UN General Assembly's First Committee Ends with South Africa Delegate Criticizing Belize & DGACM

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, December 8 -- The UN General Assembly's processing of its committees' draft resolutions in December is usually pro forma, most approved without a vote, or with vote counts mirroring what happened at the committee level.

 But the December 7 General Assembly session to approve the resolutions of the First Committee ended with a spat between the delegates of South Africa and Belize, then the South African telling the Department of General Assembly and Conference Management (DGACM) official on the podium that his country would take “advice but not instruction from you.” Video here at end, from 2:09:00.

  The Belize delegate took issue with South Africa saying that as Committee Rapporteur, she had rarely been present. She said as a member of a small delegation, she took DGACM's advice that she could sit behind her country's flag rather than in the front. The South African replied, I never saw you.

  The First Committee can be depressing. But some delegate said this went too far, and highlighted it to Inner City Press.

 Back on October 3 on the final day of the UN General Assembly Debate on October 3, 13 UN member states were scheduled to speak, followed by statements in the right to reply.

 Inner City Press came to find the UN's 42nd Street gate locked, and no lights in the hallways to the media and photo booths over the GA Hall, and no chairs in the booths. It stood and shot Periscope video, here and here,and live-tweeted the proceedings.

   Eritrea's speaker said “in the UN, the overwhelming majority of member states are marginalized” and that hit the nail on the head. The UN's media floor was empty, as was the clubhouse it gives its UN Censorship Alliance or UNCA (used just this week to serve the Syrian Coalition opposition, previously used to try to throw the investigative Press out of the UN). An African journalist asked the new Free UN Coalition for Access, “Where is the MALU desk?” It was gone. The UN Secretariat, too, didn't care about these states.

  Suriname talks about climate change, Maldives about the refugee crisis. Down on the GA floor, many countries' seats were empty, among them Bangladesh and Bulgaria (which wants the Secretary General post) and Burundi - tweeting this drew some government defenders, as did noting that Cote d'Ivoire did not, like even more servile Central African Republic, refer to “Moroccan Sahara,” but rather “Western Sahara.”

  Deputy SG Jan Eliasson joined Mogens Lykketoft on the podium but himself gave no speech. Lykketoft botched the procedure, closing the session before allowing of the rights of reply. In the end there were only Indonesia, Tonga and the Solomon Island, all about Papua, and Iran replying to Bahrain, Canada and the UAE.

 The Hall was empty for Canada; there followed some errata statement by Lykketoft about filling the post of Canadian OIOS chief Carman Lapointe. Down in front of the GA were the Permanent Representative of Palau and Liberia's Deputy. It was over, with a whimper and not a bang.

 Even by the fifth day of the UN General Debate on October 2, when countries such as Syria and Sudan, Myanmar and Jamaica were scheduled to speak, the NY Police Department barricades were removed and life returned to normal, at least UN-normal, inside the Secretariat building.

  UN Spokesman Stephane Dujarric wouldn't tell Inner City Press if Secretary General Ban Ki-moon with Haiti's Martelly had even mentioned cholera, which UN Peacekeeping brought to the island. Ban's read-out with Sudan's foreign minister Ghandour did not mention the mass rapes at Thabit in Darfur, which UN Peacekeeping's Herve Ladsous helped cover up.

  When Inner City Press asked Dujarric about Ladsous so controlling the UNGA stakeout that he Banned questions to Mali's foreign minister Diop, Dujarric said not to worry, “It's a stakeout, just shout your question.” Duly noted.

  In the increasingly empty General Assembly Hall, Ghandour complained about the sanctions on his country. Syria's Walid al Moualem said that Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia all support terrorism. One expected rights of reply, at least at some point. Myanmar's foreign minister spoke surreally about a “culture of peace” with the Rohingya in Rakhine State. With the OIC's Madani, Ban Ki-moon did discuss Myanmar - but not Yemen, where OIC host Saudi Arabia is blasting away with airstrikes.

