UN migration agency elects American as 1st woman director, replacing her European boss

International Organization for Migration (IOM) Deputy Director-General Amy Pope of the US gestures during a press conference after being elected as new UN migration chief in Geneva, on May 15, 2023. (AFP)
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Updated 16 May 2023
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UN migration agency elects American as 1st woman director, replacing her European boss

  • Eight of the agency’s 10 directors general since the International Organization for Migration was founded 72 years ago have been American

GENEVA: Amy Pope of the United States elbowed aside her European boss Monday to land the top job at the International Organization for Migration, winning her bid to become the first woman to lead the UN migration agency.
Pope, 49, defeated IOM Director General Antonio Vitorino of Portugal, the European Union candidate, who swept into the post five years ago by trouncing a candidate put up by the Trump administration for a job that has long been held by Americans.
Vitorino’s prospects for a second term were clouded after Pope, with strong backing from the Biden administration, won the first round on a 98-67 vote. After a lunch break, word emerged that Vitorino had pulled out of the race.
His withdrawal paved the way for Pope to win by acclamation after member states decided to forgo what was suddenly a formality: the IOM rules requiring a two-thirds majority to win an election.
“It’s an incredible moment in time to lead the International Organization for Migration, and I could not be happier to stand before you today to start that work,” she told reporters after the closed-door voting by secret ballot and a speech to delegates afterward.
Pope and Vitorino shook hands and smiled as they arrived together for the announcement that she had won. She is expected to start her five-year term on Oct. 1, the IOM said in a statement.
The face-off was unusual in that Pope was looking to unseat her boss in a contest between allies. The United States and Portugal are fellow NATO members.
The move also caps a renewed push by the Biden administration to maintain or recoup top posts in UN institutions, including the World Food Program, children’s agency UNICEF, and the International Telecommunications Union, in recent months — after the Trump administration largely shunned several Geneva institutions.
“Ms. Pope’s election reflects a broad endorsement by member states of her vision to keep people at the heart of IOM’s mission, while implementing key governance and budget reforms to ensure IOM is prepared to meet the challenges it faces,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.
Eight of the agency’s 10 directors general since the International Organization for Migration was founded 72 years ago have been American. The organization has nearly 19,000 staff members working in 171 countries to promote “humane and orderly” migration.
“The situation at the southern border of the United States underscores why it’s so critical that we approach migration from a much more comprehensive point of view,” Pope said. “Many of those migrants have gone through extraordinary circumstances to end up at the border.”
Its job in many of its 560 field offices is to provide migrants with food, water, shelter and help with government-imposed paperwork. The agency also collects and shares vast amounts of data about flows of people to governments, and advises them on policy decisions.
Vitorino won praise for boosting the budget and staff at IOM, helping to hire and promote more women into top positions, and reaching out to developing countries, supporters said.
Vitorino, 66, is a former European Union commissioner for Home and Justice Affairs and think-tank chief who cut his teeth in politics as a Portuguese Socialist, much like UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
Pope, a former prosecutor, served as migration adviser to President Joe Biden early in his administration and recently was Vitorino’s deputy for reform and management.
The US and the EU are both major funders of IOM facing challenges with mass migration. Critics fault the EU for failing to do more to prevent migrants from taking often-deadly boat trips across the Mediterranean Sea from North Africa to Europe.
Geneva-based UNHCR, the UN refugee agency — which has some overlap with what IOM does — and others have expressed concern about how changes to US migration law will affect people trying to cross the US-Mexico border.
Pope is likely to face extra scrutiny in whether she speaks out against any perceived missteps in Biden’s migration policy, and she alluded to the difficulties faced by migrants who trek across central America to reach the United States.
“As the director-general for the International Organization for Migration, I’m not working for the United States government,” she said. “So my view is that it is important that we as an organization call out practices, no matter who they’re coming from, and acknowledge whether they work or they don’t work.”
IOM, which counts 175 member countries, is responding to mass migration crises in places as diverse as Bangladesh, Ukraine, Sudan and South American nations that neighbor Venezuela.

 


Pope Leo XIV visits Vatican’s hilltop summer residence that Francis turned into museum

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Pope Leo XIV visits Vatican’s hilltop summer residence that Francis turned into museum

The center is located in the gardens of the Vatican’s Castel Gandolfo property on Lake Alban
Pope Urban VIII built the palace on the northern end of town in 1624

ROME: Pope Leo XIV visited the papal summer palace south of Rome on Thursday as questions swirled whether he will use it himself to escape the heat or follow in Pope Francis’ footsteps and keep the hilltop estate as a museum and environmental center.

