The Regulator Room - On the Go!: Organizations

Congress should follow through with Bolton threats to cut of UN funding

Sun, 11 Jun 2006 16:09:20 GMT

Apologise or we'll cut your funding, US envoy tells UN

From James Bone in New York and Richard Beeston

AMERICA’S bitter dispute with the United Nations escalated last night when John Bolton, the US envoy to the UN, threatened to withhold funding to the organisation unless it apologised for the remarks of a senior British official.

Speaking at the Centre for Policy Studies in London, Mr Bolton assailed Mark Malloch Brown, the British Deputy UN Secretary-General, for the disparaging remarks he made about the American public this week. “Mark Malloch Brown has a sentence in his speech where he says the role of the UN is a mystery in Middle America,” he said.

“Maybe it is fashionable in some circles to look down on Middle America, to say they don’t get the complexities of the world and they don’t have the benefit of continental education and they are deficient in so many ways,” Mr Bolton added. “It is illegitimate for an international civil servant to criticise what he thinks are the inadequacies of citizens of a member government.”

The tough-talking US envoy reiterated that the dispute could harm important reforms to the international body. He also hinted that the US Congress, which controls American government spending, might reconsider US funding to the UN, which accounts for 22 per cent of the organisation’s annual budget. “Congress has the power of the purse and they feel quite strongly on a bipartisan basis that America has a right to know how their tax dollars are being spent, even people from Middle America,” he said, with a note of sarcasm. “I don’t think we have seen the end of it.” Before Mr Bolton arrived in London, Kofi Annan, the UN chief, tried to play down the controversy. “I think the message that was intended is that the US needs the UN, and the UN needs the US, and we need to support each other,” Mr Annan said. “I think the speech by my deputy should be read in the right spirit and let’s put it behind us and move on.”

The public spat between Mr Malloch Brown and Mr Bolton represents more than just a clash of outsized personalities. It reflects the long-running battle of ideas over the role of international institutions. Mr Bolton, a Republican right-winger, has been a leading conservative critic of the UN since serving as the Assistant Secretary of State for International Organisations in the Administration of the first President Bush.

Mr Malloch Brown, a former journalist who founded The Economist Development Report and went on to work at a political consultancy before joining the UN system, is a member of a powerful network of internationalists. Their clash threatens to undermine congressional support for the world body as it confronts a looming budget crisis, caused by Washington’s insistence that management reforms be put in place.

The row was sparked by a speech by Mr Malloch Brown on Tuesday. Addressing prominent Democrats in New York, he criticised Washington for allowing “too much unchecked UN-bashing and stereotyping”. He singled out the conservative talk-show host Rush Limbaugh and the Fox News cable channel, owned by News Corp, the parent company of The Times.

“The prevailing practice of seeking to use the UN almost by stealth as a diplomatic tool while failing to stand up for it against its domestic critics is simply not sustainable,” Mr Malloch Brown said. “You will lose the UN one way or another,” he added.

America has a long tradition of isolationism, dating back to even before the US refused to join the League of Nations. The UN has been portrayed by far-right groups as a godless, communist and corrupt “nest of spies” ready to invade America.

Relations began to improve during the presidency of the elder George Bush, a former American Ambassador to the UN. The current crisis stems from the split over the war in Iraq, when the 15-nation UN Security Council refused to give explicit approval for the military action, and Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary-General, dubbed the invasion “illegal”. The invasion yielded evidence that UN officials or their families had benefited from the Oil-for-Food programme, which was designed to feed Iraqis during UN sanctions.

Mr Annan, under fire from Republicans, began a UN reform drive and sought advice from his American friends, predominantly Democrats. After a secret meeting at the home of the Clinton Administration’s UN Ambassador, Richard Holbrooke, Mr Annan named Mr Malloch Brown as his chief of staff in January last year.

The appointment raised eyebrows when it was reported that Mr Malloch Brown was renting a house on George Soros’s estate for $2,500 a month less than the previous occupant. Even before Mr Bolton was named US Ambassador, he seemed destined to clash with Mr Malloch Brown. Mr Soros, Mr Malloch Brown’s landlord and old friend, helped to fund the Stop Bolton campaign, aimed at stopping him from getting the post.

Mr Malloch Brown has been criticised by dissident UN staff for aligning the world body too closely with Democrats in US domestic politics. They accuse him of allowing a UN staffer, Justin Leites, to play a leading role in the 2004 presidential campaign of John Kerry, violating staff rules. It is a charge that he denies. “I don’t consider myself aligned with any American political establishment,” he said. “I am British. I have worked in the UN and in international jobs all of my life.”

Ed Luck, a Columbia University professor and author of Mixed Messages: American Politics and International Organization: 1919-1999, said it was rare for a top UN official to criticise the US so explicitly, but not unprecedented.

BOLTON'S WIT

ON NEGOTIATING
“I don’t do carrots.”

ON THE UN
“It’s a target-rich environment.”

ON REVAMPING THE UN
“Reform is not a one-night stand.”

ON UN HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL
“We want a butterfly. We’re not going to put lipstick on a caterpillar and declare it a success.”

ON THE NEXT UN SECRETARY-GENERAL
“A proletarian.”

ON THE WORLD ORGANISATION
“There is no such thing as the United Nations.”

ON THE UN BUREAUCRACY
“If the UN Secretariat building in New York lost ten storeys, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference.”

Bilderberg conference held in Ottawa

Sat, 10 Jun 2006 17:02:52 GMT

World's who's who hold secret talks in Ottawa
Jun 09 9:57 PM US/Eastern

The world's political elite, top thinkers and powerful business folk gathered here for an annual, ultra-secretive Bilderberg conference as heavy security kept conspiracy theorists and curious onlookers at bay.

Global luminaries such as former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger, US banker David Rockefeller and Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands were greeted at the airport by limousine drivers holding single-letter "B" signs late Thursday, said local reports.

They were quickly whisked away to the Brookstreet Hotel in a serene suburb of Ottawa for three-day talks on oil markets, security concerns tied to Iran's nuclear ambitions, terrorism, and immigration, the Ottawa Citizen reported.

Conspiracy theorists who follow the group accuse it of plotting world domination at its informal annual gatherings.

But, Richard Perle, former US defence policy advisor, upon his arrival in Ottawa, denied allegations the group crafts public policy behind closed doors. "It discusses public policy," he stressed to a Citizen reporter.

A statement from the group said the meetings were private to encourage "frank and open discussions."

But skeptic Daniel Estulin, who flew from Spain to try to cover the conference, said their intent is to "create a world government ruled by an elite group of people whose main objective is to control all the natural resources on the planet."

Another local observer commented to the Citizen: "There are all sorts of gaps in what politicians say and do. This is just another example of the circumventing of the democratic process."

The talks are by invitation-only. Because discussions are off-the-record, the group has been subject to similar criticisms and speculation about its intentions since 1954 when the first conference was held at the Hotel de Bilderberg in the Netherlands.

Several sources say Poland's Joseph Retinger, former Belgian prime minister Paul van Zeeland, and former Unilever chief executive Paul Rijkens organized the first meeting to unite European and US elites amid growing cross-Atlantic tensions a half-century ago.

Its success spawned similar talks at posh hotels and palaces in Europe, the United States and Canada each year since.

Other attendees seen arriving in Ottawa on Thursday included former Canadian ambassador to Washington Frank McKenna, Royal Dutch Shell chairman Jorma Ollila, former World Bank president James Wolfenson and Scandinavian Airlines chairman Egil Myklebust, according to reports.

Former New York governor George Pataki, Iraq's deputy prime minister Ahmad Chalabi, the heads of Coca-Cola, Credit Suisse, the Royal Bank of Canada, several media moguls, and cabinet ministers from Spain and Greece, were also expected to attend.

Send the United Nations packing...

