UNHQ Tells ICP It's Reviewing HABITAT Clos' Comments on Race

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, February 17 -- Within the UN system there are racial tensions, some time at the fore, often under the surface. Now comes a complaint concerning the head of UN-HABITAT Joan Clos, that at a staff retreat at a restaurant in Nairobi he held forth, in English and Spanish, about “a good White man looking for a poor 'Negro' to help.” See complaint, here, and embedded below.

 On February 16, Inner City Press asked UN Deputy Spokesperson Farhan Haq about the complaint; he said to just ask HABITAT. But isn't Ban Ki-moon, and OIOS, going to review it?

On February 17, Inner City Press asked lead UN Spokesman Stephane Dujarric the same question, Video here. UN transcript here:

Inner City Press: Yesterday, I'd asked Farhan about this letter from staff in Kenya to Ban Ki-moon and OIOS [Office of Internal Oversight Services] about Joan… Joan Clos of Habitat, complaining about things that he said that had a… they believe a racial nature.  He said to ask Habitat.  So Habitat has confirmed they received the letter.  But I still want to ask.  Since the letter was, in fact, addressed to OIOS and Ban Ki-moon, particularly in the OIOS case, does OIOS have jurisdiction over Habitat?  Is the… has a decision been made that this letter will only be considered by Habitat itself who’s run by the…

Spokesman Dujarric:  Yes, OIOS, if I'm not mistaken, has jurisdiction over Habitat.  We're obviously very much aware of the allegations in the letter, and we're examining the claims according to due process.

  Tick tock. Clos appears to have been quoting the title of a book by author Gustau Nerin, “Blanco Bueno, Busca Negro Pobre.” But Clos' other reported comments at the HABITAT retreat, held at the Lord Errol Restaurant, also gave rise to the complaint, including a reference to Nairobi, that “there are no serious people here who can think.”

   UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, the addressee of the complaint, has been asked to act on this. In his UN system, it is usually politics and not the facts that determine the outcome.

  Ban has for example continued the pattern of giving the post position at UN Peacekeeping to France (now in the person of Herve Ladsous, who as Inner City Press has reported and asked about linked peacekeepers' rapes in the Central African Republic to “R&R,” here).

 Ban kept the UK atop the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the US in charge of the Department of Political Affairs.

   That Ban did not discipline Ladsous for linking rapes to R&R, the type of comment which would get a military figure fired or demoted in many countries, may be well for Clos. Or does Spain have so much less political juice in the UN system that the outcome will be different? 

Reporting Misconduct against Mr Joan Clos,Executive Director Un Habitat by Boniface Mwangi

 The complaint was also addressed to the UN's Office of Internal Oversight Services, which is currently engaged in an audit of NGOs affiliated with Macau based businessman Ng Lap Seng, Frank Lorenzo and Sheri Yan, indicted in the US for bribery at the UN.

It was also sent to UN human resources and the UN Ethics Office, which along with OIOS was implicated in the cover up of (French soldiers') alleged rapes in the Central African Republic. This is Ban's UN.

  Clos also reported criticized the Japanese development agency JICA; Japan is not only a large UN donor, but current has an elected seat on the UN Security Council.

Inner City Press has been sent multiple copies of the complaint, which was sent to 37 countries' missions; we note that an image of the complaint was Tweeted on February 11 by a Kenyan activist. Contrary for example toReuters, whose UN bureau chief at first sought to minimize or discredit, and then simply stole, Inner City Press February 12 exclusive about new UN rapes in CAR, we note all that. The point now is, what will the UN do? Watch this site.

Comments on Race Attributed To UN-HABITAT Chief Joan Clos Trigger Complaint, Online, to Ban Ki-moon

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, February 16 -- Within the UN system there are racial tensions, some time at the fore, often under the surface. Now comes a complaint concerning the head of UN-HABITAT Joan Clos, that at a staff retreat at a restaurant in Nairobi he held forth, in English and Spanish, about “a good White man looking for a poor 'Negro' to help.” See complaint, here.