   Inner City Press asked Ambassador Matthew Rycroft of the UK, penholder on Yemen, if he'd met with envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed. Yes, he said, back on October 1. Francois Delattre of France, penholding on such countries as Burundi and the Central African Republic, went into the Security Council affably but without news. Inner City Press, since Ladsous blocked Press questions to CAR's ministers, asked UN Spokesman Dujarric if the UN thought the violence in Bangui is a coup. Apparently not.

  Turkish Cypriot leader Akinci met with Ban Ki-moon then did a stakeout; Inner City Press asked him about bilaterals with Sweden, the EU and New Zealand (no answer) and about hydrocarbons (long answer.) Many other such entities would like to be in the UN this week but are denied, even in what is increasingly called garbage time. Watch this site.

 As the UN removes its maze of metal detectors until next year, and New York City traffic flows up First Avenue again, what did this week's UN General Assembly debate come down to?

   Perhaps the moment of the week was US Secretary of State John Kerry finding Syria's Walid Moualem in the clubhouse of the Security Council's Permanent Five members, then looking around for another place to pass time. (Inner City Press first tweeted it, here.)

 While Kerry and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov then made back to back statements at the Security Council stakeout without taking any questions, the next day October 1 Lavrov took an hour worth of questions, in the UN Press Briefing Room.

  This UN Press Briefing Room became a battleground, with Brazil trying to follow France in reserving the front rows for its diplomats rather than journalists - they relented- and France innovating, in its way, by using seat-holders who rose to their feet to cede their place to French minister Laurent Fabius and, in one case, Segolene Royal.

   Fabius scowled when Inner City Press asked “his” President Francois Hollande about French soldiers rapes in the Central African Republic and UN Peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous linking rapes to “R&R.” Then on October 1Fabius refused to take a Press question whether Turkey's airstrikes on Kurds met the three conditions he had just announced.

   Ladsous, apparently angrier than usual at the question to Hollande, scowled up at the photo booths during the Peacekeeping Summit, then directed his flunkies to control the UN microphone at the cramped third floor UNTV stakeout, to the extent of Banning a question to Mali's foreign minister. On that, we'll have more.

  This too: Turkey used the UN Press Briefing Room for a staged “press conference” where it chose the question in advance then told Inner City Press, when it asked a follow-up, not to “interfere.” The old UN Correspondents Association, typically, did nothing about this (instead they lured the Syrian Coalition's Khaled Khoja into their clubhouse from which no live-stream or comments onjournalists' arrest in Turkey ever emerged); the new Free UN Coalition for Access fought this and other forms of UN decay.

  As if in a parallel world, China made a number of financial commitments -- $2 billion to a South-South fund, money to UN women, training to the African Union - and drew praise in later General Assembly speeches, which were increasingly ill-attended. Once US President Obama left, after the briefest of photo ops with Russia's Vladimir Putin and a longer one with Raul Castro, much of the security was withdrawn and the air came out of the balloon.

 The UN again closed its big cafeteria, in which food workers were told to dine in a separate room, and after a week of speeches about transparency refused to answer the Press even on how many candidates there are to head the UN refugees agency UNHCR, and who is heading the panel to make the recommendation. We'll have more on this.

Fear of Car Bomb on FDR Off-Ramp Leads to Talk of UN Cafeteria Closing, May 2, Some Say

By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive

UNITED NATIONS, March 13 -- Of the labor problems within the UN, Inner City Press earlier this week covered the head of the Department of General Assembly and Conference Management ranting at staff members, "I'm warning you, I want respect!"

  Beyond abuse, for others in the UN jobs are on the line. Workers in the UN Cafeteria are worried about what they say is the impending but untransparent closing of the cafeteria, which they exclusively tell Inner City Press is slated to occur on May 2.

  Previously, Inner City Press has reported on fears that the UN there is vulnerable to a terrorist bombing by a vehicle on the FDR Drive off-ramp. The US diverted $100 million in withheld tax payments of US staffers, the so-called Tax Equalization Fund, to reconfigure the basement conference rooms for this threat from the FDR Drive itself. 

  But the City has declined to close down the off ramp, instead stationing a police car there apparently with the idea it would serve as a deterrent or marginal early warning system.

  That interim solution apparently not seen as enough, now there's impending closure - and job loss - on May 2, with some smaller alternative with fewer workers to remain. Watch this site.

