World News

United Nations Health Organization Continues to Struggles with Rampant Travel Abuses

NEW YORK – The World Health Organization spent nearly $192 million on travel expenses last year, with staffers sometimes breaking the agency’s own rules by traveling in business class, booking expensive last-minute tickets and traveling without the required approvals, according to internal documents obtained by The Associated Press.

The abuses could spook potential donors and partners as the organization begins its week-long annual meeting Monday in Geneva, seeking increased support to fight a devastating outbreak of Ebola in Congo and other deadly diseases including polio , malaria and measles.

The nearly $192 million is down 4% from 2017, when the agency pledged to rein in travel abuses following an AP investigation .

Recent documents show WHO auditors found some WHO staffers were still brazenly misrepresenting the reasons for their travel to exploit loopholes in the organization’s policies and flying business class, which can be several times more expensive than economy, even though they did not meet the criteria to do so.

In response to questions from the AP, WHO said Monday that “travel is often essential to reaching people in need” and noted that 55% of its travel spending went to bring outside experts and country representatives, often from developing countries, to technical and other meetings.

It added that numerous new measures were adopted in 2018 that aimed to make sure “staff travel is necessary, economical, appropriate and efficient.”

“When staff travel, they do a range of things, including responding to emergencies, assessing countries’ emergency preparedness, implementing vaccine and other public health campaigns, training health workers and more,” the agency said.

But the WHO’s inability to significantly curb its expenses could undermine its credibility and make it more difficult to raise money to fight health crises, according to Sophie Harman, a global health professor at Queen Mary University in London. She said the problem wasn’t so much the amount that WHO was spending on travel, but how it was being used.

“WHO needs to get its own house in order to legitimately go to the international community saying, ‘We need more money for Ebola,’” she said.

Among other responsibilities, WHO is the U.N. agency charged with setting global health guidelines and coordinating the response to health emergencies around the world. Its approximately $2 billion annual budget is mainly drawn from the taxpayer-funded contributions from member countries. The U.S. is WHO’s biggest contributor.

During this week’s World Health Assembly, a yearly gathering of WHO’s highest decision-making body, including member states and donors, the agency will be trying to raise more funds for Ebola and other health priorities. The costs of fighting the Ebola epidemic have left it with a funding gap of more than $50 million.

In 2017, the AP reported that WHO was spending roughly $200 million each year on travel, including first-class airplane tickets and five-star hotels for its director-general, Dr. Margaret Chan, which health experts said exposed the agency’s misplaced priorities.

Amid such criticism, Chan’s successor, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, promised to take action. In response to AP questions, WHO said Monday that Tedros travels in either business class or economy, depending on the distance, and spent $209,000 on travel in 2018.

“WHO’s travel policy prohibits first-class travel for all staff,” the agency said, adding that a host of initiatives have helped cut travel costs.

For non-emergency travel, the proportion of business class flights dropped to 18% last year, from 27% the previous year, according to external auditors. Yet other international aid agencies, including Doctors Without Borders and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, explicitly forbid staff from traveling in business class.

While overall spending on travel has fallen at WHO, abuses continue, documents show. In one report provided to the AP, external WHO auditors analyzed 116 randomly selected travel claims that were flagged as “emergency” requests and therefore exempt from stricter U.N. travel controls. They found proof that in more than half of the claims, the travel was instead for regular duties like attending workshops or speaking engagements.

“We see therefore a culture of non-compliance by staff involved in emergency operations,” the report authors said. “Raising a (travel request) as emergency, even if it is not compliant with the criteria for emergency travel, shows a breakdown in controls and results (in a) waste of resources.”

WHO’s external auditors said when some staffers flew business class even though they didn’t meet the U.N. criteria to do so, they failed to submit paperwork justifying the exception.

“Based on the difference in ticket costs for business class and economy class, savings could have been realized by the organization,” the report said, citing more than 500 travel requests last year that may have broken the rules.

In a series of anonymous emails sent to WHO directors last year, a whistleblower alleged there were numerous instances of “senior staff travelling with girlfriends on fabricated missions,” including during the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa. One message claimed a senior staffer flew to Australia from Geneva “on a trumped-up trip at WHO expense” that cost the organization 11,000 Swiss francs ($10,889).

In December, Tedros ordered an internal probe into these and other misconduct allegations.

According to WHO’s Office of Internal Oversight, 13% of the fraud cases it investigated last year involved alleged problems with travel claims. In one of WHO’s regional offices, investigators found a staffer had submitted void boarding passes as evidence of travel, aiming to get “an unauthorized benefit for an estimated amount of $15,202.” WHO says the staffer resigned and the agency did not suffer any financial losses in the case.

