In UNSC race, Finland PR Tells ICP Has 165 Commitments, Aussie Echo

By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive

UNITED NATIONS, October 16 -- Two days before the UN elections for Security Council seats, Finland's Permanent Representative Jarmo Viinanen told Inner City Press his country has 165 committed votes.

  Since as also exclusively reported yesterday supporters of Luxembourg are using a figure of 150 promises, this Finnish count seemed incongruous. Inner City Press replied to Ambassador Viinanen, "If people can be believed."

  Viinanen told Inner City Press, "I cannot doubt when my colleagues and my friends say that they will support us. I believe in them."

  By this math, even in the light most favorable to Australia, it could get the 28 votes not "committed" to Finland, and the 43 that Luxembourg's not claiming, for a total of 71. While we don't expect a vote count that low, it would be grist for a growing debate in Australia if the country over-spent in its bid to return to the Security Council.

  In the other, Asia race Cambodia's representative Hor Nam Bora has made another pitch to Inner City Press, after responses to his first and surprising candid argument. This one includes:

"As one of nearly 40% of UN member states which have never served on the Security Council and been given the opportunity to influence international affairs at the highest level, Cambodia would represent a new voice -- one of the world’s smaller countries."

We'll have more on this. Watch this site.

For UNSC Seat, Cambodia Rep Contrasts "Rich" South Korea of Ban Ki-moon, Idealistic Bhutan

By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive

UNITED NATIONS, October 11 -- In the race for one UN Security Council seat among South Korea, Cambodia and Bhutan many assume that Seoul's financial pledges and having Ban Ki-moon already in place as Secretary General guarantees that country victory.

  On Thursday morning in front of the General Assembly as Inner City Press covered the other race -- Australia, Finland and Luxembourg -- a Cambodian duo sat on a couch behind the stakeout campaigning. There was a small wooden box on the table in front of their couch.

  They summoned over an African Permanent Representative and met with him for some time. Then they summoned over Inner City Press.

   "Who do you think will win?" was the question. Inner City Press related what it has heard, that despite Bhutan's "cute" campaign around the theme of Happiness, South Korea was campaigning in the same way they did to get Ban Ki-moon elected Secretary General.

  The lead Cambodia campaigner, who gave Inner City Press his business card and said it was fine to report on the meeting, said that Ban as Secretary General should count AGAINST South Korea. 

  "It's too much," he said. "I'm hearing about the Koreanization of the UN." He paused. "Some day we'll come here and it will be nothing but Samsung."

   "This should not just be about money," he said. "It should be about values."

   Inner City Press asked about the spats between Cambodia and the UN, particularly its human rights office in the country. He smiled and said, the UN is free to be in our country, and we are free to comment, that is democracy.

   He called Bhutan's Happiness campaign "idealistic," contrasting it with real world concerns like peacekeeping. He snarked that India, which is supporting Bhutan, just wanted allies on the Security Council as it leaves in December.

   Inner City Press asked about the border dispute with Thailand; he said that would be no problem.

   It would be good to have more public campaigning and even debating for these Security Council seat, and other UN posts. This reporting is in that spirit.

   The Cambodia campaigner, we will then report, was and is Hor Nam Bora, whose job outside New York is as the country's London-based Ambassador to UK, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Norway and Sweden.

   Covering that many countries is indicative of Cambodia's lower budget than South Korea. But, he argued, people want smaller or poorer states to be on the Security Council. He said the meeting could and even should be reported on. He said, "Help us." Does this? Watch this site.