Talking Turkey Not Kurds, NATO Picks Reuters & Al Arabiya, Ban Ki-moon to Follow?

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, July 28 -- Of Turkey's letter to the UN Security Council, Inner City Press asked UNSC President Gerard von Bohemen of New Zealand on the afternoon of July 27. Inner City Press was informed that it had been received and circulated; at least this was a straight-forward answer.

  On July 28, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg delivered the statement of the North Atlantic Council after Article 4 meeting convened by Turkey, then took three pre-selected questions.

  It began with "Turkish TV," asking if in the meeting there was any controversy (no, said Stoltenberg). Next was Reuters, which asked if NATO will do any of the work currently done by the US-led Coalition - Turkey's bombing of the Kurdish PKK (and YPD, it seems) was not mentioned.

  Third and last was Al-Arabiya, about the long sought no-fly or "safe" zone inside Syria. Then it was over. The question, for the Free UN Coalition for Access and others, was whether UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's scheduled Q&A stakeout on Syria on July 29 will be along with same lines: "Turkish TV," Reuters and Al-Arabiya. Or will US state media be thrown in?

   On July 27 Ban's UN issued one statement after the day's noon briefing - and then another.  At the noon briefing, Ban's spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Ban spoke “over the weekend to the Prime Minister of Turkey.  They spoke on regional issues — that is what I can share with you.”

  More than two hours later at 2:41 pm, Ban's spokesperson's office sent this out:

  “In response to questions on Turkey asked at the Monday noon briefing, the Spokesman had the following to say:

“The Secretary-General is concerned by the latest escalation of tension between Turkey and PKK elements. He expresses the hope that there will be an immediate return to constructive dialogue in order to continue to find a peaceful solution to the challenge at hand. The Secretary-General calls on all concerned to refrain from returning to a deadly conflict which has in the past brought so much suffering and grief to the people of Turkey.”

  But apparently calling for a return to dialogue didn't go down well in come quarters. So more than five hours later at 7:52 pm Ban's spokesperson's office put out a second statement:

“In response to further questions asked after the Noon Briefing on the recent attacks in Turkey, the Spokesman said:

 “The Secretary-General expresses his deepest condolences to the Government and people of Turkey in the face of recent violent terrorist attacks, which have claimed the lives of a number of citizens and injured many others.”

  It seems that if Turkey wants another statement, they'll get one. Watch this site.
   

At UN, New Envoy Mike Bloomberg Thanks Ban Ki-moon on "The Ukraine," Climate Post and Business Conflicts of Interest UNanswered

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, February 21 -- Three weeks after the UN announced a "climate change and cities" post for Michael Bloomberg, and Inner City Press asked about conflicts of interest, Bloomberg held a photo op with Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in Ban's 38th floor conference room.

  The Press was told there would be "remarks," but that it could ask no questions. (Stop and frisk, practiced on the way up to the photo op, came to mind.)

  Ban said that Super Storm Sandy impacted the UN, and that a climate agreement by 2015 is key. (Strangely, the Press was told to leave before Ban's and Bloomberg's 9:40 am meeting with the UN's Special Envoy on Climate Change, Jens Stoltenberg.)

   Bloomberg's remarks, after a joke about the blue UN pass he had just received, included thanking Ban for his comments on February 20 about "The Ukraine."

  As Inner City Press reported, Ban's comments were scripted and came as one of three pre-selected questions Ban took at a stakeout ostensibly about the Central African Republic. (Another question was about Syria.)

 This is the increasingly controlled way in which Ban's UN tries to communicate. On February 21, Stephane Dujarric who is slated to become Ban's new spokesperson on March 10 was up on the 38th floor already. The day before, outgoing spokesperson Martin Nesirky told Inner City Press there would be no overlap between UN Media Accreditation, which Dujarric has been overseeing, and the role of UN spokesperson. Video here.

   If the UN wants to communicate, it should answer what safeguards it will put in place to ensure tha Bloomberg's business interests somehow don't create conflicts of interest with his UN role. Only three days after getting the UN post, Bloomberg was in the news on his own Bloomberg Africa TV, which covers such issues as Air France and mining on The Continent.

   So Inner City Press went to the February 3 UN noon briefing and asked for whom Bloomberg is speaking, the UN or himself?  Video here from Minute 14:52. UN spokesperson Martin Nesirky replied that his deputy Farhan Haq had answered on this on January 31. 