Tue, 06 Jun 2006 16:27:10 GMT

Throw the U.N. on the Ash Heap of History

By Alan Caruba
Monday, June 5, 2006

The League of Nations came into being after its constitution was adopted at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. The Peace Conference, as it turned out, was little more than a prelude to World War II, punishing Germany for having started World War I and divvying up the Ottoman Empire under the assumption that the West could do whatever it wanted with the rest of the world.

By 1939, a resentful Germany started WWII and these days the world’s attention is fixed on a block of Middle East nations that were the literal invention of those demented diplomats who put together nations like Iraq and Jordan by drawing lines on a map. The League of Nations stopped holding meetings during WWII and, on April 18, 1946, transferred its assets to the newly minted United Nations.

It had taken a scant 27 years for it to die of its own ineptitude. The United States never joined because it did not want to cede its sovereignty to an international body whose actions might conflict with our Constitution. Having learned nothing from Woodrow Wilson’s failure, Franklin D. Roosevelt pushed hard to create the United Nations, a legacy taken up upon his death by Harry Truman.

Other than some successes dealing with aid to refugees and famine relief, the League of Nations was most notably unable to stop nations from going to war with one another. Its most potent weapon was the use of boycotts. Today’s United Nations depends mostly on "sanctions" or "resolutions" issued by the Security Council.

These days the Security Council includes the United States and three other permanent members with veto powers, France, China and Russia, each of which is intent on thwarting the ambitions of the Bush administration to expand democracy throughout the world. It was this same Security Council that issued seventeen resolutions warning Saddam Hussein of dire consequences if he did not heed their demands to stop trying to stockpile weapons of mass destruction.

Through the humanitarian Oil for Food program, Saddam managed to bribe France and Russia, with China going along, to ignore his massive looting of the program in order to build more luxurious palaces and give grants to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers, among a long list of criminal acts that were finally ended when the United States military drove into downtown Baghdad. We killed both his evil sons and hauled him out of a hole in the ground.

In his book, "The U.N. Exposed: How the United Nations Sabotages America’s Security", Eric Shawn, a senior correspondent and anchor for the Fox News Channel, takes the reader behind the scenes to reveal an utterly corrupt international institution. Like its predecessor, the League of Nations, the U.N. has demonstrated the maniacal insanity of expecting nations to cooperate with one another for any other reason than self-interest.

"The United Nations has proven that it does not have the backbone to stand against tyrants, that its members abuse its systems for short-term gain, that it is careless with the money it’s given, that its employees and contractors cannot be wholly trusted to execute its lofty ambitions, and that even its humanitarian efforts are undermined and shortchanged as a result," says Shawn. If it were a private corporation, it would be deemed a criminal enterprise.

Moreover, since all 191 member-nations have a vote in the General Assembly equal to the U.S., there is a farcical aspect to the fact that it is the money provided by U.S. taxpayers that largely keeps the institution functioning. "The 2005 U.N. assessment for the United States stood at $2.2 billion, and that figure is pushed skyward by funding for U.N.-related development banks, resulting in a total of $3.7 billion," notes Shawn. The poorest member-nation can buy in for a mere $17,795 in annual dues.

What does the United Nations want today? More money! "The major financial goal of the millennium plan is the requirement that wealthy nations commit to spending 0.7 percent of their gross national product for development in the third world by channeling the billions through the U.N. system." Shawn notes that, "Over years, the potential for graft and abuse could dwarf what Saddam achieved by perverting the Oil for Food program."

Not only has the United Nations proved itself to be incapable of mediating the avoidance of armed conflicts throughout the world, it has also distinguished itself by becoming the most corrupt and criminal organization on the face of the Earth.

It is time to end U.S. participation, i.e., funding, in the United Nations, and time, at the very least, to invite it to relocate somewhere else. Anywhere else will do.

It is time to formally withdraw from the vast matrix of U.N. treaties and protocols that already impose themselves on U.S. sovereignty.

It is time to take the lead in the creation of an international organization of exclusively democratic nations. It is time to toss the U.N. on the ash heap of history where it can join the League of Nations.

Alan Caruba writes a weekly column, "Warning Signs", posted on the Internet site of The National Anxiety Center, www.anxietycenter.com. Alan can be reached at: acaruba@aol.com.

UN peacekeepers trading food for sex with young Liberian girls

Wed, 10 May 2006 17:42:45 GMT

Group: U.N. Peacekeepers Trading Food for Sex

Monday , May 08, 2006

MONROVIA, Liberia — Aid workers and U.N. peacekeepers are trading food for sex with young girls in Liberian camps housing those left homeless by years of war, an aid group said Monday.

Save the Children, which surveyed nearly 160 children and about 170 adults who were either living in camps or had recently returned home, said they were repeatedly told of girls having sex with older men in exchange for money, food and other goods.

The accused included peacekeeping troops, aid workers and other powerful men in the community. The report did not give the nationality of the aid workers or peacekeepers involved. About 17,000 U.N. peacekeepers are based in Liberia.

Despite some initiatives to reduce sexual exploitation and abuse, the report said there had been "little change" in the lives of vulnerable children since 2002.

CountryWatch: Liberia

Liberia is just starting to recover from years of civil war and many of its citizens still live in camps set up after they were forced out of their villages.

The U.N. humanitarian coordinator in Liberia, Jordan Ryan, said the survey was outdated because it was conducted nine months ago and much has improved since then. The camps that are the primary subject of the report are now closed, he said.

"There are good things that are now happening in Liberia," he said. U.N. staff who engage in such "unacceptable behaviors" are fired, Ryan added.

President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf took office in January, promising reconstruction and peace.

"With the coming in of a new government, mechanisms are being put in place to limit these kinds of things," said Mohammed Sheriff, Liberia's deputy health minister.

But Sheriff cautioned that preventing sex transactions is a difficult task for a poor country still recovering from years of violence.

"We have parents that have so many children — eight to 10 — that are not able to cope with the meager amount of money they have," he said. "People live below 25 cents (per day); so you can look at reasons why these thing may happen."

Advertising, Marketing and Corporate Communications Guru, Ken Iverson

Sat, 06 May 2006 16:01:35 GMT

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Maybe the depth and breadth of Ken's creative
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Give him a call.

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Email: rightwords@juno.com
Cell: 801.654.2240

Protect workers rights to form unions, H.R. 1696 and S. 842

Tue, 02 May 2006 15:58:52 GMT

TELL CONGRESS: RESTORE WORKERS' FREEDOM TO FORM UNIONS

Some 57 million U.S. workers say they would join a union if they could. But when workers try to gain a union voice on the job, employers respond with intimidation, harassment and retaliation. And our labor laws are too weak to stop them.

The Employee Free Choice Act would ensure that when a majority of employees in a workplace decide to form a union, they can do so without the debilitating obstacles employers now use to block their free choice.

Specifically, the Employee Free Choice Act (H.R. 1696 and S. 842) would strengthen protections for workers' freedom to form unions by requiring employers to recognize a union once a majority of workers signed cards authorizing union representation. It also would provide for mediation and arbitration of first-contract disputes and authorize stronger penalties for employers that violate the legal rights of workers seeking to form unions or negotiate first contracts. Please send a message to your U.S. senators and representative urging them to co-sponsor the Employee Free Choice Act.

ACTION PAGE: http://www.clearwaterforcongress.com/petitions/pnum212.php

Funding for Americorps: facts on the NCCC

Thu, 06 Apr 2006 00:47:49 GMT

Bush budget would slash AmeriCorps

By Juliette Fletcher

Columbia News Service

Published: Monday, April 3, 2006

NEW YORK - In Hurricane Katrina-ravaged New Orleans, Jennifer Mickle, an AmeriCorps volunteer, has spent weeks delivering bedding to families and gutting flood-damaged houses down to the framing. But nothing prepared her for the new instructions her team received in February from the federal government: Stop.