The WHO auditors’ report comes at time of critical financial need for the agency.

WHO emergencies chief Dr. Michael Ryan said this month that WHO’s strategy to contain the spiraling Ebola outbreak in Congo, which has killed more than 1,000 people, exceeded $88 million and that the financial demands to fight Ebola were continuing to grow.

“We have received $34 million and have a current, urgent, critical financial gap of $54 million,” Ryan said.

Harman said WHO needs to pay more attention to staff needs on the front lines of deadly outbreaks. Health workers, many of them poorly equipped, have been killed in Congo by militants rejecting vaccination efforts and other attempts to prevent or treat Ebola.

“There’s a disconnect between the fact that people who are doing safe burials in (Congo) aren’t getting paid, yet someone is using WHO’s travel budget to fund their business-class ticket,” she said.

By Maria Cheng
The Associated Press

World News

Marine Le Pen’s National Rally Wins the First Round in France 2024 Election

Marine Le Pen's far-right National Rally (RN) party scored historic gains in France

Exit polls in France showed that Marine Le Pen’s right-wing National Rally (RN) party made huge gains to win the first round of election on Sunday. However, the final outcome will depend on how people trade votes in the days before next week’s run-off.

Exit polls from Ipsos, Ifop, OpinionWay, and Elabe showed that the RN got about 34% of the vote. This was a big loss for President Emmanuel Macron, who called the early election after his party lost badly in the European Parliament elections earlier this month.

The National Rally (RN) easily won more votes than its opponents on the left and center, including Macron’s Together group, whose bloc was predicted to get 20.5% to 23% of the vote. Exit polls showed that the New Popular Front (NFP), a hastily put together left-wing alliance, would get about 29% of the vote.

The results of the exit polls matched what people said in polls before the election, which made Le Pen’s fans very happy. But they didn’t say for sure if the anti-immigrant, anti-EU National Rally (RN) will be able to “cohabit” with the pro-EU Macron in a government after the runoff election next Sunday.

Voters in France Angry at Macron

Many French people have looked down on the National Rally (RN) for a long time, but now it is closer to power than it has ever been. A party known for racism and antisemitism has tried to clean up its image, and it has worked. Voters are angry at Macron, the high cost of living, and rising concerns about immigration.

Fans of Marine Le Pen waved French flags and sang the Marseillaise in the northern French district of Henin-Beaumont. The crowd cheered as Le Pen said, “The French have shown they are ready to turn the page on a power that is disrespectful and destructive.”

The National Rally’s chances of taking power next week will rest on what political deals its opponents make in the next few days. Right-wing and left-wing parties used to work together to keep the National Rally (RN) out of power, but the “republican front,” which refers to this group, is less stable than ever.

If no candidate gets 50% of the vote in the first round, the top two candidates and anyone else with 12.5% of the registered voters immediately move on to the second round. The district goes to the person who gets the most votes in the runoff.

France is likely to have a record number of three-way runoffs because so many people voted on Sunday. Experts say that these are much better for the National Rally (RN) than two-way games. Almost right away on Sunday night, the horse trade began.

Macron asked people to support candidates who are “clearly republican and democratic.” Based on what he has said recently, this would rule out candidates from the National Rally (RN) and the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) party. Leaders on the far left and the center left both asked their third-placed candidates to drop out.

Minority government

Jean-Luc Melenchon, leader of France Unbowed, said, “Our rule is simple and clear: not a single more vote for the National Rally.” But the center-right Republicans party, which split before the vote when some of its members joined the RN, didn’t say anything.

The president of the RN party, Jordan Bardella, who is 28 years old, said he was ready to be prime minister if his party gets a majority of seats. He has said he won’t try to make a minority government, and neither Macron nor the communist NFP will work with him.

“I will be a “cohabitation” Prime Minister, respectful of the constitution and of the office of President of the Republic, but uncompromising about the policies we will implement,” he said.

A few thousand anti-RN protesters met in Paris’s Republique square on Sunday night for a rally of the leftist alliance. The mood was gloomy.

Niya Khaldi, a 33-year-old teacher, said that the RN’s good results made her feel “disgust, sadness, and fear.”

“This is not how I normally act,” she said. “I think I came to reassure myself, to not feel alone.”

Election Runoff

The result on Sunday didn’t have much of an effect on the market. In early Asia-Pacific trade, the euro gained about 0.23%. Fiona Cincotta, a senior markets expert at City Index in London, said she was glad the outcome “didn’t come as a surprise.”

