By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, January 31 – When Sweden took over Presidency of the UN Security Council at the beginning of January, Inner City Press asked its Ambassador Olof Skoog about Burundi (as well as Western Saharan and Myanmar).
On Burundi, Skoog on January 3 told Inner City Press it would come up in the month, just that no date has yet been set. This came just after the assassination of a minister and the UN Budget Committee's non-funding of even the personnel the UN has tried, or said it is trying, to send.
When Sweden's month ended on January 31, Burundi had not come up (nor had Myanmar.Western Sahara like Yemen was the subject of the meeting, but decided no Security Council success or even honesty).
After Skoog's (surreal, all-praise) January 31 press conference, Periscope video here, he came to the small focus booth Inner City Press works from, a year after retaliatory eviction by USG Cristina Gallach for seeking to cover UN corruption and a meeting in the UN Press Briefing Room. Inner City Press asked about Burundi.
Skoog said the plan had been to have facilitator Mr. Mkapa come on January 24 but that it had not happened. He said he would ask for it under Ukraine's Presidency of the Council in February. We'll see.
Also unanswered (and not taken) - why was the January meeting on Mali held in an area of the which non-resident correspondents, the status to which Gallach in retaliation for Press questions on her links to the Ng Lap Seng UN bribery case, cannot reach without a minder?
The questions taken were, as often happens at the UN, full of nothing but praise. This is one reason the UN has not improved. We'll have more on this. And Sweden will have a second and last, for these decades, chance in 14 months, and in between. Watch this site.