   Clos appears to have been quoting the title of a book by author Gustau Nerin, “Blanco Bueno, Busca Negro Pobre.” But Clos' other reported comments at the HABITAT retreat, held at the Lord Errol Restaurant, also gave rise to the complaint, including a reference to Nairobi, that “there are no serious people here who can think.”

   UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, the addressee of the complaint, has been asked to act on this. In his UN system, it is usually politics and not the facts that determine the outcome.

  Ban has for example continued the pattern of giving the post position at UN Peacekeeping to France (now in the person of Herve Ladsous, who as Inner City Press has reported and asked about linked peacekeepers' rapes in the Central African Republic to “R&R,” here).

 Ban kept the UK atop the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the US in charge of the Department of Political Affairs.

   That Ban did not discipline Ladsous for linking rapes to R&R, the type of comment which would get a military figure fired or demoted in many countries, may be well for Clos. Or does Spain have so much less political juice in the UN system that the outcome will be different?

 The complaint was also addressed to the UN's Office of Internal Oversight Services, which is currently engaged in an audit of NGOs affiliated with Macau based businessman Ng Lap Seng, Frank Lorenzo and Sheri Yan, indicted in the US for bribery at the UN.

It was also sent to UN human resources and the UN Ethics Office, which along with OIOS was implicated in the cover up of (French soldiers') alleged rapes in the Central African Republic. This is Ban's UN.

  Clos also reported criticized the Japanese development agency JICA; Japan is not only a large UN donor, but current has an elected seat on the UN Security Council.

Inner City Press has been sent multiple copies of the complaint, which was sent to 37 countries' missions; we note that an image of the complaint was Tweeted on February 11 by a Kenyan activist. Contrary for example to Reuters, whose UN bureau chief at first sought to minimize or discredit, and then simply stole, Inner City Press February 12 exclusive about new UN rapes in CAR, we note all that. The point now is, what will the UN do? Watch this site.

UN Joint Agency with WTO Works on Trans Pacific Partnership, for Corporate Censorship?

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, March 6 -- The UN has a joint agency with the World Trade Organization, and on March 6 at the UN the director of the joint agency the International Trade Centre Arancha Gonzalez, formerly of the WTO, spoke at the UN and praised the pending Trans Pacific Partnership.

Inner City Press when able asked Gonzalez to explain working on the TPP as a UN project, given the range of groups opposed to the TPP, including for example the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Click here.

  As the Free UN Coalition for Access is pursuing, TPP would essentially globalize the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which can be used for censorship -- not only has used by Reuters UN bureau chief to ban from Google's Search an anti-Press complaint he filed with the UN, but more recently to take-down videos of protests. Click here.

  Gonzalez gave a lengthy answer, that trade deals are up to member state, but added that the ICT works so that rules are consistent and not fragmented.  To some this sounds like "race to the bottom."

  Since the press conference was billed as concerning the Commission on the Status of Women, Inner City Press asked Gonzalez which countries ban women from having bank accounts. Saudi Arabia came to mind, but Gonzalez cited Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. We hope to have more on this issue.

   Back on March 4 another UN agency UN HABITAT unveiled "The City We Need" booklet on Tuesday at the UN, in advance of an event at the nearby Ford Foundation. 

  Inner City Press, when able, asked about the corporate sponsors listed in the booklet, including GDF Suez (protested for example about a hydro-electric dam in Brazil), Siemens (Western Sahara) and Veolia, a French firm recently contracted on Syria chemical weapons which does business in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

After thanking the panel including HABITAT's Joan Clos on behalf of the new Free UN Coalition for Access, Inner City Press asked: how were these corporate sponsored vetted?

  The answer, from Nick Yu of the World Urban Campaign, was as is so often the case at the UN that the private sector is important, is a stakeholder. Yes, but what about these particular companies? What is the process? And what is their involvement, beyond paying to be listed in promotional materials?

