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UN Environment Chief Quits After Racking Up A Massive Air Travel Tab
The head of the United Nations Environment is resigning from his position after swirling controversy over his air travel, which reportedly racked up hundreds of thousands of dollars and stained the legacy of the international agency, an audit found.
“As I have maintained throughout this process — I have been and remain — committed to doing what I believe to be in the best interest of UN Environment and the mission we are here to achieve,” said U.N. Environment chief Erik Solheim in a Tuesday statement. “For this reason, after deep reflection and in close consultation with the Secretary-General, I am stepping down as Executive Director of UN Environment.”
Solheim’s resignation comes after an audit from the U.N.’s Office of Internal Oversight Services, which uncovered ballooning travel expenses and a lack of proper documentation of travel logs.
Solheim, who became the U.N. Environment executive director in 2016, reportedly racked up a total of $488,518 over the course of two years, traveling for 529 out of 668 days. Despite leading an agency with the sole mission of improving the climate and reducing the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, Solheim did not appear to mind embarking on international flights — even for the shortest of occasions.
The audit noted one instance in which Solheim took “an eight-hour trip from Washington DC for a weekend in Paris, before taking another flight to New York [C]ity.”
The U.N. Environment did not follow protocol when it came to oversight and documentation of employee travel. When auditors asked for reports of the 596 trips taken by staff, the agency was not able to provide 210 mission reports and about 200 other reports were completed only after the request was made. Solheim’s flights were approved by an individual who reported directly to him — a violation of United Nations rules. (RELATED: OPINION: The UN Was Designed To Fail — And It Does)
Auditors concluded that Solheim’s behavior was “contrary to the ethos of carbon emission reduction.”
“I will remain a committed friend of UN Environment and to all the wonderful individuals and dedicated professionals with whom I have had the privilege to serve,” the outgoing U.N. Environment chief concluded in his statement.
Solheim — who served as a former environment minister in Norway before joining the U.N. — indicated that he reimbursed money where “instances of oversight” took place. His resignation will be effective Nov. 22.
https://dailycaller.com/2018/11/20/un-chief-resigns-expensive-flights/
Homeless in LA were paid for signatures on voter registration forms and ballot initiatives
Nine Los Angeles residents face criminal charges for using cash and cigarettes to entice homeless people to fraudulently sign voter registration forms or ballot initiatives, according to the Los Angeles Times.
The defendants were charged with a range of crimes, including voter fraud, registering a fictitious person, and circulating a petition with fake names.
“That’s an assault on our democracy,” Los Angeles Police Officer Deon Joseph told the Los Angeles Times in September.
The charges were filed against the individuals three weeks ago, and were publicly announced Tuesday.
Raising the stakes: One reason for an increase in this type of voter fraud in Los Angeles is that people can earn a higher price per signature to help qualify initiatives to get on the ballot. From the Times:
People hired to help qualify initiatives for the ballot are often paid per signature collected, typically $1 to $2, but officials said a recent slew of proposed ballot initiatives had pushed the rate as high as $6 a signature. It is illegal for the collectors, however, to pay people for signatures.
Homeless people not charged: One of the charged individuals was arrested after allegedly setting up a table outside a local mission where homeless people line up for food and shelter. A couple of others arrested at that time were homeless, but prosecutors are not charging them.
Did it impact elections? Elections officials in Los Angeles are confident that staff would be able to identify and remove forgeries by manually comparing petition signatures with those on registration forms, but the danger of potential fraud undermining confidence in elections still exists.
Los Angeles County elections chief Dean Logan told the Times he was concerned about “any activity that causes voters to lose faith in the process.”
The nine people charged face up to four years and eight months in prison if convicted.
https://www.theblaze.com/news/2018/11/20/homeless-in-la-were-paid-for-signatures-on-voter-registration-forms-and-ballot-initiatives
Nikki Haley Slams UN For Equating Hamas With Israel
UN Ambassador Nikki Haley slammed Security Council members Monday for drawing a moral equivalence between the Hamas terror group and the State of Israel.
Haley, who spoke during the Security Council’s monthly session on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, is also expected to push a new resolution condemning the use of terror tactics by Hamas, including the firing of rockets into civilian populations, the launch of incendiary devices across the border into Israel and the construction of subterranean attack tunnels into Israeli territory.
