UNITED NATIONS, June 5 -- Financial inclusion was the topic on June 5 when Queen Maxima of the Netherlands held a press conference at the UN, for which she's the the “Special Advocate for Inclusive Finance for Development.”
Inner City Press asked Queen Maxima what she has done on the issue of banks like Barclays and Westpac cutting of remittances to Somalia.Video here.
Queen Maxima, who had cited remittances in her opening statement, replied among other things that banks take a “risk-based approach,” and that the smaller profits they make on remittances make them cut them off.
It is on just this type of thinking, we'd say, that this UN office ought to be raising its voice, for example in the case of Westpac, which is a member of the UN Global Compact.
Inner City Press also asked Queen Maxima if UN agencies like UNRWA and UNHCR are working on the issue of the unbanked, trying to ensure that the payments they make help recipients to establish bank accounts. This too is unclear - the answer was that the UN is studying this, is producing knowlege. It will be good to produce results. We will stay on this.
UNITED NATIONS, June 3 -- When the UN's envoy in Somalia Nicholas Kay took questions via Twitter on June 3, Inner City Press asked him what the UN is doing to preserve the ability to send remittances to Somalia, as well as questions about Burundian "peacekeepers" and Somaliland.
Kay answered the remittance question: "@innercitypress Raising our voice to sound alarm on impact if Somali remittances stop. Urging search for solutions. #UNSomTwoYears."
Inner City Press notes the cut-offs of remittances not only by Barclays Bank in the UK and Merchants Bank of California and new First American Bank in the US, but also Westpac, which is a member of the UN Global Compact. Should it be?
On the Somaliland question, while Kay to his credit has answered informally, the request for an #OnTheRecord statement was not responded to at this time. (Kay will be in New York next week, including at IPI.)
A question that he did not respond to, but others did, was this: "What's the impact of situation in Burundi on continuation of country's 'peacekeepers' in AMISOM?"
There are photographs of Burundian "peacekeepers" returned to shoot live fire at protesters, and another being referred for a D-1 post in Herve Ladsous's mission in Mali, MINUSMA. We'll have more on this.
Inner City Press received this communication / request, and published it here:
"I follow your investigative work and applaud the questions you pose to UN officials. I am writing to you because I would like you to follow-up with the UN, specifically UNSOM, on the press release that was issued by my family on the tragic and targeted killing of my uncle, MP Yusuf Dirir. Below you will find a copy of the same press release that was forwarded to Mr.Nicholas Kay. We have not received a response and as you can imagine, we are frustrated by UNSOM and the UN's silence on this issue."
This didn't fit in a tweet, but it should be answered. Watch this site.
Back on May 9 when the UN's outgoing humanitarian coordinator for Somalia Philippe Lazzarini held a press conference at the UN in New York, Inner City Press asked him about the impact of money transfer and remittance being cut off, about the future of the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya -- and about Puntland and Somaliland, where people fleeing Yemen are landing. Video here.
Lazzarini said that remittances have been cut from the UK, US, Australia and more recently Kenya; the latter country might reinstate some of the money transfer companies, he said. Returns to Somalia from Dadaab should be voluntary.
In response to Inner City Press' question about the involvement of some parts of the UN, and of the International Organization for Migration in screening refugees including for “counter-terrorism,” Lazzarini said that the government of Somalia is concerned about returnees who might have joined certain groups while in Yemen. Can you say, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula? There is more transparency needed, however, particularly from IOM.
Lazzarini has previously answered Inner City Press about Somaliland's airspace. On May 8 when Inner City Press asked about the UN's dealings with Somaliland and Puntland, he said it is a big topic, but concretely the deadly attack on UNICEF in Puntland means one can no longer say Puntland more safe than, say, Mogadishu. But what about Somaliland? We will have more on this.
Lazzarini is headed next to Lebanon; we'll continue to cover his and the UN's work there, and wish him luck.
UNITED NATIONS, September 23 -- Alongside the UN's Climate Summit on September 23, corporations came through the UN Press Briefing Room promoting themselves and their good deeds.
Inner City Press asked Barclays' vice chair Jeremy Wilson about his firm cutting off remittances to Somalia, and directly on climate, funding mountain-top removal coal mining and Bumi Resources in Indonesia, displacing many people.
Wilson did not directly respond to these issues, except to say that things "move more quickly" on some areas. Did he mean, geographic areas?
