Sochi Olympics Shown at UN Amid Talk of Nuland Leak & Feltman, Ukraine & Serry

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, February 7 -- The Sochi Olympics opening ceremony was shown in the UN Delegates Lounge on Friday morning on a too-small television to Ambassadors ranging from Russia's Vitaly Churkin to the State of Palestine's Permanent Observer Riyad Mansour. Photo here.

  Much of the talk, however, was of politics. The leaked audio of US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland bragging that former US official Jeff Feltman "got" UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to agree to send Robert Serry to Ukraine drew a lot of comment, and laughter.

  More darkly, a delegate asked Inner City Press to predict "who will be the first to break the Olympic truce" or ceasefire. Some said South Sudan, other pointed at Syria.

On screen, Ban Ki-moon appeared. His office had hours earlier send out a read-out of his meeting in Sochi with Ukraine's president. The point, one delegate opined to Inner City Press, was to re-assert that it was Ban who chose Serry and sent him to Ukraine. But that's not what the more off the cuff leaked Nuland audio says.

The UN put online video of Ban Ki-moon in Sochi, with his senior adviser Kim Won-soo right behind him. A well-placed UN staffer asked Inner City Press, who's paying for that? There was talk of a UN Department of Management town hall meeting earlier in the day, which will be our next story. Watch this site.

   

As Brazil Gets Olympics Baton, No Questions on Spending, Ban Ki-moon Cites South Korea, UK Lobbied by Saudi

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, July 29 -- When the UK handed over the Olympic baton to Brazil with the UN's Ban Ki-moon and his empty track suit presiding, Inner City Press expected that at least a few questions would be taken.

  They had, after all, asked journalists to RSVP and put it in the UN Media Alert, unlike the morning's General Assembly briefing on Syria.

  A range of Permanent Representatives showed up: Sylvie Lucas of Luxembourg and her counterparts Costa Rica's Eduardo Ulibarri-Bilbao, Bolivia's Sacha Sergio Llorentty Solíz, Gabon's Nelson Messone, New Zealand's Jim Mclay, Kazakhstan's Byrganym Aitimova (an Olympian, who alsospoke at China's Li Baodong's farewell) and Saudi Arabia's Abdallah Yahya A. Al-Mouallimi and Kenya's Macharia Kamau (more on these last two later.)

  A riser for camera-persons had been set up; there were speakers for sound and UNTV was there. Ban Ki-moon, fresh from issuing a statement about the attack on a building housing Turkish personnel in Mogadishu, arrived and the speeches began.

  The UK's Mark Lyall Grant joked about "Big Ban" in front of Big Ben; Ban used the opportunity to talk up the 2018 Winter Olympics in his native South Korea, which Yonhap says he will visit for six days in late August. Brazil's new Permanent Representative Luiz Alberto Figueiredo Machado talked about trying to live up to London's standard.

  This was the question that with all due respect should have been allowed and asked: what does the UN make of the protests of Brazil's spending on the World Cup and Olympics? 

  Since Ban cited sustainability, does building a stadium in the middle of the jungle meet that definition? As the Games, and World Cup before then, get closer the questions will continue to be asked.

(As will why FIFA gave the World Cup to Qatar, with talk now turning to holding it in the winter due to heat. Or does Ban Ki-moon think it's "sustainable" to try to air-condition an outdoor stadium?)

At the end of the event, Saudi Arabia's Permanent Representative Abdallah Yahya A. Al-Mouallimi who spoke earlier about Syria was seen chatting up Lyall Grant on something. Inner City Press asked Kenya's affable Permanent Representative Macharia Kamau what brought him to the event. We always do well, he joked, we need commitments to get good starting places. Watch this site.

Footnote: the new Free UN Coalition for Access, whichcomplained of the hurdles the UN put up to covering the morning's General Assembly meeting on Syria, is proposing the the UN and where applicable member states make clear in advance when events will not allow any questions. While theUN's response for now has been, "your presence is not mandatory," followed by threats, we're expecting more on this. Watch this site.

   

At UN, Tale of 12 Twitter Feeds, Missions Tweet Stakeouts, Facebook Start-Ups

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, August 15 -- It was by Twitter alone that the French Mission to the UN announced two press stakeouts last Friday by its Permanent Representative to the UN. Not surprisingly, the turnout was low -- in fact, only Inner City Press at the second of the two stakeouts, on Mali.

   So it seems timely, especially in this mid-August lull, to review some UN Mission's twitter accounts, and wonder how long it will be until all 193 UN members -- and Palestine and the Holy See -- establish their twitter feeds.

  Beyond its many spokespeople, the US Mission to the UN maintains @USUN, the most recent tweets of whichinvolve Ambassador Susan Rice's time representing President Barack Obama as the closing of the London Olympics.

  The UK Mission to the UK tweets frequently on@UKUN_NewYork, for example yesterday about Ali Saleh supporters' assault on the Yemeni Defense Ministry, about which the UN at its noon briefing said it was not even aware.

  On the Latin tip, @GuatemalaONU while serving in the Security Council last tweeted about its vote for the Syria resolution in the General Assembly on August 3. This even is its affable expert greeted Inner City Press on her way into the GRULAC Third Committee meeting about the rights of the child.

   The Syria GA vote is @NorwayUN's second most recent tweet, superseded by an announcement of the sheathing of the Empire State Building in Norway's colors for its participation in the Olympics. 