  As the UN talks about workers' rights and collegiality, inside the Glass House things can be quite different. On July 31, 2014, Inner City Press reported how the head of the UN Department of General Assembly and Conference Management Tegegnework Gettu calling female critics "emotional," here.

 Now on March 9, multiple sources tell Inner City Press that Gettu told complaining staff "I am warning you," cutting them off while saying We are all equal, including me." Really? Leaked audio exclusively put online by Inner City Press here.

 What will Secretary General Ban Ki-moon do? Under his management, the UN Staff Union in New York has been broken. But is this rant appropriate? Previously, Gettu said, if we all fart together, it doesn't smell. Really?

 Back on July 31 Secretary General Ban Ki-moon announced he is shifting Catherine Pollard from the Office of Human Resources Management over to become Assistant Secretary-General for General Assembly and Conference Management (DGACM), replacing Franz Baumann of Germany.

  As Inner City Press previously reported, Pollard had declared herself the poster child of Ban's “mobility” policy, to only hold the same post -- or was it duty station? -- for five years. 

   No matter that, for example, Robert Serry has said on television he's been in his post six years. Pollard has made a lateral move, and Baumann's next move is not yet clear.

  What does DGACM do? As a sample, Inner City Press has already exclusively received a number of complaints about a meeting held by DGACM chief Tegegnework Gettu, also on July 31. According to sources, Gettu used the meeting to tell staff how well he is doing, how objective he is, that he has no personal agenda. (Click herefor previous Inner City Press report.)

  But when he opened the floor, the first staff member who dared make a suggestion -- that verbatim is now nearly identical to translation -- was cut off and told that his was only a personal opinion.

  A female staffer who made a criticism was told by Gettu to not be “emotional.” Eventually Gettu was telling the assembled staff that the UN “is good” and “if you don't like it, walk away.”

  In fact, it was in DGACM that the staff member elected vice president of the Staff Union in December was terminated -- Gettu says he didn't re-apply for a job so he clearly didn't need one -- and it was in DGACM that staff members were subjected to bed bugs, among other things, in the Albano Building.

  On July 31, the sources exclusively tell Inner City Press that Gettu told DGACM staff that they may remain in the Albano Building on 46th Street until 2017 when, he says, the UN may have a “DC5” building, proposed to be built on the Robert Moses playground south of 42nd Street. Click here for Inner City Press story.

  There are many hardworking staff in DGACM, and even some in management may mean well. 

   But the type of self-serving speechifying at staff described to Inner City Press by sources on July 31 is indicative of the same UN which, for example among the press, evicted the News Agency of Nigeria from its work area claiming a lack of space while giving a large room to its favored UN Censorship Alliance (UNCA) -- which now says it will leave the room empty and locked from August 1 to August 19. We and the new Free UN Coalition for Access will have more on this. We'll have more on this.

   

At UN, As Pollard Flips to DGACM, Gettu Calls Female Critic “Emotional," Sources Complain to Inner City Press

By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive

UNITED NATIONS, July 31 -- In the UN's ongoing game of musical chairs, on July 31 Secretary General Ban Ki-moon announced he is shifting Catherine Pollard from the Office of Human Resources Management over to become Assistant Secretary-General for General Assembly and Conference Management (DGACM), replacing Franz Baumann of Germany.

  As Inner City Press previously reported, Pollard had declared herself the poster child of Ban's “mobility” policy, to only hold the same post -- or was it duty station? -- for five years. 

   No matter that, for example, Robert Serry has said on television he's been in his post six years. Pollard has made a lateral move, and Baumann's next move is not yet clear.

  What does DGACM do? As a sample, Inner City Press has already exclusively received a number of complaints about a meeting held by DGACM chief Tegegnework Gettu, also on July 31. According to sources, Gettu used the meeting to tell staff how well he is doing, how objective he is, that he has no personal agenda. (Click here for previously Inner City Press report.)

  But when he opened the floor, the first staff member who dared make a suggestion -- that verbatim is now nearly identical to translation -- was cut off and told that his was only a personal opinion.