Under President Bush's proposed budget for 2007, AmeriCorps' National Civilian Community Corps would be eliminated. The corps has 1,100 members, all trained in disaster relief, and they all have spent some time working in the Gulf Coast region since Hurricane Katrina.

But if Congress approves the proposed cuts, the NCCC will be cut back to 300 members by July and will disband completely by the end of the year.

David Eisner, head of the Corporation for National and Community Service, which oversees funding for AmeriCorps and other groups, explained in a letter on Feb. 6 that Bush had asked him to cut spending by $48.5 million. Closing NCCC, which had fared poorly in federal efficiency tests, would save more than $24 million.

``This is a difficult decision,'' he wrote, ``given the popularity of the program with our participants and partners, particularly in disaster response.''

Speaking in New Orleans in September, Bush had called for ``armies of compassion'' to assist with the cleanup.

Merlene Mazyck, director of NCCC, described her teams' efforts there as ``life-saving and invaluable.'' But the president's budget, which calls for a 7 percent increase in military spending, to $439 billion, requested cuts from many volunteer programs, even those along the Gulf Coast.

``The president's priorities in this budget are national security, and everything else follows that,'' Mazyck said.

Relief coordinators in New Orleans questioned those priorities, saying it was the wrong time to be cutting back on recovery efforts.

``It's a myth that 95 percent of residents have water and electricity,'' said Travis Scruggs, a leader at the First Baptist Church in New Orleans, which has become a hub for volunteer activity in the city. ``In fact, 95 percent have either.'' But without both, he said, a house is not habitable.

Over the past six months, he has overseen the gutting and stabilizing of 280 houses. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin has asked the church to complete 3,000 more, but Scruggs said that effort ``realistically will take years.''

Mickle, 22, whose NCCC team gutted houses with the First Baptist Church in the hard-hit Ninth Ward, said progress was slow.

``Six months after the hurricanes, and I saw a house, washed completely off its foundations, still blocking a street,'' she said.

Scruggs, who has become known as the disaster pastor, has recruited help from the NCCC since the beginning of the recovery. Mickle's group finished eight houses in 18 days.

``What makes them different is they know how to handle disaster situations,'' he said. ``Other volunteers are either slightly older - and so less able - or college students, who are just available on breaks.''

NCCC members are more committed and trained, he said. ``They're a constant.'' Losing them, he said, ``I don't know what we'd do.''

NCCC members, unlike other AmeriCorps volunteers offering post-Katrina help, are trained in emergency rescue techniques.

They volunteer for 10 months and are based at one of five campuses, where they learn firefighting and rescue methods before being deployed all over the nation.

But such intense training, added to the cost of housing and the education scholarship awards of up to $4,725 that members receive, makes the program more costly than other volunteer efforts.

Created in 1994 as an updated version of the Depression-era Civilian Conservation Corps, NCCC is ``a domestic service corps, as rigorous as the military,'' Mazyck said. It was, she said, ``an experiment'' in encouraging young people to serve.

Organizations such as the Red Cross and Habitat for Humanity and local groups such as the First Baptist Church are lent NCCC teams for particular projects. Many of the volunteers, between the age of 18 and 24, wind up pursuing careers with these and other groups.

Congress will hold hearings on the budget this spring before reaching a final decision in October.

But Mickle said NCCC should not go quietly.

``The danger is, what we do is really intangible,'' she said. ``Whether it's mentoring a child or helping to build someone's life back up by repairing a house, the danger is we won't know the good it does until it's gone.''

Juliet Fletcher is a master's candidate at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

Americorps needs funding approval NOW

Thu, 06 Apr 2006 00:41:17 GMT

AmeriCorps volunteers in town to help in cleanup
April 5, 2006, 05:09 PM

Reported by Laila Morcos

Volunteer support from people in all walks of life, all ages, and all organizations has been overwhelming for some victims of Hurricane Rita. Some volunteers are putting off career aspirations to help in the recovery.

There isn't any dancing on the dance floor at Purple Hearts. It's turned into a temporary dormitory for the latest out-of-town guests. "A lot of times people are in bed by nine or 10," says Lisa Wasilewski. That's pretty early for the typical college-aged students like Lisa.

But it's hard labor for this motivated pack of 22 volunteers. "People are tremendously grateful," says Linda Ceaser who coordinated the efforts to bring these volunteers here. She says, "One lady called was practically singing on the phone because they're so happy."

They're from across country and are working with AmeriCorps. "What's been really great is going into houses helping people that wouldn't normally be getting help otherwise," Lisa said.

People like Bernice Turnipseed, who were left trying to figure out how she would have had large, heavy tree trunks moved, left her speechless. She says, "I don't know, it would have been really hard."

From morning till evening, hours of intense work is what keeps these young troopers going. "There's so many things you see that still needs to be fixed, and you're like, 'Wow, I can't believe that's still there,'" says Kara Leonino. She says there's still so much work to do, she's putting off her career to give back. "I'd like to be a writer, and maybe a publisher. I would like to be a publisher. I have so many aspirations, it's hard to narrow them down to just one." But for now, Kara and all the others' aspirations lie in helping with AmeriCorps.

If you need help with debris removal, especially if you're low-income, elderly, or disabled, please call 491-8735.

AmeriCorps funding still in jeopardy, write your Senator

Thu, 06 Apr 2006 00:36:28 GMT

Senate Panel Reinstates AmeriCorps Funds

Wednesday, April 05, 2006

By Kara Wedekind

WASHINGTON — Before she moved to Maryland for a 10-month volunteer program, Audrey Massenburg watched as a construction crew tore up sections of her childhood home in New Orleans.

Now, with only a few weeks of training at the Perry Point campus of the AmeriCorps-National Civilian Community Corps, she has returned to her hometown city to help gut others' homes.

"Just the thought of having to come down here and tear up someone's house, I mean, it was hard," Massenburg said. "But, at the same time, I was looking at this as a first step in rebuilding the city."

The NCCC's work helping to rebuild the Crescent City may end up saving the federal program, which started in 1994 with the first campus in Maryland.

President Bush's 2007 fiscal year budget seeks to cut the program from $27 million in federal funds to $5 million that would go toward shutting down the program.

But the Senate Committee on Appropriations this week set aside $20 million for the NCCC program in markups of the emergency supplemental spending bill for Gulf Coast relief, which will go next to the Senate for debate. A vote could come by the end of the month.

If the funds are not reinstated through Congress, the Perry Point campus where Massenburg trained would close down in December when the corps members graduate. Even if Congress passes the bill, the NCCC program will have $2 million dollars less than it does this year.

Perry Point in Cecil County is one of five NCCC campuses, where some volunteers learn firefighting techniques and all learn first aid and disaster relief training. While corps members are based in the five campuses, they travel the country to assist in disasters or fill gaps in education, environmental and other service programs.

"The efforts of NCCC were certainly helpful but we have to look at whether it is the most efficient way to help," said Alex Conant, a spokesman for the Office of Management and Budget.

Part of the problem, Conant said, is that many other AmeriCorps programs get matched funds from the organizations they help, which brings down the costs, while the NCCC is fully funded by the federal government.

The federal government could hire almost two AmeriCorps volunteers with matched funds for every one NCCC member, according to figures from the Corporation for National and Community Service.

While the president's budget eliminates the NCCC, Conant said it allows for the creation of another 1,000 AmeriCorps positions.

Ken Barrette, a NCCC member from the first class and now works at Blue Cross Blue Shield, agrees the program has not shown its full value on paper. However, the Barrette said the problem is that there has not been enough measurement of the program's long-term successes.

For example, he said many of the structures that his graduating class helped build in Maryland and around the country are still being used more than 10 years later.

Barrette has seen people explore a Delaware state park because he helped build a path bridge there. He remembers how children and adults with disabilities were able to receive physical therapy at the Therapeutic and Recreational Riding Center in Glenwood, Md., because his group helped build trails there.

