As UNDP Justifies $5 Charge to Kids to Hear Clark, Re-Directs to Airline Ads

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, August 5 -- Now the UN Development Program has provided a justification to the Free UN Coalition for Access of the  $10 charge to hear Administrator Helen Clark speak, from Clark's personal spokesperson Christina LoNigro:

"The Tauranga Branch of the United Nations Association is a small local organisation and the fees charged for the event will be used to cover the cost of the venue.  Any additional proceeds will be given to the YWCA Future Leaders Programme."

  It's appreciated, but charging money to hear a UN system official speak -- in this case, charging $5 to children -- is not only unsavory, but may run afoul of General Assembly Resolution 92(I), which provides that

"Members of the United Nations should take such legislative or other appropriate measures as are necessary to prevent the use, without authorization by the Secretary-General of the United Nations, and in particular for commercial purposes by means of trademarks or commercial labels, of the emblem, the official seal and the name of the United Nations, and of abbreviations of that name through the use of its initial letters"

  When previously raised by Inner City Press regarding a similar $10 charge to hear Robert Orr at the Korea Society, the oral response was to waive the fee. Presumably children weren't being charged in that case.

  Also, there may be a UNA pattern here: Inner City Press previously questions the charging of money for another UNA event, here.

  Meanwhile, now more than 24 hours after it was exposed,UNDP's Liberia website's "Delivering as One" section is stillre-directing traffic to airline advertisements.

  While the UN's main Twitter account @UN quickly responded to the Free UN Coalition for Access when @FUNCA_info raised this problem -- the UN deleted its own link, which it said worked when it had been "scheduled" -- UNDP has still not respond on that, or fixed the link.

  Beyond these, FUNCA asked LoNigro and UNDP lead spokesperson Satinder Bindra and Abdel-Rahman Ghandour this:

"This is  also a formal request that Administrator Clark belatedly hold a question and answer press conference in UN Headquarters in New York, and for an explanation of why she has done even fewer of these than Kemal Dervis or Ad Melkert. Thank you in advance."

  On this, no response yet. The decline in New York media Q&A by UNDP's Administrator began under a UN official now in charge of both accreditation and UN Television, about which questions asked Monday by FUNCA and others, about the low quality of audio for the MERCOSUR foreign minister's stakeout about US spying were not responded to. Meanwhile even UNWebcast gushed to the new US Ambassador. This is the UN.

Footnote: The quick response, and "thanks," of @UN to theFree UN Coalition for Access stands in contrast to that of the sub-unit Department of Public Information, which has threatened to suspend or withdraw the accreditation of Inner City Press for merely hanging a sign of the Free UN Coalition for Access on the door of its shared office, click here to view.

   FUNCA asked questions that have not been answered, about this and that, and noted that the UN or DPI can't outlaw an organization like the Free UN Coalition for Accesswhich would, has and will if necessary do its work without DPI. Watch this site.

   

As MERCOSUR Complains to Ban Ki-moon of NSA Spying, He's Said to "Hide Behind" Pillay, UN's Censorship Circus

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, August 5, updated -- When Venezuelan foreign minister Elías Jaua Milano spoke to the media at the after he and MERCOSUR colleagues met with Secretary General Ban Ki-moon about US spying, Edward Snowden and the treatment of Bolivia's President Evo Morales and his plane, the obvious questions were what did Ban say, and would the ministers raise this to Samantha Power on her first day as US Permanent Representative to the UN.

  Only the first of these two questions got answered, and that response was supplemented to Inner City Press by a MERCOSUR Permanent Representative who said Ban "hid behind" Navi Pillay, the High Commissioner on Human Rights.

  Ban was quoted in Iceland as saying that Snowden has "misused" information and his position. (The UN called it a private meeting.) But this resonated with questions raised byUN staff about Ban's treatment of UN whistleblowers. But now Ban says that Pillay has expressed the UN's position.

  Inner City Press asked the Snowden as whistleblower question, video here at Minute 15:20.