A goal of the campaign seems to be to try to get a holistic "Cities" Sustainable Development Goal. Inner City Press has reported on a similar move, involving Palau, to get an Oceans SDG. The list is growing.

A panelist who was also a New Yorker, Eugenie Birch, answered Inner City Press question about the last and the current New York City mayors. Bill de Blasio, Birch said, is a corrective on issues of affordable housing and free kindergarten (what about pre-K?). Michael Bloomberg, whose meeting with US Secretary of State John Kerry has yet to be summarized by the UN as Inner City Press has requested, will be at the Ford Foundation. Watch this site.

   

At UN, Censorship Alliance Demands First Question, To Praise & Promote Events and Hashtag, FUNCA Objects

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, March 6 -- In today's UN, the first questions at press briefings are given out automatically so that the briefer can be praised and their events promoted. But it is journalism?

   On March 5 the spokesperson of the President of the General Assembly described an event featuring the PGA then mentioned that Pamela Falk of CBS would be the moderator. Then she gave the first "question" to Falk herself, as president of the United Nations Correspondents Association -- whose question was to ask about the Twitter hashtag for the event. Video here, from Minute 6:20. Is this journalism or promotion?

  On March 6, Falk again took the first question, thanking the noon briefing guest, on behalf of UNCA, for their leadership "in these events." Video here, from Minute 8:35. Is this journalism or promotion?

  Earlier on March 6, Falk's seeming deputy whom on March 4 actively cut off a question, as previously with Bolivian president Evo Morales, again just grabbed the first question by speaking first - but forgot to turn on the microphone, leaving silence on the UN Webcast. Video here from Minute 14.

  On March 4 with the "World Urban Campaign" the subject of a briefingat the UN, UN HABITAT's spokesperson called on Inner City Press to ask the first question.

   But Falk's deputy cut in and demanded to be given the first question, citing UNCA. It is an organization, Evelyn Leopold formerly of Reuters said, and you are not. UN Video here from Minute 20:10, YouTube here, embedded below.

   Her reference was to the new Free UN Coalition for Access. Not that it should matter, but @FUNCA_info has 810 followers, all over the world including for example actual defense of journalists in Somaliland, versus UNCA which has 125 followers and has tried to get journalists thrown out of the UN. 

  Leopold and UNCA have done this before, for example with Bolivia's president Evo Morales in February 2013, click here and here for that (on which we will have more).

  While the UN Secretariat has essentially broken the Staff Union by refusing to recognize the slate that got the most votes in the election held in December, citing procedural violations, today another more obvious procedural breech is scheduled by the UN Secretariat's partner, the United Nations Correspondents Association.

   That group, which in 2012 tried openly and by stealth to get the investigative Press thrown out of the UN and became the UN's Censorship Alliance, is required by its own online "Constitution" to hold its general meeting and financial report in the first half of January. 

    Under 2013-14 president Pamela Falk it never happened; it was twice postponed. More than six weeks late, it was held on March 4 at 4 pm -- at the same time as the World Urban Campaign event at the Ford Foundation that was the subject of the briefing at which Leopold demanded the first question. 

   But the UN Secretariat and Spokesperson's Office, unlike the approach to breaking the Staff Union which actually at times challenges them, says nothing. 

   In fact, a question and answer session was held last month by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the 15 members of UNCA's Executive Committee the transcript or tape of which was never given to other journalists, even UNCA members not among the fifteen.

  Inner City Press on behalf of the new Free UN Coalition for Accessasked Ban's outgoing spokesperson Martin Nesirky for a transcript and was told "get over it," video here.

   Nesirky confirmed that the UNCA executive committee members did not even bring up Ukraine and the disrepute the UN was brought into by the leak that former US official Jeffrey Feltman "got" Ban to send Robert Serry to Ukraine to, in the now-famous phrase, "F*** the EU."

