Half of EU citizens on the net, but rural Europe left behind. Out of the half a billion EU citizens, more than 250 million regularly use the internet, according to newly released figures.

A European Commission report on the results so far for i2010, the EU’s digital-led strategy for growth and jobs, further showed that of this number, 80 percent have access to some form of broadband connection.

April 18, 2008, By Leigh Phillips for EUobserver:

Additionally, says the report - released on Friday (18 April) some 60 percent of public services in the EU are fully available online, with two thirds of schools and half of doctors making use of high-speed internet connections.

“However, some parts of the EU are still lagging behind and are not fully connected,” she warned.

The report notes that nearly 40 percent of Europeans do not use the internet at all. While in Denmark only 13 percent of the population do not use the internet, Romania is at the other end of the scale with 69 percent of its population offline.

The report notes that the EU-wide average for DSL broadband penetration is nearly 90 percent (DSL networks are used by 80 percent of EU broadband subscribers, and so are used as a proxy by the report’s analysts for broadband more generally, although cable and wireless broadband services do also exist).

However, the report also says that figures for national broadband coverage also “hide a gap between rural and urban areas in several countries,” noting that full coverage remains a challenge in a number of countries.

Greece, Slovakia, Latvia, Italy, Poland, Lithuania and Germany show “a large gap”, between coverage in urban and rural areas.

Germany has a broadband coverage rate of 94 percent overall, but only 58 percent of rural areas have access to high-speed internet.

Greece, with its island geography comes in last on both scores, with under 20 percent of the country being serviced with broadband, and only ten percent having access in rural areas.

Wherever this rural-urban split happens, it is due to difficulties and increased costs involved with the provision of new technologies to areas with challenging topographies and population densities that make offering these services unattractive to companies that sell internet access.

UNI Telecom, the international union federation representing telecoms workers, argues that this is where the market liberalisation in the telecommunications sector is shown to fail, as private firms cherry-pick urban, population-dense and wealthy areas to build service infrastructure.

In the past, they argue, public service provision would have used the ‘postage stamp’ model where profitable urban areas subsidise the more expensive provision of service to rural areas.

The current situation however leaves rural, remote and poor areas with substandard service or even none at all, says the union. Urban zones with high concentrations of elderly citizens, who can have less of an interest in the internet, are also sometimes underserved.

A commission spokesperson conceded that this is the case, but countered that this is why EU rules on state aid permit public financing or partnerships to deliver broadband or other new technologies to such areas, ensuring universal service provision.

From:    bernhard.schlamadinger at climate-strate…

A Report was prepared on: “Russian Gas Pipeline Projects under JI Track 2: Case Study of the Dominant Project Type” by Anna Korppoo and Arild Moe is now available:
 http://www.climate-strategies.org/upload…

In this briefing paper Korppoo and Moe analyse this particular type of Joint Implementation project, the related methodology, issues surrounding additionality, as well as the institutional aspects of the Russian gas distribution infrastructure.

The report was commissioned by Climate Strategies, an academic network organisation focused upon developing and delivering research to meet the needs of international climate change policymaking. It convenes international groups of experts to provide rigorous, fact-based and independent assessment on international climate change policy. Climate Strategies works with decision-makers in governments and business, particularly, but not restricted to, the countries of the European Union and EU institutions. For further information please see www.climate-strategies.org

————————————————————–
Dr. Bernhard Schlamadinger
Research Director, ClimateStrategies

Judge Business School / CCES / Rm a3.03
Cambridge University, CB2 1AG, UK
mobile: +43(0)676/ 614 5101
 bernhard.schlamadinger at climate-strate…
 www.SustainabiliTank.info we do not feel any bitterness at the fact that natural gas becomes part of a KP mechanism. The facts are that back in the 80’s, when Holger Rogner undertook to expand the energy study of IIASA to include natural gas (previously it was only about oil) Pincas Jawetz convinced him to include natural gas as a transition fuel from oil to renewables - this because if the NG infrastructure is established it could also be used for biogas. This besides the fact that NG also opens the way to other forms of gas the likes of coal bed methane. 

Already at that time Pincas Jawetz proposed to change the energy triangle that was usually depicted with coal in one corner, oil&gas on top  and renewables and nuclear in the third corner, to a form that keeps coal &oil in one corner, NG in the center, and the usual renewables  and nuclear in the third corner. It was eventually this new version of the triangle that was also accepted by Professor Jose Goldemberg, much later, in the UNDP Energy Study. The place of nuclear on the triangle was simply to make it all inclusive even though Professor Goldemberg, nor Pincas Jawetz did think that it will be a viable option for the future because of plain economic reasons that do not make nuclear power, with its present fission technology, a plausible source of energy for the future. Fusion technology is a different story - but we are not there yet - though it is still a possibility and the door should just be left open.