Inner City Press asked a panel on the UN Private Sector Forum, including Statoil, about that firm's exploration off Myanmar, and impact on Mozambique. The answer came from another panelist, that one should or can look at a company's trajectory and not where it is at the moment.
The point, though, is whether the UN should be praising and "blue-washing" corporations without asking about coal, remittances, displacement. What are the standards?
The night before the People's Climate March, the UN buildings on First Avenue will be lit up with photos and footage of trees and fish and, it seems, written messages. It is called "illUmiNations."
Looking back at the UN's press release for the upcoming "VIP Press Screening" -- hard to know how they could exclude non-VIPs from it, or why they would want to -- there were laudatory quotes about UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, and:
Obscura Digital has staged similar large-scale architectural mapping projection events on the Sydney Opera House, the Guggenheim Museum, and the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque. For examples of previous work, please visit the following linkhttp://wdrv.it/1tx7Emd.
In that video compilation, well worth watching, there are also corporate projects for Coca-Cola and YouTube owned by Google, with history at the UN.
A message Inner City Press photographed on September 19, here, was "In nature's economy, the currency is not money but life." Is this true of Coca-Cola?
There are questions about the UN's UNcritical approach to corporations and corporate "partnerships."
In the run up to the UN's September 23 Climate Summit, the UN put out a media advisory promoting the participation of 14 corporations ranging from Saudi Aramco through Cargill, McDonald's and Walmart to Bank of America and Credit Agricole.
Orr mentioned a luncheon during the summit about carbon pricing and the UN Global Compact, a branch of the UN which repeatedly says it does not enforce substantive standards, only encourages reporting and dialogue. Well, Saudi Aramco did not respond to the complaint about “employees allegedly dismissed after being detained for participation in civil rights protests in Saudi Arabia.”
And what of the environment? Bank of America has been the number one funder of mountain-top removal coal mining, but Ban Ki-moon made it chairman the chief of his Sustainable Energy for All initiative.
On behalf of the Free UN Coalition for Access, Inner City Press asked that those making commitments, like the 14 corporations named, hold question and answer sessions during the summit. We'll see.
UNITED NATIONS, February 18 -- Returning from three days in Somalia, UN humanitarian operations chief John Ging took correspondents' questions on February 18, nearly all of them about Al Shabaab. He replied that the UN must help Somalis to help themselves.
Inner City Press asked Ging about just that: what is the UN going to ensure that remittances from the Somali diaspora are not cut off, as Barclays tried to do last year until stopped by a court case?
Ging replied, "on remittances we are encouraging that all facilities needed" continue, "we don't have the authority or the capacity to decide on these issues [but] we are, on behalf of the Somali people, advocating and seeking to use our influence."
Here's an idea: Barclays has at least in the past trumpeted its respect for human rights with the UN, click here for one example. Is the UN using its (blue washing) influence there? This question goes beyond Ging's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. But coordinating would take it in.
Inner City Press also asked about the on-again, off-again dispute about the air space over Somaliland, in part triggered by the UN system awarding the air space to Mogadishu, which led to suspension of the UN Humanitarian Air Service flights.
Ging replied that on his "last trip there was an agreement brokered in Turkey that found a solution to allow a functioning of the airspace throughout Somalia... the coordinator himself took an UNHAS flight to Hargeisa."
After Ging's briefing had ended, Somaliland-based Free UN Coalition for Access member Mohamoud Ali Walaaleye, who has protested the arrest of journalists there, forwarded these questions:
What is UN's positions regarding the genocide that happened to Somaliland population during Siad Barre's regime, and as Somalia government acknowledged, does UN also do?
Would UN support initiative relative of Somaliland victims slaughtered Jezira beach at Moqadisho intended to uncover their remaining for resting their soil in Somaliland?
We'll have more on this.
Footnote: The first question to Ging was given to the United Nations Correspondents Association, the transcript of whose Q&A session with Ban Ki-moon last week has still not been released. UNCA's president used this perch to ask about a sanctions report not yet public, disputed by the government, on which we will have more. Reuters which bragged about that leaked report has used a bogus Digital Millennium Copyright Act complaint to get a leak of its own anti Press complaint to the UN banned from Google's search. That's why it's the UN Censorship Alliance, and why FUNCA pushes forward.
UNITED NATIONS, November 22 -- Former French judge Jean-Paul Laborde, chosen by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to head the UN Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate, took four questions on Friday.
