UN Management Accountability Struggles

Overview of IO Watch Archive Quotes VIII

May-June 2007.

386.      “The grinding investigation of scandal in the United Nations’ multi-billion dollar procurement department … has gone on for more than a year … [with] no definitive result in sight. But every now and then odd signs float up. …

[Most recently, the U.N. has suspended [Sky Link Aviation, a long-term major contractor, in a] tactic … aimed at ending the apparent stonewalling of a probe into a wide array of graft allegations in [U.N. procurement] …

The U.N. Procurement Task Force was appointed some 14 months ago to plumb the depths of [this] corruption, … after a Fox News investigation in 2005 led to the … arrest and guilty plea of U.N. procurement officer Alexander Yaklovlev. … Another U.N. procurement officer, Sanjay Bahel, is due to stand trial in New York federal court later this month …

[The Skylink struggle relates to] … the U.N.’s investigation of a former head of procurement, assistant-secretary-general Andrew Toh.  He was suspended … last year. … Fox News has subsequently learned that Toh has been formally accused … of gross misconduct. Toh himself confirmed the charge … and has launched his own counter-suit.”

Claudia Rosett and George Russell, “Global air carrier suspended in U.N. procurement investigation”, Fox News, May 3, 2007.

387a.    “Zimbabwe is poised to become chair of the United Nation’s Commission on Sustainable Development, while Belarus is set to win a seat on the UN Human Rights Council, in two decisions likely to attract fresh criticism of the world body. …

Zimbabwe government policies are seen as having triggered its most severe economic crisis since independence, with annual inflation at 2,200 per cent. … The Commission, created in 1993, is the UN‘s main forum for discussing the relationship between development and the environment and is expected to issue recommendations on climate change next week.

Meanwhile, a coalition of 40 human rights groups called on the UN to reject Belarus’ candidacy for the Human Rights Council … [which] has itself faced mounting criticism. 

‘Belarus’s record on human rights makes [it] a supremely unfit candidate for the … Council’, said Human Rights Watch. … The Belarusian government ‘severely restricts the activities of human rights groups, and has systematically moved to close them and opposition parties.  Peaceful protesters are violently dispersed and arrested, and opposition leaders are jailed.’”

Mark Turner, “Zimbabwe to chair UN commission”, Financial Times (UK), May 3, 2007.    [Note: Western countries subsequently persuaded Bosnia to seek a vacant HRC seat, which it won over Belarus.  However, Egypt, Angola, and Qatar won seats despite opposition from human rights groups, see “Belarus loses UN human rights bid”, BBC News, May 17, 2007.).] 
                                                         

387b.    “A major rift between the West and Africa was exposed this weekend as Zimbabwe was controversially selected as head of the UN’s main environment body.  Diplomats from the European Union and the US had strongly objected to a country that has destroyed a once-thriving farming industry, has a failing economy, an appalling human rights record and a poor record of looking after its wildlife and national parks, holding the post. 

But in a secret ballot … in New York, Zimbabwe was elected to lead the Commission on Sustainable … Development.  … It seems developing countries voted … in a direct show of defiance against developed ones. 

The CSD’s entire two-week session had earlier come under attack for its scripted speeches and inability to find common targets for green policies. [The conference ended] … with no consensus after the 25-member EU refused to approve a paper that included no concrete measures.

A Western diplomat cited the Zimbabwe decision as] … ‘wholly inconsistent with the commission’s aims.  It damages the credibility of the commission itself and its ability to deal with issues affecting the livelihoods of millions from the poorest countries.’”

TracyMcVeigh, “Fury at Zimbabwe UN role”, The Observer Guardian (UK), May 13, 2007.

387c.    “With Zimbabwe elected Friday to chair the Commission on Sustainable Development, we now have the latest poster child for the usual Orwellian abuse of the noble mandate … [promised] back at the U.N. founding in 1945. 

Let’s get real.  Zimbabwe’s U.N. coup is not some extraordinary aberration, … [but] how the U.N., as a grand collective, was, unfortunately, configured to work. This is how the U.N. – rolling in American money and support, but lacking any reasonable system of checks, balances, and accountability – will continue to work.