  One wondered: couldn't many other countries get that as well? Former Permanent Representative of Norway Morten Wetland, a tweeter himself, has gone back to work at First House, from which one hopes he'll tweet. Robert Mood began but stopped.

   Going Germanic, @GermanyUN's last tweet is about a meeting on, what else, the future of the Euro.

   Targets of Security Council sanctions can have their twitter too, although @EritreaUN's only tweet so far this year involves their cycling team.

   While not a member state, though sometimes said to seek to speak like one, the @EUatUN has announced it is moving this month from its offices on 41st Street -- but the new address, on Third Avenue, didn't fit in the tweet, ran over its the EU's page on Facebook. (Inner City Press, with voluteer help, is just starting Beta dabbling in Facebook, here: http://www.facebook.com/innercitypress

  Poland's @PLinUN covered Beyonce in the GA, as didInner City Press. @SwedenUN did indigenous. @PalauUN promises sub-tweets, with Ambassador Stuart J. Beck notated as SJB.

  South Africa's @SAMissionNY hasn't tweeted since February, but when it did it was about Palestine.

  Italy's @ItMissionUNNY does a lot of re-tweeting, but had an exclusive last month about Deputy Secretary General Jan Eliasson at the UN Staff College in Turin.

Secretary General Ban Ki-moon himself is often (mis) represented by @secgen, which merely takes his daily public schedule and puts it online, even if the events are canceled or don't fit into 140 characters. And so it goes, with the UN and social media.

  We will have more on this. Watch this site - and pitch us your feeds!

IOC Says Saudi Arabia, Qatar & Brunei Sent No Women to Olympics, Sochi Time Bomb?

By Matthew Russell Lee
www.innercitypress.com/ioc1women062910.html

UNITED NATIONS, June 29 -- Three countries have never sent women athletes to the Olympics: Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Brunei. This emerged on Tuesday, when Anita DeFranz of the International Olympics told the Press there are 204 national Olympic Committees and only three have not sent women. “Which three?” asked Inner City Press. Ms. DeFranz named them.

The IOC has become an Observer at the UN. Since the UN has 192 members, how does the IOC have 205? Ms. DeFranz explained that for example Puerto Rico and Guam has organizing committees but are not countries for purposes of the UN. Inner City Press asked, “And Abkhazia?”

While there was laughter, by the 2014 Winter Olympics it may not be so funny. Those games were awarded to Russia, for its notably warm resort town of Sochi. Georgia call for a boycott, after its war with Russia for Abkhazia and South Ossetia. (Georgia's Ambassador recently traveled to the International Criminal Court conference on the Crime of Aggression, his Mission told Inner City Press, still beating the drum for “accountability” for that war.)

Ms. DeFranz took questions about rules on ambiguous gender and the IOC's reliance on national identification documents to resolve disputes about underage gymnasts. Ms. DeFranz is a lawyer, and her answers showed it. Video here.

A loaded question about participation by countries “where women are brutalized,” Ms. DeFranz answered with her own question: “the United States?” She said the beach volley ball players are not required to wear such small swim suits, and that boxers have agreed to forgo beards, without it being formally required.

“What the benefit for the IOC of becoming an Observer?” Inner City Press asked. “Now we can talk,” said Ms. DeFranz. She said the UN flag has flown over the Games since 1992 in Barcelona.

Footnote: in audience was another Olympic athlete, swimmer Donna de Varona who spoke to Inner City Press about the U.S. Title IX. More countries should have it, she said. When asked about a case in Connecticut where Quinnipiac is defending closing its women's volleyball program by saying that cheer leading is a sport, she shrugged. It is if they compete, she said. Follow the money: hiss boom bah.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/ioc1women062910.html

As HABITAT Meets in Brazil Before Sports Evictions, No Angola Follow-up

By Matthew Russell Lee
www.innercitypress.com/un1evictions040310.html

UNITED NATIONS, April 3 -- While the UN talks a good game, often neither neither the past or future's solved. Taking UN HABITAT, which bragged on April 1 about its World Urban Forum in Brazil. Inner City Press asked, what about the threatened evictions for the upcoming World Cup and Olympics? We talked about that, was the answer. But what if any commitments were obtained?

Previously, when HABITAT held an event in Angola, Inner City Press asked about evictions there. HABITAT responded that it chose to stay quiet, in exchange for a commitment that some percentage of Angola's oil would be devoted to poor housing.

But the evictions have continued, have gotten worse in fact. Click here. When Inner City Press raised this on April 1, HABITAT's presented implied that the purpose of the evictions was to create better housing for the poor. Video here. But in fact in these evictions, no replacement housing was promised, no recompense for that destroyed.

Twice, the HABITAT representatives highlighted that their conference was held in a previously derelict port area, and therefore did not itself displace people but rather "revitalized." One wonders of HABITAT's views on gentrification and other forms of displacement.

Just focusing on sports events, what did the UN or HABITAT do in the face of, according to the UN itself,

1.5 million people displaced for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. "Residents were relocated on a large scale. Mass evictions were reported, sometimes conduced by unidentified men."

2010 - World Cup in South Africa

More than 20,000 residents have been removed and transferred to impoverished areas of the city. The minister for Housing noted that plans to build thousands of low-cost housing units could be affected by changes in the demands of the World Cup budget.

2010 - Commonwealth Games in New Delhi

In New Delhi, India, 35,000 families were evicted from public land in preparation for the games.

Where is HABITAT on this? Watch this site.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/un1evictions040310.html