ROME – FAO Director General Qu Dongyu surprised senior executives at the UN agency the other day by telling his subordinates they should work “16 hours a day,” FAO sources say.

 Mr Qu, who in the past has said he deserves a pay raise on his six figure salary for his stakhanovite efforts at the Rome-based poverty-busting organisation, told hungercrats meeting at an FAO Programme and Finance Committee session that he works as many as 16 hours himself and opined that they should also.

 Under Qu’s increasingly secretive regime the FAO has stopped issuing a live webcast of the crucial Programme and Finance Committee sessions.

 The FAO Council, under way this week at the sprawling FAO HQ by the Circus Maximus, still is broadcast on webcast, however.

 jf