  A female staffer who made a criticism was told by Gettu to not be “emotional.” Eventually Gettu was telling the assembled staff that the UN “is good” and “if you don't like it, walk away.”

  In fact, it was in DGACM that the staff member elected vice president of the Staff Union in December was terminated -- Gettu says he didn't re-apply for a job so he clearly didn't need one -- and it was in DGACM that staff members were subjected to bed bugs, among other things, in the Albano Building.

  On July 31, the sources exclusively tell Inner City Press that Gettu told DGACM staff that they may remain in the Albano Building on 46th Street until 2017 when, he says, the UN may have a “DC5” building, proposed to be built on the Robert Moses playground south of 42nd Street. Click here for Inner City Press story.

  There are many hardworking staff in DGACM, and even some in management may mean well. 

   But the type of self-serving speechifying at staff described to Inner City Press by sources on July 31 is indicative of the same UN which, for example among the press, evicted the News Agency of Nigeria from its work area claiming a lack of space while giving a large room to its favored UN Censorship Alliance (UNCA) -- which now says it will leave the room empty and locked from August 1 to August 19. We and the new Free UN Coalition for Access will have more on this. We'll have more on this.

   

Exclusive: After UN Issues Lay-Off Letters, Won't Confirm Them, But Here Is One, Now Put Online by Inner City Press

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, January 7 -- The UN handed out lay-off letters to staff on the morning of Monday, January 6, as exclusively reported by Inner City Press. 

  But on January 7, UN spokesperson Farhan Haq refused to confirm that the UN had given out the "notices of termination," either at the noon briefing when Inner City Press asked about them -- video here and embedded below -- or in at least the seven hours that followed.

Instead, Haq said that the initial move would be "Town Hall" meetings with staff, including one involving Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. Here's from the UN's January 7 transcript:

Inner City Press: there were people who work in the Publishing Section here at the UN, received letters yesterday that seemed to talk about separation from service, notices of termination. I wanted to know, is that accurate? Since the budget was adopted in late December, have there been, essentially, lay-off letters issued, and, if so, how many?

Acting Deputy Spokesperson Haq: I don’t… the budget was only just agreed to. I believe that there’s a series of Town Hall meetings being conducted with staff to reflect on what the results of the budget mean. So I’ll wait for those town hall meetings to proceed and then let’s see whether we can say anything further after that.

Inner City Press: I’m specifically asking about a DGACM [Department for General Assembly and Conference Management] meeting that was held yesterday at 11:15, at which letters were handed out, called formal termination, notice of termination and separation of service letters. I just want your confirmation that, prior to the town hall and anything else, that these letters did go out.

Acting Deputy Spokesperson Haq: I’m not aware of anything like that. I can check with them, but ultimately the initial result of the last few weeks’ developments on a budget is that we’ll be able to discuss with staff through town hall meetings. I believe one of them was happening today with the Deputy Secretary-General and the Chef de Cabinet. I believe the Secretary-General will also have town hall meetings with staff.

  Well, prior to this "Town Hall meeting," which Inner City Press will also cover, the letter DID go out. Inner City Press had on January 6 published the e-mail inviting those to be laid-off to the meeting to get the letter, and now publishes, with consent, one of the lay-off letters, here.

 The letters were dated December 31, 2013 and were handed out on January 6, 2013. But see January 7 noon briefing

 Why would the UN not confirm what it did? In seven hours after they were asked, and the Department and even (sub) Section at issue was specified? 

  The UN wants to be perceived in one way, and to operate in another. 

  This is true with regard to freedom of the press and of association, too, as combated by the new Free UN Coalition for Access - for example, the UN on January 7 met with Google's "Head of Free Expression" after Google banned from its Search a leaked anti-Press email to the UN from the bureau chief of Reuters based on a bad faith complaint under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Now, legal questions exist about these notices of termination. We'll have more on this. Watch this site.

   

Exclusive: UN Letters of Lay-Off Handed Out Today, Dated Dec 31, Wiring in Scribes' Club: FUNCA's Banifesto

By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive

UNITED NATIONS, January 6 -- While the UN preaches labor rights, democracy and even lack of censorship around the world, in two elections held last month inside the UN, disputes and decay were the rule.