There is by now every sign that the endless production of reports, proposals, and strategies for U.N. reform … [especially during the final two years under Kofi Annan] … serves chiefly to produce new programs, projects, and initiatives, coupled with fresh U.N. demands for money. … in a system where … any wrongdoing is always someone else’s fault.  …

How the U.S. might escape this U.N. cycle of insanity is hard to say, given the vested interests of our own political establishment in supporting [the] U.N. … But one way is to start by telling the truth. … With this latest outrage, the [CSD] has, in its way, offered a handy opening.”

Claudia Rosett, “Call it the U.N. Commission on Sustainable Dictatorships”, National Review Online (US), May 13, 2007.

388.      “A Canadian lawyer with extensive experience in governmental ethics has been appointed Director of the United Nations Ethics Office, a key element of reform of the Organization mandated by the 2005 World Summit …

Robert F. Benson served as the Interim Ethics Commissioner in the Canadian Parliament. … [He] succeeds Nancy Hurtz-Soyka who has been the Interim Director of the Ethics Office since its inception in early 2006. …

Conceived by former Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the Office was established to administer financial disclosure and whistleblower policies mandated by the General Assembly … [and provide] confidential advice to staff to help them avert conflict of interest problems.  Mr. Benson started work at UN Headquarters in New York on May 1.”

“Canadian legal expert takes top ethics post at UN”, UN News Service, 3 May 2007.       [Note:  It is unfortunate that it took the Secretariat well over a year to properly establish this “key element of reform”, which was  mandated in late 2005.]

389.      “Secretary-General [Kofi Annan] himself recognized that major management changes were needed and he proposed changes to the General Assembly.  … [They rejected them.]  The 50 countries that voted in favor … contribute about 80 percent of the assessed budget of the UN.  The 120 countries that voted against pay less than 15 percent. …

The only change that I think will work is move fundamentally away from the system of assessed contributions toward a system of voluntary contributions. [The 97 poorest countries which constitute a UN majority, pay only 0.3 percent of the UN budget.] …

It is generally agreed that the best-run, most effective agencies in the UN system are those that are already funded by voluntary contributions … [UNHCR, UNICEF, the World Food Program.]  Not without their problems to be sure, but [with] the strongest incentive to reform …[or the contributors can go] somewhere else.  …

[Voluntary funding] would be a very salutary battle to have …. to get into the real question: What programs are effective? What programs actually accomplish something?  And what programs  …[should be abolished] or substantially changed? …  Competition would be good for the United Nations and … [should be our objective.]”

John R. Bolton, “Speech” at Syracuse University, February 2007 (posted on-line May 4, 2007.    [Note: Mr. Bolton’s conclusions above are preceded by a detailed, pragmatic  assessment of UN entrenched inaction on management and other reforms,  with little sign of any change.  The full text (of some 6,000 words) is available at the American Enterprise Institute, at  www.aei.org, under “Short Publications”.] 

390.      “Almost everywhere you travel these days, people are talking about their weather – and how it has changed.  Nowhere have I found this more true than in Australia, where ‘the big dry’, a six-year record drought, has parched the Aussie breadbasket … severely. …

In just 12 months, climate change has gone from being a nonissue here to being one that could tip the vote [in pending national elections.] … [Prime Minister John Howard declared last month that “insufficient rain] ‘over the next six to eight weeks [would mean] … no water allocations for irrigation purposes’ until May 2008 in the Murray-Darling river basin, which accounts for 41 percent of Australian agriculture. …

Australians were shocked.  … Australian businesses are demanding that the politicians ‘get a regulatory environment settled’ … because they know change is coming. …

In short, climate change is the first issue in a long time that could really scramble Western politics. … Politics gets interesting when it stops raining.”

Thomas L. Friedman, “’Big dry’ down under”, International Herald Tribune, May 5-6, 2007.

391a.    ‘The Global Environment Facility is a $3.13 billion fund that helps developing countries deal with climate change. … [Its] 32 donor countries and support programs [mostly] implemented by the United Nations and the World Bank.  Since its inception in 1991, it has provided $6.8 billion in grants and helped secure $24 billion in co-financing for over 1,900 projects in more than 160 countries. …

[Its new head, Monique Barbut has] undertaken major changes at the fund, which had been criticized as having become too slow and not attentive enough to the world’s poorest countries.  [An expert observer says] … ‘It used to take 66 months for a project to go from the embroyonic stage to initial implementation.’  Barbut, he said, reduced that to 22 months.  ‘She’s made the GEF a catalyst rather than a funding mechanism,’ he said. …

Barbut agreed that when she took over, ‘GEF was in big trouble,’ and she acknowledged that the process of change had been difficult. … She said her goal was to make the GEF more focused on clients … [and] to rebalance GEF’s global portfolio by giving more to the world’s least developed countries.”     