  One wanted to get this from Ban's office and not a diplomat, even a Permanent Representative, in the UN's first floor lobby to which the stakeout was moved from upstairs at the Security Council. 

   But Ban's spokesperson Martin Nesirky, at the noon briefing delayed (unlike for Rwanda's foreign minister on July 25, here) for the stakeout, said he did not yet have a read-out. This led some to surmise that he had not been at the meeting. Not to pry, of course, but this too would seem a fair question.

  The foreign ministers, the UN listing of which included Antonio de Aguiar Patriota of Brazil, Héctor Marcos Timerman of Argentina, and Luis Almagro, Minister of Uruguay while not mentioning Bolivia, spoke also aboutArgentina's sovereignty over the Malvinas Islands, the blockade of Cuba and, at Ban's request, Haiti.

One wanted to know if the Haiti discussion address cholera, which the UN brough to the island and then denied all claims about. This Inner City Press will be pursuing.

Footnote: At the stakeout, as another media began with a question, Pamela Falk of CBS shouted louder invoking the name of the UN Correspondents Association -- ironic, sinceit or at least its first vice president Louis Charbonneau of Reuters has been demonstrably shown to spy for the UN. Story here, Charbonneau & UNCA audio here, document here.

  UNCA should not get the first question in a sit-down press conference, including because it gives it only to those who pay in money. But at a stakeout like Monday's it's even worse: a question was inappropriately grabbed for UNCA, and wasted on a softball. 

 Meanwhile the Department of Public Information, which gives UNCA this special status and attacks others for it, didn't have the video archive of the MERCOSUR stakeout online even as of 1:33 pm, and did not respond to a question why from the new Free UN Coalition for Access. And so it goes at the UN.

Update: after publication of the above, the archive video went online, here.  The sound quality, particularly at the beginning, is low quality. FUNCA would ask, surmising TeamPeople -- but it seems DPI doesn't answer, or only answers to UNCA, now known as its UN Censorship Alliance. We'll see.

  

On Malvinas / Falkland Islands, Timerman Mocks Reuters, UNCA in Retreat

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, March 26, updated -- There were dueling press conferences on the Malvinas or Falkland Islands at the UN on Tuesday. 

  Argentina's Foreign Minister Héctor Marcos Timerman told Inner City Press that the US State Department's William Burns wants a peaceful settlement; the UN's Secretary General Ban Ki-moon offers his good offices.

  Minutes later, UK Permanent Representative Mark Lyall Grant said there is no need for Ban's good offices. 

   He recounted that Timerman turned down a meeting with his UK counterpart William Hague because Hague insisted that on this issue, the people living on the island must participate.

  Timerman said that forty percent of the residents were born in the UK. He mocked the UK, and Reuters, when Louis Charbonneau of that wire service asked if some of the residents hadn't been there longer than the Timerman family has been in Argentina.

  Timerman first said thanks for doing your research into the Timerman family, then asked, you did your research, right? As a journalist? Timerman directed several question back at Reuters, none of which were answered.

  This was capped off minutes later when Lyall Grant approvingly quoted the Reuters question, about some Falkland residents being there longer than most Argentinians have been in Argentina.

  That said, Lyall Grant responded to many of the points made by Timerman and the three other Latin ministers, Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Cuba, on behalf of CELAC, Luis Almagro, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Uruguay, of behalf of MERCOSUR and Jose Beraún, Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs of Peru, on behalf of UNASUR. 

(A wag said you could almost feel Hugo Chavez in the room, with these acronyms.)

  Lyall Grant distinguished Gibraltar, when Inner City Press asked about Timerman quoting Jack Straw about that Rock; he said Argentina never made a claim of sovereignty for Sandwich, for example, until the twentieth century.

  Neither side took questions beyond the islands: Timerman turned down two questions on Iran, Inner City Press held off from asking Lyall Grant about the delayed Darfur Presidential Statement, much less the Syria chemical weapons probe. They say no man is an island, but in this case the two press conferences were.

Footnote: Reuters' Charbonneau tried to get the first question, but it was asked by another who was handed the microphone first. He took the second question, and offered thanks on behalf of UNCA, now known as the UN's Censorship Alliance or now UN Cowardice Association, since its “leaders” operate anonymously, in comments and through fake social media accounts.