  But Haq on January 31 after citing "terms of reference" said they are not public, instead to look at a press release which, it turns out, contains no safeguards. Nesirky said this is an early stage, and that is true. But it already seems clear that safeguards will be necessary. For now: UNIFEED video of Ban Ki-moon and team dining with Bloomberg, here.

  On January 31 Inner City Press asked Haq if any thought had been given to possible conflicts of interest, or restrictions on how information or access from the post could be used, given Bloomberg's businesses.

  The UN's Haq replied, "I believe appropriate terms of reference have been worked out with former Mayor Bloombeg, that should be an acceptable arrangement devised between them." Video here and embedded below.

  Inner City Press asked if these "terms of reference" were public and could be seen. Haq said "No... What's public is a lengthy press release available in our office."

  But the press release does not address any safeguards on conflict of interest at all. 

  As Inner City Press noted before the UN's announcement, when Michael Bloomberg was Mayor of New York, in light of obvious conflicts of interest he stepped back from Bloomberg News. He was criticized on issues ranging from stop-and-frisk to defending banks against minimal City community reinvestment standards.

  Now, according to one gushing report, he is poised to move to the United Nations, as envoy on cities and climate change. What about new conflicts of interest, and the above critiques?

  To give what credit is due, on the evening of January 30 Reuters' UN bureau issued a breathless "exclusive" with nothing but praise of Bloomberg -- not a word of any criticism, nothing on the conflict of interest with Bloomberg News purporting to cover the UN and Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. Given the percentage of the piece praising Bloomberg, that would seem to be the (anonymous) sourcing.

  Meanwhile at the UN on January 30, Inner City Press on climate changeasked Ban's acting deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq of documents leaked by Edward Snowden showing that the NSA spied on the Copenhagen talks in 2009:

Inner City Press: there’s one of the [Edward] Snowden-released documents, but there’s a reason I’m asking you is it’s published in a Danish website “Information”and it talks about the Copenhagen climate change talks of 2009. And this seems to be the document and it says that the NSA [United States National Security Agency] was involved in monitoring communications at the discussions in order to advise the United States on the position of other Governments and presumably at the UN. So, I’m wondering, this seems to get more closely into things that are of much import to the UN, to the Secretary-General. Is there any response as to this memo coming out and the propriety of such surveillance?

Acting Deputy Spokesperson: Well, we wouldn’t have any specific response to this because ultimately, again, this is a case where we’d need to know what the basic facts are and whether there was any such surveillance that’s happened. However, our basic point that we’ve articulated many times in recent months still holds: that the inviolability of diplomatic premises needs to be respected by all States.

  If Bloomberg is named on Friday, or is named at all, what will the coverage of criticism and conflicts of interest be? Watch this site.

Footnote: While giving what credit is due to Reuters' UN bureau, despite their history, it must be noted that the bureau chief has not only spied for the UN -- he has also misused the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act to get Google to block from its search a leaked document showing him trying to get the investigative Press thrown out of the UN. All of this.. is how this UN works, or doesn't.

   

At UN, Finger Pointing on Ban Human Rights in China Flap, Nobel & Sha Unaddressed

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, November 5 -- With UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon under fire for not raising human rights or the new Nobel Peace Prize winner when he met with Chinese President Hu, for external consumption Ban on Friday morning read out a defensive statement in a press conference on climate change financing.

Ban insisted that “the record is clear” that he mentioned human rights in Nanjing -- as a “shared value” -- and in Beijing in a speech to students. Ban did not mention, in China or in his Friday statement, Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo, nor his Under Secretary General Sha Zukang having given a “World Harmony Foundation” award to Chinese former military chief on October 27. (Inner City Press got Sha's side of the story on November 4, click here.)

Inside the Ban administration, sources tell Inner City Press, the finger pointing has begun. Ban's senior adviser Kim Won-soo, the sources say, lays the blame for the coverage on his putative superior Vijay Nambiar and Department of Political Affairs chief Lynn Pascoe.

They in turn pass the blame further downstream to Ban's spokesman Martin Nesirky, pointing at days of Nesirky saying Ban did not raise human rights to President Hu, then emailing out a late night statement that rights had been raised to other Chinese officials, whom Nesirky has left unnamed.

