India Finance Minister Chidambaram Tells Inner City Press Obama's IMF Reform Vote Delayed, Will Meet Lew

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, April 17 -- On his way to the International Monetary Fund - World Bank meetings in Washington, India's Finance Minister P. Chidambaram stopped in New York City on Wednesday, and Inner City Press asked him about IMF reform. Video here.

  Inner City Press asked specifically about quota and governance reform. Chidambaram replied that the “review is incomplete because the US has not voted.”

  The US has a 17% vote, which can block the required 85% majority.

  Chidambaram continued that “they promised to vote after Obama's swearing in, but it's gotten delayed.” He said he believe “it will happen, but later than we would have liked it to happen.”

  In Washington, Chidambaram will meet with new US Treasury Secreary Jack Lew, formerly of Citigroup. Will he raise India tech visa issues? Apparently not -- he noted that the new bill that has been introduced is 1,500 pages long, adding, “we don't have 1,500 page bills back home.”

  He was asked about corruption, and his answer was that of the twenty questions he has gotten in the past two days, only two were about corruption. He said that up in Boston -- just after the Boston Marathon bombings -- he spoke to MIT, an investor.

Some were surprised he continued with the Boston leg of his trip. Ironically, many international journalists based in New York have been sent up to Boston, to sit writing speculative stories they could have written in New York, or in their own basement, like “tax day is hated by right wingers.” Great insight.

At Chidambaram's press availability, in the Waldorff Towers, a coffee service was waved off; a media based on high frequency stock traders asked a question about its own proprietary data. Was this a sales pitch? In more than one way? Watch this site.

UN Elections Scams from DRC, Pension to UNCA, Banning Democracy

By Matthew Russell Lee

 

UNITED NATIONS, December 15 -- What is it about election scams and the UN? On December 14, Inner City Press asked UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesman Martin Nesirky about today's Egyptian constitutional referendum.

  Closer to home, Inner City Press asked Nesirky about the UN Correspondents Association violating their own constitution and purporting to remain in office after January 1, having ignored the December 15 deadline to hold an election.

   Nesirky was dismissive -- see transcript here -- and hadn't even been asked yet about the UN's questionable role during the last two elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

  Today there UN beneficiary Joseph Kabila gave a speech entirely taking for granted more UN collaboration with his army, which committed mass rapes in Minova which the UN's Herve Ladsous refuses to answer questions about.

   Meanwhile it emerged on Friday that even the UN's own election for its Pension board has been extended, mis-run according to staff by previous vote player Bibi Khan.

  So the UN can't correctly hold its own elections, and enables scam elections in the Congo.

   Even on an absolutely clear violation in not holding an election by the deadline by its Media Access Guidelines partner, UNCA, the UN refuses to take action or comment, calling a blatant legal violation a personal matter.

  Here's from UNCA's Constitution, Article 3, Section 3:

 

"The members of the Executive Committee shall assume their duties on the first day of January following the election and shall hold office until the last day of December of the year. Elections of the Executive committee shall be held between November 15 and December 15."

  This is simple, and is one of the only acts this Executive Committee is required to do (the $250 a plate reception for Arnold Schwarzenegger they've set for December 19 is entirely voluntary.)

  But on December 14, the day before the election had to be held, this UNCA Executive Committee simply announced that it would not hold the election before the end of the year.

   There is an obvious legal problem: they have no powers after January 1, they have no power to run an election after January 1. They are, in essence, trying to stay in power unconstitutionally. And their partner the UN refuses to comment.

  UNCA's president or figurehead, when asked directly to about violating the terms of UNCA's constitution, had no response.

   It has been suggested to Inner City Press that what brings these together is an implicit claim of powerlessness: the UN can do nothing, and UNCA does little.

   But UNCA could and should do things, like make sure that UN officials like Herve Ladsous cannot openly refuse to answer questions about how to avoid bringing cholera to new countries, and to not work with units of the Congolese army guilty of mass rape.