  Most recently, after ghoulishly taking photographs of the UN's non-consensual raid of Inner City Press' office on March 18, UNCA president Pamela Falk refuses to say why she took the photos, only issues legal threats to Inner City Press for raising the question.

  So Inner City Press thanked Timerman for the Free UN Coalition for Access, in Spanish. Then when Lyall Grant spoke, thanked by FUNCA, UNCA pulled back. Was it the striking similarity on questions, on the relative stay of Brits and Argentines? Watch this site.

Update: here's from UK Mission transcript:

Inn Inner City Press: I wanted to ask you about Sandwich and Georgia. I’m sure you heard what he said. He seemed to be saying that these are depopulated or unpopulated and that this proves... the colonial... the overall argument is that they view it as sovereignty and territorial integrity and you’re trying to say it’s self determination. Is there some difference with Sandwich or Georgia islands and what do you make, it seems like it’s a philosophical clash on.. rubric... to view the conflict under it? If an island is empty, what’s the self-determination issue to it?

A: It’s true there’s no settled population on South Sandwich Islands and South Georgia as far as I’m aware and the history of the separate islands is a little bit different, but the sovereignty of the United Kingdom goes back to exactly the same time. The one difference you can do is that Argentina never claimed sovereignty over South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands until the 20th Century, so they were never focussed on that at all, so there is a difference in terms of the Argentinean claim, but in terms of British sovereignty, it covers all three territories.

Inner City Press: What about him quoting Jack Straw, did you hear that one? What did you think of that? He was quoting a former Minister as somehow saying that a referendum was too expensive and wouldn’t change anything. What did you think of his quote?

A: As I understand it, that quote is about the referendum in Gibraltar, which as I say, a very different situation.   

At UN on Chavez, IMF, Brecht & Marti, FM Jaua Answers ICP on Syria, Jimmy Carter, Probe

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, March 13 – After a more than two hour memorial for Hugo Chavez in the UN General Assembly on Wednesday, Inner City Press asked Venezuela's foreign minister Elias Jaua about his country's position on Syria.

  Jaua said Venezuela opposes any foreign intervention, “direct or indirect.” He said the solution should come from the Syrian people (“pueblo”), with international help, but peacefully. He did not explain more. Video here.

  Asked about elections and an investigation mentioned by Nicolas Maduro, Jaua cited Jimmy Carter as validating previous Venezuelan elections, and findings that Chavez' cancer was “strange.”

  The United States, when there was silence in the Security Council, sent a person multiply described as a lower level diplomat. Wednesday as the longer General Assembly memorial began, China's Li Baodong and Russia's Vitaly Churkin went into the GA.

  Later, much later, Inner City Press witnessed a legal adviser from the US Mission going in, near the end of the memorial.

  In the speeches, there were more literary references than is usual for the UN. The Permanent Representative of Uruguay cited Bertolt Brecht. (Afterward, in front of the GA, he told Inner City Press he was quoting MERCOSUR.) 

  The Permanent Representative of Argentina quoted Jose Marti about “rivers of bones,” leading to the wonder if there can be poetry in consultations of the Security Council, reform of which Chavez called for in 2006, and on which Argentina now serves for two years.

Bolivia's Permanent Representative offered “revolutionary greetings” to Jaua, and said Chavez stood up to the IMF. While Chile was speaking, Inner City Press mused on Twitter that it was Michele Bachelet should should have spoken for the UN. A helpful reply came in, linking to Bachelet calling Chavez “un gran amigo.”

  When UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon spoke, he cited Chavez' work in Haiti. It was hard not to think: the UN brought cholera, then found the legal claims “not receivable.” Jamaica's former prime minister P J Patterson has called the UN's rule “disgusting.” What would Chavez have said?

Footnote: in the entrance of the GA is a photo exhibit of the victims in Halabja. One floor down in the basement, it is now said that the Security Council will move out on March 28. Watch this site.