North Korea UNSC Meeting Set for December 10, But At 8 am Not in UN Journal, MALU Alert or Program of Work, Free UN Coalition for Access Asks Why

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, December 10, 8 am -- For today on Human Rights Day it's been said, a week ago then December 8 at the UN Security Council stakeout, that there will be a Security Council meeting about human rights in North Korea today at 2:30 pm.

 But as of 8 am, the day's UN Journal does not list it; nor does the UN Media Alert nor the Security Council's online Program of Work. The last of these may explain it: after the Council's closed door meetings on Western Sahara (listed) and Turkey on December 8, Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin told the press that the US should have disclosed the intended North Korea meeting when formulating its Program of Work for December, when the US is President.

  Inner City Press has checked with another Security Council delegation, which said it is a good argument, but not enough to "stop" the meeting. But enough to have the meeting UNlisted, even six and a half hours before?

  The UN has an archaic, anti-public game under which "Arria formula" meetings of the Security Council are not listed in the UN Journal, sometimes not even on the blue signs outside the meeting. The Free UN Coalition for Access thinks that sending diplomatic signals by withholding information from the public is not what the UN, ostensibly about "We the Peoples," should be about. We'll hare more on this.

For more than a month there have been rumors, stoked in some cases by the UN, that Secretary General Ban Ki-moon may visit North Korea.

 To some it seemed strange, right after the UN's Third Committee enacted a resolution about human rights in North Korea. What that country might gain from a high level UN visit might be clear -- showing that the resolution didn't mean much -- and some surmise that the Korean Peninsula is increasingly Ban's focus. But what would be in it, from a Ban-to-DPRK visit, for the resolution's proponents?

  On December 3 the Spokesperson for the U.S. Mission to the UN Hagar Chemali issued a statement that “last year in December the UN Security Council convened for the first time in history to discuss the human rights in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). Today, Chile, France, Jordan, Lithuania, Malaysia, New Zealand, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States have requested another meeting of the Security Council to examine conditions in DPRK and their effects on international peace and security. As President of the Security Council for the month of December, the United States will now work quickly to schedule this meeting. We will provide additional details as soon as we have them.”

  Now, again from Ms. Chemali, this: "We intend to convene the Security Council meeting on the situation in the DPRK on Thursday, December 10 at 2:30 PM. We are currently working with the Secretariat to explore the availability of senior briefers from DPA and OHCHR. We will update on briefers as soon as we have more details."

  In the US Mission's December 3 statement, Ambassador Samantha Power said: “A year ago, the Security Council met for the first time on the widespread and systematic human rights violations being committed by the North Korean government. Having placed the issue on the Security Council’s agenda last year, we believe it is critical for the Council to continue to shine a light on the abuses in North Korea and speak regularly about the DPRK’s human rights situation – and what we can do to change it – for as long as the crimes committed there persist.”

   For now we can say, this would seem to make a Ban Ki-moon visit to DPRK (even) less likely, at last in December. And in January, when Uruguay is set to be UN Security Council president? Watch this site.

Back on November 17 when Ri Hung Sik, Ambassador at-large of the Democratic People's Republic of Korean, held a press conference at the North Korean mission, he said that he had heard nothing, nothing at all, about UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon visiting North Korea, which Yonhap ascribed to a senior UN source.

Even when asked a leading question about a hypothetical Ban trip, Ri Hung Sik said Ban's UN would have to improve its relations with DPRK. Inner City Press is putting the audio online here, and embedded below.

 Inner City Press ran back to the UN and asked Ban's spokesman Stephane Dujarric, transcript here:

Inner City Press: here was just a press conference at the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) mission, and there their minister, Ri Hung Sik, asked about the Secretary-General's possible reported trip, said he's heard nothing about it at all and that there are many rumours on the internet.  He also said that this South Korean national security law that makes it illegal for South Korean citizens to speak positively of the DPRK… that's how he described it… should be looked at by the UN.  So I wanted to know, what is the Secretary-General's view of that law?  And if that's an accurate description, is he bound by it?

