FAO questioned rigged hiring of Tohà

JAN FILIPOWICZ

ROME—FAO’s staff selection committee questioned the rigged hiring of the Mayor of Santiago’s nephew, Juan Tohà, to the agency’s Latin American communications job but was overruled, FAO documents show.

 A memo dated July 23 sent on behalf of Janet Went, the secretary of the Professional Staff Selection Committee (PSCC)  to Mehdi Drissi, the FAO’s Media Chief, raised questions about why he had ranked Senor Toha first to get the job ahead of two highly qualified women, Denise Martinez Breto of Venezuela and Margot Tedesco of France.

U.N., Embassy Row, World
13 Dec 2013
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Comment: The FAO's hidden agenda

ANDREW GARGANO
ROME - A recent job-rigging scandal at the Food and Agriculture Organisation has exposed a hidden agenda for the United Nations agency that forfeits potential and skill in exchange for garnering favour from Latin America.
 
Comment
13 Dec 2013

English theatre showcases international talent

ANDREW GARGANO
ROME - Nestled in the heart of a small piazza placed along the cobblestones of Vicolo di Montevecchio, the English Theatre of Rome makes its home at the Teatro Arciliuto. 
 
The theatre was established in 1996 by actor and director Gaby Ford, who sought to promote the culture of theatre among Rome's international community while offering a place of English-speaking actors to showcase their talents.
 
Culture
12 Dec 2013
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FAO "crisis talks" on job-rigging scoop

Insider reporters

ROME– Senior FAO officials convened an “emergency meeting” to discuss fall-out from the disclosure of blatant rigging of the agency’s high-profile Latin American communications job, FAO sources say.

U.N., Embassy Row, World
12 Dec 2013
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Vatican set to reopen Necropolis

INSIDER NEWSDESK
VATICAN CITY - After two years of excavations, the Vatican will be reopening the necropolis on Via Triumphalis in January, allowing visitors access to one section which has never before been available.
 
The necropolis in located in the northeast area of the Vatican and contains tombs, mosaics, frescoes, and statues dating from the 100 BCE to 400 CE. The tombs belong mostly to common people, however several soldiers and middle class workers were also buried there.
 
ITALIAN, Travel, Vatican
12 Dec 2013
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Kurdish Foreign Minister: Identity is key to Middle East stability

ANDREW GARGANO
ROME - "As long as we don't address issues of identity, the Middle East will never see stability," says Falah Mustafa Bakir, the head of the Kurdistan Department of Foreign Relations.
 
Minister Bakir discussed the long history of problems that the Kurdish people have faced and offered some hope about the future of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq while speaking at the Italian Society for International Organisation (SIOI) in Rome on Tuesday.
 
World
11 Dec 2013

Ecomafia arrest inspires “Land of Fires”

asia guerreschi
ROME-The arrest of ecomafia don Cipriano "Garbage King" Chianese offers hope to the mob-ravaged “Land of Fires” area, Italy watchers say. Chianese, nicknamed the “King of Garbage”, is said be the major boss behind the “ecomafia” garbage-trafficking wing of the Casalesi clan of the Camorra. Police allege that he has trafficked illegal waste in the Naples area and has also extorted quotas and the management of the transportation company Mary Trans.
 
Business, Italy
10 Dec 2013
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IFAD honchos quit in Nwanze blood-letting

JAN FILIPOWICZ

ROME – Top executives at IFAD, the UN agriculture development bank, are jumping ship without paddles to escape the autocratic and flamboyant Nigerian Director General, Kanayo "Emperor" Nwanze, UN sources say.

  Carlos Sere, a Vice President and the Chief Development Strategist of the Rome-based International Fund for Agricultural Development, is the latest to quit, telling his staff as he walked out a month ago that Mr Nwanze has created “an insufferable environment” in which it had become impossible for him “or any upright professional to accept the dictates of the boss.”

U.N., World
9 Dec 2013

More FAO jobs go: "rogue" bosses defy DG

INSIDER NEWSDESK

ROME – The FAO is cutting 50 more project or short term posts from its Global Resource Management system as Florentin Albu and rogue directors defy orders to redeploy axed staff, UN sources say.

 “GRMS was developed and deployed around the world at a cost of over dlrs 30 million,” a senior staffer at the Rome-based hunger-fighting UN agency commented. “Some of these people may be asked to return as consultants in the next year but without benefits such as pension contributions or health insurance.”

U.N., Embassy Row, World
5 Dec 2013
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