More than the things that his graduating class made, Barrette was impressed that so many of his corps-mates have continued to work in community service fields, ranging from pro bono work for law firms to child advocacy to working for the U.S. Forest Service.

Even in her first few weeks at the NCCC, Massenburg has already seen an immediate return on her work. During training at Perry Point, she said her group would do smaller day projects, like cleaning up trash near a Baltimore elementary school.

"It was nice that they could actually go play there after we cleaned up," she said. "AmeriCorps kind of gives you a sense of pride. Once you start a job and you see it get accomplished, you feel really good."

Capital News Service contributed to this report.

Do whatever you can to keep this program open and functioning folks. Write your Congressional Representatives and Senators, blog this as a trackback to spread the word, whatever you have to do. This group is an amazing bunch of folks. These "AmeriCorps kids" basically administer the daily operations of the clean up of Saint Bernard Parish, just south of New Orleans in Louisiana. Camp Premier and the Made with Love camp is their home, and they go out gutting homes, run the operations center at the base camp, and lead and train other organizations who show up to volunteer, essentially supervising the clean up operations in a sense. Do some research on this program, and you'll see the benefits of it... TRM / The Regulator Room founder

FEMA set to close Camp Premier on April 11, news article

Tue, 28 Mar 2006 02:28:42 GMT

FEMA is set to close Camp Premier on April 11'th, leaving over a thousand volunteers with no place to stay while they're giving their time and energies to rebuilding St. Bernard Parish -

Katrina Volunteers Beg FEMA Not to Shut Down Camps

http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/usnews/060327a.asp

By Mark Martin
CBN News Reporter

CBN.com – ST. BERNARD PARISH, New Orleans - Carolyn Pitre is grateful to find her Bible among her belongings, piled up in the street in front of her home in St. Bernard Parish.

Carolyn says, “I'm drawn to try and find something of value because we have nothing left... (cries)… Because we have nothing left... Everything was gone. Everything.”

All along Carolyn's street, and in the entire area, it is the same: Destruction everywhere you look. Piles and piles of trash and debris. Gutted homes.

Lt. Colonel David Dysart is the director of recovery for St. Bernard Parish, which is near New Orleans. Dysart stated, “I have no residents living here right now, and I have had absolutely no businesses which have been able to return.”

The Marine reservist also had a part in the rebuilding of Fallujah, Iraq. He says there are several similarities. Both were completely evacuated, and both had their infrastructures completely wiped out.

The Lt. Colonel says it is going to take another six months to finish gutting thousands of homes to remove health and safety hazards. And that's where volunteers come in.

Dysart says it takes 10 to 12 volunteers a day to a day-and-a-half to gut just one house.

Asked if he needed volunteers right now, Dysart replied, “Absolutely. It's critical that we keep this up. We have approximately 800 homes to date that we've managed to move these items, out of the approximately 5,000 that applied.”

Volunteers need a place to stay. Right now, they live in base camps set up by fema. The problem is, local relief coordinators say, fema wants to close them soon -- in just a few weeks.

FEMA told Dysart that it wants to close these base camps because, Dysart said, “It is not FEMA's responsibility to provide support to volunteer agencies.”

Operation Blessing Disaster Relief Manager Jody Herrington says that not being able to provide a home means turning away a volunteer.

“Each volunteer that we turn away is another home that's not gutted, another resident that's not helped,” Jody declared. “It's another neighborhood that's not coming back. It's another city that's not restored. The reality is the volunteer help is crucial and critical to the success of recovery out in these parishes.”

Brenda Puckett is a missionary to nearby Plaquemines Parish. “There's so much to do,” Brenda stressed. “There's so much devastation. The need for volunteers is tremendous.”

She, too, says the camps need to stay.

Around 500 people live in one camp alone. A FEMA representative says it one houses contractors, people who are here to clean up and rebuild. I asked him where they would stay if these tents were not here. He said in their vehicles, wherever they could find.

Brenda said, “It just breaks my heart. We need the contractors here, we need the volunteers here in order to build our Parish back.”

Pastor Randy Millet helps run a disaster relief center in St. Bernard Parish. He says the volunteers are vital in making sure that residents get the food and clothing they need to survive.

“Please don't close the base camps,” Randy urged. “Allow us to house our volunteers. They're not looking for a Holiday Inn. They're looking for a cot with a pillow and a meal.”

In addition, Randy says that without warning, fema stopped providing ice and filling up their generators with fuel.

“What we’ve got to do in order to get diesel fuel right now -- we have to go across the street to fill up our buckets,” Randy explained, “and bring them back to fill up our generators... three or four... and that takes four or five trips.

Obstacles, these workers say, that are making it tough to serve others.

“The sheer economic recovery of this parish is dependent upon the volunteer effort,” Dysart commented.

Herrington said, “Our plea would be to please consider extending the closing of the base camps so that would give us time for transition and preparation to come up with some other accommodations.”

Carolyn Pitre does not want to see volunteers turned away. She's grateful for those who helped remove her belongings from her home.

“We need all the help we can get. It's not over... not by a long shot,” Carolyn stated.

CBN News tried to contact a fema representative to ask about the base camp closings and other issues facing volunteers, but no representative was available.

Camp Premier volunteers from Habitat, National Relief Network

Tue, 28 Mar 2006 02:12:55 GMT

Students spend spring break cleaning up after Hurricane Katrina

BY TANIA DELUZURIAGA
The Orlando Sentinel

NEW ORLEANS - The message sinks in almost immediately for the thousands of college students spending their spring break helping victims of Hurricane Katrina.

They're not here to rebuild.

They're here to demolish.

More than six months after the storm, homes still sit haphazardly in the middle of streets, rusted cars rest at strange angles in yards and personal belongings litter sidewalks - a white and blue wingtip pump here, a pair of men's bifocals there, an orange flower vase, miraculously unbroken, lies at the foot of a house in pieces.

"I brought tools to build stuff," said Zach Loftus, a Stetson University sophomore who volunteered with Habitat for Humanity. "I had no idea that nothing had been done for six months. It was in the same state, like frozen in time where everything needed to be torn down. That was quite a shock."

Volunteers have been coming to the city by the hundreds during the past few months, but this month, they are here by the thousands. While their friends spend spring break partying and having the time of their lives, college students from across the nation have come to change lives.

This is a trip where "sleeping in" means getting up at 7 a.m. and hot showers are a luxury. But what gets the students isn't sleeping on the floor with dozens of strangers, not bathing for days or smashing cockroaches the size of beignets. What gets them is how much recent images of progress and Mardi Gras parades belie the fact that so much needs doing.

"It's incredible what's still left to be done," said University of Florida freshman Emily Vuxton, a Tallahassee, Fla., native who has family in New Orleans who lost everything. "Considering it's been six months and considering all the people that come down here to help ... It's taken us three days start to finish on this house, and that's just 10 people. It's going to take forever to do all this."

With the influx of college students, the relief effort is picking up steam. In St. Bernard Parish, where just one of more than 26,000 homes escaped flood damage, volunteers were able to gut 105 homes in January and February combined. Halfway through March, 323 homes were finished.

"I think people see the need here and recognize that they can be part of the change," said Kerul Dyer, an organizer with the Common Ground Collective, a relief organization based in the Ninth Ward. The group had 300 volunteers Thanksgiving week. Last week, they expected to top 1,000.

"When you start adding up what that's doing for the community, it's fantastic," she said.

When Rollins College's 13 students, staff and faculty arrived at their assignment on Oak Drive in St. Bernard Parish, the house had not been opened since search-and-rescue crews went looking for bodies in September.

After bashing in the front door with a sledgehammer, the students found a house full of black mold, fallen drywall and a 3-inch-thick layer of mud coating everything. Looters had chopped a human-sized hole in a bedroom wall, and a bathtub was filled with 6-month-old toxic floodwater.

"What strikes me is how quickly people ran out of here," said group coordinator Steve Miller, 19, as he held up a pink curling iron. "This thing was still plugged in. There were keys still on the hook in the kitchen."