Spokesman:  I'm not aware of the law.  As far as Ban Ki-moon, he is the Secretary-General of the United Nations and is doing his duty as such.

   But why did Team Ban play it so coy on Yonhap's report? Now late on November 17, the UN has issued this more specific denial:

"In response to questions asked about a report from Xinhua and the Korean Central News Agency stating that the Secretary-General would be travelling to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea next week, the Spokesman had the following to say: The Secretary-General will not be travelling to the DPRK next week. He will be in New York most of the week and then travel to Malta for the Commonwealth Summit. From there, he will go to directly to Paris to attend CoP21. The Secretary-General has repeatedly said that he is willing to play any constructive role, including traveling to the DPRK, in an effort to work for peace, stability and dialogue on the Korean Peninsula."

  Before Inner City Press left the DPRK mission on November 17, it asked Ri Hung Sik for his view of UN Special Rapporteur Marzuki Darusman and when or if UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Prince Zeid will visit North Korea.

  Of Darusman, Ri Hung Sik said he met him only once, and that it seems Darusman does not speak his own words, or think his own thoughts. Of Zeid, he said the discussion is of technical cooperation, but no date was given. Video here.

   During the press conference, there was no question, as at a prior DPRK press conference, about Donald Trump...

UN Pushes Staff Changes After Breaking Union, Then Lunches With and Spoon-feeds Quotes to UN Censorship Alliance, UNtransparent

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, February 11 -- While the UN continues to  preach democracy and even lack of censorship around the world, in two elections held in December inside the UN, disputes and decay were the rule, and have grown worse since.

  On February 11, having moved to essentially break the UN staff union by citing alleged irregularities in voting, the UN Secretariat held a closed door meeting with Permanent Representative on Ban Ki-moon's "mobility" proposal, which the union opposed. The meeting was not in the day's UN Journal, and was not on UNTV.

  Then Ban Ki-moon lunched with what's become the UN's Censorship Alliance, despite its leadership openly violating the group's own constitution, which they just put back online, by not having the required financial meeting in the first half of January, as promised in an email disclosing a donated Samsung television subsequently denied by UNCA 2013-14 president Pamela Falk of CBS. 

  How can the UN cite rules against one group, the union, while ignoring them on another? The answer is that the union fights or pushes to hold Ban accountable, while the UNCA leadership does not. So one is broken, the other lunched with.

  But what did Ban SAY to these scribes at lunch? In the past, Ban's spokesperson has released, later, quotes on some but not all topics, without releasing a tape or transcript. And now?

   A photograph tweeted from the lunch shows an array of microphones in front of Ban Ki-moon, linked to here. What to make of these quotes, at a minimum under a head-start?

  The UN's "Appointments of the Secretary-General" listed for example an 11:40 am meeting with the head of the UN Joint Staff Pension Fund -- remember, Ban is not recognizing any Staff Union -- but did not list this "luncheon." Transparency?

  Most telling are direct censorship efforts by the UN bureau chief of Reuters, with its Permanent seat on UNCA's board. He got Google to ban from its Search a complaint he filed with the UN trying to get the investigative Press thrown out of the UN, (mis) using the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act as diagnosed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. That's straight up censorship, and it's enough, well, to lose your lunch. But not today, apparently.

  More contrast: in the UN Staff Union election, in which an incumbent sought to stay on despite term limits, there werecharges of illegal polling, and an attempt to stop paying the Elections Services Company.

   Now, the ticket that came out on top in the election has written to UN Department of Management chief Yukio Takasu for a statement if he and the UN recognize this union leadership.

   Takasu last week presided over a Department of Management town hall meeting at which impacts on staff members were discussed -- but without a recognized union?

