At UN, Susan Rice Disputes "State of Palestine" Placard, Malki Urges Respect, Serry Mute on UPR

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, January 23 -- After Riyad al-Malki was welcomed to the UN Security Council Wednesday as the Foreign Minister of the State of Palestine, US Ambassador Susan Rice objected.

  Rice said that "the use of the term 'State of Palestine' on the placard in the Security Council or the use of the term 'State of Palestine' in the invitation to this meeting or other arrangements for participation in this meeting, do not reflect acquiescence that 'Palestine' is a state."

  Afterward, Inner City Press asked Malki about Rice's objection. Malki said that all member states must respect and adhere to what was approved in the UN General Assembly on November 29, 2012, even if they voted against it or abstained.

  Inner City Press asked Malki about the visit of US envoy David Hale. Malki nodded and said he hopes that John Kerry will make Palestine his first visit as Secretary of State.

  Kerry, of course, is not yet confirmed: his hearing is on January 24 in the Senate. There on January 23, Hillary Clinton was parrying questions from Senator Corker about the killings in Benghazi, including about Rice's statements on Sunday morning television shows about them. 

  To watch the UN Security Council "debate" in person, and the Senate's Benghazi hearings on the Internet was surreal. Hillary Clinton recounted discussing Benghazi while at the UN for a meeting about the Sahel and Mali - before France's Serval.

  As Rice left the Security Council she was asked if her objection had been spontaneous. She shook her head and said sarcastically, sure, I freelance in the Council.

  But Russia's Vitaly Churkin, who immediately followed Rice with a reference to the State of Palestine, indicated that he had modified his presentation to address what had just occurred.

  UN envoy Robert Serry, asked about what some call Placard-Gate, said that the UN Secretariat is guided by member states and their vote on November 29.

  He said he had to leave; on his way out Inner City Press asked if he as UN envoy thought Israel should not put off its scheduled January 29 Universal Periodic Review in the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.

  Serry smiled but declined to answer the question -- strange for a UN official, given the claims made about what a reform the UPR process is, or was. 

 Israel for its part, through its Permanent Representative Ron Prosor, said it doesn't take Sherlock Holmes or the NYPD to find the fingerprints of senior PA officials on the protests in E1. And so it goes at the UN. Watch this site.

At UN, Hurricane Sandy "Blew Out" Chiller Unit and Email, UNSC Lights Went Out

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, November 1, 1 pm -- Even after a $2 billion Capital Master Plan renovation, when Hurricane Sandy arrived in New York on October 29, it flooded the UN's diplomatic pouch unit and shut down its basement "chiller" unit, Inner City Press has learned. 

  This led to a shutdown of the UN's server and e-mail system; a supposed back-up in New Jersey didn't pick up the slack. Some wonder, is this any way to run an Organization?

   When the UN Security Council was moved out of its Chamber by the storm on October 31, Inner City Press went and covered in person the Council's rare meeting and vote on Somalia in the North Lawn building. Afterward it looked into what damage had caused the relocation.

   Even Thursday morning, there were no lights in the Council's offices and consultations room. Incoming president for November India held its bilateral meetings outside of the UN in its Mission on 43rd Street, while telling Inner City Press it would return to the Council suite to adopt the program of work on November 2.

  By noon on Thursday, the lights in the Council had been fixed. But the UN Office of the Spokesperson of the Secretary General once again held no noon briefing, now making it a week. 

  Nor did they answer e-mailed questions, on Sudan, Bahrain, Myanmar and Sri Lanka, even as the latter country's Universal Periodic Review took place November 1 at the UN in Geneva.

  Well (and dangerously) placed UN sources tell Inner City Press that a locker room in the third sub-basement filled with four feet of water, which came "shooting" out of the storm drains, and cascaded over the UN's loading dock. Could it happen again? It could. What will be done? Watch this site.

IDP Expert Beyani Likens Sri Lanka to Cote d'Ivoire, Stayed Away from UN Probe

By Matthew Russell Lee

 

UNITED NATIONS, October 24 -- The strange treatment of Sri Lanka at and by the UN was on display on Wednesday in New York.

  The UN's Special Rapporteur on Internally Displaced Persons Mr. Chaloka Beyani gave a press conference. He was immediately asked by a fellow selected to come four months to the UN if he'd praise the government of Mahinda Rajapaksa for relocation of IDPs from the camps set up after the 2009 conflict -- called the "Bloodbath on the Beach" by another UN official -- to land in northern Sri Lanka.

  As Beyani began answered the leading question, Inner City Press left its post covering the UN Security Council and ran through the garage to the Dag Hammarskjold auditorium briefing room. Video here, from Minute 11:36.

  There, Inner City Press asked a follow up question, based on a story in the Washington Post noting that "346 people from 110 families who were last to leave the camp could not return home because their lands are occupied by the military."

  Beyani said he'd heard of it, and that he was concerned about a lack of "durable solutions." He said it was like what he encountered in a country he visited, Cote d'Ivoire -- where IDPs were killed after the government wanted to close down the camps they lived in. Click here for that.

  Beyani acknowledged he had yet to visit Sri Lanka, saying he had not wanted to in order not to get "in the picture" with the government's and the UN's "investigation."

  But what UN investigation? There was a Panel of Experts report, based on which Secretary General Ban Ki-moon asked first Thoraya Obaid and then, without further announcement until Inner City Press asked, Charles Petrie to probe the UN's own acts and inaction during the Bloodbath on the Beach.

  But that report, which some say is already finished -- Petrie is already heading a Norway funded project in Myanmar -- has yet to be made public, and may never be.

  Beyani said he would like to visit Sri Lanka, and we hope he does. But the strange treatment of Sri Lanka continues in and by the UN.

 
 In the upcoming "Universal Periodic Review" of Sri Lanka at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, speakers will get only 72 second each -- the least of any of the countries being reviewed, which have far lower levels of killed civilians than Sri Lanka. Watch this site.