From the above, the less polluting, but still fossil carbon spewing natural gas burning, gets its place as transition fuel - even though it really could not be looked at as a bona-fide non-fossil-CO2 emitting source. 

Brazil opens condom factory to help preserve the Amazon rain forest.

The Associated Press, April 8, 2008. Picked up by www.SustainabiliTank.info from The International Harold Tribune.

SAO PAULO, Brazil: Brazil on Monday, April 7, 2008, inaugurated a condom factory that officials say will help hundreds of poor Brazilian rubber tappers make a living while helping to preserve the Amazon rain forest.

The plant in the northwestern town of Xapuri will produce 100 million condoms a year, which the government will distribute for free as part of its massive anti-AIDS program, Brazil’s Health Ministry said in a statement.

The latex will be drawn from towering jungle trees in the sprawling Chico Mendes forest reserve by small time rubber tappers who protect their trees — and thus the rain forest — to ensure their livelihood, the Health Ministry said in a statement.

The reserves is named after renowned rubber tapper Chico Mendes who drew international attention to Amazon rain forest destruction. Mendes was shot dead in his home in Xapuri in December 1988 by cattle ranchers.

Rubber tappers in the northwestern state of Acre, where the factory is based, already produce about 6.2 million tons of latex a year, but demand from the factory will boost that amount by about 500,000 tons annually, the ministry said.

The factory will benefit at least 500 families of rubber tappers and will provide about 150 jobs for the town of 15,000, the ministry said.

Brazil currently imports almost all of the condoms despite having large amounts of latex in the Amazon.

Officials see factory as a way to provide rubber tappers and local residents with an economic stake in preserving the rain forest.

EU Can Hit Biofuels Goal Without Conflicts - Germany Says.

Reuters from BRDO, SLOVENIA: April 14, 2008.

The European Union can achieve its 2020 target to get 10 percent of all transport fuel from biofuels without adding to soaring food prices and harming rainforests, Germany’s environment minister said on Saturday.

“We can meet the 10 percent target through biofuel production in the European Union (and imports of) raw materials, which do not lead to a conflict with food or rainforests,” Sigmar Gabriel told reporters on the fringes of a meeting of EU environment ministers in Slovenia.
Soaring food prices blamed on market speculators, a weak dollar and biofuels have led to riots in developing countries including Indonesia, the Philippines and Haiti, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation said last week.

EU leaders agreed last year to get a tenth of all transport fuel from biofuels by 2020 to help fight climate change.

Now ministers are having to think how to reach that goal and still avoid unwanted trade-offs, including stealing agricultural land for food production and harming tropical rainforests.

Gabriel downplayed the contribution that growing biofuel crops may have had on record global food prices.

Biofuels are made from crops like corn, wheat, sugar and palm oil, which refiners turn into ethanol or oil to replace gasoline and diesel.

Europe and the United States subsidise biofuel production both to curb emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) from burning gasoline and to address energy security by using alternatives to oil.

Last week, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown called for a co-ordinated response led by the United Nations, World Bank and International Monetary Fund to address soaring food prices, including examining the impact of biofuels.

The FAO and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) said last year biofuels were “one of the main drivers” for forecast food price hikes of 20-50 percent by 2016. But Gabriel said grain demand for animal feed was more relevant to the higher food prices.

“There are other factors crucial for rising food prices. The big competition is not between the use of biomass for energy and food but between feed and food,” he said.

“The growing demand for meat and milk has the consequence that more growing area is used for fodder, and this development is just made worse by the biofuels.”

The EU’s executive Commission proposed in January certain biofuel standards — or sustainability criteria — which ministers are now considering. These standards included, for example, a condition that biofuels cut emissions by at least a third and consider impacts on food prices.

IPCC plenary gives go-ahead for Special Report on Renewable Energy.

Budapest, 11 April 2008. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change formally decided today to produce a Special Report on Renewable Energy Sources and Climate Change Mitigation, for completion in 2010.

“The Special Report will be the reference document for governments and policymakers around the world on renewables,” said Steve Sawyer, The Global Wind Energu Council’s Secretary General.

“The 4th Assessment Report outlined very clearly the threat posed by the accelerating rate of climate change, and highlighted the fact that we have the means to solve the problem. In the critical next decade, renewables are the key option for reducing fossil fuel emissions, along with energy efficiency. The IPCC recognized that the rapidly growing renewable energy sector deserves special attention given the extraordinary growth experienced by wind power and other technologies, even since the cutoff date for material for the 4th assessment report which was late in 2006”, concluded Steve Sawyer of GWEC.