Leo paid a visit to the Borgo Laudato Si, an educational sustainability project that grew out of Francis’ 2015 environmental encyclical “Praised Be,” the Vatican said. The center is located in the gardens of the Vatican’s Castel Gandolfo property on Lake Alban in the hills south of Rome.

Pope Urban VIII built the palace on the northern end of town in 1624, to give popes an escape from the sweltering Roman summers. It was enlarged over succeeding pontificates to its present size of 55 hectares (136 acres), which is actually bigger than Vatican City itself.

Popes past used it regularly in summer, and Pope Benedict XVI famously closed out his papacy in the estate on Feb. 28, 2013. But Francis, a homebody who never took a proper vacation during his 12-year pontificate, decided to remain in Rome in summer.

In 2014 he decided to open Castel Gandolfo’s gardens to the public, and later turned part of the palazzo itself into a museum, in part to help offset the economic downturn the town experienced with no popes holding weekly Sunday prayers there in summer.

Leo, a former missionary priest who spent the bulk of his priesthood in Peru, hasn’t said where he will live full-time in Rome, much less whether he will use the palace as a summer getaway.

The sustainability project, which is open to the public, has taken over operations of the working farm in the gardens of the estate, which includes 20 hectares (50 acres) of agricultural and farming land, greenhouses and service buildings.

The farm, which provides dairy and fresh produce to the Vatican, aims to create a “circular economy” in keeping with the call of Francis’ encyclical to better care for God’s creation.

Jailed ex-aide to Georgia kingpin claims he was snatched abroad

Updated 5 min 14 sec ago
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Jailed ex-aide to Georgia kingpin claims he was snatched abroad

  • The case has intensified scrutiny of the role of Ivanishvili in Georgian politics
  • Speaking at a court hearing Thursday, Bachiashvii said he had been blindfolded and held incommunicado for two days

TBILISI: An ex-aide to Georgia’s powerful tycoon Bidzina Ivanishvili said on Thursday that he had been snatched while abroad, forcibly flown back to Georgia, and arrested on his former boss’s orders.

Giorgi Bachiashvili, the former head of Ivanishvili’s Co-Investment Fund, fled Georgia in March amid mounting legal troubles following a falling out with the country’s most powerful man.

The case has intensified scrutiny of the role of Ivanishvili — who wields enormous influence behind the scenes — in Georgian politics.

Georgia’s state security service said Tuesday it had arrested Bachiashvili, a dual Georgian-Russian national, inside Georgia, near the border with Azerbaijan, following an anonymous tip.

But speaking at a court hearing Thursday, Bachiashvii said he had been blindfolded and held incommunicado for two days in an undisclosed country before being forced onto a plane and flown back to Georgia “in complete violation of the law.”

“Acting on Bidzina Ivanishvili’s orders, Georgian officials resorted to banditry and brought me back to Georgia through abduction,” he said.

While abroad Bachiashvili, had been sentenced in absentia to 11 years in prison for alleged embezzlement and money laundering.

“I consider myself absolutely innocent of all charges. Today it became clear that I am a personal prisoner of Ivanishvili,” he told the court.

His lawyer Robert Amsterdam has denounced the case as politically motivated and accused the Georgian authorities of abusing international legal tools to persecute dissenters.

Widely seen as Georgia’s key power broker, billionaire Ivanishvili is the founder and honorary chair of the ruling Georgian Dream party.

He holds enormous sway over the party and the government, including the formal power to nominate its choice of prime minister.

Georgian Dream, in power for more than a decade, has been accused by critics of steering the country away from the West and toward Russia — a claim it denies.

Georgia was gripped by mass protests for weeks last year following a disputed parliamentary election in October and the government’s subsequent decision to freeze its EU membership bid.


Tens of thousands demonstrate in Nepal seeking restoration of ousted monarchy

Updated 25 min 45 sec ago
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Tens of thousands demonstrate in Nepal seeking restoration of ousted monarchy

  • Massive street protests in 2006 forced Gyanendra to give up his authoritarian rule, and two years later the parliament voted to abolish the monarchy

KATHMANDU: Tens of thousands of protesters demanding the abolished monarchy be restored and the former king be made the head of state of the Himalayan nation demonstrated in Nepal Thursday.

The protesters, waving flags and chanting slogans, demanded the return of the king and the restoration of Hinduism as a state religion as they marched through the main circle in the capital, Kathmandu.

Just a few hundred meters (feet) from the pro-monarchy protesters, their opponents, who are supporters of the Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Oli, had gathered at the exhibition grounds to celebrate Republic Day.

