Subject:  Does anyone know this lady????
Date:     Tue, 12 May 1998 184356 -0500 (CDT)
From:     "Roy L. Beavers" <rbeavers@llion.org>
To:       emfguru@hotmail.com
--------------------------------------------------


If anyone "out there" knows Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, it would
be nice if someone who understands the "EMF problem" could talk
to her before Repacholi does.  He will "poison the well." ...[guru]

   
03:27 PM ET 05/11/98

Incoming new chief pledges change at ailing WHO

        
            By Elif Kaban
            GENEVA (Reuters) - The incoming chief of the ailing World
Health Organization promised a policy of transparency as the
U.N. agency's top body met Monday to chart a course for the
future.
             Gro Harlem Brundtland, a physician and three-time Norwegian
prime minister, vowed to ``go in there and make a difference''
at the WHO, which diplomats say is in urgent need of a shake-up.
             ``There is a lot to be done. There has to be
transparency,'' she told reporters as the plenary World Health
Assembly started a week-long meeting with all 191 member states
of the WHO.
             Brundtland -- who was nominated for the top job in January
and takes office from July 21 -- becomes the first woman
director-general of the WHO when the body formally elects her
Wednesday. She is to hold the position for or five years.
             The Geneva meeting will have added political spice with
visits by Cuban president Fidel Castro and U.S. first lady
Hillary Rodham Clinton, who are due to spend a night in the same
hotel.
             Brundtland, a skilled politician who is an outsider to the
U.N. system, faces the unthankful task of reviving one of the
United Nations' sleepier agencies.
             She is taking over an ailing patient with an overweight and
wasteful bureaucracy, top-heavy management and a lack of focus.
             WHO's outgoing autocratic Japanese boss, Hiroshi Nakajima,
has long been accused by the West of mismanagement and lack of
transparency during a controversial 10-year rule at the agency.
             One recent embarrassment was Nakajima's deputy Fernando
Antezana, the agency's second top official whose claims of
holding graduate degrees from Stanford and Harvard were recently
exposed as false on a U.S. television program.
             Another was in Afghanistan, where fellow U.N. agencies
accused WHO of going along too much with the Islamic Taliban
rulers and not challenging their way of dealing with women's
rights.
             Western governments which support Brundtland hope the
58-year-old forthright politician will be able to give the
agency a clean bill of health and restore its sagging
credibility.
             U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala,
whose country has been a staunch support of Brundtland, hailed
her Monday as an ``outstanding leader.''
             Brundtland said she would focus the WHO's resources where
they were needed most -- the developing world. ``The burden of
disease falls on the poor,'' she said, adding she would focus on
fighting malaria and AIDS as well as the scourge of tobacco.
             Brundtland has named her own transitional team to ``get a
picture of the challenge I am facing.''
             Many within the U.N. health agency see Brundtland as the
``new broom'' coming in to clear out the musty WHO.
             But she appears more cautious than the other newcomer on
the U.N. block in Geneva, human rights chief Mary Robinson, who
took office last year with sweeping gestures, promise of rapid
reform and new beginnings for the world body's inherently weak
human rights machinery.
             Asked about the high hopes, Brundtland said simply: ``I
will have an open and transparent communication throughout the
organization and everyone will be asked to do their best.''
        
 ^REUTERS@





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Reprinted with permission of Roy Beavers, http://www.feb.se/EMF-L/EMF-L.html