Her remarks came in response to UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Nikolay Mladenov’s statement that “all parties” should use “maximum restraint” over the recent two-day flareup between Israel and Hamas.
“Fact: There is only one side that attacks indiscriminately [Hamas]. One side that targets civilians. One side that terrorizes to achieve its objectives,” Haley said, pointing to the fact that Hamas launched close to 500 rockets in a 24-hour period.
“Even if you accept Hamas’s excuse that it launched its missiles in response to an Israeli covert operation, you cannot escape the fact that the Gaza terrorists targeted civilians in response. Their actions were not actions of a nation exercising self-defense, but of a terrorist group seizing a pretext to kill civilians,” Haley said.
“The PIJ is yet another terrorist proxy that Iran calls on to stoke violence and instability in the region,” Haley added, referencing Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Gaza’s second-largest terror group.
By omitting any mention of Iran, Haley said, Mladenov failed to place the narrative in its proper context.
However, she said she agreed with Mladenov on his assessment that both parties must work towards finding a just solution.
“Both sides must work to resolve the conflict in the Middle East. Neither side can get everything it wants. Both sides must compromise. And compromise can only begin with a clear, honest and complete appraisal of the facts on the ground,” Haley said.
Haley, who is set to leave her post in the new year, has been coordinating with her Israeli counterpart Danny Danon to garner support from other envoys for a resolution condemning Hamas, Israel’s Hebrew-language Ynet news site reported.
“The efforts and diplomatic activity to promote the draft resolution condemning Hamas stresses Haley’s steadfast support of Israel. Through joint efforts we have managed to change the hostile approach against Israel at the UN. Now the time has come to recruit the world to join us in our fight against terror,” Danon stated.
“Hamas is a deadly terror organization, which must be dealt with on all fronts, and especially in the diplomatic arena,” he said.
https://www.breitbart.com/middle-east/2018/11/20/nikki-haley-slams-un-for-equating-hamas-with-israel/
Israeli Operations in Syria Curbed Iran and Hezbollah – IDF Chief of Staff
According to the outgoing Israel Defense Forces (IDF) chief of staff, Iran was unable to give Hezbollah precision missile weapons because of Israeli bombings in Syria.
The military capabilities of Iran and Hezbollah near Israel's northern border are much smaller than they could be because of successful actions by Israel, outgoing IDF Chief of Staff Gen. Gadi Eisenkot said in a Monday statement.
The departing general said that the Israeli army will continue to counter Iran's attempts to take root in Syria and create a missile delivery route to Hezbollah in Lebanon.
During his trip to the northern border, Eisenkot "praised the armed forces for their actions aimed at preventing the consolidation of Iranian forces in Syria and Iranian attempts to move precision missile weapons to the ‘Hezbollah' terrorist organization," the statement reads.
The chief of staff, whose service ends on December 31, underscored that the military capabilities of Iran and Hezbollah are far from what they had hoped, and this is the result of continuous and successful Israeli operations.
"The fact that Iran's abilities are far from what it had aspired to is a result of an ongoing operational activity," Eisenkot said Tuesday.
"The army will continue to act in order to void such attempts [to move missile weapons to Lebanon], while simultaneously upkeeping the long-term security of the northern border," the statement reads.
Tel Aviv acknowledges that the IDF has conducted 200 bombings in Syria over the last two years and says it's ready to continue its operations, despite the reinforcement of Syrian air defenses with Russian S-300 missile systems.
The systems were shipped to Syria as a response to the downing of a Russian Il-20 aircraft by Syrian S-200 missile systems firing at Israeli jets, which Moscow has blamed on Tel Aviv.
On Tuesday, a vetting committee approved the candidacy of Maj. Gen. Aviv Kochavi for the position of IDF chief of staff, according to a Times of Israel report. He is expected to step into the role at the beginning of next year.
Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman resigned last week, shortly after an Israeli offensive involving heavy bombing and ground special forces operations in the Gaza Strip. Lieberman appointed Kochavi as Eisenkot's successor while he was still in office.
https://sputniknews.com/military/201811211069990334-israel-syria-iran-hezbollah-operations/
https://qmap.pub/
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