Saudi Arabia Set to Begged by Arab League & Kerry to Have its (UN Security Council) Seat & Eat it Too

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, November 2 -- Follow Saudi Arabia's announcement it would not take the UN Security Council seat it without competition won, the last two weekends have featured orchestrated moves by the Arab Group at the UN in New York to ask Saudi Arabia to reconsidered.

Two weeks ago, a press release to this effect was sent out, but several Arab Group members complained to Inner City Press that the statement had not properly been circulated or approved. This was cured last weekend, after an in-person meeting of the Arab Group ambassadors on October 25.

Now things are moving up a notch. The League of Arab States will meet at the ministerial level in Cairo on November 3, on paper about Syria and to meet Saudi-sponsored opposition figure Ahmed al Jarba -- but also, sources tell Inner City Press, to formally ask Saudi Arabia to reverse itself and take the Security Council seat.

  This is to be sealed with US Secretary of State John Kerry's visit after Cairo to Saudi King Abdullah in Riyadh, where the sources predict to Inner City Press Kerry will "so supplicate" to the King that Saudi Arabia will claim victory and taken the position: have its seat and eat it too.

  Meanwhile Kerry's spokesperson is hyping other portions of his upcoming trip, on Saturday "welcoming" to Twitter Jordan's Nasser Judeh (who has long been on Twitter) and saying Kerry looks forward to meeting him his week. 

 What about the Saudi King? What's that Kerry visit about?

  The other stops on Kerry's trip, beyond Cairo, Riyadh and Amman, are Warsaw, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Abu Dhabi, Algiers, and Rabat.

In New York, Inner City Press has repeatedly asked UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokespeople to name the last date on which Ban met with the Saudis, and now toconfirm or deny that Saudi Arabia declined a visit by UN (and Arab League) envoy on Syria Lakhdar Brahimi. 

 Ban's office will answer none of this; instead Ban offered the type of praise of Saudi Arabia that Kerry is expected to deliver -- or even top -- in Riyadh. Watch this site.

Longer form analysis here, on Beacon Reader (subscription) site.

   

As Dubai Jails Norwegian Woman Who Reported Rape for 16 Months, No UN Comment, UAE Freebie Flights Noted

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, July 19, updated -- A Norwegian woman who went to work in Dubai and reported being raped there in March has now been sentenced to 16 months in jail for having sex out of wedlock.

At the UN in New York, Inner City Press on Friday asked Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesperson Martin Nesirky if the UN Secretariat had any comment on the jail sentence. Video here from Minute 15:40.

“I don't think so, no,” Nesirky said. "I'm not dismissing this story, I'm simply don't have any comment on that. I'd need to check further in case there was any comment.  I think where there are individual cases, it's not always appropriate for the UN Secretariat to comment, but that doesn't mean that I won't look into it." Video here, from Minute 16:02. 

 It may sometimes be true that "in individual cases it is not always appropriate for the UN Secretariat to comment," but here the woman stayed quiet from March until this week hoping it would help. It did not.

She has come forward, saying her name is Marte Dalelv and she was recruited to work in Dubai by a company called The One -- which fired her after she reported being raped.

The One's website still plays music, and lists in Dubai“Fusion Al Quoz Theatre & Deli, Jumeirah Theatre & Deli, Mall of the Emirates Theatre, THE One Outlet and Wafi Boutique Theatre,” as well as locations in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, as well as in Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Tunisia and Qatar.

  The CEO of The One, Thomas Lundgren, has been tweeting Instagram photos of himself watching black and white TV with his grandmother, most recently on July 16. Sounds like UNsocial media.

  Ban Ki-moon, it should be noted, has commented on other individual cases. Why not this one?

   Inner City Press has noted, for example, that Ban took free airplane transportation from the ruling family of the United Arab Emirates, questioning it if might not create a conflict of interest as some later date. Might such a date have arrived? We ask these questions with all due respect, only in the spirit of reform and transparency. Watch this site.