  And on January 6, 2014, UN staff members were summoned to a meeting, they felt sure -- correctly -- to  receive layoff notices such as those officers in the UN Department of Safety & Security received on December 1, 2013. Click here and here for that Inner City Press exclusive story; here is the e-mail send to Publishing Section staff about January 6, exclusively published here:

Dear Colleagues,

Kindly come to my Office at 11:15 a.m. on Monday, 6 January 2013 for a brief meeting with me and the Director. The agenda would be:

I - As you know, amongst other items, the 68th General Assembly passed the budget for biennium 2014-15. I therefore, in my capacity as OIC, have to hand you an official letter signed by the Executive Officer of DGACM.

II - Newly posted Job Openings in Inspira for Department for General Assembly and Conference Management, NEW YORK.

Thank you and see you on Monday.

  Inner City Press has seen the letter(s) handed out -- they refer to "notice of termination" and "separation from service." This and "have to hand you an official letter" seemed at odds with Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's smiling visit to his Spokesperson's office later on January 6. He told Inner City Press, see you on Friday - is that a visit of the press floor, or Q&A?  

  In terms of fight-back, in the UN Staff Union election in December, in which an incumbent sought to stay on despite term limits, there were charges of illegal polling, and an attempt to stop paying the Elections Services Company.

  Now the incumbent - no longer in power - has implicitly asked the UN Secretariat to take back the Staff Union office, see below.

  When the results came out, and were posted on the UN's i-Seek intranet site, the losing ticket wrote December 20 that it intended to simply take over the Staff Union office. 

  Back on December 20, Inner City Press asked the UN's acting deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq:

Inner City Press: On the staff union election that just took place, given that it’s budget crunch time, according to the Secretariat, who is its interlocutor? Who is the head of the staff union, the previous incumbent or the team that was announced as the winner on iSeek?

Acting Deputy Spokesperson Haq: Regarding the staff representatives, it’s ultimately up to them members of the staff to determine who their leadership is. It would not, you know, I don’t think it’s appropriate for this Office to intervene in their affairs.

Inner City Press: So, who do you speak to now? If you had to talk to the staff union, which of the two would you call?

Acting Deputy Spokesperson Haq: They will have, like I said, they’ll have to resolve it. I’m not going to say anything prejudicial to their process, nor do I think that they would appreciate that.

Then the losing ticket said it would just occupy the (UN given) office on January 6. So the now out of power incumbent wrote on the UN snow day on January 3, hoping that

"our Administration colleagues decide to fully dirty their hands and mandate in writing that the Union premises are vacated (it hasn't happened yet and I am not sure if it will since the 44th Staff Council authorized and paid in advance for a legal case to be brought to UNDT and such an action by the Administration would be the legal icing on the cake)."

  On December 17 Inner City Press published the results,putting the document online here:

Winner with 430 votes: Ticket 1 [They have thanked voters]

President Stephen Kisambira (DESA/PD)

First Vice-President Emad Hassanin (DGACM/MPD/PS)

Second Vice-President Leonid Dolgopolov (DSS/DSSS/SSS)

2d place with 231 votes: Ticket 2

President Nadir A. Dirar Bashir (DGACM/MPD/PS/DTPU)...

  We will cover that showdown, which is at least competitive. Even more decayed is the UN's Censorship Alliance, which while not even asking the UN to hold a briefing or answer questions about the crisis in South Sudan, re-emerged on December 22 through once and future president Pamela Falk of CBS hyping fashion photographs of herself with Ban Ki-moon.
 
  The "premises" the UN gives them saw the installation of wiring by the UN on December 31, even as Falk on January 2 used the UN noon briefing to deny ever accepting a donated Samsung TV through the South Korea mission and the UN,despite her own November 25 minutes, and the UN's December 10 answer to Inner City Press. See the 2014 "Banifesto" of the new Free UN Coalition for Access,@FUNCA_info, here.

   Technically they're called the United Nations Correspondents Association, and in 2012 its leaders tried to get the investigative Press thrown out of the UN, pointing at a factual article Inner City Press published about Sri Lanka, the UN and conflicts of interest.