   Instead, top UNCA officials follow Ladsous into the hallway for private briefings, video here.

  These three -- Voice of America, supported by Reuters and Agence France-Presse -- urged the UN to dis-accredit and expel Inner City Press, and met with still un-named UN officials in furtherance of their plan.

   Since their UNCA attacks rather than defends investigative journalism, the beta Free UN Coalition for Access, FUNCA, has been launched, online and in action, Friday here then here.

   The UNCA executive committee announced a purported general meeting for Friday, December 21 at 4 pm, but didn't even say what the agenda is, nor what they propose to be voted on.

   This microcosm of lawlessness takes place right in the UN, with an entity Ban Ki-moon spoke before on December 12 (more on this anon), and will party with on December 19 along with, yes, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

   Other such events celebrate actually investigative journalists not affiliated with or buying advertisements from the prize-giver. For example the CPJ event recently at the Waldorff, which Inner City Press covered as a journalist.

   This UNCA is quite different: prizes to Schwarzenegger and its own Executive Committee members, no provision for press coverage. Is it any wonder? Watch this site.

UN Debate Ends With Whimper, Kashmir to Nagorno-Karabakh, Circus Leaving

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, October 1 -- The week-long UN General Debate, which began with Barack Obama as second speaker Tuesday twice citing KFC but not once Sudan, Haiti or Congo, ended with a whimper and not a bang on Monday night.

  Monday in the morning Syria and Sri Lanka spoke of double standards. By the afternoon it was Palau talking of sharks, Portugal saying we are "impotent witnesses" to what Canada's John Baird called the "crimson tide" in Syria.

  In the UN Media Center, which had been standing room only during Obama's speech, a dozen scribes remained. But the UN couldn't wait to the end to throw them out. "After Venezuela we're shutting it down and calling security," Inner City Press was told. And so it closed, even as Dominica gave its speech.

Over in a photo booth above the GA Hall, Inner City Press watched the final 10 rights of reply play out. Pakistan's Deputy Permanent Representative said Jammu and Kashmir are not an integral part of India; the Indian political coordinator insisted that they were.

Azerbaijan's Permanent Representative said Armenia had abused its right to speak, and left the hall before the Armenian duo's second reply.

Eritrea downplayed its 2008 skirmish with Djibouti; Iran defended its right to peaceful nuclear use. In the end, new President of the General Assembly Vuk Jeremic of Serbia offered up a summary, smiling as he said how many spoke of territorial integrity. One thought of Kosovo, which does not have a seat. Nor does Somaliland, nor the apparently soon to be re-conquered Azawad in northern Mali.

Much of the week's action took place outside the UN, for example at the Waldorf Astoria where the Friends of Syria met on Friday. In the side hallways of the lobby, European and African diplomats talked in a hush about the M23 rebels, then went their separate ways. Deals were cut, then diplomats cut out. Only the bitterness remained, the backwash of conflicts, the rights of reply. But it will continue. Watch this site.

Chez Susan Rice, Cote d'Ivoire Plots, Sudan Greets and Meats, UN Holidays

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, December 9 -- The Ambassadors of Sudan and Cote d'Ivoire were among the guests at US Ambassador Susan Rice's diplomatic holiday party Thursday night in the Waldorff Towers. The former, Dafallah Osman, had two hours earlier delivered a speech saying that humanitarian groups in Darfur were engaged in “espionage.”

The Ivorian charge d'affaires asked Inner City Press what now should happen to Laurent Gbagbo, who had appointed him. His interlocutor, another African Permanent Representative, predicted that Gbagbo will try to stay in power a la Robert Mugabe.

The Ivorian invitation, it was argued, was sent before Gbagbo ignored the election results, and the remnant Deputy Ambassador wasn't part of the “dark side.” But he was plotting how Gbagbo could stay in power, in Susan Rice's living room. This is diplomacy at the UN.

The crowd was laudably eclectic, including the Special Adviser for the Responsibility to Protect rushing to catch a train for Westchester, the Special Representative on Sexual Violence and Armed Conflict and a slew of Ambassadors, many of whom had stopped first at a Kazakhstan event.