The houses must be stripped down to the studs; everything must go. Refrigerators full of rotting food are duct taped and carried to the curb along with waterlogged books, photographs, appliances, furniture and clothes.

Students wield crowbars and sledgehammers, knocking down drywall and pulling nails out of studs. The debris is shoveled into wheelbarrows and dumped outside, where contractors will haul it away.

"That's 52 years of marriage going out on the curb," said 74-year-old Anna Guidry as she watched University of Central Florida students gut her Lakeview home. Just blocks from the 17th Street Canal, a brown waterline stretched across the top of the brick house where she raised five children.

Guidry's husband, who didn't believe in flood insurance, died a month before the storm, and the widow hadn't had the heart to get rid of his belongings before Katrina hit. Last week, she sat on a wrought-iron chair in her front yard as the students piled her husband's mud-covered clothes in front of the house, along with her son's varsity football jacket, the hope chest her brother built for her daughter and piles of albums full of indiscernible photos.

"Once it's gone, I'll feel better," she said looking at the massive pile. "It's hard seeing it out there."

It seems that everyone here has a story, poignant and unforgettable. Residents tell tales of their past lives as students tear down the remnants and cart them away.

There is Anthony Romano, whose hands shook as he held a photo of his dead baby grandson that the Rollins group had been able to salvage from his home in St. Bernard Parish. There is Wali Armstead, the FEMA employee who unwinds by working on his own destroyed home in his spare time. There is Betty Green, who has vowed to move back to her home in the Upper Ninth Ward and start over, even as her block stands deserted.

"I'm at an age now where I don't want to go from job to job," Green said as students from the University of Florida worked on her home. "I don't know how many companies are hiring 50-year-old ladies."

Students go through a range of emotions as they listen to survivors chronicle all they have lost.

There is rage and anger. There is silence. And there are some who prefer not to think about the destruction.

"You just want to get your mind off it," said Vuxton after her third day of gutting a home in the Upper Ninth Ward with a single mother and her 11-year-old daughter. "She doesn't need me to get sad. She needs me to get the work done."

What comforts them are the words of hope and optimism that punctuate victims' tales of destruction.

"I thought I'd be more angry on this trip than I have been," said Lance Malcolm, 23, a University of Florida senior. "But I realize anger is more a product of not being able to do something. Anger is a child of hopelessness, I think."

Once a day, the students gather for reflection. They talk about the days' highs and lows, processing the experience through laughter and tears.

"Their lives were reduced to a pile of rubble," student coordinator Miller told the Rollins group that had gathered one night on cots and folding chairs in a tent after a day of gutting.

Others in the group nodded.

"I've started thinking about how we don't need a lot of the stuff we have," said Becca Hickam, 24. "Going through all this, all they need is each other. All that stuff really doesn't matter. It can be washed away."

The work is physically demanding and can be dangerous. After six months of festering in the dampness, mold levels are dangerously high in some areas, forcing students to wear special suits and respirator masks that protect them from contamination. Rusty nails litter the ground, bacteria left over from dirty floodwater can turn a small cut into a serious infection and snakes are not uncommon. Finding bodies is still a possibility.

Work crews save what they can, but usually the water and the mold are too much. In an entire house, a smattering of things might survive: a crucifix, a shot glass, a photograph miraculously intact when everything around it rotted.

"Just break it. I can't use it no more," 33-year-old Stuart Moses told a group of students struggling to get a 65-inch TV out of his home in the Lower Ninth Ward.

Though Moses had flood insurance, it won't nearly cover the cost of rebuilding his two-story brick home on Flood Street. Volunteers like the Stetson students are a savior for folks in the neighborhood who can't afford to hire help, he said.

"It's very impressive," he said. "I know what I did on my spring break."

For years colleges have advertised "Alternative Spring Break" or ASB trips on their campuses. Students apply to go to rural or impoverished areas to build houses, work with the homeless or take care of the environment. Some schools send students for free, while others charge a nominal fee, usually a couple of hundred dollars.

This year, thousands have jumped on the Katrina bandwagon. Some come for an adventure. Some say they can party any time, and they don't need spring break as an excuse. Others come because they have family in the area or because they felt compelled to help.

"When I watched it on the news, my heart went out to those people," said University of Central Florida freshman Miranda Kearley, 19, who weathered Hurricane Ivan with her family outside Pensacola, Fla., in 2004. "I'll never forget the miles and miles of electrical trucks and all the people who had set up relief centers. That's what helped us get back on our feet."

MTV, long the bastion of racy spring-break parties, launched Storm Corps this year, sending 100 students to the Gulf region earlier this month. Last week, more than 600 students arrived in Louisiana as part of former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards' Opportunity Rocks rebuilding campaign.

"We've been contacted by schools from all over the country," said Jill Piachitelli, director of Break Away, a Tallahassee, Fla.-based nonprofit that helps colleges coordinate ASB trips. "I'd say we've had 10 times more calls than in previous years."

The surge is evident in New Orleans, where volunteer groups have struggled to find housing. With miles of the city uninhabitable, hotels, churches and community centers are often full, housing storm refugees and long-term relief workers, leaving accommodations for volunteers sparse.

"We cram them in like sardines," said Lesley Loewe, an administrative assistant with the East Bank Station of the United Methodist Committee on Relief, which houses volunteers in churches.

The University of Florida originally intended to send five groups to the city but sent only one after housing for the other groups fell through. The group of 11 students, who nicknamed themselves "Reptile Relief," drove eight hours from Gainesville in two minivans.

When they arrived at a parochial school in the Upper Ninth Ward that Common Ground had converted into living quarters, the students had a choice: Sleep on the floor of a third-floor classroom, which had no electricity and no bathroom, or stay in a tent across the street. The students picked the classroom.

With electricity spotty and most grocery stores carrying the bare minimum, the mushrooming of volunteers presents logistical challenges for the organizations as well. Last week, officials at Habitat for Humanity were scrambling to find accommodations for spring breakers after FEMA failed to add enough beds to the 1,300-bed tent city in St. Bernard Parish. Opportunity Rocks ended up putting students in Baton Rouge, an almost two-hour drive away, because they couldn't get guaranteed housing in New Orleans.

"It's a shame federal money is going to be used to house these volunteers 80 miles away and spend all kinds of money on buses shuttling people to and from New Orleans every day, not to mention the incredible waste of time," said Michael Hayes, special-projects coordinator for Habitat for Humanity in New Orleans.

Volunteer organizations hope the momentum started this spring break will extend into the summer and for years to come. The future of the city depends on it, they say. With only a week in the city, student groups are lucky to complete work on one or two houses. Thousands remain to be done.

"I look down those streets, and I feel motivated," said Stetson University Traci Blake, 22. "Each part you contribute makes people closer to coming back to what's theirs."

News story on Camp Premier, Chalmette Louisiana volunteers

Tue, 28 Mar 2006 02:07:27 GMT

Talking about Camp Premier in Chalmette:

A week cleaning up the flood

Record Courier Staff Reports
March 1, 2006

by Marie Johnson

I just spent a week gutting flooded homes in the New Orleans, La., area. The Federal Emergency Management Agency will not pay for the cost of gutting a house damaged by floodwaters or removal of the water damaged debris collected inside it. But it will pay for environmental restoration so that is what I did for six days. Environmental restoration, gutting homes in city blocks that look like bombed out cities in World War II pictures, random structures standing and debris everywhere. It was some of the worst smelling, hot, dirty yet rewarding physical work I have ever done.

New Orleans is preparing for Mardi Gras. Tourists flowing into the French Quarter to celebrate, watching parades and young girls flaunting their charms, will not notice the work that myself and 22 other individuals from Habit for Humanity completed in the six days we were living in the St. Bernard Parish tent city just 20 minutes from the French Quarter. Parish is the term Louisiana uses for county. And one of the counties most affected by Hurricane Katrina is St. Bernard. It suffered the effects of hurricane winds, flooding by storm surge, the collapse of a levee along the Mississippi River and then hit again by Hurricane Rita days later.