Erika Kinetz, “Green but not soft: A UN fund chief sees ecology as crucial for poor states”, International Herald Tribune, Saturday-Sunday, May 5-6, 2007.  [Note: for more, see www.gefweb.org, or, more concisely, in Wikipedia.]

391b.    “A growing dispute [involves] a United Nations program that is the centerpiece of international efforts to help developing countries fight global warming.  That program, the Clean Development Mechanism, has become a kind of Robin Hood, raising billions of dollars from rich countries and giving them to poor countries to curb emissions of global warming gases.  But the biggest beneficiary is no longer so poor: China … got three-fifths of the money raised last year. …

China is expected … this year or next, to become the world’s largest emitter of global warming gases.  That puts a spotlight on the CDM, which has grown from $100 million in payments to developing countries in 2002 to $4.8 billion last year.

… Poorer countries have received almost nothing, … [making the program] a battleground, pitting an unlikely coalition of bankers, traders, industrialists and environmentalists, who defend it, against economic development advocates, who warn of distortions. …

A vigorous cottage industry of project designers and brokers has sprung up in Shanghai … to make it easy and inexpensive for Chinese companies to participate.  … Trailing far behind is Africa … [where] payments totaled less than $150 million last year.”

Keith Bradsher, “Knowing what way the wind blows; Handful of nations get most subsidies”, International Herald Tribune, May 9, 2007.   [Note: for more general information , see  http://cdm.unfccc.int.]

391c.    “The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is an arrangement under the Kyoto Protocol allowing industrialised countries with a greenhouse gas reduction commitment (so-called Annex 1 countries) to invest in emission reducing projects in developing countries as an alternative to what is generally considered more costly emission reductions in their own countries.

In theory, the CDM allows for a drastic reduction of costs for the industrialised countries, while achieving the same amount of emission reductions as without the CDM. However, critics have long argued that emission reductions under the CDM may be fictive, and in early 2007 the CDM came under fire for paying €4.6 billion for destruction of HFC gases while according to a study this would cost only €100 million if funded by development agencies [discussed in more detail in the full Wikipedia entry.]

The CDM is supervised by the CDM Executive Board (CDM EB) and is under the guidance of the Conference of the Parties (COP/MOP) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).”

“Clean Development Mechanism”, Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia (as of May 14, 2007).   [Note:  The UN is already parceling out billions for combating climate change?  Who knew?  However, the implementation problems and political battles identified above do sound familiar.  In 2005, the then-UN Deputy Secretary-General Louise Fréchette famously said, in response to the Iraq Oil-for-Food program scandal, “We do not ever want it.  We at the UN do not ever want to do an Oil for Food program again.” [see the text of John Bolton’s speech in item 389 above, in its “Management reform” section.]   Could the multi-billion payments currently being made by the CDM be an even bigger oil-for-food-type scandal in the making?]

392a.    “A Swiss magistrate has launched a formal investigation into allegations of fraud four years ago in leadership elections at the World Meteorological Organization … concerning alleged attempts to use embezzled U.N. funds for influence peddling in a 2003 vote for the post of secretary-general. …

The probe comes as the 188 member states of the WMO gather in Geneva for a four-yearly congress at which Secretary-General Michel Jarraud of France is standing for a second term.  Jarraud has denied any wrongdoing. …

[The investigation is] linked to an earlier Swiss probe into allegations of embezzlement which first came to light in 2003. …

The probe into the WMO, whose aims include safeguarding the environment and water resources, adds to a series of probes hanging over various United Nations bodies.  New U.N. Secretary-General  Ban Ki-Moon has pledged to root out corruption. …   

The Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ) cited a leaked internal agency memo as saying that WMO officials allegedly offered to pay travel costs and provide an allowance to some of the delegates from developing countries in return for their pledge to vote for a certain candidate.”

Thomas Atkins, “Swiss launch corruption probe at U.N. weather body”, Reuters, May 7, 2007.