  After not asking that critical UN question, now UNCA as representated by Falk repeats or retweets news about Ukraine, cc-ing UN_Spokesperson. Despite all this, and the fact that when deputy spokesperson Eduardo Del Buey left, his farewell was (appropriately) in the Spokesperson's large office, the March 7 farewell was scheduled in the big room the UN gives UNCA, with its own kitchenette: the UN's Censorship Alliance.

  The censorship goes beyond trying to get the investigative Press -- and others -- thrown out. Inner City Press was ordered to remove from the Internet a story about Sri Lanka and seeming conflict of interest within UNCA's leadership, and was browbeaten about an article about UN Peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous.

  While neither article was removed, one of the "for the record" complaints to the UN Accreditation official now slated to become Ban Ki-moon's new spokesperson on March 10 has been banned from Google's search following a bogus Digital Millennium Copyright Act filing, click here to view: outright censorship.

  (Ironically on February 28 when Inner City Press asked about the banning of a website by the Sri Lankan government, Ban Ki-moon's spokesperson said Ban is committed to free access to the Internet. What about this?)

 To the same UN official, an explicitly internal UNCA document was provided, with the notation "you didn't get this from me," three minutes after the pass-through committed that the document would remain within UNCA: click here for that.

  Under Falk, has UNCA even attempted reforms such as a commitment against censorship, not to spy for the UN or seek to get other journalists thrown out of the UN, or ban things from the Internet? No.

  While UNCA's "leadership" parties, some long time journalists have been thrown out of the UN; others are losing work space and working conditions at the stakeout have declined. The new Free UN Coalition for Access is taking this on. 

  Tellingly, when a petition for at least a journalists' work table at the Security Council stakeout was submitted, the response was to browbeat those who'd signed and ask them why they'd signed. This is the UN. Watch this site.

   

At UN, Censorship Alliance Demands 1st Question, As With Bolivia's Evo Morales, FUNCA

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, March 4 -- With the "World Urban Campaign" the subject of a briefing at the UN on March 4, UN HABITAT's spokesperson called on Inner City Press to ask the first question.

   But another attendee cut in and demanded to be given the first question, citing the United Nations Correspondents Association. It is an organization, Evelyn Leopold formerly of Reuters said, and you are not.UN Vdeo here from Minute 20:10, YouTube here, embedded below.

   Her reference was to the new Free UN Coalition for Access. Not that it should matter, but @FUNCA_info has 797 followers, all over the world including for example actual defense of journalists in Somaliland, versus UNCA which has less than 125 followers and has tried to get journalists thrown out of the UN. 

  Leopold and UNCA have done this before, for example with Bolivia's president Evo Morales in February 2013, click here and here for that (on which we will have more).

  While the UN Secretariat has essentially broken the Staff Union by refusing to recognize the slate that got the most votes in the election held in December, citing procedural violations, today another more obvious procedural breech is scheduled by the UN Secretariat's partner, the United Nations Correspondents Association.

   That group, which in 2012 tried openly and by stealth to get the investigative Press thrown out of the UN and became the UN's Censorship Alliance, is required by its own online "Constitution" to hold its general meeting and financial report in the first half of January. 

    Under 2013-14 president Pamela Falk it never happened; it has twice been postponed. Now it is more than six weeks late, scheduled for today at 4 pm -- at the same time as the World Urban Campaign event at the Ford Foundation that was the subject of the briefing at which Leopold demanded the first question. 

   But the UN Secretariat and Spokesperson's Office, unlike the approach to breaking the Staff Union which actually at times challenges them, says nothing. 

   In fact, a question and answer session was held this month by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the 15 members of UNCA's Executive Committee the transcript or tape of which was never given to other journalists, even UNCA members not among the fifteen.

  Inner City Press on behalf of the new Free UN Coalition for Access asked Ban's outgoing spokesperson Martin Nesirky for a transcript and was told "get over it," video here.

   Nesirky confirmed that the UNCA executive committee members did not even bring up Ukraine and the disrepute the UN was brought into by the leak that former US official Jeffrey Feltman "got" Ban to send Robert Serry to Ukraine to, in the now-famous phrase, "F*** the EU."

