By Matthew Russell Lee, follow up
UNITED NATIONS, May 18 – While the UN's World Intellectual Property Organization helps North Korea with a patent application for social cyanide (WIPO site here), Inner City Press on May 16 began to ask US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley about it (video here). On May 17, Nikki Haley replied to the question: "All parts of the UN system need to support the Security Council in its efforts to respond to the grave threat of North Korea’s weapons of mass destruction programs. Sodium cyanide is banned for export to North Korea by the Security Council. A common sense reaction would be for WIPO to inform the Council of such patent applications. Its failure to do so may have dangerous consequences.” Inner City Press on May 18 asked UN Spokesman Stephane Dujarric about Ambassador Haley's response - but all Dujarric would do was refer, positively, to a WIPO press release. In its press release, WIPO says "a DPRK individual citizen applicant filed an international patent application under WIPO’s PCT system in respect of a process for production of sodium cyanide." Are there really "individual applicants" in today's North Korea? Isn't the import of sodium cyanide into North Korea a violation of UN sanctions? Dujarric called this WIPO's "very clear explanation." Inner City Press repeatedly asked Dujarric to state if the Secretariat finds WIPO's statement on May 16 -- before Ambassador Haley's response -- sufficient. Apparently yes. We'll have more on this: Inner City Press has asked other UN Security Council members. Watch this site. In an earlier exchange with UN Spokesman Stephane Dujarric, the UN itself acknowledged that the Security Council's Panel of Experts is belatedly looking into it as a possible sanctions violation. Video here, transcript below. Later to May's President of the UN Security Council, Uruguay's Elbio Rosselli, Inner City Press asked about UN WIPO's (non) compliance with UN sanctions, working on a patent for North Korea's production of sodium cyanide. Periscope video here. Ambassador Rosselli said he had not heard of the issue. At the UN's May 16 noon briefing, Inner City Press had asked the UN about that and its reporting that the UN Federal Credit Union, regulated by the US National Credit Union Administration, openly solicits the business of both North Korean employees of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's mission to the UN and the members of the UN Association of the USA (UNA-USA), amid questions of immunity and a previous UNFCU settlement for sanctions violations. UN briefing video here, from Min 10:20.
While a statement from Ambassador Haley about WIPO, and one hopes UNFCU, may be forthcoming, here is Inner City Press' May 16 video:
UN Spokesman Stephane Dujarric dodged on whether Secretary General Antonio Guterres would this time talk to WIPO chief Francis Gurry, as he did not as Gurry deployed criminal defamation law against the press; he also wouldn't answer on UNFCU. UN transcript
