Dear Mr Phillips, I am profoundly astonished by Jan Filipowicz’s article on FAO’s budget proposals for the 2014-2015 biennium which manages to get most of its facts wrong.

ROME – Saad Alotaibi, considered a Saudi Royal family unofficial emissary at the FAO, has left his job as Assistant Director General for the mideast following the murky death of a Japanese staffer

ROME–FAO Director General José Graziano da Silva wants a sharp spending increase in the 2014-2015 budget -- the agency denies the hike is intended to facilitate his re-election.

KABUL – Border disputes with Pakistan and Iranian meddling in the country’s internal affairs have recently shifted the focus of Afghans' criticism closer to home.

ROME– IFAD Director General Kanayo Nwanze has suspended the UN agency’s General Counsel, Rutsel Martha, after adverse labour tribunal rulings cost some dlrs 1 million, IFAD sources say.

ROME - The 36th Governing Council, the annual meeting of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), ended Thursday with a United Nations agency award for outstanding collaboration

ROME– The World Food Programme has defended an increase of some 24,000 euros in the housing allowance of the UN agency’s executive director, Ertharin Cousin, taking it up to 160,000 euros a year.

DAMASCUS – The World Food Programme (WFP) will start providing ready-to-eat food to 125,000 vulnerable Palestinians and displaced Syrians caught in fighting around Yarmouk camp in Damascus.

ROME- The FAO Director-General says that improving food security in the Sahel will contribute to peace and stability in the region.

 REYHANLI, TURKEY -As the Assad regime continues to conduct air strikes on rebel-held medical facilities, Syrian doctors across the border are hindered by government and banking regulations. 

ROME- The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is gearing up to face the traditional “hunger season” in southern Africa, made worse by recent droughts.

ROME - FAO’s top American, Ann Tutwiler, has been sidelined to a Geneva liason job as Director General José Graziano da Silva consolidates his grip on the famine-fighting agency, UN sources say.

ROME -- ILO officials are investigating FAO consultant Telma Viale for a possible conflict of interests for apparently working for both agencies, ILO sources say.

ROME -- Australia may withhold its funding to the FAO in protest against alleged inefficiency at the UN agency, Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd has cautioned.

ROME – FAO Director general Jose Graziano da Silva has fuelled outraged comments from female colleagues at the UN agency by lamenting a shortage of “really good candidates” among women for top jobs

ROME - FAO head Jose da Silva Graziano wants increased support against hunger from the Pope but some observers claim influence of controversial Opus Dei at the UN agency already is excessive.

ROME– An artistic You-tube video in which consultant Telma Viale apparently strips to the buff has raised eyebrows at the FAO amid growing speculation she may head its human resources department.