The IPCC’s 4th Assessment Report highlighted very clearly that if we are to avoid the worst ravages of man-made climate change, then global greenhouse gas emissions must peak and then begin to decline before 2020. Discussion on longer term targets will continue as the science evolves and our knowledge improves, but the critical task in the next decade is clear.

 “The Global Wind Energy Council will certainly play a role in the production of this report, and we hope that the other sectors, too, will contribute their real-world knowledge and experience”, said Arthouros Zervos, GWEC Chairman, who participated in  the preparation of the scoping document which was adopted by the panel in Budapest today. “We fully expect that the Special Report will highlight in an authoritative fashion the key role for renewable energy in combating climate change; particularly because of their ability to deployed rapidly and on a large scale in every country of the world at reasonable cost while addressing both sustainable development and energy security concerns.”

As a result of a scoping meeting held in Germany earlier this year, a proposal was developed which will address the subject in five main sections: Renewable Energy and Climate Change; the individual technologies and their integration into the overall energy system; renewable energy and sustainable development; climate change mitigation potentials and costs; and policy, financing and implementation. Following the formal adoption today by the IPCC, the next step will be for governments to nominate experts to compile the vast quantity of literature on the subject, to write the chapters and to review the comments received from expert and government commentators on the three or four drafts of the individual reports. Eventually, the summary for policymakers will be presented to the full IPCC for adoption, which is currently planned to be in 2010.

The outline of the Special Report is available on the IPCC website at: http://www.ipcc.ch/meetings/session28/do…

Angelika Pullen, Policy & Communications Director
Mob: +32 473 947 966
 angelika.pullen at gwec.net

Global Wind Energy Council
Renewable Energy House - Rue d’Arlon 63-65, 1040 Brussels, Belgium
Web: www.gwec.net

Global enterprise can be grateful to Arthur C. Clarke
Published: March 22 2008 Letter to the Editor - The Financial Times, From Dr Ian Mitchell.

Sir, In 1992 I attended an technology exhibition in Geneva, where Apollo 9 astronaut Russell “Rusty” Schweickart gave a talk about how technology was causing the planet to “shrink”. As an astronaut who had looked upon the Earth and seen it as a globe, he tried to explain how technology was creating an encapsulated Earth, a global village with a holistic relationship between environment, society and business. That was the term people used back then, though today we’d call it globalisation and we’d be in a position to cite its negative as well as its positive connotations.

I was reminded of this by the death of Sir Arthur C. Clarke this week. Clarke was a bit of a polymath: the author of 2001: A Space Odyssey and numerous other books; a first-class honours graduate in mathematics and physics; and perhaps most importantly for all in business, the person who in 1945 first conceived of the communications satellite.

Global enterprise now harvests the fruits of that idea, as internet queries and responses are transmitted across invisible relays that connect our world and make it transparent.

The communications satellite became a reality through synergy with military projects. Any satellite that could be placed in orbit could (by definition) target anywhere on the planet. This, more than a desire for improved global business, was the impetus behind the space race. Clarke’s idea would find itself piggybacking on military technology of enormous destructive power and global reach.

Fortunately “the button” was never pushed; however, because of Clarke’s strategic vision of global communication, each of us today can push a button of our own and send an e-mail or commit a transaction.

Today, the International Astronomical Union recognises the geostationary orbit in which communication satellites lie as the “Clarke Orbit”.

It is a fitting memento to one of the architects of that global village which astronauts see from afar.

Ian Mitchell,

Barnard Castle,

Co Durham DL12 8NS

We announced a Washington DC Panel to look look at the Freedom of the press at the UN and how the UN views its obligations for transparency. The title of that panel was: ” The United Nations and Freedom of the Press: Good for Thee, But Not For Me?” That title came about from the fact that the Human Rights Bodies at the UN wax on the fact that they require from UN Member States to adopt rules for the Freedom of the Press as per The Declaration on Human Rights - but we all know that there is a disparity between the clear principles and the way the Member States view those principles. In effect there is a variety of gradations in compliance, and it is safe to say that in a majority of the countries there is very low compliance - but our expectations from the UN itself are a different matter. We might have thought that requesting the UN to comply is something that came with the territory as obvious - but it is not!