Lt. Col. Dave Dysart of the U.S. Marines, briefed us on our first day of clean-up in a tent large enough to hold a hundred people. Just 23 of us were present. After warning us about sticking our hands in dark spaces, cottonmouth and water moccasin snakes, river rats, bugs and the development of a "Katrina cough" after exposure to so much mold and dust, Dysart said he was asked to oversee the clean up of the New Orleans' area parishes because of his experience in Iraq.

Dysart was in charge of taking the city of Fallujah in Iraq, which he said is very similarly situated as New Orleans. Fallujah is 4 feet below sea level. New Orleans sits 6 feet below sea level. Fallujah is next to the Tigris/Euphrates River; New Orleans is next to the Mississippi River. For the Marines to take Fallujah they shut off electricity to the city stopping the pumps from working, flooding the city. After a few days of buildings submerged in four feet of water that seeped into booby-traps and caches of goods and weapons, the marines turned on the city's pumps emptying it of water and resistance fighters. After 30 days electricity was back on, businesses were coming back and people were coming home.

In Louisiana, Dysart says he has run into a more formidable enemy than he had in Iraq. "FEMA and lawyers" he said, are the greatest barriers to getting things done. In Iraq he was able to gut the city swiftly with marines, remove the debris and bury it in the desert. Here in St Bernard he has small groups of volunteers and no desert for burying mountains of trash.

House-gutted trash is split into general trash; spoiled goods, dry wall, soggy carpets, curtains, insulation, all furniture, clothes, food, and dishes. Then a "white pile" all appliances and anything with an electrical cord is a second pile. A third pile is Environmental Protection Agency debris: fertilizers, household chemicals, legal or illegal drugs and medicine. And we volunteers created a very small fourth pile near each home we gutted called mementos. We found gold necklaces, Rolex watches, miraculously caught by flood waters but left behind on a nail, baby booties, personal journals, firearms, moldy photo-albums, slimy matted bank statements, soggy tax returns and beads, lots and lots of Mardi Gras beads.

The firefighters assigned to supervise groups of volunteers told us to drink lots of water because we would be very hot in our white hazard jumpsuits, hard hats, respirators, rubber boots and heavy gloves. We were admonished to eat our lunches because we would need the calories, but some days the stench from the houses was so putrid, the lunches, although kindly delivered by other volunteers, were hard to eat.

The residents we saw when leaving a neighborhood after our day of work would fold their hands in front of themselves and clearly mouth "Thank you, Thank you" as we drove past in our air-conditioned bus. This commercial bus took us from Tent City where we slept at night to our various work sites. The bus driver would not let us on the bus at the end of our workday until we removed our stinky hazard suits and mucky knee-high rubber boots.

Residents that called out their thanks were hard for me to respond to. I just gave a tired, slight wave back. I couldn't think of a response. You can't say your welcome because you feel so guilty knowing in a few days you will be going home to your family and running water and comfortable bed.

You know you will have electricity, private bathrooms, local schools to send your children to, shops open to buy bread and milk. These residents wont have those amenities for some time. They have a gutted house stripped to bare studs. Only mold and dust remain in the homes. You do not know when the houses are going to be sprayed by a disinfectant crew. Nor do you have an idea when a contractor will be able to start rebuilding these whole neighborhoods. The residents still have a lot of work to do themselves. And from the walkers and wheelchairs we removed from some of the houses you wondered how they will be able to do it.

New Orleans is getting ready to celebrate Mardi Gras. It means a lot to the residents in the city and surrounding parishes to have something to celebrate. When faced with overwhelming loss and no foreseeable release from a tragic situation they need something positive to focus on for the short term. So they will celebrate.

Volunteers are trickling in to help at there own expense. Many more are still needed. Groups such as Habitat for Humanity, Americorp and Samaritan's Purse and a loosely based group of individuals calling themselves Network Action Heros (locally known as the hippy kitchen) are all working together to help make a difference in St Bernard. But they could use more help, they could use our nation's National Guard, strong leadership and forward thinkers.

FEMA is ridiculed, cursed and looked to as a powerful saving force by residents in Louisiana. But as of Feb. 14, FEMA no longer pays for displaced people to be housed in hotels. FEMA has hundreds of small trailer homes available but will not release them until there is adequate sewer and water hook ups for the trailers. St Bernard parish does not have electricity. The tent city I lived in for the week of my stay was run off of 100 powerful generators providing lights, warm showers, places to prepare hot food for hungry residents and volunteers. No electricity means no pumps, no hook ups, no trailers for housing residents. One firefighter overseeing our work area said he did not feel he is part of the United States any longer, he feels lost and forgotten. What will happen in New Orleans after Mardi Gras will be no party.

Marie Johnson is a Carson Valley rancher.

Oil For Food probe reveals more scandal, graft, corruption

Fri, 07 Oct 2005 16:47:34 GMT

U.N. Procurement Scandal: Secret Information Was Leaked to a Bidder

Friday, October 07, 2005

By George Russell and Claudia Rosett

NEW YORK — On the morning of Nov. 6, 2003, an e-mail sped between two business executives at two private firms, bearing an important tip-off about an impending and highly confidential United Nations (search) business deal.

The message was brief and direct. “Dear Andy,” it said, “This will go to the Committee next Tuesday. All the best.”

The committee in question was the United Nations Headquarters Committee on Contracts (search), a top-level U.N. body that gives final approval to, among other things, all major purchases by the procurement department of the world organization. It was slated to hold its next meeting on Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2003.

Attached to the e-mail were commercially sensitive U.N. documents that no one outside of highly restricted circles within the U.N. was supposed to have access to — and that the contracts committee itself would not ponder for five more days.

The first document (pdf) was a draft of the official recommendation by the U.N. procurement department that a $62 million contract for U.N. peacekeepers in Liberia be awarded to a company called Eurest Support Services (search), or ESS, based in England and Cyprus. The contract covered food and water supplies for up to 15,000 peacekeepers for three years plus two renewable one-year options. It ended with a plea for the contracts committee to approve the deal: “The advice of the Committee is requested.”

The second document (pdf) was a detailed United Nations evaluation of the technical abilities of 12 different food supply firms to meet U.N. requirements for feeding separate U.N. peacekeeping missions in Liberia, Ethiopia and Eritrea, and the Congo. The analysis winnowed the 12 firms down to five that the U.N. technicians felt could best provide food and other supplies to the Africa-based troops.

The third (pdf), and most startling, document was a detailed list of the price bids that three of the five firms had submitted for the U.N. contract, covering everything from different ration packages to warehousing costs. The document showed that ESS had bested its nearest rival, a Monaco-based food services firm known as Es-Ko (search), by literally pennies per ration unit, and had also underbid its competitors in virtually every other service category.

Such information is considered top-secret by the United Nations, and is submitted in a sealed-bid process that U.N. officials have touted as foolproof.

Nonetheless, all this information was clearly available to the business executive who sent the e-mail -- Ezio Testa (search), President and CEO of a mysterious and controversial company known as IHC Services (search). Based in New York with offices in Milan, IHC until recently was a registered vendor to the U.N. procurement department, acting both as a contractor selling goods directly to the world body and as a go-between, or “vendor intermediary,” for a number of other suppliers.

The man who received Testa’s e-mail had a vital interest in it. He was Andy Siewert (search), a business development executive with ESS, which is itself a subsidiary of Compass Group (search), self-described as the largest food services company in the world. Siewert has also been described to FOX News by sources close to the U.N. as the ESS executive who had the most frequent day-to-day contact with the scandal-plagued U.N. procurement department.