392b.    “Switzerland is pushing for an overhaul of the way the scandal-hit World Meteorological Organization (WMO) is run.  The United Nations body, which opened its 15^th Congress in Geneva on Monday, is currently battling allegations of fraud and corruption.  The Congress … takes place only once every four years. …The Swiss government is submitting a resolution aimed at increasing transparency … and [demanding] that the 188 member states play a more active role in the management of WMO affairs.

… The organization is effectively run by a 37-strong executive council that acts independently of the member states.  … The Swiss resolution … [proposes that member states sit] as observers on the executive council … [and receive] access to all documents issued by the executive council and the WMO’s finance committee.  … ‘It’s quite a strange situation’, [said a Swiss official.] …

[He] insisted the Swiss drive for greater transparency had ‘no direct connection’ with the ongoing corruption and fraud cases …, but he did concede that the investigations had cast a cloud over the UN body. … “It is a very important organization … in climate monitoring … [and] we are extremely interested in a well-organised WMO.’”

“Clouds gather over UN weather agency”, swissinfo, May 7, 2007.

393.      “The new UN Human Rights Council was inaugurated last year … as the ‘dawn of a new era’ for the promotion and protection of human rights.  … [After eight sessions this year, has it] met the criteria set by … [Kofi] Annan, who envisioned a new body … that would eschew the politicization and selectivity that so discredited its predecessor?

Sadly, the new Council has not been an improvement …. [and] in some ways it has been even worse. … In this report, we assess the 2006-2007 Council’s record. ….

The body has been dominated by an increasingly brazen alliance of repressive regimes seeking not only to spoil needed reforms but to undermine the few meaningful mechanisms … that already exist. Their goal is impunity for systematic abuses. Unfortunately, too many democracies have thus far gone along with the spoilers, out of loyalty to regional groups and other political alliances.

All is not yet lost, but … the upcoming June session … will be critical. … If the most damaging proposals are adopted – such as the elimination of the human rights monitors for specific countries- the prognosis for the Council will be grim.”

“Dawn of a new era? Assessment of the United Nations Human Rights Council and its year of reform”, UN Watch, May 7, 2007.  [Note: The detailed 44-page report is available at www.unwatch.org.   Further note:  another detailed assessment of the HRC’s troubles is Brett D. Schaefer, “The UN Human Rights Council: A disastrous first year”, Backgrounder No. 2038, The Heritage Foundation, June 1, 2007, available at www.heritage.org, under  “Research,  Foreign Issues.”]

394a.    “Old international institutions never die; they just fade away.  Yet … they can also reinvent themselves. … This is a challenge for all such institutions. It is particularly true today for the Asian Development Bank, an institution set up to serve a once desperately poor region that is now the world’s most dynamic. …

[A group of eminent persons addressed the issue of ADB change and their report] … was discussed intensively at the annual meeting in Kyoto over the weekend. …

In 2020, unless something dramatic happens, more than 90 percent of those now living in the huge region will … live in middle-income countries … [and] be able to finance their development from domestic funds or foreign private resources. …

The eminent persons’ group suggested that the ADB had to be transformed … moving to faster and more inclusive growth … [to] environmentally sustainable growth and … a regional focus. … [Critics objected to] … suggested moves away from poverty, health, education , and gender equality, in particular. … Focus is essential. …

The report is imperfect. But it provides an excellent start … The ADB must change, as Asia itself is doing, or fade into irrelevance.”

“Reinventing Asia’s development bank”, The Financial Times (UK), May 8, 2007.           

394b.    “[Venezuela’s president Hugh Chávez] … says that he will leave the International Monetary Fund [and] the World Bank … [because they] are under the thumb of … the United States.  Instead, he is proposing a new body: The Bank of the South … to make loans to Latin American governments. …

This might sound an empty threat: but in many parts of the developing world there is resentment against ‘the Washington consensus’ … [and] the IMF is hardly the most-loved institution in Latin America. …

[But the real question is] … whether Latin America … ought still to have any use for the IMF and the World Bank … Many countries … can now raise money cheaply in capital markets. 

The answer is a qualified yes. … The markets want borrowers to be IMF members. … New-found [Latin American] stability [might falter. Above all, multilateral lenders’ conditions] provide reasonable reassurance that money will not be wasted.  Of course, [both] the IMF and World Bank could usefully be reformed to recognize the changing balance of power in the world economy. … But to paraphrase Karl Marx, the point is to change the world not to leave it.”

