By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, January 31 -- After the UN announced a climate change post for Michael Bloomberg, Inner City Press asked UN spokesperson Farhan Haq if any thought had been given to possible conflicts of interest, or restrictions on how information or access from the post could be used, given Bloomberg's businesses.
The UN's Haq replied, "I believe appropriate terms of reference have been worked out with former Mayor Bloombeg, that should be an acceptable arrangement devised between them."
Inner City Press asked if these "terms of reference" were public and could be seen. Haq said "No... What's public is a lengthy press release availabe in our office."
But the press release does not address any safeguards on conflict of interest at all.
As Inner City Press noted before the UN's announcement, when Michael Bloomberg was Mayor of New York, in light of obvious conflicts of interest he stepped back from Bloomberg News. He was criticized on issues ranging fromstop-and-frisk to defending banks against minimal City community reinvestment standards.
Now, according to one gushing report, he is poised to move to the United Nations, as envoy on cities and climate change. What about new conflicts of interest, and the above critiques?
To give what credit is due, on the evening of January 30 Reuters' UN bureau issued a breathless "exclusive" with nothing but praise of Bloomberg -- not a word of any criticism, nothing on the conflict of interest with Bloomberg News purporting to cover the UN and Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. Given the percentage of the piece praising Bloomberg, that would seem to be the (anonymous) sourcing.
Meanwhile at the UN on January 30, Inner City Press on climate change asked Ban's acting deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq of documents leaked by Edward Snowdenshowing that the NSA spied on the Copenhagen talks in 2009:
Inner City Press: there’s one of the [Edward] Snowden-released documents, but there’s a reason I’m asking you is it’s published in aDanish website “Information” and it talks about the Copenhagen climate change talks of 2009. And this seems to be the document and it says that the NSA [United States National Security Agency] was involved in monitoring communications at the discussions in order to advise the United States on the position of other Governments and presumably at the UN. So, I’m wondering, this seems to get more closely into things that are of much import to the UN, to the Secretary-General. Is there any response as to this memo coming out and the propriety of such surveillance?
Acting Deputy Spokesperson: Well, we wouldn’t have any specific response to this because ultimately, again, this is a case where we’d need to know what the basic facts are and whether there was any such surveillance that’s happened. However, our basic point that we’ve articulated many times in recent months still holds: that the inviolability of diplomatic premises needs to be respected by all States.
If Bloomberg is named on Friday, or is named at all, what will the coverage of criticism and conflicts of interest be? Watch this site.
Footnote: While giving what credit is due to Reuters' UN bureau, despite their history, it must be noted that the bureau chief has not only spied for the UN -- he has also misused the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act to get Google to block from its search a leaked document showing him trying to get the investigative Press thrown out of the UN. All of this.. is how this UN works, or doesn't.