There was fear that these two groups could likely clash and create trouble in the city. Hundreds of riot police kept the two groups apart and authorities had given them permission on different times to take out their rallies.

Nepal abolished the monarchy and turned the nation into a republic in 2008, bringing in a president as the head of the state.

“Bring king back to the throne and save the country. We love our king more than our lives,” the estimated 20,000 protesters chanted with a few playing traditional drums and musical instruments.

“We are going to continue our protests until the centuries-old monarchy is brought back and the country turned in to a Hindu stage for the interest of the country,” said Dil Nath Giri, a supporter of the former king at the rally.

The pro-monarchy supporters had announced they were restarting their protests from Thursday.

In their last big protest on March 28, two people including a television cameraman, were killed when protesters attacked buildings and set them on fire while police fired bullets and tear gas on the protesters. Several protesters arrested on that day are still in jail.

There has been growing demand in recent months for Gyanendra Shah to be reinstated as king and Hinduism to be brought back as a state religion. Royalist groups accuse the country’s major political parties of corruption and failed governance and say people are frustrated with politicians.

Massive street protests in 2006 forced Gyanendra to give up his authoritarian rule, and two years later the parliament voted to abolish the monarchy.

Gyanendra, who left the Royal Palace to live as commoner, has not commented on the calls for the return of monarchy. Despite growing support, the former king has little chance of immediately returning to power.


Russia slams Israeli attacks on Gaza as ‘collective punishment’ of civilians

Updated 34 min 6 sec ago
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Russia slams Israeli attacks on Gaza as ‘collective punishment’ of civilians

MOSCOW: Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Thursday slammed Israeli attacks on Gaza as “collective punishment of the civilian population,” in some of Moscow’s strongest criticism of Israel as it steps up its offensive.
Lavrov said “measures taken by Israel” in response to the October 7 attack by Hamas “constitute collective punishment of the civilian population,” calling what was happening in Gaza “incomprehensible and indescribable.”


Marcos orders all CEOs of Philippine government-owned corporations to quit

Updated 29 May 2025
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Marcos orders all CEOs of Philippine government-owned corporations to quit

  • Last week, Marcos requested all his Cabinet secretaries to render their resignations
  • Reshuffle follows his allies’ recent failure to secure majority of contested Senate seats

MANILA: Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has ordered all ranking executives of government-owned and controlled corporations to resign, days after asking his Cabinet members to step down.

All appointed chairpersons, CEOs, directors, trustees, and members of governing boards of government-owned and controlled corporations were asked to “immediately submit their respective courtesy resignations to the President through the Office of the Executive Secretary,” according to a notice from the Governance Commission for GOCCs, which was released on Wednesday.

The move follows Marcos’ request last week for his government members to render their resignations as he attempted to address the public’s dissatisfaction over his administration’s performance.

Most of his Cabinet secretaries have either immediately submitted their resignations or expressed their readiness to do so.

“This process is part of a rigorous and ongoing evaluation of government performance not only at the Cabinet level but across the entire bureaucracy,” Lucas Bersamin, executive secretary of the Philippines — the head and highest-ranking official of the Office of the President — told reporters on Thursday.

“The people expect results, and the president has no patience for underperformance. In line with this, the president has also instructed the heads of government-owned and controlled corporations to submit their courtesy resignations. He has further indicated that senior officials will likewise be included in the continuing review.”

Marcos’ decision to reshuffle the Cabinet and leadership of state-owned corporations follows his allies’ failure to secure a majority of contested Senate seats in the May 12 midterm elections, raising questions about his weakened mandate for the remaining three years of his term, which ends in 2028.

The son of the late Philippine dictator who was overthrown in 1986, Marcos won the presidency by a landslide in 2022 after campaigning on a message of national unity and presenting himself as a candidate of change.

Public support for the 67-year-old leader has, however, dropped sharply this year, with Pulse Asia surveys showing his approval rating falling to 25 percent in March, from 42 percent in February.

The survey showed that a majority of Filipinos disapproved of the Marcos administration’s handling of the most pressing issues, including controlling inflation and combating corruption, with disapproval rates at 79 percent and 53 percent, respectively.

The bureaucrats and executives affected by the president’s decision will continue in their roles unless and until the Office of the President issues further directives or formally acts on their resignations.

“All these people who offered their courtesy resignations are expected to continue performing their functions, discharging their duties until their replacements have been appointed,” Bersamin said.

“And that is expected of all public servants; no one abandons because that is part of the obligation of a public servant.”