Our posting was http://www.sustainabilitank.info/2008/03…

The March 18, 2008 reporting by Matthew Russell Lee of the Inner City Press: http://www.innercitypress.com/unic1dc031… then he had a further relevant piece -
 http://www.innercitypress.com/un2subsidy… and obviously many previous articles on his website - this because he is the most persistent investigative journalist at the UN - when it comes to keep UN responsible for required standards of ethics from this international organization. (The InnerCityPress.org announcement of the Washington DC Panel was dated March 13, 2008: http://www.innercitypress.com/un2freepre…)

The meeting was hold on Capitol Hill, in the Founders Hall of The Heritage Foundation at 214 Massachusetts Avenue, NE, Washington DC 2002.

The Foundation was established based on foresight of three men of wealth who in 1973 decided to invest in conservative principles of a strict democracy (the building itself was dedicated to their names on December 8, 1999.)

As I got there early, I treated myself to the three piles of books that were left for the taking. One of them was “Always Right - Selected Writings of Midge Decter.” She, and Norman Podhoretz who became her husband, were among the early staff of Commentary Magazine, and she early on was asked to be on the Board of the Heritage Foundation. The Selection from her writings is dated 2002, it includes - “The UN and US National Interests” dated 1982.
I read the article on my way back from Washington, and it clearly explains why The Heritage Foundation hosted that panel. I marked several paragraphs which I use here as my introduction.

“The UN as an institution was an effort to sell American values, American political values, to the world. It was an invention of the United States, and one might say in admiration of this country - and also in despair for the quality known as American innocence - that only the United States could have invented such an institution as the United Nations. For it was an effort to offer to the world a model of the liberal parliamentary order. A parliament of nations. And unlike earlier parliaments of nations, this one, said its inventors, was going to be truly representative. Therefore it included a body, the General Assembly, which gave equal voice and equal representation, to all sovereign nations. This resulted in its being unable to reflect the realities of power in the world, which is undoubtedly one of the reasons why it has been unable to function really as a peacekeeping organization.”

“We find ourselves now in a peculiar predicament. We are not only the founding spirit behind this organization, we are its major funder. It sits, appropriately to its initial intention, in the city of New York, the symbol in this country of the formerly downtrodden (which was surely the impulse behind the creation of the institution), and the city that in this country best typifies that process. And yet its major role in the world now is to be the center for agitation against the values by which, and under which, it was created.”

The UN is a center of agitation against the democratic order, not to say American society, and certainly not to say American national interest. How have we gotten ourselves into this spot, where we are host and the major funder of an institution most of whose deliberations, and particularly those of which the press and the public pay no attention, are inimical not only to our interests, and not only to our survival, but to the very things that we and this institution itself stand for? Well, we do not have to discuss now the process by which this happened. The question is, what should we do about it?”


Touching specifics, Midge Decter, like US Permanent Representative at that time, Professor Kirkpatrick, say that a major damage to a democratic society is in the corruption of language - the distortion of the word “justice” - the idea that the free nations of the world are being lectured by some of the most tyrannical nations of this world in the name of justice, and The Heritage Foundation thus gets itself busy in writing up about some of these distortions.

The Panel was chaired by Brett Schaeffer of The Margaret Thatcher For Freedom Center, who covers the UN at The Heritage Foundation, the host. He started by saying that everyone knows that Freedom of Expression & Freedom of The Press are charges of the UN, but in the last years the organization itself does not act in ways consistent to the Human Rights & Freedom of The Press rules. As an example he brought up the UN censorship of March 4, 2008 of that downing of a helicopter in Nepal. Then March 12, 2008 UNESCO yielded on not backing internet users that are imprisoned in several countries (I am not sure if he actually said 12 countries). Those were also subjects that were brought up by Inner City Press Reporter Matthew Russell Lee from the UN who tried to get answers from UN spokespeople. Those statements were in way of introducing Matthew to the audience of about 50 people - most of them from Washington but also some foreigners, including one very interested Korean.

Matthew Russell Lee followed and started by telling how his investigation of strange things that went on at UNDP brought about complaints to Google that reacted by doing the equivalent of taking him of the air - that is cutting his exposure to the interested internet visitors.

Matthew, who is accredited as UN Press for the last two years, likes his perch at the UN that allows him to talk to Ambassadors and to high UN officials. In these conversations, and from whistleblowers, that is how a UN correspondent gathers the information. From the UN Spokesperson very little information is forthcoming. He covers 4-5 stories a day. He got information from a vibrant press out there in Nepal, and the helicopter story got more and more complicated. Now it turns out that the Russian firm Vertical T got a contract for 3 years for what is only an authorized activity for one year. Where will the money come from for the additional two years. No answer from the UN.
In effect the UN does not believe that they have a Freedom of he Press Act - so - if they do not want to answer - they don’t.