The first included a softball question about the US National Security Agency spying; Laborde did not squarely answer it, just as Tony Blair did not the day before, by Laborde's side. (Click here for Blair video by Inner City Press.)
The second was about suicide bomber in Iraqi being from Saudi Arabia. Laborde answered that as a (former) judge, he would need evidence. He then addressed the questioner, obviously "you are from the country." But the correspondent is from Lebanon.
Inner City Press, called on third, thanked Laborde on behalf of the Free UN Coalition for Access then asked what he has done about the study released by the Norwegian Refugee Council urging that
"Counter-terrorism laws and measures adopted by States and inter-governmental organizations should include exceptions for humanitarian action which is undertaken at a level intended to meet the humanitarian needs of the person concerned" and "should exclude ancillary transactions and other arrangements necessary for humanitarian access, recognizing that humanitarian actors operate in areas under control of groups designated as terrorist."
Laborde called it a good question, but as so often happens after that phrase is used, did not really answer it. He said it's a complex issue, he mentioned one country: Somalia. But he did not, for example, address Barclay's move to cut off remittances. We'll have more on this.
Footnote: Why was there no time for follow-up, or for more journalists to ask questions? In part it is due to the UN automatically giving the first question to the UN Censorship Alliance (a/k/a UN Correspondents Association), even when as happens more and more the questioner / president never uses the answer for any news. What's the point of these questions, then, other than to cling on to a position in order to censor others?
UNITED NATIONS, August 19 -- Why does the UN use "corporate partners" for its Humanitarian Day and how does it choose them? How are they reviewed?
It's reported that Barclays is a sponsor, for example. ButBarclays is cutting off remittances to Somalia -- this, neither UK Baroness Valerie Amos, UN humanitarian chief, or UK Reuters that she pitches to, mention.
The UN's Humanitarian Day is tied to the attack on the UN Compound in Baghdad ten years ago in 2003. Even UN officials have said there are lessons to be learned about the UN being perceived as taking sides.
But the lessons have not been learned. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, as simply one example, the UN is on the verge of launching operations to "neutralize" rebels groups the government in Kinshasa doesn't like. And click here for an example of the UN in Somalia outed for its role in sharing information with the US FBI.
The UN, until not long ago, had a strand that stood up for humanitarian independence. But when this was raised more recently, for example by MSF in the Eastern Congo, the UN ignored it, then claimed that the UN's "intervention brigade," controlled by a French official Herve Ladsous who argued for the escape of genocidaires during the Rwanda genocide, won't impact independence.
NEW YORK CITY, September 20 -- Held at the same time as the UN General Debate, the Clinton Global Initiative is at once slicker and more sinister.
At a session on Disaster Preparedness late Tuesday afternoon, videos promoting Toyota's work on the Gulf Coast were screened, while media personality Riz Khan chose questions from Barclays Bank and Dell Computers, and one promoting UPS.
On stage Bill Clinton's head of FEMA and Denis O'Brien of Digicel said give money to established groups. Flacking for Bill Clinton and the UN, Denis O'Brien told fellow panelist and chief UN humanitarian Valerie Amos he had "no complaint about the UN, I saw what you did in Haiti." Introduction of cholera and sexual abuse in Port Salut were not discussed.
Inner City Press had been shepherded into the back of the room. During the Q&A, while attempting to ask Amos about humanitarian crises on the agenda of the Security Council, a staffer came over and said "members of the press are not invited to participate."
Still, at the table to which Inner City Press was led, an operative of Swiss Re insurance company handed out fliers and offered interviews after the session.
The listened sponsors were not only corporate but included long time New York political mystery Tom Golisano -- where's Lenora Fulani, one jaded reporter asked without answer.
While defanged and denied questions, the press corps was well fed, with free granola bars, fruit and soda, and wireless Internet stronger and more reliable than at the UN. For a time there was discussion of ex President Clinton becoming Secretary General, overriding a rule that no national of a Permanent Five member of the Council can be S-G.
Instead, Clinton holds his corporate heavy parallel UN every September in Manhattan. The lobby of the Sheraton is full of hucksters; the soundtrack is smooth jazz, with Fleetwood Mac in the wings. Obama will come here, and Hilary and Chelsea Clinton. It's as if the mis-service of Haiti never happened. But that's true back at the UN too...
