Kerry's UN and Peace Corps fascination expalined

Peace Corps Online: Off-Topic Bulletin Board: Peace Corps Special Operations Section(services and planning) 04/24 04:04am [1]: Peace Corps Special Operations Section(services and planning) : Kerry's UN and Peace Corps fascination expalined

By Anonymous (static-3m-b2-174.highspeed.eol.ca - 64.56.232.174) on Saturday, May 22, 2004 - 3:55 pm: Edit Post

Front Page Story
Teresa Heinz-Kerry put UN on Internet Map
by Judi Mcleod

May 19, 2004

Long before John Forbes Kerry was cashing in on his JFK initials for a run at the U.S. presidency, his future wife was beating a path to the front door of the United Nations.

In fact, through her Tides Foundation, Teresa Heinz-Kerry gave the United Nations an up-and-running, massive, transnational electronic communications network, the Institute for Global Communications, IGC for short.

IGC is one of the Tides Foundation’s largest ongoing projects. IGC and its offshoot, the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) are divisions of the 501©, non-profit, charitable institution, funded by Heinz-Kerry, currency speculator George Soros, journalist Bill Moyers and the Ford Foundation.

In terms of collusion with the world’s largest bureaucracy, in 1987, at the UN World Commission on Environment and Development (UNCED), chaired by Gro Harlem Brundtland, IGC took a front seat shared only by special UN advisor Maurice Strong and Sir Shridath Ramphal, former Secretary-General of the British Commonwealth.

Then married to Senator John Heinz, Teresa met Kerry for the first time at an Earth Day rally in 1990 and ran into him again at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, where she was representing U.S. non-governmental organizations.

In 1990, her husband, the senator was killed in an airplane crash. It was in 1993 that she began dating her husband, the would-be president, and in 1995 that she became his second wife.

Having worked as a UN interpreter in Geneva in the 60s where she met her first husband, Heinz-Kerry’s much more than just another socialite.

In providing the UN Internet contact to the developing world, Teresa Heinz-Kerry is key.

In 1987, GreenNet in England began collaborating with IGC, which operates PeaceNet, EcoNet, ConflictNet and LaborNet in the United States.

According to an APC account, the two giant networks began sharing their electronic conference materials and demonstrated that transnational electronic communications could serve international, as well as domestic committees working for peace, human rights and the environment.

It was an ambitious plan but the innovation proved so successful that by late 1989, networks included Sweden (NordNet), Canada (Web), Brazil (AlterNex), Nicaragua (Nicaro) and Australia (Pegasus).

In short, the new networks, which came on stream, were now exchanging information with each other and with IGC and GreenNet.

In the spring of 1990, the Tides Foundation funded APC with the specific goal "to coordinate the operation and developing of an emerging global network."

In terms of global scope, this is no small potatoes network. As of June 1996, the APC has 21-member networks on stream--serving over 40,000 activists, educators, non-profits and NGOs in more than 133 countries.

The APC also exchanges emails and selective conferences with 40 partner networks world wide, many of whom are expected to become full APC members in the future--and many providing the only electronic computer connectivity for the NGOs of their particular countries.

APC members networks pay a percentage of their income to the APC Secretariat "to diversify the growth of the operation."

On an Internet description, APC boasts that it has "helped enable NGOs to participate in important policy-making areas, such as the UN Conference on Environmental and Development (UNCED).

As an indication of the close alignment between Heinz-Kerry’s IGC/APC and the UN, some 17 UN offices use them as an information provider and communications mediums for collecting and disseminating information on global change issues.

In fact, APC has been present at all UN conferences since 1995.

APC, which has morphed into a communications octopus, started out with a single employee, Edie Farwell, an environmentalist and anthropologist specializing in cross-cultural communications.

Folks will be happy to know that APC rates Edie as someone who "brings a strong people focus to the organization."

Quarterly meetings of the APC are held on-line, and the organization holds face-to-face meetings annually. Reporters, like other members of the public at large, are unwelcome.

Unlike the U.S. and other governments of the world, each network under APC must operate 24 hours a day.

Heinz-Kerry is not exactly Churchillian in terms of democracy. The membership of an APC network may be terminated by the member organization or by a two-third vote of the APC council.

A minimum of three full-time staff and a budget of at least US$53,100 plus local expenses are recommended for an emerging new network.

One of the networks, The Earth Island Institute carried the Sept. 14, 2001 headline: "US Responds to Terrorist Attacks with Self-Righteous Arrogance".

EcoNet, which joined IGC, was the first and largest network serving the environmental movement.

APC explains the diversity of its burgeoning network thus: "EcoNet is dramatic with users from such diverse groups as Dow Chemical, the Environment Defense Fund and Earth First!"

Tides, states APC, "provides an easy means for both organizations to acquire non-profit status."

Are you listening up, IRS?

"Also, being affiliated with Tides allows the IGC and APC more time to focus on new developments in their systems, instead of burdening themselves with other financial, legal or administrative logistics of running a non-profit organization."

Under the regulations applying to tax-exempt, not-for-profit organizations, the IGC "has had to openly pronounce that its networks are for educational and charitable purposes only."

In the IGC manual, under the usage rules, it states "the network shall not be used in any substantial way to carry on propaganda, to influence legislation, or to intervene in any political campaign. It may be used, however, to discuss in a non-partisan way legislation, politicians and campaigns, and only up to five percent of the total resource time of staff may go to working on political causes and towards lobbying efforts."

Guess they don’t consider President George W. Bush a political cause.

In any case, the Tides Foundation Board of Directors decided to embrace the don’t-go-there regulation under the guidelines of the IRS, and an annual review is supposed to be conducted of the Tides organization to determine compliance.

Confesses APC: "The networks profess to exist for educational purposes and cannot be used to directly influence the outcome of legislation or elections.

"But this is a fine line that staff at IGC admit is difficult to administer at times." (Emphasis ours).

Meanwhile, Teresa Heinz-Kerry who promised "to be me in the White House" at an April 24 Montecito fundraiser, already has a leg up at Manhattan’s scandal-ridden UN headquarters.

Canada Free Press founding editor Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 25 years experience in the print media. A former Toronto Sun columnist, she also worked for the Kingston Whig Standard and the former Brampton Daily Times.

-------------------------------------------------

The heinz global empire was always there. After his death in a plane accident in 1993(Senator)Heinz corporation seems to have just changed form into an NGO. There is little difference between a global NGO and conventional global businesses. Kerry married her in 1995 after a Fonda introduction and this may explain some of their fascination with the UN and Peace Corps.


Posting is currently disabled in this topic. Contact your discussion moderator for more information.