 “Venezuela, the World Bank and the IMF”, The Economist, May 12^th, 2007, p. 14.    [Note: See also “Hugo Chávez moves into banking”, the same issue, pp. 51-52.]

394c.    “[In Latin America] both the World Bank and its regional equivalent, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) find it harder to compete. … Rather than surrendering its best customers to private creditors, the [World Bank] wants to price its loans more keenly and make borrowing less cumbersome …

The IDB, which has escaped [Hugo] Chávez’ ire, faces a similar challenge.  ‘We have to reinvent ourselves,’ says its president Luis Moreno.  [The IDB] is lending to state and local governments … focusing on infrastructure [and region-wide] projects … and stresses [like the World Bank that its] loans come with valuable technical advice.  Critics say they should do more to separate the two. 

Mr. Chávez portrays the World Bank as a domineering patron, imposing its beliefs on any nation that takes its coin.  It would be more accurate to describe it as a fading brand, anxious to serve its customers better in a newly crowded marketplace.” 

“Fading brands: Development banks in Latin America”, The Economist, May 12^th, 2007, p. 52.    [Note: As the development banks at least struggle mightily to reshape and sharpen their approaches and impact in the 21^st century, the UN keeps dragging along with all its long-running and even new programs in almost every conceivable global area.  The many endless UN arguments and bickering do not substitute at all for sharp scrutiny of those programs, a focus on top priority tasks,  and agreement on new strategies to meet changing realities.]

395.      “In the first such action involving a major oil company, Chevron is preparing to acknowledge that it should have known that illegal kickbacks to Saddam Hussein were being paid on Iraqi oil that it bought as part of the UN oil-for-food program, according to investigators.

The admission will come as part of a settlement being negotiated with U.S. prosecutors, which will also include fines totaling between $25 and $50 million … These payments were made by small traders that sold the oil to Chevron, but records … showed that they were financed by Chevron. …

So far, only former UN officials, individual traders and relatively small oil firms have come under official scrutiny in the United States. … The Chevron settlement followed months of work by a joint task force … [in New York],  with input from Italian authorities.”

Claudio Gatti, “Admission by Chevron on Saddam kickbacks”, International Herald Tribune, May 8, 2007

396a.    “[In a speech at World Bank headquarters Monday, Mark Malloch Brown warned] that the bank’s mission was ’hugely at risk’ as long as Paul Wolfowitz remained its president. … The bank presidency would be a neat coup for Sir Mark … [but consider his own UN record.]

‘Not a penny was lost from the organization’, he insisted last year, following an audit … of peacekeeping procurement … [which actually found serious problems in $310 million of contracts in] a budget of $1.6 billion … Mr. Malloch Brown also [insisted] that Paul Volcker’s investigation into Oil for Food had ‘fully exonerated’ [Kofi] Annan.  In fact, Mr. Volcker’s report made an ‘adverse finding’ against [him.  He also] … described the idea that Mr. Annan might resign as ‘inappropriate political assassination’ – a standard he apparently doesn’t apply to political enemies like Mr. Wolfowitz. …

Mr. Malloch Brown never made any serious attempt to reform the U.N. beyond the cosmetic, while doing everything he could to block the real reforms proposed …  It’s a remarkable bit of chutzpah for the man who downplayed corruption at the U.N. to seek the ouster of the man who has fought to reduce corruption at the World Bank.”

“Axis of Soros: The men and motives behind the World Bank coup attempt”, OpinionJournal, wsj.com, May 9, 2007.

396b.    “Your May 9 editorial rests on false premises. I did not attack Paul Wolfowitz. … Indeed, I spoke of my friendship with him, but said the situation had to be resolved. Contrary to your claim, I am not a candidate to succeed him.

You seek to undermine my record as a leading U.N. reformer by distorting the truth.  For example you pretend that when I said U.N. overbudgeting in a peacekeeping operation did not lead to the loss of funds that I was talking about procurement practices overall.  I set up a task force to investigate procurement fraud.  You take a comment I made on an interim Paul Volcker report as relating to his final finding. …”.

Sir Mark Malloch Brown, “I didn’t attack Wolfowitz, nor am I succeeding him”, The Wall Street Journal, 14 May 2007.