   Inner City Press is informed that in the UN facility in Valencia, for example, contract workers will re obtained through the UN Office for Project Services. Union-busting and outsourcing, at the UN.

  On December 17 Inner City Press published the results,putting the document online here:

Winner with 430 votes: Ticket 1 [They have thanked voters]

President Stephen Kisambira (DESA/PD)

First Vice-President Emad Hassanin (DGACM/MPD/PS)

Second Vice-President Leonid Dolgopolov (DSS/DSSS/SSS)

2d place with 231 votes: Ticket 2

President Nadir A. Dirar Bashir (DGACM/MPD/PS/DTPU)...

  We will continue to cover that showdown, which is at least competitive. Even more decayed is the United Nations Correspondents Association or UN's Censorship Alliance. 

  To compare: while the UN uses a dispute about the legality of the December election to refuse to recognize those who came out on top in the union election, the fact the UNCA has again violated its own Constitution, only today put back online, by not holding a meeting about its finance in the first half of January is ignored by the UN. Because UNCA serves this UN.

   It's simple: the UNCA Constitution Article 7, 1, states "The Association shall convene an annual Membership Meeting during the first half of the month of January."

  This didn't happen; instead, 2013-14 president Pamela Falk of CBS distributed November 25 minutes, which also directly referred to a donated Samsung television which UNCA later denied, stating as to the Constitution that

"It was noted that the meeting was a General Meeting, not the Annual General Meeting. The UNCA constitution requires an Annual General meeting that should be held in the first half of January; the date was set for January 14th. There was discussion and a vote for a meeting on December 5, but because the budget will not be completed until year's end, the meeting will be held, as the Constitution requires in January."

   Despite this acknowledgment of the requirements of the UNCA Constitution, the meeting was not held in the first half of January, or even in January at all.

  A Constitutionally-invalid meeting has been scheduled for February 13 -- at the same time as a Security Council meeting on the humanitarian situation in Syria. Reporting on the Security Council is undermine by UNCA's laxity: there are fewer and fewer UNTV stakeouts, as potential speakers are diverted to private chats in the so-called Turkish Lounge. This happened on February 10, while the "new" UNCA fed quotes from French president Hollande's state dinner in Washington.

    Ban's UN hands the first question and more to UNCA, which does not challenge Ban. In 2012 its leaders tried to get the investigative Press thrown out of the UN, pointing at a factual article Inner City Press published about Sri Lanka, the UN and conflicts of interest.

  Ban's Secretariat now admits on Sri Lanka a "systemic failure" - his Deputy Jan Eliasson repeatedly says that -- but UNCA, which still has no rules against trying to throw journalists out of the UN, nor apparently any conflict of interest rules, makes no admission, no reforms.

  It demands the first question at press conferences even if it has nothing to ask, or the answers will never be published.

  Not surprisingly it is in decay. ng a 2009 trip to Sri Lanka with Ban Ki-moon and UK humanitarian chief Sir John Holmes not only didn't report Holmes on the record comment that he deleted all complaining emails from Tamils -- she said the Press reporting this "ruined" relations with Holmes for her and, for example, Reuters. Though over 2000 journalists are accredited at the UN, in December 2013 only 111 even tried to vote in the three days of polling -- and door to door demands to vote for -- the United Nations Correspondents Association. Seven of these ballots failed. The incumbent Pamela Falk of CBS, running unopposed, still managed to not get 26 of the 104 votes cast.

  But as a result of UNCA's "Ball" with Ban, she got herfashion photo in the NYT Styles section and made sure to hype it up, online and in the briefing room before being handed, only to waste, the first of four questions on the South Sudan crisis on December 23.

  Falk's vote total of 78 was lower than the 85 obtained in December 2011 by her predecessor, who was the one who first demanded that Inner City Press remove an article about Sri Lanka from the Internet, click here for that.

