Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/un1minhype121408.html
UNITED NATIONS, December 14 -- A police bus was set up in front of the UN on Sunday night. Inside the building was nearly empty, but metal detectors had been erected in the basement by Conference Room 8. It was the calm before the storm. But what storm?
Monday and Tuesday will see diplomatic action on Zimbabwe and the Middle East, Somalia and Congo. Slated to come are Condi Rice and Sergey Lavrov, and the UK's Milliband. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, like Tony Blair, will appear only by video, despite the scheduling Monday of a Sikhs versus France press conference about the Gauls' ban on religious symbols.
Condi is said to be pitching a resolution for UN peacekeepers in Somalia. Since the UK blocked even a bridge force for the Eastern Congo, in which the UN has already spent billions, anything for Somalia seems a long shot. Especially with the U.S. in denial. The quote of the week came from a spokeswoman from the U.S. mission to the United Nations, Nicole Deaner, that "AMISOM is an effective peacekeeping force." Oh really? Then why have the Islamist al-Shabab claimed more and more land, leading to AMISOM's departure?
An article containing Ms. Deaner's quote also cited, without explaining, a professor from North Carolina named Kenneth Menkhaus. He is an advisor of the so-called Enough Project, a subsidiary of the Center for American Progress. Despite the high-sounding name, CAP has refused to reveal its list of donors, even as its director John Podesta bonds with the incoming Obama administration. Was this the change we believed in?
And see, www.innercitypress.com/un1minhype121408.html