  After not asking that critical UN question, now UNCA as representated by Falk repeats or retweets news about Ukraine, cc-ing UN_Spokesperson. Despite all this, and the fact that when deputy spokesperson Eduardo Del Buey left, his farewell was (appropriately) in the Spokesperson's large office, the farewell as week from now will be in the big room the UN gives UNCA, with its own kitchenette: the UN's Censorship Alliance.

  The censorship goes beyond trying to get the investigative Press -- and others -- thrown out. Inner City Press was ordered to remove from the Internet a story about Sri Lanka and seeming conflict of interest within UNCA's leadership, and was browbeaten about an article about UN Peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous.

  While neither article was removed, one of the "for the record" complaints to the UN Accreditation official now slated to become Ban Ki-moon's new spokesperson on March 10 has been banned from Google's search following abogus Digital Millennium Copyright Act filing, click here to view: outright censorship.

  (Ironically on February 28 when Inner City Press asked about the banning of a website by the Sri Lankan government, Ban Ki-moon's spokesperson said Ban is committed to free access to the Internet. What about this?)

 To the same UN official, an explicitly internal UNCA document was provided, with the notation "you didn't get this from me," three minutes after the pass-through committed that the document would remain within UNCA:click here for that.

  Under Falk, has UNCA even attempted reforms such as a commitment against censorship, not to spy for the UN or seek to get other journalists thrown out of the UN, or ban things from the Internet? No.

  While UNCA's "leadership" parties, some long time journalists have been thrown out of the UN; others are losing work space and working conditions at the stakeout have declined. The new Free UN Coalition for Access is taking this on. 

  Tellingly, when a petition for at least a journalists' work table at the Security Council stakeout was submitted, the response was to browbeat those who'd signed and ask them why they'd signed. This is the UN. Watch this site.

   

On Corporate Donations, HABITAT on Ericsson Cites Compact, UN Defers on Samsung, Censors' Set?

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, December 9 -- How does or should the UN "partner" with big private businesses? The question arose recently when Secretary General Ban Ki-moon used a two-question stakeout about sustainable energy to praise Shell Oil and Bank of America, implicated in the 2008 predatory lending meltdown.

On Monday, Inner City Press asked Ban's spokesperson, and UN-HABITAT chief Joan Clos, about being intertwined with Samsung, Ericsson, even TomTom.

  Clos replied that UN-HABITAT only partners or accepts donations or staff from corporation which are members of the UN Global Compact. But is that enough? Can companies use their contributions as a basis for advertising, even an implicit claim of endorsement by the UN?

  The Samsung question is closer to home, right in the UN Headquarters. Inner City Press asked Ban's spokesperson Martin Nesirky about a donation of television screens or sets by Samsung, where the UN reports the donations it gives, and the terms. He said he would check.

  Even before this interim answer was given, another one cut in from long time member of the United Nations Correspondents Association, which as Inner City Press has reported decided to accept a Samsung television screen after being assured there is no conflict of interest by none other than the UN itself.

  While the question Monday was not put to the UNCA representatives in and next to their labeled "Holy Seat," the hissed reply seemed to be that UNCA is not accepting a television screen -- does that mean not accepting any free TV labeled "Samsung," or arguing that it is being lent by the UN out of a donation from Samsung?

  UNCA under its 2013 and apparently 2014 president Pamela Falk sent out this explanation, provided to Inner City Press by an outraged or disgusted UNCA member:

"There was discussion about whether or not UNCA should receive a donation from Samsung and whether or not a Mission was involved. DPI was able to clarify the donation information, which does not involve a mission. This note was received: This is to confirm that once we get the donations from Samsung to the UN, DPI will loan a TV screen to UNCA to replace one of your old ones."

  Is this going forward? And when will the UN answer the questions asked Monday at noon, including about the protests in South Korea about Samsung exposing its workers to environmental diseases?

From the Korea Times in September of this year:

The Lawyers for Democratic Society and a labor rights group of Samsung Electronics have written to the United Nations about occupational diseases among the company’s employees.

