WorldFailure

US hits out at UN business class lifestyle
18 March 2013


File picture shows a UN peacekeeper raising the UN flag.

AFP - The United States is taking aim at "excessive" business class air travel by UN staff as it presses a campaign to restrain the global body's multi-billion dollar budget.

Complaints by the United States and other cash-strapped western nations have been bolstered by revelations that nearly three quarters of the money spent on air fares at UN headquarters goes on business class. That is "clearly unjustifiable," said Joseph Torsella, the US envoy who since 2011 has been leading a US war on "waste" at the UN.

Rules on business class travel are "out of whack" and the failure to enact "common sense and overdue reforms is creating a system that is ripe for abuse," the US envoy for UN management and reform told AFP. The United Nations spent at least $769 million of its general budget of more than $5 billion in 2010-11 on moving officials and staff around the world, according to UN figures. The peacekeeping department, which has its own budget, spent another $200 million.

Some $54 million of the $74 million of air tickets bought at the main headquarters in New York and Geneva were business class. Diplomats say the figure is probably much higher as no clear figures have been given. "There are are a series of loopholes that are just on the face of it crazy," Torsella said. Most UN staff travel under a 1990 system where a lump sum of 75 percent of the full economy class fare can be given. UN auditors estimate that this now costs 83 percent more than current regular fares.

Mexico's abusive well-heeled get rare comeuppance
9 May 2013
By MARK STEVENSON


Humberto Benitez

MEXICO CITY (AP) -- The arrogant among Mexico's well-heeled got a sharp rebuke Thursday, when two women who crashed in a Porsche and injured a pedestrian were hauled off to jail while threatening police and proclaiming their political connections after what authorities said appeared to be an all-night drinking spree.

Federal authorities, meanwhile, suspended four officials in the country's consumer protection agency for allegedly punishing a restaurant that had angered the daughter of the agency's chief prosecutor last month.

Mexicans have long complained about such behavior, but social media have made it easier to document and ridicule people involved, as happened with both incidents, and tolerance for such behavior has dropped. Police officers, who get little pay and less respect, often bear the brunt of the arrogant, and traffic stops involving politicians' relatives can end with the threatening phrase, "You don't know who you're messing with." But the city government said it is following a policy of "zero tolerance for impunity" to the long-standing custom of wealthy or well-connected citizens browbeating cops into releasing them.