“Le Pen had a slightly smaller margin than some of the polls had pointed to, which may have helped the euro a little bit higher on the open,” she noted. “Now everyone is waiting for July 7 to see if the second round supports a clear majority or not. So it does feel like we’re on the edge of something.”

Some pollsters thought the RN would win the most seats in the National Assembly, but Elabe was the only one who thought the party would win all 289 seats in the run-off. Seat projections made after the first round of voting are often very wrong, and this race is no exception.

On Sunday night, Reuters reported there were no final results for the whole country yet, but they were due in the next few hours. In France, exit polls have usually been very accurate.

Voter turnout was high compared to previous parliamentary elections. This shows how passionate people are about politics after Macron made the shocking and politically risky decision to call a vote in parliament.

Mathieu Gallard, research head at Ipsos France, said that at 1500 GMT, nearly 60% of voters had turned out, up from 39.42% two years earlier. This was the highest comparable turnout since the 1986 legislative vote. It wasn’t clear when the official number of people who voted would be changed.

World News

Pakistan Seeks US Support for Counter-Terrorism Operation Azm-e-Istehkam

(CTN News) – Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United States, Masood Khan, has urged Washington to provide Pakistan with sophisticated small arms and communication equipment to ensure the success of Operation Azm-e-Istehkam, a newly approved counter-terrorism initiative in the country.

The federal government recently approved the reinvigorated national counter-terrorism drive, which comprises three components: doctrinal, societal, and operational.

Ambassador Khan noted that work on the first two phases has already begun, with the third phase set to be implemented soon.

Addressing US policymakers, scholars, and corporate leaders at the Wilson Center in Washington, Khan emphasized the importance of strong security links, enhanced intelligence cooperation, and the resumption of sales of advanced military platforms between Pakistan and the US.

He argued that this is crucial for regional security and countering the rising tide of terrorism, which also threatens the interests of the US and its allies.

“Pakistan has launched Azm-i-Istehkam […] to oppose and dismantle terrorist networks. For that, we need sophisticated small arms and communication equipment,” said Ambassador Khan.

Pakistan–United States relations

The ambassador observed that the prospects of Pakistan-United States relations were bright, stating that the two countries “share values, our security and economic interests are interwoven, and it is the aspiration of our two peoples that strengthens our ties.”

He invited US investors and businesses to explore Pakistan’s potential in terms of demographic dividend, technological advancements, and market opportunities.

Khan also suggested that the US should consider Pakistan as a partner in its diplomatic efforts in Kabul and collaborate on counterterrorism and the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan.

He stressed that the bilateral relationship should be based on ground realities and not be hindered by a few issues.

“We should not base our engagement on the incongruity of expectations.

Our ties should be anchored in ground realities, even as we aim for stronger security and economic partnerships. Secondly, one or two issues should not hold the entire relationship hostage,” said the ambassador.

World News

China Urges Taiwanese to Visit Mainland ‘Without Worry’ Despite Execution Threat

China Urges Taiwanese to Visit Mainland Without Worry Despite Threats

China has reassured Taiwanese citizens that they can visit the mainland “without the slightest worry”, despite Taiwan raising its travel alert to the second-highest level in response to Beijing’s new judicial guidelines targeting supporters of Taiwanese independence.

Last week, China published guidelines that could impose the death penalty for “particularly serious” cases involving “diehard” advocates of Taiwanese independence.

In response, Taiwan’s government urged the public to avoid “unnecessary travel” to mainland China and Hong Kong, and raised its travel warning to the “orange” level.

However, Zhu Fenglian, a spokeswoman for a Chinese body overseeing Taiwan affairs, stated that the new directives are “aimed solely at the very small number of supporters of ‘Taiwan independence’, who are engaged in malicious acts and utterances”.

She emphasized that “the vast majority of Taiwan compatriots involved in cross-strait exchanges and cooperation do not need to have the slightest worry when they come to or leave mainland China”.

“They can arrive in high spirits and leave fully satisfied with their stay,” Zhu added.

What’s Behind The China-Taiwan Tensions?

The tensions stem from the longstanding dispute over Taiwan’s status. Mainland China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has refused to rule out using force to bring the democratic island under its control, while Taiwan sees itself as a sovereign state.

Beijing has not conducted top-level communications with Taipei since 2016, when the Democratic Progressive Party’s Tsai Ing-wen became Taiwan’s leader. China has since branded her successor, President Lai Ching-te, a “dangerous separatist”.

“The DPP authorities have fabricated excuses to deceive the people on the island and incite confrontation and opposition,” Zhu said in her statement.
Despite the political tensions, many Taiwanese continue to travel to mainland China for work, study, or business.