In Uganda - on mission to disarm the tribes - the order given was: “Come out with your guns or we will burn your village.” Is that to be allowed as UN behavior? Matthew feels at the UN like a dog chasing a ball - going randomly in all directions - and then found out that the Department of Public Information released information that ICP is “asking too many questions.” This I guess was intended to stop people from talking to him. The UN Correspondents Association (UNCA) was supposed to help him - but they did not. Where they afraid? And this gets even more questionable as Matthew was elected First Vice President of this organization. Indeed, there are only about 60 active UNCA members - but quite a few belong to media outlets from countries that like what the UN is not doing - their countries being part of the house leadership. (We at www.SustainabiliTank.info wrote about this many times, and we even pointed out some possible political collusion as well. In New York City, you have just to watch Channel 78 at noon, and you can figure this out by yourself. When we had trouble, UNCA did not help us either)

When the UN Global Compact had a meeting with the participation of Google, Matthew asked the Google representative about censorship of the internet in China - and he was answered that Google does not have to answer that question. Indeed?

In short - “They (the UN DPI) try to get you out of the building, discredit you, with other reporters, then they get Google to drop you from internet access!

Next speaker was the Washington DC UN Representative William Davis, his official title Director, UN Information Center in Washington - this is spelled UNIC and pronounced like “eunuch” - he feels like the UN Ambassador to political Washington - Congress, White House, NGOs but is not allowed to lobby. Similar offices are in many places in the world, over 60, but I bet there is no place more important for a UN Ambassador then in the US Political Capital. After all - that is where you go to beg for money.

He is an American who worked prior at the US Department of State, the Organization of American States, and the OECD in Paris. I kind of liked him personally, but he can do on a panel like this little more then explaining the glorified UN that will celebrate via UNESCO the UN Declaration of Human Rights, and tell us that on May 30 the UNGA will have a HR Declaration memorial. Is the UN practicing what it preaches?

He is part of UN DPI that was established in 1946 with the UN. Since UNSG Javier Perez de Cuellar - the DPI arranges for a daily Press Conference - you know - the present Noon Briefing to the press in room S-226 and on UNTV. Davis worked for the White House National Security Council and said the press at the White House cannot run around freely either. Member countries may feel certain issues-sensitive. They are Members of the Board of the UN!

Now for accreditation - they must be registered with a media that is registered in a UN Member State - so Taiwan forget it. nobody asked about Palestine - I wish someone did. On the world of the new media - “we put forward criteria!
In 2005 we came out with a whistleblower Protection Agency - they can go to the press - {good luck I thought.}

With 192 Member States with cultural differences we do not have a universal adherence to the HR Declaration - you bring with you your national biases and that shows. And here he told that Mr. Akasaka, the USG for UNDPI, came to Washington at the head of a large group of Japanese journalists. They were very polite - not like journalists in this country. “He remarked here that we are masters of shooting ourselves in the foot.” { I thought that was a nice observation - BUT WHAT WAS AKASAKA’s BUSINESS OF COMING TO WASHINGTON WITH THE JAPANESE JOURNALISTS - DOES HE DO THIS FOR POLISH JOURNALISTS? Is Akasaka not paid by the UN to do work for the UN? Why did UNSG Ban Ki-moon go to the Antarctica to visit with Korean scientists - emitting CO2 in the process? Was this legitimate business - something we called at the time an ego-tour (clearly not an eco-tour) - before his trip from New York to the climate change meeting in Valencia, Spain - via the Antarctica?

Why did Mr. Brett Shaefer, who surely worries about the use by the UN of US taxpayer’s money by the UN, not pick up this obvious tale of Akasaka misusing US taxpayers’ funds?

And now the wining argument (?) “The SG said that attacks against the function of the press are attacks on human rights.” So he said - and what has he done as follow up to that statement?

Ms. Beatrice Edwards is International Program Director, Government Accountability Project (GAP), Washington DC. She was the one to respond to what happened to Matthew when Google threw him off Google News. The issue she is looking at is how Google acts vs. the press. GAP was established after Watergate to give the US employees a shield when discovering information to the press.  www.whistleblower.org

Before joining GAP, Ms. Edwards monitored loans and projects of the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank for Public Services International, a global labor federation of public sector unions. In that capacity, she worked to ensure the Banks’ compliance with international labor conventions and national employment laws. She has also served as a Senior Specialist for Social and Economic Affairs at the Organization of American States, and is a contributing writer for the Texas Observer. She holds an M.A. in Latin American Studies from the University of Texas and a Ph.D. in Sociology from American University, where she teaches from time to time.