The organizations told a press conference in front of Samsung Group headquarters in southern Seoul on Wednesday that the move was designed to pressure Samsung and the Korean Government to take responsibility for occupational diseases and the damage they caused to victims and their families.

“The occurrence of occupational diseases and their consequences are clear violations of labor rights, and the UN must be made aware of this development,” said a spokesperson for the protesting groups.

There are numerous avenues of complaints and petitions that protesters can file with the UN, but the Korean groups chose to put their allegations in a letter.

The letter alleges Samsung has been withholding the results of tests and evaluations in suspected cases of occupational diseases.

It says Ministry of Employment and Labor have failed to stop workers being exposed to harmful chemicals and other hazardous substances, and that tougher initiatives are needed to protect workers’ rights.

  Also in that HABITAT portion of the briefing, Inner City Press asked Clos about HABITAT's work in the Philippines after Typhoon Haiyan. He said they have an office there, then continued that in planning a city (like, say, Tacloban) it is important that 30% be set aside for public space, rather than the two to ten percent that happens under "spontaneous" development. We'll see. Watch this site.

   

Proposed New UN Building by East River Not Vetted for Disaster Risk by UN Expert; Of FEMA (and UN HRC) Politics

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, October 10 -- The UN's building east of First Avenue, north of 42nd Street was full of talk of Disaster Risk Reduction on Thursday. 

When the UN's expert on the topic, Margareta Wahlstrom, came to take media questions, the Free UN Coalition for Access thanked her -- and asked of any risk assessment for the UN's proposed new building just south of 42nd Street, next to the East River. Video here, from Minute 11:41.

Wahlstrom replied, "I must confess, I don't know." She said that after Hurricane Sandy, which dealt a "blow" to the current UN, risk assessment should be done. But has it been?

Back on October 4, Inner City Press for FUNCA thanked UN HABITAT's Joan Clos and asked him about UN proposing to take over Robert Moses Playground, given Clos' preaching about open space. Clos said Habitat only gives advice "when asked."

  So the UN or the UN Development Corporation did not ask UN HABITAT's advice before proposing to take over a playground, and did not ask the UN's Disaster Risk Reduction expert Wahlstrom before proposing building a new building next to the East River, after flooding a year ago. Great planning.

  The Free UN Coalition for Access began asking about this on October 1, in terms of whether the proposed new building would be accessible. Spokesperson Martin Nesirky replied that the building on Robert Moses Playground is only one proposal -- but it has already started the New York City Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, ULURP.

  Something's wrong there.

  Inner City Press also asked Wahlstrom about the Obama administration deeming Federal Emergency Management Agency FEMA workers to be non-essential - could this be politicization? Video here from minute 12:22.

  Wallstrom said emergency management is of course essential. So, like with closing the war veteran memorials, is this politicization? What about asking for a delay in 2014 of the review of the US in the Human Rights Council? 

  It was said the State Department remains functional. Just not on human rights? Or is it that Republicans, many of whom opposed the HRC, won't complain about this delay? Watch this site.

   

UN Praises Open Space But Proposes Taking Playground, of UN-HABITAT, Bike-Shares & Charlatans

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, October 4 -- To celebrate World Habitat Day, the director of UN Habitat Joan Clos told the press Friday about the need for playgrounds and open space, and to plan around the impacts of rising seas.

Inner City Press asked Clos about the UN's proposal to take away the Robert Moses Playground just south of 42nd Street and erect a building described as drab right next to the East River, soon after Hurricane Sandy.

Clos smiled and said, We only advise when we are asked. So apparently the UN (or the UN Development Corporation) has not asked even the UN expert agencies about its proposal. Great planning.

(Actually, UN Spokesperson Martin Nesirky told Inner City Press the building for which UNDC released architect's plans is only one proposal, even though the New York City ULURP land use review process as begun.)