That contact included frequent meetings with Alexander Yakovlev (search), the U.N. procurement officer who last August pleaded guilty to charges of corruption, wire fraud and money-laundering after FOX News exposed his personal ties to IHC Services, which employed Yakovlev’s son. According to documents obtained by FOX News, Yakovlev was in charge of the Liberia food rations contract that was the subject of Testa’s e-mail.

FOX News has obtained copies of the minutes taken at the U.N. Headquarters Committee on Contracts meeting on Nov. 11, 2003, which confirm that the committee went on to approve the award of the contract to ESS in exactly the manner that Testa’s e-mail foreshadowed. While committee members briefly questioned details of the proposal, they approved the full $62 million amount.

The Liberia peacekeeping contract was a major coup for ESS, but not the only one involving the U.N. Since 2000, ESS has won food contracts via the U.N. procurement department with peacekeeping forces in places such as East Timor, Burundi, Eritrea, Lebanon, Cyprus and Syria. The company recently won an additional contract to feed the expanding U.N. peacekeeper force in Sudan. U.N. officials estimate the total value of ESS peacekeeping contracts at more than $237 million. Including optional renewals and add-ons, the total could run as high as $351 million.

Ten months after the exchange of e-mails between Testa and Siewert, ESS and IHC announced a special “Best in Class” business partnership for future business, with Andy Siewert named as the ESS official who would manage the relationship. An announcement of the ESS-IHC relationship, dated Sept. 13, 2004, was posted on the ESS web site, but disappeared shortly after Yakovlev’s Aug. 9 arrest. Access to this item in the archive now appears blocked.

In response to an e-mail from FOX News regarding his 2003 message to Siewert, IHC’s CEO Testa referred FOX to his Washington, D.C., lawyers, who later told FOX that "there is no evidence that IHC had any improper communications with ESS concerning confidential U.N. information." Telephone calls and e-mails to Siewert and to a spokesman for Compass Group were answered by a company spokesman who said "there is no evidence of any wrongdoing on our part."

The 2003 e-mail exchange between Testa and Siewert is the most graphic evidence yet of the extent of the procurement scandal that continues to rock U.N. headquarters, in which supposedly secret U.N. business deliberations were apparently an open book to at least some firms dealing with the organization — even as the U.N. refuses to open almost all of its operations to public scrutiny.

So far, two U.N. officials have been arrested in this scandal: Yakovlev, a Russian native, and another Russian, Vladimir Kuznetsov (search), who headed the U.N.’s budget oversight committee. But the full extent of such schemes, and the amount of U.N. money involved, is not yet known. In a recent report, the Volcker committee investigating the U.N.’s multibillion-dollar Oil for Food (search) scandal noted that Yakovlev, who is now cooperating with investigators, had close to a million dollars in bribe money stowed in a secret Caribbean bank account, and that the bribes involved at least $79 million in non-Oil for Food U.N. contracts.

Tentacles of the procurement scandal have now reached as high as the U.N. Secretary-General’s office. On Oct. 4, FOX News revealed that Italian businessman and diplomat Giandomenico Picco (search), appointed in August 1999 as a personal representative of Secretary-General Kofi Annan (search) with the U.N. rank of under secretary-general, had also served as a director and then chairman of the board of IHC Services from 1997 to at least February 2000. Picco’s U.N. appointment was extended, with a brief interruption, until February 2003, when he became a formally designated adviser to Annan, a title that does not lapse until June 30, 2006. Neither Picco nor the Secretary General’s office has answered questions about whether the overlapping duties were ever disclosed to the U.N. Picco has denied any wrongdoing.

Asked about the apparent conflict of interest in Picco’s case, a spokesman for the secretary-general said that "new and stronger policies on conflict of interest and disclosure" were being contemplated.

Senior U.N. officials say that internal U.N. investigators are now heavily involved in examining the procurement department, and according to press reports, both federal and U.N. investigators are now probing alleged links of ESS and its parent, Compass, to the procurement scandal. The ESS company spokesman said his firm is cooperating with the U.N. investigation.

But whether the investigators have talked to Testa and Siewert about their $62 million communication and the window it offers into the confidential U.N. bidding process remains to be seen.

George Russell is Executive Editor of FOX News. Claudia Rosett is journalist-in-residence with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.

Boeing, Machinists union forge temporary agreement

Mon, 26 Sep 2005 21:24:15 GMT

Machinists Reach Tentative Accord With Boeing

By STEVEN GREENHOUSE

Boeing has reached a tentative agreement with its machinists' union, whose more than 18,000 members have been on strike for 24 days. A ratification vote is scheduled for Thursday, and the strikers are not scheduled to return to work before then.

The strike has stopped almost all production at Boeing, the nation's largest commercial airplane manufacturer. The union, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, posted details of the settlement on its Web site, boasting, "No takeaways, no sellouts," and saying the deal gave it much of what it was seeking.

There would be no increase in premiums or deductibles in the workers' health plan, as Boeing had sought. Boeing also dropped its insistence that newly hired workers would no longer qualify for retiree health benefits.

In addition, Boeing agreed to increase its pension multiplier to $70 a month for every year worked, up from its previous offer of $66 a month. The union had originally demanded $80 a month, but recently indicated that it would settle for $70. That would mean a $10-a-month increase from the last contract, identical to the increases in its previous two contracts with Boeing.

To help pay for these measures, the machinists agreed to a major concession: no wage increases during the three-year agreement. Boeing had proposed raises of 2.5 percent over three years as well as $6,000 in cash payments.

Charles Bickers, a Boeing spokesman, said: "It's a reasonable settlement that reflects compromise on both sides. It's an improved offer with economics that support our competitiveness."

Under the settlement Boeing would make cash payments to each worker totaling $10,800 - $4,800 in the first year and $3,000 in each of the last two years. The workers would also receive a 1 percent annual cost of living increase.

More than 16,000 strikers are in the Seattle area, with 1,000 in Gresham, Ore., and 900 in Wichita, Kan. Their average base pay is $59,000 a year.

Boeing had proposed that the Wichita workers receive lower pay than the other workers, but that proposal was dropped from the tentative contract, the union said.

Union and company officials said the agreement was reached late Friday night in Washington, with the help of Richard Gephardt, the long-time Democratic leader in the House, who was hired by Boeing to help mediate. Friday's talks included Alan R. Mulally, chief executive of Boeing's commercial aircraft division, and the machinists' president, R. Thomas Buffenbarger.

Analysts had voiced concern that the dispute could last months and hurt Boeing's competitiveness.

Boeing hires Dick Gephardt to help with Machinists strike

Sat, 24 Sep 2005 00:25:59 GMT

Boeing Hires Democrat Gephardt To Advise On Strike

September 23, 2005

By KOMO Staff & News Services

SEATTLE - Boeing Co. has hired former House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, who has consistently found support among labor unions, to advise the aerospace company on its dispute with the striking Machinists union.

"I have a longstanding relationship with the Machinists and I can be somewhat of an intermediary, an honest broker to find answers," Gephardt told The Seattle Times for Friday editions.

Gephardt, who twice ran for the Democratic presidential nomination, retired from the House last year and now works part-time for the Washington, D.C., law firm DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary.

A spokeswoman for DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary said Gephardt couldn't immediately be reached for comment Friday.

Connie Kelliher, spokeswoman for Machinists District Lodge 751 in Seattle, praised Gephardt and said the union was waiting to see how his involvement would affect the dispute.

"Gephardt's a good person (who's) always been supportive of workers," she said.

Boeing's Seattle commercial airplane operations have been shuttered for three weeks by the strike. The union and the company have not resumed negotiations and both sides say they remain far apart.

The Machinists have long been Gephardt loyalists, supporting his unsuccessful run for president and backing his other political moves. The former Missouri congressman also told The Times that he helped settle a labor dispute between the Machinists and a former McDonnell Douglas plant, now owned by Boeing, in his hometown of St. Louis.

Chicago-based Boeing confirmed in a statement that Gephardt is one of the company's consultants.