The Multilateral Banks, the OAS pose a special problem to GAP because of the fact they were given Sovereignty in the country where they operate, and they often try to shut down freedom of the press. The problem is very serious because their employees, if they lose the job, have to go back to their countries and this could disrupt the whole family. That is how they are kept from talking. On the other hand, anonymous information does not hold in court. That is why they have to resort to leaking the information via intermediaries and the press becomes so important. GAP’s clients from these institutions are a main part of GAP’s activities in Washington. She is looking at the UN in New York also. Inner City Press is an important conduit at the UN - and was so even before Matthew started to work for ICP.

Google gets 3 million complaints, and the fact they acted in Matthew’s case was clear sign that some very powerful person or institution made the complaint. They had the feel the UN made the complaint.
The question was thus accountability from an organization that is funded with public money. The UN has difficulty now to justify secrecy after the cold war is over. The fact is that a UN employee was admonished for disclosing things in North Korea. There were accusations of transfer of funds to the North Korean arms program, that was part of information that became available thanks to that whistlblower.

The Last Panelist was Ms.Claudia Rosett. She is Journalist-in-Residence, Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD).  www.DefendDemocracy.org
1986 - 2002 she worked at Wall Street Journal. She looked at the UN Oil-for-Food Iraq scandal. She did free-lance articles for different papers, including The Standard. She has established a series of blogs cinnected to WSJ, National Review online, Pajamas Media … She does not usually believe in press-covering-the -press but this case of the UN vs. Matthew is something special - it is an attempt at the UN to push the envelope. ICP has been a very important window to the UN that led to a number of very important discoveries at the UN. Who tried now to shut down this outlet? What is the profile of the complainant? The base from which we start is the DPI refusing to share information about the UN flagship - the UNDP. We may have glimpsed only at the top of the iceberg.

Financial reforms were suposed to result from Oil-for-Food. She was probably the journalist most involved in exposing that scandal. The requirement for personal complete financial statements by UN employees - the disclosure that was requested after that scandal broke - became under Ban Ki-moon a requirement for in-house disclosure. And this is no disclosure at all. There is also a funny in-house disclosure that said “the disclosure stated a refusal to disclose.” Another one that came from the Russian head of the UN in Geneva said that his money was in banks and stocks. Professor Jeffrey Sachs, who is with Columbia University refused flatly to make his financial statement available - it is none of the UN business he might have implied.

When pushed to the wall, people that have UN financial information and do not disclose it - turned around, like Cypriot Benon Sevan did - when he turned against columnist James Bond and said show me the proof - this after having refused to submit the information that the UN asked for.

Ms. Rosett also noted that UNIC officers spend about $100 million and she said this is merely for UN propaganda - this to tell people how great the UN is. But the UN staff starts to rebel and on March 13, 2008 called for freedom of the press and security for the whistleblowers.

Ms Rosett covered sort-off the actual Volker Report on the Oil-for-Food scandal. The heavy reams of the report were kept secret until released - then 45 minutes later there was a press conference - the only press conference. You clearly had no time to look over the reports, and that was the only occasion ever you had to ask about those findings. Nobody had any time to look into the actual reports - so it was a useless press conference that allowed people only to write about what the commission deemed to put into the summary. There was definitely no conclusion to the case, and nobody important was brought to account. The archives were turned over to the UN legal department - and that was it.

Now, if there is a problem, the UN declares an investigation and you have no chance to put forward questions.

All of the above has a systemic reason - it is called Diplomatic Immunity - seemingly a disease created so you cannot go to the roots of the case.

Ms. Rosett wanted to know the names of the countries on the UN Narcotics Commission that resides in Vienna. She was not given that clear and simple list.

Her conclusion is thus - you cannot make the UN responsible - you can only make the US government responsible for the use of US taxpayers money - and that can and should get the UN attention.

These days she wants to know the budget for the UN Durban II event. With 22% of the funds coming from the US, this because it is a conference backed by the UN general budget - she, or the US Government, must be given the draft budget before it is approved.

Matthew asked - was it the US Committee for UNDP that caused Google to act? They look now into this he said.

Someone from the audience wanted to know if Senator Coleman’s hearings on North Korea convinced that the UN is open to exploitation ? Ms. Rosett said that now, with the New York Philharmonic and others going to North Korea, seemingly only UN auditors cannot go there. What about Uzbekistan - a country that still has no access to internet?

