ROME -- A secure supply of whisky, single malt or Jack Daniels, is vital for WFP workers dealing with emergencies around the globe, top executives at the UN agency jest.
"No emergency has ever run without a few bottles of single malt, so I always pick one up on my way," WFP's veteran Asia Regional Director, John Aylieff, a Briton, tells the Rome-based agency's in house staff magasine Pipeline, "presuming I'm not deployed to a country where alcohol is banned."
ROME -- As many as 24 staff of the UN World Food Programme were dismissed for professional misconduct in 2010 -- charges included harrasment and fraud, theft and gross negligence, says the agency.
The Human Resources department of the Rome-based agency dealt with 48 cases of misconduct in 2010 compared with 30 in 2009, according to a report in the WFP Staff Magazine Pipeline quoting the latest HR annual report.
Contacted by Italian Insider, a WFP press office spokeswoman declined to make available further information on the cases on ground that they were "private."
KUWAIT CITY -- “Stop looking at the troops through the binoculars,” Marie told me, “You’ll get us arrested.” As Marie Colvin and I drove around Failaka Island halfway between Iranian missile batteries firing from the Faw peninsula 20 miles to the north and Kuwait 20 miles southward, there was nothing to suggest she would develop a death wish, as some detractors have claimed after she was killed by Syrian shellfire while reporting the Arab Spring.
ROME -- Former mujahedin leader and current Afghan Parliamentary Justice Commission chief Hajji Mohammad Mohaqiq visited Rome recently at the invitation of the Afghan community in Italy. Ostensibly the trip was to commemorate the death of the Afghan Shia leader Mazari, but he was to have made use of the occasion to meet with a number of institutional figures on Capitoline Hill, including Rome’s mayor, Gianni Alemanno.
ROME -- Incoming Executive Director of the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP), Ertharin Cousin, said she would build "a movement" towards empowering women in developing countries in order to promote sustainable food security.
In one of her final addresses as US Ambassador to the U.N. food agencies before taking up the mantle as WFP Chief on April 10, Cousin spoke at an event entitled 'are we really superwomen?' at the American University of Rome, organised by the American Women's Association of Rome.
Reviewed by KATHERINE TRAVERS
“Through Stones” by Simon Finn. Ten to One Records.
ROME -- Whatever happened to folk music? In recent years, it has seemed that you can only be a folk musician if you are a hip twenty-something, living in London, probably signed to the label Communion.
ROME -- From the shadow of a tombstone, a pair of yellow eyes stares steadily as I pick my way over uneven ground. This is my introduction to Teobaldo, one of around 70 cats -- all with names -- who live in the Non-Catholic Cemetery in Rome.
ROME -- Bill Gates, speaking at the UN International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) Governing Council, has criticised IFAD and other international food aid organisations for "not doing as much as they should have to fight hunger and poverty” in recent years and called for large-scale reform.
“The world’s agriculture and food system is now outdated and inefficient. Countries, food agencies and donors aren’t working together in a focused and coordinated way,” he said.
ROME -- As the world belatedly turns its attention to the pressing issues of environmental degradation, resource scarcity and climate change, the concept of sustainability takes its rightful place at centre stage in discussions at the UN International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) which kick off Wednesday. High profile speakers at the jamouree will include Bill Gates and Rwanda president Paul Kagame.