A range of UN officials and staff interviewed in recent days have expressed concern that the brand of the UN has been hurt by the flap, culminating they said in the New York Times editorial questioning whether Ban should get a second term as Secretary General.

While it appears that the staged Q&A at Friday's press conference is intended as Ban's response to the media, some say there's a need for Ban to address UN staff members and explain what has happened, and why. And if his climate change press conference was “not the proper occasion,” as he put it, to address human rights, he should set up a separate press availability to answer questions, and not from notes. Watch this site.

Footnote: even on the topic of Friday's press conference, the report of the High Level Advisory Group on Climate Change Financing given to Ban by Jens Stoltenberg of Norway and Meles Zenawi from Ethiopia, there was no answer to the following question asked by Inner City Press at Thursday's noon briefing:

Inner City Press: On climate change, there are various people saying that, in light of the elections that took place on Tuesday, and Obama, President Obama’s comments yesterday afternoon at a press conference that this makes the passage of climate change legislation less likely in the United States, that this will impact not only the Cancun process, but even this report that the Secretary-General is getting tomorrow. Some that have seen the report say that it assumes a median price of carbon of $25 a tonne by 2020, and if there is no US legislation that will not be accurate. So, I am just wondering what, it’s not so much a comment directly on the elections of what, what does this, what is the Secretariat, and it… the global goods team of the UN, does the results bode well for this report tomorrow and for the process that he is involved in? And, if not, what’s the plan to stay on track with the report that he is getting tomorrow?

Spokesperson Nesirky: Well, two things. First of all, the key word there is process. It is a process that involves all the countries in the world in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. That is an enormous undertaking, as you know. And it involves all countries. The second point is that the report is being launched tomorrow. And I think it would be better to wait until then. You will have an opportunity to see the report tomorrow.

Inner City Press: Well, I guess we’ll find out tomorrow.

Spokesperson: You’ll find out. And there are other ways to address it, even if it isn’t at the press conference, because of the shortage of time or whatever, but there are always [ways] to address these things.

We'll see. Watch this site.

On Climate Change Finance, UN Dodges Air and Sea Tax, Ban Differs With Envoy, Rudd in Wings?

By Matthew Russell Lee
www.innercitypress.com/ban1agccf071310.html

UNITED NATIONS, July 13 -- The two co-chairs of the UN's High Level Advisory Group on Climate Change Financing, the prime ministers of Ethiopia and Norway, Tuesday vaguely summarized their Group's ideas to the press. To Norwegian PM Jens Stoltenberg, Inner City Press asked if taxes on aviation and shipping are being discussed.

Stoltenberg replied that “We have not agreed, there is not conclusions yet, this is not the time for presenting any conclusion. But there are many different possible sources. And of course, some of the possible sources are related to international aviation, international shipping. whether that is going to be included in the final report or not, it is too early to say... that is all I can say today.”

Inner City Press asked Ban Ki-moon about the comment by his new envoy on the issue, that a comprehensive agreement may not be reached in her lifetime. A subtext are rumblings in the U.S. State Department that they would have liked to put now deposed Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd in the post, or that the UN now create a new climate change envoy position for Rudd.

Ban smiled and answered, as transcribed by the UN:

I speak on my behalf. I do not normally speak for a person whom I have nominated. I have not read exactly what she said, but I think that she might have been trying to explain that the process would be quite a difficult one. But just the reason that it is a difficult one does not give us any reason to be disappointed or deterred. We have a strong commitment to reach a globally binding agreement as soon as possible and I am sure that we can achieve that goal. As I said, the more we delay, the cost of inaction will be far, far greater than the cost of action today.

That is what I have been repeatedly saying and emphasizing. Therefore this High-level Advisory Group on Climate Change Financing is a very good start and a very good initiative to make the comprehensive process of negotiation move. This is a very important element, aspect of complementing, reinforcing the negotiation process. And you have our commitment. You see the commitment of these distinguished Prime Ministers and world leaders.

The last question allowed was directed to Mr. Ban, and concerned “occupied Kashmir.” Ban declined to answer it. Inner City Press would have wanted to ask Ethiopia's Meles Zenawi for this view of the bombings in Kampala. But he was gone.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/ban1agccf071310.html