——————-

I picked up The Washington Times of Monday March 17, 2008, and it had an article by Jennifer Harper - “Journalism ‘troubled,’ not lost, report suggests.” It also included a paragraph: “A nationwide survey of the press conducted for the report revealed that majorities say blogs, citizen postings and other newfangled factors, are making journalism better. The newsroom itself is now perceived as innovative and experimental.’” Now that is something for the UN DPI specialists to look at - this, as we understand they, and some of the old UNCA hands, think that web-site journalism is not serious. They just do not want to update to the real life situation that people read webs today more then printed paper.

——————-

Today, the day after the Washington panel, back here in New York, it got known at the UN that the UN’s chief legal officer Nicolas Michel, from Switzerland, resigned his position for personal reasons. For a while Matthew was pursuing leads that against regulations at the UN, Mr. Michel was receiving housing enhancing subsidy from the Swiss government and since 2006 Matthew was trying to find the actual facts. He had recently the following posting:

 http://www.innercitypress.com/un2subsidy… that says:

“The UN’s chief legal officer Nicolas Michel admittedly took housing subsidy from the Swiss government, but his online public financial disclosure for the year 2006 does not mention this. The stated purpose of the online public disclosure is to “demonstrate that UN staff members understand the importance of the general public and UN Member States being assured that, in the discharge of their official duties and responsibilities, staff members will not be influenced by any consideration associated with his/her private interests.” But Michel’s receipt of housing benefits in the high five figures — that is, clearly over $10,000 — is not included in the public form.

Inner City Press sought comment from Mr. Michel, and from Kofi Annan’s previous spokesman Stephane Dujarric, who in 2006 told Inner City Press that one senior UN official was receiving housing subsidy, and wanted to, and would soon, be stepping forward to explain his reason. That never happened, and Inner City Press on Monday morning sent e-mail to Messrs. Michel and Dujarric to ask if that reference was to Nicolas Michel and if so, for a statement on why, if the Secretary-General had ostensibly waived Staff Regulation 1.2(j) with regard to Mr. Michel, this was not disclosed at the time, in response to direct press questions? Also, when did the housing subsidy to Mr. Michel stop? To be upfront, and on deadline with this cc [to Mr. Michel], how does this date relate to Mr. Michel’s online public financial disclosure form?”

One could simply conclude that the personal reasons relate to above letter - but the Noon Briefing to the Press of today, March 18, 2008,  http://www.un.org/News/briefings/docs/20… contained a dancing exercize in which UN Spokesperson Michele Montas was spirueting to the left saying that she does not know the conditions of the personal circumstances, while a reinvigorated Matthew was in a right hurrricane swing just simply trying to get out a clear answer - Why?
First a question from another Journalist:
Question: Michèle, why did the UN Under-Secretary for Legal Affairs resign yesterday? Michel, I think his name is.
Spokesperson: Yes, he has given some of his own personal reasons, which are family and personal reasons.

Question: It wasn’t due to political pressures?
Spokesperson: Not at all.

Then Matthew Russell Lee: Question: question is related to the question about Nicolas Michel. Yesterday, there was a report by our colleague Benny Avni that Mr. Michel was receiving housing subsidy from the Swiss Government. It turns out that the Public Financial Disclosure of Nicolas Michel on the Secretary-General’s website for 2006 doesn’t make any mention of this housing subsidy. So I guess I want to know, first of all, is receipt of a benefit like housing that comes from the Government, the kind of thing that the Secretariat thinks should be in a financial disclosure?
Spokesperson: It was fully disclosed by Mr. Michel.

Question: But it’s not in the Public Financial Disclosure.
Spokesperson: Maybe it’s not in the public disclosure, but it was fully, fully disclosed in 2006 by Mr. Michel.

Question: I’m sorry, I don’t mean to, but, so, in the internal one, filed with PricewaterhouseCoopers, it was disclosed. But who is vetting the public financial disclosures? Because it says that the purpose of those is to show the public what conflicts of interest the officials may have and if these kinds of things are not being disclosed, then what’s it showing?
Spokesperson: In the case of the Ethics Office and the Financial Disclosure Form, that we have been filing since Mr. Ban came to the Secretary-General’s post, publishing them is something that the new Ethics Office started. So it is the responsibility of the Ethics Office now to put the financial disclosures out. Before, in 2006, the Ethics Office was not doing it. What I can tell you is that, in the case of Mr. Michel, everything received in terms of contributions was filed. And it has been fully disclosed and the disclosure statements were cleared by the competent organs. So he is not receiving any contribution in any form under his current contract that started as you know on 1 March 2007.