 The article UNCA "leaders" tries to censor reported on the previous financial relationship of Sri Lanka's Permanent Representative with UNCA's then president, in the context of this president screening in the UN the Sri Lankan government's war crimes denial film, without asking or the consent of Inner City Press then on the Executive Committee of UNCA.

  No reforms in UNCA were ever instituted after this.

 Inner City Press after withstanding a kangaroo court UNCA proceeding quit the organization and co-founded the newFree UN Coalition for Access, @FUNCA_info, to actually defend the right of free press and free inquiry in and about the UN system.

    In 2012 UNCA "leaders" tried to get the investigative Press thrown out of the UN, as documented by documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. Voice of America asked the UN to "review" Inner City Press' accreditation; VOA said it had the support of Agence France Presse and Reuters, click here for that.

The Reuters first vice president of UNCA spied for the UN, giving them an internal anti Press UNCA document three minutes after promising not to (story here, document here,audio here). 

 While he has stepped off, the Reuters reporter he supervised (and who also tried to get the investigative Press thrown out of the UN) campaigned to get on UNCA's board, demanded on camera in a UN noon briefing to all present, "Have you voted?" It's as if Reuters has a Permanent seat on UNCA's 15-member Executive Committee, like the P5 in the Security Council.

Here are the December 2013 results, compared to votes in December 2011 for the "candidate" or their predecessor

Dec '13 Dec '11

Prez: * 78 [85] Pamela Falk, CBS News TV and Radio

1st VP * 74 [79] Kahraman Haliscelik, TRT Turkish Radio & TV

2d VP * 48 71 Masood Haider, Dawn, Pakistan

* 48 [71] Sylviane Zehil, L’Orient Le Jour

3d VP * 55 [62] Erol Avdovic, Webpublicapress

38 Ali Barada, An-Nahar/France 24

Trez * 81 [71] Bouchra Benyoussef, Maghreb Arab Press

Sect * 79 [81] Seana Magee, Kyodo News

Members at Large:

* 57 1. Nabil Abi Saab , Alhurra TV

* 57 2. Talal Al-Haj ,Al-Arabiya News channel

22 3. George Baumgarten , Jewish Newspapers, Nation Media

* 50 4. Sherwin Bryce-Pease, South African Broadcasting (SABC)

* 51 5. Zhenqiu Gu, Xinhua News Agency

* 69 6. Melissa Kent, CBC/Radio Canada

* 56 7. Evelyn Leopold, Huffington Post Contributor

49 8. J. Tuyet Nguyen, German Press Agency DPA

* 67 9. Michelle Nichols, Reuters

41 10. Edwin Nwanchukwu, News Agency of Nigeria

27 11. Cia Pak, Scannews

*54 12. Valeria Robecco, ANSA

* 54 13. Sangwon Yoon , Bloomberg

  Some of the elected are new and their positions on UNCA Executive Committee members trying to get other (investigative) media thrown out of the UN, and the need to preclude this and UNCA leaders' anonymous social media trolling, are not yet known. (Some not elected were among the better / more diverse candidates.)

When the UN Correspondents Association leaders tried stealthy to get the investigative Press thrown out of the UN, and have failed to institute any reform since, it became the UN's Censorship Alliance. Party on. Watch this site.

   

UN Journal Today Lists Sudan's Bashir As Speaker for Tomorrow in UNGA, Of Karti, Ladsous and ICC

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, September 25 -- When UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon met with Sudan on Tuesday evening, it was not with President Omar al Bashir, whose been indicted by the International Criminal Court for genocide. But a member of Ban's team, UN Peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous, had met with Bashir only in July.

  Representing Sudan on Tuesday night was foreign minister Ali Karti. Beyond Ladsous, Ban had with him his chief of staff Susana Malcorra, Department of Field Support chief Ameerah Haq, his Special Adviser on Africa, his deputy chief of of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, his adviser on sexual violence and conflict, and Haile Menkerios.

