Kissinger at the UN: Story of a Photo Not Taken, Wheelchair Sans Mr. K

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, May 7 -- It was inside the UN, but there was no sign on the door. In Conference Room E of the Temporary North Lawn Building, Inner City Press was told, Henry Kissinger was speaking.

  Having covered, in the time of Occupy Wall Street, a mock award ceremony for Henry Kissinger held in front of a midtown Manhattan hotel (video here), Inner City Press had a sense there could be news: Kissinger in the UN! Again!

And so Inner City Press set up shop at a Cafe Austria table in front of Conference Room E. The electronic blue sign which usually announced what's taking place in a UN meeting room -- the Law of the Sea, even sometimes, "Questions about Information" -- was blank.

There was a paper sign on the door itself, DPI-NGO, but that event (which Inner City Press also covered, in the context of an internship with an NGO inside the UN being auctioned off for $26,000) was over.

A UN Security medical officer arrived, to unfold and man a wheelchair, along with two bodyguards. Two of the three looked skeptically at Inner City Press. But it is an open area.

After several false alarms, the moment came. Henry Kissinger came out of Conference Room E. But he said, even before he was out, "no pictures of me in a wheelchair."

Well.

  There have been other sightings by Inner City Press in the UN this year: Judith Miller of Iraq and New York Times fame, here in the time of Syria and chemical weapons, on April Fool's Day no less. 

  Beyonce, for whom photographers were ordered to turn over their memory cards and have them erased. (Meanwhile, the UN took photos while raiding Inner City Press' office on March 18, then shared them and had them leaked on March 21 once the UN was asked about the raid.)

There are many orders in the UN, usually by the UN or its allies, on what to publish. This one, we will respect. What remains is a picture of the wheelchair sans Kissinger, here. Watch this site.

As UN Orders $100M in Cuts, Promised Answers Not Provided, Private Information?

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, January 19 -- What is happening with the UN's budget? 

    On the evening of January 18 well placed UN whistleblowers told Inner City Press that the UN has now demanded $100 million in cuts from its departments, in many cases directly impacting the substantive work of the departments. There is little transparency of which department are being asked to cut what.

  For weeks Inner City Press has asked, first for Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's response to the end of what many called the most dysfunctional Budget Committee session ever, then for an answer to why the press corps' move-back to the UN's skyscraper has been delayed two months.

   On the first question, Inner City Press was told to wait for Ban's "Town Hall" meeting with staff, which despite being closed-door it wrote about here.

   On the latter question, the UN Department of Public Information has offered shifting answers, first that the normally sized construction crew at the UN has had to be shifted to damage from Hurricane Sandy in the third sub basement, then that the UN can't afford the now increased pay rates of construction workers in New York.

   DPI, which on January 17 promised written answers to other questions which as of this writing on January 19 have yet to be provided, has grandly said that this is a legitimate story to follow. But follow how, without official UN answers? While in fairness there are trends going the other way, such as DPI's new "brown bag" briefing series, some now refer to a UN Department of PRIVATE Information.

  But still some meetings remain open. On the morning of January 17 DPI's Maher Nasser, the addressee of a New York Civil Liberties Union letter which drew a purported private response from another DPI official who refuses to make public the response, sat before an audience of non-governmental organizations in a North Lawn conference room.

   Nasser tried gamely to explain eliminating the post of the person who liaised with NGOs, moving the NGOs' office out of the UN main compound, and not having had a DPI-NGO conference in 2012, or apparently in 2013. There was significant push back, and there promises to be more.

   Again, on the evening of January 18 well placed UN whistleblowers told Inner City Press that the UN has now demanded $100 million in cuts from its departments, in many cases to the substantive work of the departments. There is little transparency of which department are being asked to cut what. 

   But DPI's answers on the delay in the move-back of the press corp must be seen in this light. We'll have more on this: watch this site.