  Ban's Secretariat now admits on Sri Lanka a "systemic failure" - his Deputy Jan Eliasson repeatedly says that -- but UNCA, which still has no rules against trying to throw journalists out of the UN, nor apparently any conflict of interest rules, makes no admission, no reforms.

  It demands the first question at press conferences even if it has nothing to ask, or the answers will never be published.

  Not surprisingly it is in decay. Even as to its annual overly expensive ball, its draw Richard Roth of CNN was replaced by BBC's Laura Trevelyanwho during a 2009 trip to Sri Lanka with Ban Ki-moon and UK humanitarian chief Sir John Holmes not only didn't report Holmes on the record comment that he deleted all complaining emails from Tamils -- she said the Press reporting this "ruined" relations with Holmes for her and, for example, Reuters. 

 Though over 2000 journalists are accredited at the UN, in December 2013 only 111 even tried to vote in the three days of polling -- and door to door demands to vote for -- the United Nations Correspondents Association. Seven of these ballots failed. The incumbent Pamela Falk of CBS, running unopposed, still managed to not get 26 of the 104 votes cast.

  But as a result of UNCA's "Ball" with Ban, she got her fashion photo in the NYT Styles section and made sure to hype it up, online and in the briefing room before being handed, only to waste, the first of four questions on the South Sudan crisis on December 23.

  Falk's vote total of 78 was lower than the 85 obtained in December 2011 by her predecessor, who was the one who first demanded that Inner City Press remove an article about Sri Lanka from the Internet, click here for that.

 The article UNCA "leaders" tries to censor reported on the previous financial relationship of Sri Lanka's Permanent Representative with UNCA's then president, in the context of this president screening in the UN the Sri Lankan government's war crimes denial film, without asking or the consent of Inner City Press then on the Executive Committee of UNCA.

  No reforms in UNCA were ever instituted after this.

  Now as Inner City Press exclusively reported on December 16, picked up in Sri Lanka in English and Tamil, Sri Lanka's defense secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa was in New York. Some in Sri Lanka hasked: would he attend UNCA's $250 a plate event with Ban Ki-moon?

 Will the leaders of UNCA, an association of correspondents, make public who attended their ball, who paid and how much?

(Inner City Press after withstanding a kangaroo court UNCA proceeding quit the organization and co-founded the new Free UN Coalition for Access, @FUNCA_info, to actually defend the right of free press and free inquiry in and about the UN system.)

   UNCA is an organization in continued decline. In 2012 many of its "leaders" tried to get the investigative Press thrown out of the UN, as documented by documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. Voice of America asked the UN to "review" Inner City Press' accreditation; VOA said it had the support of Agence France Presse and Reuters, click here for that.

The Reuters first vice president of UNCA spied for the UN, giving them an internal anti Press UNCA document three minutes after promising not to (story here, document here,audio here). 

 While he has stepped off, the Reuters reporter he supervised (and who also tried to get the investigative Press thrown out of the UN) campaigned to get on UNCA's board, demanding in Friday's noon briefing to all present, "Have you voted?" It's as if Reuters has a Permanent seat on UNCA's 15-member Executive Committee, like the P5 in the Security Council.

Here are the December 2013 results, compared to votes in December 2011 for the "candidate" or their predecessor

Dec '13 Dec '11

Prez: * 78 [85] Pamela Falk, CBS News TV and Radio

1st VP * 74 [79] Kahraman Haliscelik, TRT Turkish Radio & TV

2d VP * 48 71 Masood Haider, Dawn, Pakistan

* 48 [71] Sylviane Zehil, L’Orient Le Jour

3d VP * 55 [62] Erol Avdovic, Webpublicapress

38 Ali Barada, An-Nahar/France 24

Trez * 81 [71] Bouchra Benyoussef, Maghreb Arab Press

Sect * 79 [81] Seana Magee, Kyodo News

Members at Large:

* 57 1. Nabil Abi Saab , Alhurra TV

* 57 2. Talal Al-Haj ,Al-Arabiya News channel

22 3. George Baumgarten , Jewish Newspapers, Nation Media

* 50 4. Sherwin Bryce-Pease, South African Broadcasting (SABC)