   It was a big UN team -- though not as big as the UN team that, twenty minutes earlier, met with Israel's minister for international affairs. For example, the Department of Public Information was at the Israel meeting, but not Sudan.

  But where was Bashir? He has complained that the US has not come through with a visa. Some take Ban meeting with foreign minister Karti as signifying that Bashir is not coming, on the theory that a country -- at least if not one of the Security Council's Permanent Five members, with whom Ban is lunching on Wednesday -- could not get more than one meeting with Ban.

  But would Bashir even ask to meet with Ban? And if he did, would Ban (as Ladsous did) hold the meeting?

It is still possible, according to UN documents, that we will find out. The September 25 UN Journal, in the section called "Forthcoming Meetings," has the General Assembly speakers' list for September 26, including as the second speaker in the afternoon

"2. Address by His Excellency Omer Hassan A. Al-bashir, President of the Republic of the Sudan."

That's in a UN document -- like Ban's chemical weapons report on Syria, it HAS to be true, right? Even "overwhelming." Watch this site.

   

At UN as Ban Takes States' Questions on Sandy Email Failures, Press Ordered Out

By Matthew Russell Lee

 

UNITED NATIONS, November 9 -- During and for days after Super Storm Sandy, the UN in New York did not send so much as an e-mail to its member states.

  On November 5 in the UN's Budget committee, diplomats strongly criticized two Under Secretaries General: Yukio Takasu of the Department of Management, and Gregory Starr of the Department of Safety and Security.

  Inner City Press, which covered the UN even on the day that Sandy hit, and its first Security Council meeting two days later, has been told by well placed sources that UN Departments disagreed for up to three hours as water rose on whether to turn off the electricity to save UN equipment. Inner City Press asked just this question at the UN's November 8 noon briefing, but the answer was deferred.

  On November 9, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon came to address the member states. The Press was allowed in, but only for Ban's speech, not for the question and answer. During Ban's speech, he said that the UN's list of emails for member states had been out of date.

  But as Denmark's Permanent Representative said in the November 5 session, all member states have current lists, to lobby in UN elections. The UN couldn't just ask for the list, or keep its own list up to date?

  The November 9 UN Journal suddenly lists a new website for weather emergencies, and Ban said that the media covering the UN can use it as well. Fine. But what about the other questions, just those raised on Monday -- what happened with the $50 million allocated for the "backup data center" in New Jersey?

  While the UN's communications were down, its Security Council Affairs unit for example put "into blue" a resolution to extend the mandate of the Somalia peacekeeping mission, as exclusively reported by Inner City Press.

  As simply one more example, UN staff from the publishing unit have been lobbying and trying to fix the printing equipment down in their basement workshop, in the face of what they call threats to privatize. They have enlisted Group of 77 members in the Budget Committee, who at a minimum have questions to ask.

  Also complained of on Monday and since, but not directly addressed in Ban's public remarks, was damage to and destruction of cars which the UN had just directed be moved even lower in the UN's underground garage.

  As the first question, by the European Union, began on Friday morning, Inner City Press was told to leave the conference room. Across the hall of the North Lawn Building, the Budget Committee was electing by acclaimation, from "clean slates" with no competition, representatives to oversee the UN's investments.

 Another election went past the first round; during the break there were complaints that UNTV showed the European Union's response to Ban, but not the more critical interventions by Algeria and then others. Some also questioned by the EU, not a member state, spoke first.

 We'll have more on these and other elections. Watch this site.

At UN, Ceiling Collapse as New Building Opens, Wires Dangling in the Ban Cave

By Matthew Russell Lee
www.innercitypress.com/cmp1nlawn122809.html

UNITED NATIONS, December 28 -- In the UN General Assembly basement, by the UN Gift and Coffee Shops, there has been another ceiling collapse. This led to the closure of the UN Coffee Shop, leaving the only coffee available in international territory in the new North Lawn building.

