violence and ending impunity,’ … the U.N. Special Adviser on Gender
Issues and Advancement of Women told the Security Council.”
Nergui Manalsuren, “Rights: Landmark U.N. resolution on equality stuck on paper”,
Inter Press Service, October 29, 2008.
884. “United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon surprised reporters when he said the U.N.
[would address financial market turmoil] … by slashing its own budget 2 percent in all departments. …
[But such revisions must be approved by the 192-member General Assembly.] That didn’t happen. …
[Mr. Ban] might want to begin his austerity campaign at home, literally. [In December, 2006], the
U.N. began … a ‘major renovation’ of the secretary-general's [trendy townhouse] on Manhattan's
Upper East Side. …

Ban spent almost eight months in a hotel while the work was done, but … opted for a suite at the
Waldorf-Astoria costing more than $30,000 monthly, despite cheaper alternatives in private apartment
complexes. … [Meanwhile, the final] cost had skyrocketed by almost 50 percent, to $6,672,400. …
Ban … missed his home-style Korean cooking, so the U.N. is said to have ordered … [kitchen
modifications, apparently at] additional costs exceed[ing] $1 million, not including hiring chefs familiar
with Korean cooking. …
[Also], this past summer, to combat the rise in fuel costs, Ban ordered a reduction in the air
conditioning [in the 38-floor] Secretariat tower. The 38th floor was excluded; those are the offices of
Ban and his personal staff.”
Stewart Stogel, “Ban Ki-moon’s U.N. austerity claims miss mark”, Newsmax.com
(U.S.), October 29, 2008.
885. “The quick unraveling of the world's largest U.N. peacekeeping effort has … [not surprised]
the mission's critics, who complain the force was unprepared for its main task — protecting civilians from
the war.
Growing numbers of civilians are furious at the U.N's failure to keep them safe. Angry Congolese
have pelted rocks at all four U.N. compounds in the provincial capital of Goma. …
Fewer than 6,000 of the mission's 17,000 troops are deployed in North Kivu, the site of the
current fighting. … By comparison, rebel leader Laurent Nkunda commands about 10,000 fighters. …
The inability to protect civilians is particularly frustrating for the U.N. mission in Congo, which got
a strong mandate, including the power to use force. … [It also] has been ill-equipped to deal with the
guerrilla tactics of rebels who overwhelm the conventionally trained peacekeepers with hit-and-run
attacks … [while hiding] in Congo's dense tropical forests. …
Perhaps most fundamental is the complexity of the [MONUC] mandate. … The
peacekeepers have been charged with simultaneously protecting civilians, disarming rebel fighters and
policing buffer zones separating the insurgents from government troops. …
‘I think … they’ve [lacked real resources and political support’, said [an on-scene observer.]”
Michelle Faul, “Congo conflict shows flaws in UN peacekeeper force”, Associated Press,
October 31, 2008.
This chronology continues in Overview of IO Watch Archive Quotes XVII

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