Inner City Press asked asked Clos about New York City's bike-share program. Clos praised it, noting that while poor people want fewer bikes, richer people want more. He started a similar program in Barcelona when he was mayor, he said. (His views on Free Catalonia did not come up.)

  Also on the panel, Professor Thomas Elmqvist or the Stockholm Resilience Center pitched his (free) book on Urbanization and Biodiversity, available online here.

  The first question was taken by the UN Correspondents Association, whose 2013 president Pamela Falk of CBS proceeded to trash Mexico City, calling it "curious" it received any award. 

  Then Falk's sidekick, who often taken the first question in her stead, referred to anyone asking questions about climate change as a "charlatan."

  As when Falk's UNCA hosted Saudi-sponsored Syria rebel boss Ahmad al Jarba for a faux UN briefing in July, it is due to UNCA's politicization (and censorship bids and evenspying for the UN) that Inner City Press co-founded the Free UN Coalition for Access, @FUNCA_info. 

  Whether or not the UN "advises" it -- in fact, the UN's response has been threats -- there is an absolute right to another organization; Friday was just another example of why.

Here is the UN's transcript of UN spokesperson Martin Nesirky on the proposed new building:

Inner City Press: it’s now been released, drawings for this new building on the Robert Moses Playground. And there’s the whole New York City regulatory process to follow. But, given that the plans are now released, I wanted to know if you could just describe, within the UN system, within the UN Secretariat, who’s sort of giving the directions of how it should be done? It’s alternately described as an “emergency back-up center”, as a “high-security building”, and I wanted to know, given the UN’s other duties of transparency and openness to the public, what’s that process been and are there still questions to be raised, or has it been determined how open or closed the building will be to the public?

Spokesperson Nesirky: Well, first of all Matthew, don’t believe everything you read in the media, okay? You say the plans. There has been no decision. And you asked where would the decision come from. And, quite plainly, the decision would need to be made by Member States. The Secretary-General has been asked by the General Assembly to explore different options for the long-term accommodation needs of the Organization. And a report will be submitted to the General Assembly during what’s officially known as its first resumed sixty-eighth session, and that was requested by the previous session of the General Assembly. The new report will include comprehensive information on all viable options, as requested by the General Assembly. One of the many options being studied in the proposal from the UN Development Corporation is to construct a new building, known as the UN Consolidation Building. The decision on one of the options will need to be made by the Member States.

Inner City Press: That’s helpful. Because they did a public hearing on 24 September, and [the United Nations Development Corporation] is presenting this as they have already… I guess they’re ones paying the architect. But, normally, in New York, ULURP process of city planning and City Council doesn’t start until there’s an actual decision to do the building. Are you saying that there is actually no commitment to this plan that they presented at NYU Hospital on the 24th?

Spokesperson Nesirky: That’s precisely what I’m saying, Matthew.

Watch this site.

   

UN Has Over 1000 Staff and 16 Agencies in Syria, Selective Alphabet Soup

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, August 31 -- Amid talk of missile strikes on Syria, the UN has bristled at questions about how many of its international staff are leaving the country.

Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesperson Martin Nesirky said that even after the chemical weapons team left, more than a thousand UN staff remained. He did not distinguish between national and international staff -- a distinction the UN did make after the earthquake in Haiti.

Instead, after US President Barack Obama announced Saturday he will take his intention for military action on Syria to the US Congress, Nesirky's office put out a list of the alphabet soup of 16 UN agencies in Syria:

World Food Programme (WFP), United Nations Department of Safety and Security (UNDSS), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT), Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), World Health Organization (WHO), United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), International Labour Organization (ILO), United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF), United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO), and Office of the Joint Special Representative (OJSR).

This list did not include the International Organization for Migration (IOM), though the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs did include IOM on its list of UN agencies, saying IOM is part of the "UN team."

OCHA also produced a list of international NGOs active in Syria, but then declined to answer Inner City Press' questions about threats by the rebel ISIS group made to NGOs in Jarabulus. So the UN speaks when it wants, for its own reasons. Watch this site.