* 51 5. Zhenqiu Gu, Xinhua News Agency

* 69 6. Melissa Kent, CBC/Radio Canada

* 56 7. Evelyn Leopold, Huffington Post Contributor

49 8. J. Tuyet Nguyen, German Press Agency DPA

* 67 9. Michelle Nichols, Reuters

41 10. Edwin Nwanchukwu, News Agency of Nigeria

27 11. Cia Pak, Scannews

*54 12. Valeria Robecco, ANSA

* 54 13. Sangwon Yoon , Bloomberg

  Some of the elected are new and their positions on UNCA Executive Committee members trying to get other (investigative) media thrown out of the UN, and the need to preclude this and UNCA leaders' anonymous social media trolling, are not yet known. (Some not elected were among the better / more diverse candidates.)

 They honored Ban Ki-moon, whose spokesperson's office squawked on December 13, immediately after a briefing on Syria chemical weapons, that wine would be served in the UNCA room and that election results were out: to UN, newsworthy.

When the UN Correspondents Association leaders tried stealthy to get the investigative Press thrown out of the UN, and have failed to institute any reform since, it became the UN's Censorship Alliance. Party on. Watch this site.

   

In UN Budget Fight at 3 AM on December 24, Of 2.9% Cuts, Corporate Orr, Re-Costing & Ban Ki-moon's Mobility, No Answers

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, December 24, updated -- With the UN budget fight going surreal at 3 am on December 24, Inner City Press was told by a Permanent Representative that "they... the West" proposed to cut the Department of General Assembly and Conference Services and the Department of Public Information by 2.9%.  

  He counter-proposed, "why don't they cut Ban Ki-moon's travel, and consultants?" Why, indeed.  

  Another budget insider told Inner City Press, as of 2 am, that the UN Pension Fund items were agreed, but "re-costing is still in play."  

  On the second floor of the UN's North Lawn building, from which Inner City Press reported on the proceedings, diplomats sat in the half-light. Aluminum trays of Latin food got told -- blood sausage, rice and beans -- while on the first floor some got sleep on couches.

  A UN staffer emerged from hours of waiting in a Conference Room where, he was told, the President of the General Assembly would reconvene a meeting to "hash things out." As of 3 am, it hadn't happened. 

  There again was Peter Wilson of the UK and Alexis Lamek of France, and their counterparts from Russia and from the EU, Ionnis Vrailas. There was US Joe Torsella, on his last night of UN budget duty one assumes.

  And amid calls for cuts, including layoffs for some UN Security officers on January 2, why is the UN moving to send 500 blue helmeted guards to Central African Republic with mandates limited to offering protection to a smaller number of UN staff? Click here for that Inner City Press story.

In the UN budget process, disputes include the referenced $160 million of "re-costing" -- adding back to the budget after Secretary General Ban Ki-moon claimed cuts -- and the mobility plan of Mister Ban.

  Ban's Controller was present along with other staffers. Apparently there were no UN Spokespeople working -- Inner City Press' questions from Saturday morning about the crisis in South Sudan went entirely unanswered for SIXTY hours and counting.

 And Ban's Spokesperson's office won't even hold a noon briefing on December 24, after diplomats worked all night on Ban's budget and supposed reform proposals, and amid the South Sudan crisis. The Free UN Coalition for Access@FUNCA_info has protested.

  When Inner City Press spoke with diplomats working on the budget, there were many critical comments about Ban's "corporate partnerships" proposal, some calling it an attempt to get a promotion for longtime UN official Robert Orr, said to be very close with Ban.  

 At 1 am a source told Inner City Press "they might get some posts, but not the structure."

Notably absent from budget negotiations on December 23-24, even on the sidelines, were the Staff Union, whose incumbent is battling to stay in control or block the recognition of Ticket 1, and those ostensibly covering the UN. Updated here.

  Finland's Deputy Permanent Representative Janne Taalas, the chair of the Budget Committee, joked to about the sunrise; on December 21 he'd joked to Inner City Press that it should get done then since "this is the longest night of the year." Once again, down to the wire. Watch this site.