The Ambassador of Serbia, a long time UN employee from Georgia and India, bragged about his country's Davis Cup tennis win over France. The Ambassador of Palau, from the Upper West Side, talked up his wife's country's move to create a sanctuary for sharks.

Tajikistan is taking the chair, at least in New York, of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, which sides with Sudan's Omar al Bashir over the International Criminal Court. “I am only the chair,” the Tajik Ambassador told Inner City Press. Israel's Ambassador also spoke at length, which may be a separate story.

In the US Mission residence's dining room there was turkey, ham and cheese and slew of ASGs, from Human Resources to ACABQ. Interesting art on the walls was said to be on loan for a program for US Embassies. The full USUN team was in the house, from the spokespeople to Rosemary DiCarlo through Brooke Anderson to Rick Barton and Ambassador Melrose, who covers the Budget Committee.

The US' big event this month will be Youth in the Security Council. Austria will have three youths there, but only if they can pay their own airfare. While they will fetchingly stay overnight with the Austrian Perm Rep, could this be just an event for rich kids?

Even in the US, schools are on hiatus when the event is being held. We'll see who shows up, and what scholarships are provided. It was a friendly event full of holiday spirit. And in Sudan, the UN Mission in Darfur covers up killings. UN Peacekeeping chief Alain Le Roy told Inner City Press he will look into it. What will the US do? Watch this site.

Among UN P-5, France and UK Talk Secret, Yemen, US Fetes New Diplomat

By Matthew Russell Lee
www.innercitypress.com/unP5sc1haiti011910.html

UNITED NATIONS, January 19 -- Amid the Haitian earthquake emergency, attacks on Kabul, in Yemen and in Darfur, the US Mission to the UN on Tuesday night welcomed a diplomat into the fold, on the 42nd floor of the Waldorff Towers.

As U.S. Deputy Permanent Representative Alejandro Wolff put it, Rick Barton has represented the US in 30 countries in ten years. And on his family vacation, he went to post-Katrina New Orleans to build homes.

The well attended reception began with somber statements for Haiti. In the crowd, many asked Inner City Press if the coverage of the UN was too negative, unfair, sensational. CNN's Anderson Cooper showed looters; the Washington Post's new Turtle dubbed Haiti "Ban's Katrina."

At a UN Foundation luncheon on Tuesday, Ban took the blog's author to task for several minutes, publicly. From Haiti via video link Ban's former spokesman Michele Montas also said the media is being too negative. Edmond Mulet called the Press irresponsible.

The UK and France take a different approach to the media. Each has an off the record briefing scheduled Wednesday for selected reporters. The two used to hold such briefings on different days, but then the "Western diplomat" moniker was too transparent.

Now they hide behind each other, only because few file stories between the UK's early morning briefing and France's 5 p.m. follow up.

Here's what the UK Ambassador should be asked: is it true, as Middle Eastern sources say, that the UK is trying in the Security Council to bring up the conflict in Yemen, specifically targeting Iran's support for some parties?

In this account, the Russians balked, saying as Missourians do, Show me. Or at least wait until the conference on Yemen in London on January 27.

Before that, on January 25 in Montreal, there's a conference on Haiti. France's Ambassador Araud -- who initially put the date at February 25 -- took a decidedly different stance on the U.S. in Haiti than did his foreign minister and Cooperation minister.

A French journalist, while suggesting to Inner City Press that Araud was being diplomatic -- imagine that! -- also lambasted the Obama administration's resurrection of the Monroe Doctrine. "They have spoken with the Brazilians and the Canadians," he said, "as if that is enough."

So the US hardly briefs anymore, and the UK and France do so only off the record. Chinese Ambassador Liu on Tuesday night told Inner City Press that China had its search and rescue team in the air to Haiti three hours after the earthquake. He asked, "But why didn't they have notice?" Why indeed.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/unP5sc1haiti011910.html