Question: Okay, I’m sorry, just to clarify, although it was called 2006, recently when you read out the statement that now there is a website with the Public Financial Disclosures, the forms that went up were for the year 2006. So it seems to me he was receiving a housing subsidy during that year. This form was put up only recently, in 2008. The Secretary-General created a website to put up Public Financial Disclosures.
Spokesperson: That was for 2007.

Question: It actually says right on the form it’s for 2006. It was the 2006 year.
Spokesperson: I can check for you what’s on the website, but I can tell you categorically that the contributions Mr. Michel received were explicitly authorized by the Organization before he accepted the position as Legal Counsel. This was an arrangement, as you know, between the Swiss authorities and the Organization on the ground of exceptional family circumstances. The practice of exceptional authorizations was well established then and supported by relevant administrative issuances. And this was the case over a long period of time. As I said, now Mr. Michel is not receiving any such contributions.

So much for the fact that in 2008 we finally hear about data from 2006. Could Mr. Michel have been saved had the UN made public these data in 2006?

Another journalist showed how enamored he was with the sound of the name Geagea and the discussion went like this:

Question: Yesterday, Mr. Geagea said Mr. Ban Ki-moon was bewildered for not electing a President of Lebanon. Did he really express such a, did he make such an expression?
Spokesperson: The Secretary-General has said very often that he was really dismayed by the fact that they still had not reached an agreement on the electoral process.

Question: Is it true that Mr. [Terje Roed-]Larsen is negotiating with Mr. Geagea over a conference, as Geagea claimed yesterday?
Spokesperson: There is no talk of a conference, as I said yesterday to you.

Question: Yeah, but Mr. Geagea really contradicted what you said yesterday.
Spokesperson: Whatever Mr. Geagea said, I stand by what I said yesterday.

Question: So one of them misunderstood? Did Mr. Ban Ki-moon or Mr. Larsen? Did Mr. Larsen and Geagea meet in the evening?
Spokesperson: I can try to confirm that for you. I don’t know at this point.

[The correspondent was later informed that Terje Roed-Larsen, Special Envoy for the Implementation of Security Council Resolution 1559, did not meet separately with Mr. Geagea, he met him alongside the Secretary-General yesterday afternoon.]

Question: When he does meet with Geagea, does Mr. Ban Ki-moon know about these meetings?
Spokesperson: Of course. Mr. Larsen has the Secretary-General’s total trust.

Question: Okay, and what is his mandate when he deals with Geagea on this?
Spokesperson: I already explained that yesterday. I think you’re making me repeat exactly the same thing I said yesterday. Please refer to what I said yesterday.

Question: I mean it’s clear that Mr. Geagea is doing something different.
Spokesperson: We are expressing here the point of view of the Secretariat and of the Secretary-General. What I said, I stand by.

Question: And you deny categorically that they are working on a conference.
Spokesperson: I do deny that they are working on a conference.

I am bringing up this last exchange because of two reasons: the first is that if I would have been there I would have had further inquiries about the sad UN standing in Lebanon. The reason I was not there is simply that after the departure of UNSG Shashi Tharoor the DPI did not want to have to face my questions. And why indeed can the UN not enforce in Lebanon its decisions related to the targeted killings incited by Syria?

During last war in Lebanon, Mr. Ahmad Fawzi himself took over the Spokesperson’s job in order to answer questions. This was a bit one sided, specially when it dealt with damages and I had the audacity to ask about the situation of the old growth trees in the Galilee that were being decimated by Hezbollah random rockets.

Now the second reason is that when Mr. Michel, upon the prodding of former UNSG Kofi Annan, left his job as Swiss government legal adviser in order to take over the UN job in New York - in May 2004 - financial arangements were made at the time between Mr. Kofi Annan and the Swiss government. Mr Michel will be most remembered for his handling the international tribunal on the matter of the assassination of Lebanon’s Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in the face of Syrian hostility. Lebanon’s problems have become also part of Michel’s problems, though clearly this might not seem something related to the fact that the man had a family with six children and therefore the Swiss decided at the time, with Mr. Annan’s blessing, to wave the UN financial regulations. Is he indeed the only person left on UN payroll (there were some Dutch people at UNDP also) who is still benefiting from outside financial help, or is he some scapegoat to developing new UN-Syria relations. The UN labyrinth has seen all sort of shake-outs before. At least, could it be that the present Lebanon moves, or lack of moves, may come just as a coincidence to the fact that Mr. Michel is on his way out? Or, as the first question implied, there is indeed some thinking that as the story surfaced now again, there was also some interest to push him out of sight. This obviously unrelated to the fact that the UN kept the information about the subsidy from the press - or, what may be even more bizare, it wa