The scene there on December 28 was one of chaos. Workmen whitewashed the ceilings, wires stuck out of walls, UN Protocol staffers worked the phones as they moved in. Already there is delay.

Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has publicized a Town Hall meeting for staff on January 11, but staff tell Inner City Press it had been slated for January 4. The space was not ready. Mr. Ban is said to have shouted about delay, including in staff mobility plans.

Those who have ventured to Mr. Ban's new office on the new building's third floor call it the Ban Cave, complete with enormous marble walled bathroom with stand up shower. It is set back from First Avenue, said to be a safety measure. If it is the Ban Cave, who is the Joker? One wag askes, who is Robin -- Ms. Migiro? Mr. Nambiar? The Dark Knight Mr. Kim?

Forlorn on the first floor are two open areas with the brown chairs from the now closed Delegates Lounge. The areas are labeled, "Delegates Lounge." One wonders if, at night, drinks will be available. Where will the enormous tapestry of the Great Wall of China go? Already the new building is being analogized to a "high school or a Wal-Mart." Will diplomatic intrigue breathe life into it?

Meanwhile, as Egyptian authorities block Press access to protesters in front of the UN building in Cairo, the UN has said nothing. Inner City Press has put in a question at the time of what would have been the noon briefing. We'll see.

Journalistic footnote: returning from the new building via the loading dock, one passes through Publishing. While last week it seemed that under Franz Baumann, the UN Journal would cease hard copy publication on January 1, from Vienna Mr. Baumann wrote in that it will continue to be printed for delegations.

Inner City Press asked spokesman Martin Nesirky how distribution will be limited to mission and not staff or press. Nesirky said this level of detail was beneath him. But beneath the North Lawn, there is a document reception area where Mission are said to go. We'll see.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/cmp1nlawn122809.html

At UN, Budget Fight for Bahrain and Bahamas to Pay Less, Death of Paper UN Journal?

By Matthew Russell Lee
www.innercitypress.com/unnine4budget122309.html

UNITED NATIONS, December 23 -- In nighttime UN budget talks on Tuesday, Western countries faced off with the Group of 77 and China as to whether Bahrain and Bahamas should pay a lesser assessment for UN peacekeeping missions.

Meanwhile, despite talk of "zero growth" budgeting at the UN, sources tell Inner City Press that the regular budget will rise, it is only a question of how much. The much hyped scale of assessments appears set to remain the same.

The reformers, as they call themselves, who want to shift assessment to reflect the rising power of China and India and others, now only want to change the review process. But the G-77 wants that to remain the same.

Special Political Missions, including the ever more controversial UN Mission in Afghanistan, are another bone of contention. An attempt is being made to forestall any targeted cuts. Click here for draft SPMs draft, exclusive to Inner City Press.

At 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Inner City Press greeted the UN's head of Management as she left the building, with shiny Christmas gift bags. While she said she is "on call," delegates of member states remained milling around by the Vienna cafe. That will shut down 2 p.m. on Thursday. "We'll finish by then," a delegate told Inner City Press.

Click here for draft scale of assessements for the apportionment of expenses of the UN peacekeeping operations. Bahrain and Bermuda want to drop from B to C, but C is strictly defined.

Footnote: Up in the Delegates' Lounge, slated to close "for two years" at 7 p.m. on Thursday, there was grumbling about pretextual cost cutting by the UN, particularly in Publishing. As Inner City Press asked at Tuesday's noon briefing, ASG Franz Baumann has declared an end to paper copies of the UN Journal, which lists daily events.

Many representatives of member states like the paper Journal, to tell them where to go. In meetings with staff, Baumann has claimed that 3.5 tons of paper is wasted each day. But workers say he's included cafeteria waste in the figure. The cafeteria will close, also with layoffs, on Thursday. There is advocacy for Bahrain and Bermuda, but little for those who do manual labor in the UN. And so it goes.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/unnine4budget122309.html