That hush around the UN yesterday morning was the press presumably speed-reading at the rate of about 175-pages per hour the 353-page UNDP-commissioned, UNDP-presented report reviewing the UNDP program for North Korea, which was shuttered last year after it made headlines with the Cash-for-Kim scandal (Kim, as in Kim Jong Il). Having given the press all of about two hours to absorb and digest the entire contents — in which the worst news, per UN tradition, was somehow buried deep in the report — the head of the UNDP, Kemal Dervis, appeared at 11 A.M. Monday at the UN briefing podium to handle questions, or dictate headlines, or however one cares to describe it.
Shouldn’t the investigators themselves have presented the report and taken questions? Nope. This is the UN. The trio who led the investigation, explained Dervis, prefer not to answer questions until the report has been presented to the UNDP Executive Board, due to meet later this month, not in NY (where the UNDP has its headquarters), but in Geneva.
I’m still reading, with a growing sense of deja-oil-for-food-coverup. For a handy summary so far, here’s an editorial on Cash for Kim, Revisited, from today’s Wall Street Journal. More to come.
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4 Comments
1. Layer Seven:UNs other victims, the people of North Korea, are now facing a poor growing season and another human disaster (global warming is in reverse).
The vast military effort of North Korea will not take in its belts! Nor will Kim or his vintage collections.
True evil lives on Earth; it is the cause of intense, perennial suffering of North Koreans. But the proletarian revolution has long been coddled by sycophants and the unconscious, regardless of its apocalyptic human toll.
Collectivists of the World, including the United States, demand the mortal sacrifice of North Koreans; the UN only obliges.
Jun 4, 2008 - 7:21 pm 2. Layer Seven:The UN obliges, for a price.
Jun 4, 2008 - 7:22 pm 3. Ron Kean:My guess is that ‘the trio’ couldn’t have cared less. They probably just picked up their paychecks and headed out to find hookers.
They were probably jealous of the peace keepers in Africa who hand out a slice of bread for a 14 year old girl.
Then they fire off an email to their uncle who got them the gig in NY in the first place, mail out a gratuity to him, and buy the New York Times.
Jun 5, 2008 - 7:30 pm 4. Ron Kean::- )
Can we get a little moderation for the UN?
The Cosa Nostra was easier to deal with than the UN and a lot less harmful.
If I wasn’t paying taxes to pay goof-balls from Zimbabway and Libya to make policy, I wouldn’t be so despondent.
Dearest Claudia…you started this. I hope McCain puts you on the ticket for number two.
Jun 6, 2008 - 5:59 pm