"He is well-respected in business circles and brings a valuable perspective to labor-management relations," the company said.

Boeing spokesman Charles Bickers declined to comment further.

Gephardt also consulted on labor issues for Onex Corp., the Canadian company that bought Boeing's commercial airplane plants in Wichita, Kan. and Tulsa, Okla. The Onex subsidiary that runs the former Boeing plants is now called Spirit AeroSystems, and Gephardt serves on Spirit's board.

Announcing the launch of Twittle Tees, innovative T Shirts

Mon, 12 Sep 2005 18:55:08 GMT

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In partnership with The Regulator Room on MSN / A TRM/KDM web production

Boeing mulls its choices and where it must compromise with striking Machinists

Thu, 08 Sep 2005 04:38:12 GMT

New Boeing CEO Faces Early Challenge With Strike

September 7, 2005

By KOMO Staff & News Services

CHICAGO - The walkout by more than 18,000 airplane assembly workers at Boeing Co. presents new CEO W. James McNerney with a tough test in his first months on the job, even though analysts say he isn't likely to intervene any time soon.

The Boeing Machinists' first strike in a decade reached Day 5 Tuesday with no negotiations scheduled, and industry observers said they don't expect a settlement for at least a month and perhaps closer to 90 days based on industry precedents.

For the foreseeable future, McNerney is letting the head of Boeing's Seattle-based commercial airplane operations manage the dispute.

But ultimately the chief executive, president and board chairman may have to make the difficult call on how much Boeing must compromise in order to reactivate idled assembly lines, most of which are located in the Seattle area.

"Eventually the odds are that it'll percolate up to him," said Richard Aboulafia, an aerospace analyst for the Teal Group in Fairfax, Va. "Something will have to happen, even if it means sacrificing long-term profits. Strikes don't usually last longer than two to three months because companies can't take that kind of damage."

The 56-year-old McNerney took over July 1 as Boeing's third CEO since December 2003, hired to restore stability at the top to a corporation shaken by the scandal-hastened departures of predecessors Phil Condit and Harry Stonecipher. McNerney inherited a company performing well financially and gaining momentum in its commercial airplane battle with Airbus.

He also walked into a labor standoff unlike anything he had experienced as chief executive of 3M Co., which does not have unions, or at General Electric Co. where he was CEO of GE Aircraft Engines and GE Lighting.

"For this to happen two months into his campaign is a lot to deal with," said analyst Chris Lozier of Chicago-based Morningstar Inc. "For the time being, the Machinists have the upper hand in this row. And him being new, I think that also works in the Machinists' favor."

Alfred Marcus, a professor of strategic management at the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management, said the changes McNerney made in tightening up 3M operations caused some internal discord but it was not his style to antagonize people.

"I would think that McNerney is going to stay in the background and will let the internal company professionals handle this," he said. "And since he is new he's going to want union good will - he doesn't want to antagonize the unions."

Analyst Cai von Rumohr of SG Cowen Securities said both McNerney's background in the industry - including running a Boeing customer in GE Aircraft Engines - and Boeing's recent history make it unlikely he will move quickly to give in to union demands.

"One reason the company moved the corporate headquarters to Chicago (in 2001) was to avoid going over the heads of the guys who were negotiating these agreements," von Rumohr said. "So I don't see McNerney coming in like a cowboy from the West, sitting down at the table to reach an agreement. That's not in his best interest."

The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers says it hasn't seen any sign of McNerney's involvement in failed negotiations for a three-year contract. But it has made him an issue because of his hefty pay: a $1.75 million base salary, an annual cash bonus of as much as $4 million and stock options worth more than $25 million.

Spokeswoman Connie Kelliher of Machinists District Lodge 751 said the lucrative package helped spur members to demand a healthy increase in their own pension payouts - one of its key demands along with more benefits and job-security guarantees. The union went so far as to prepare a flyer detailing the top executive's retirement perks and saying it showed how much McNerney valued a good pension.

Effects of Boeing strike limited for now on Seattle area economy

Sat, 03 Sep 2005 20:23:34 GMT

Boeing strike's ripples are small -- for now

Saturday, September 3, 2005

By KRISTEN MILLARES BOLT
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

When the 16,500 Machinists in the Puget Sound area decide to curtail their spending, the region's retailers and restaurants feel it.

While Salo and his peers are reviewing their expenses and future spending, so, too, are the many manufacturing companies that rely on Boeing for a steady stream of orders for parts and service work.

Depending on the strike's duration, it may not be all bad news.

"If it doesn't go on for too long, there are some benefits -- a little cleaning up that can go on," said Mike Smoody, chairman of the non-profit Pacific Northwest Aerospace Alliance, which promotes the industry in the region. "Boeing can build up inventory, and most of the machine shops will be able to get caught up on deliveries that are probably running late."

Boeing's recently ramped-up production has sent local suppliers scrambling for raw materials, many of which are selling for inflated prices because of short supply. A short-lived strike could be a welcome reprieve, used to amass enough aluminum, titanium and other materials while the company and its employees come to an agreement.

"Everybody is having problems with raw materials," said John Gazecki, the chairman and chief executive of the Tacoma-based Precision Machine Works, a major hard-metal parts supplier for Boeing airplanes. "If they start sliding their schedules out, it would give us a chance to catch up with what we have."

But, he said, "if it goes longer than a month, it would start affecting us."

The spurt of Boeing production has allowed Gazecki to hire more employees, going from 65 last year to 105 now. "About 50 percent of our business is Boeing," he said. "And we are going to pick up more from the Japanese subcontracting for the 787."

If the strike continues longer than two months, say most suppliers, the troubles begin. One manager predicted a two-thirds reduction in work force after 60 days of striking -- workers who could be picked up again once the production lines restart.

"It's pretty simple -- if it lasts too long, and they don't put airplanes together, then they don't need the parts and things slow down," said Rex Ott, president and owner of J.D. Ott Co. Inc., a Seattle-based supplier of aerospace parts and assemblies for over 60 years.

Boeing suppliers make up "a good percentage" of aerospace manufacturing in the Puget Sound area, said the aerospace alliance's Smoody, who noted that many companies began diversifying their client bases after the terrorist attacks of 9/11 caused an economic downturn.

But, said Ott, "work for other people is hard to find," though Airbus has been adding local companies to its suppliers.

"By necessity, you get too specialized in this business," said Ott. "Our gear is for aircraft parts in aircraft quantity -- we can't go out and make garden hoses or widgets."

Dave Gering, the executive director of the Manufacturing Industrial Council of Seattle, thinks Seattle's industrial sector is diversified enough, on a broad scale, to absorb any problems.

"Anything that involves a loss of Boeing work is a blow," said Gering. "But you know who will feel it first is the retail community."

One thing is for sure: the Machinists, who earn an average of $59,000 per year, are "serious consumers -- no ifs, ands, or buts about it," according to Machinist Salo.

The last time the Machinists went out, for 69 days in 1995, each striker lost $8,000 in wages, a gap in spending power that was partially closed by an improved contract and its settlement bonus.

Businesses around the Boeing facilities in South Seattle, Everett and Renton are likely to feel the pinch.

Pickets will almost certainly be working the nearby Boeing properties. But they'll be a fraction of a typical work force on any given day, and if Salo is any indication, perhaps less likely to spend money.

In South Park, the restaurants that have taken root along 14th Avenue South -- and are propping up that neighborhood's business strip -- are dependent on the lunch business from the Boeing Machinists.

Francisco Ruiz Velasco, the owner of Taqueria Muy Macho -- a favored hangout where Machinists fill 90 percent of the bright orange and blue chairs at lunchtime -- said that the midday crowd carries his business through the week.

If the strike continues too long, he said, "it's going to hurt."

P-I reporter Kristen Millares Bolt can be reached at 206-448-8142 or kristenbolt@seattlepi.com.

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/239269_bizimpact03.html