396c.    “Mr. Malloch Brown’s letter … is a tribute to the skills [of rhetorical elasticity] he has developed during his long career in such ‘multilateral’ institutions as the U.N.  He claims that he came to the World Bank last week not to bury Paul Wolfowitz but to praise him.  As smooth an actor as Sir Mark knew exactly how his words would be interpreted. … He didn’t correct the news reports saying he had encouraged Mr. Wolfowitz’s resignation.  We can guess what Mr. Wolfowitz thinks of such ‘friendship.’

Mr. Malloch Brown’s record in downplaying the Oil for Food scandal at the U.N. is well known, and he knows that Paul Volcker’s ‘adverse finding’ against … Kofi Annan was first made as part of an interim report, not the final one.  That’s when Mr. Annan’s future at the U.N. was most in peril, and that’s when Mr. Malloch Brown pushed the public line that Mr. Annan believed he had been ‘exonerated.’  There’s much more, but you get the idea.”

“Malloch Brown’s ‘friendship”, online.wsj.com, May 14, 2007.    [Note: Sir Mark’s stature as “a leading U.N. reformer” is growing more and more tattered (see, for starters, Overview quotes 198-200, 204, 236, 263, 287b, 292, 295, 300, 311a-b, 315a, 347-348, 360a, 370, 381b, and 387c.)   His version of the major UN procurement scandal  is also extremely “elastic”: actually, Secretariat task force action (still dragging along) began only as very belated “damage control” months after Fox News, US government auditors, and independent consultants uncovered the scandal in late 2005 (see Overview items 386, 172, 177-178, 184, and 214.)]              

397.      “As climate change and global warming continue to dominate the headlines, there is a concerted move …for an [expanded role] of the United Nations in fighting environmental degradation.

The Western industrial nations, led by France, have long sought to elevate the existing U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) in Nairobi into a gigantic U.N. Environment Organization.  But the current chair of the Group of 77 (G77), told IPS ‘The general trend in the G77 has not been very favorable. …

Last November a blue-ribbon [UN expert panel complained] of overlaps and redundancies in sustainable development … and said there were at least five U.N. entities involved in environmental issues. …

During a conference last February, outgoing French President Jacques Chirac said that France … [had] a reference to an Environment Charter in its Constitution.  ‘I hope that initiative can serve as inspiration within the United Nations and .. [in] all states,’ he added.  Chirac … has been pushing for the creation of the UNEO … and the establishment of ‘world environmental governance.’ …

The [UNEP] is outstanding, but it does not have adequate powers or institutional clout.  …  [The] proposed UNEO, declared Chirac, will act as the world’s ecological conscience.”

Thalif Deen, “U.N. debates wider leadership role on climate”, Inter Press Service, May 12, 2007.    [Note: Uh-oh!  First, as noted in items 340e. and 387c., the UN always hungers for grand new programmes and money.  And, however much Mr. Chirac may wish it, and to note only the most flagrant current warning signs, the UN  is very, very far from being ready to accountably and effectively combat the vast challenges of  global climate change (see items 387a-c, 391a-c, 392a-b, and the next item.]

398.      “[Secretary-General Ban is] eager to make a diplomatic breakthrough somewhere.  Instead, he should redirect his laser-like focus on another global hotspot where a breakthrough is actually possible – and where it is just as necessary: the United Nations.

Mr. Ban has been painfully slow in filling vacant U.N. positions.  The internal justice system remains hostile to whistle-blowers while old wagons circle around wrongdoers. …

Mr. Ban’s political team … correctly identified Lebanon and Sudan as areas where a U.N. chief might have some effect. … But [his] attempts to engage the dictators [involved] have reached their inevitable dead end.

[Meanwhile,] … an audit of the U.N. Development Program Office in [North Korea], announced …in January after reports of [serious problems], … was meant to show that Mr. Ban will act quickly to uproot the corruption that plagued [Kofi] Annan’s administration  …and start a process that would independently re-examine all UN programmes.  But the U.N. board of auditors probe has proved toothless  …[after North Korea flatly refused to cooperate.] …

Only after setting things right in his own house can Mr. Ban – whose instincts about international affairs are sound – … become a useful tool for setting things right in the world.”  
                                    Benny Avni, “Message to Ban: First clean your own house”, New York Sun, May 14,
                                                2007.