At UN P5+1 in Geneva, Iran Speaking English, Facebook Back Pain, Reuters Quartet

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, October 15 -- With the UN in New York closed for Eid, the UN in Geneva is hosting the Iran P5+1 talks, complete with normally open doors locked and the gray cubicle walls that pass for security or privacy in UN-world.

  Iran's Javad Zarif is still suffering from back pain -- this according to Doctor Cathy Ashton of the EU -- but made his proposal in painfully archaic PowerPower on Tuesday morning. 

 The talks were held in English, leaving some wondering if France lodged a Francophony based protest as they often do at the UN in New York.

When Zarif last met Ban Ki-moon in New York, going up to Ban's 38th floor office to cover it were only Inner City Press and five Iranian reporters. But Geneva has (over?) full coverage, with Reuters "winning" the battle of excess with four separate reporters. One of them has demonstrably spied for the UN, click here for that, so the full count is not clear.

There are photos of the handshakes and even journalists' photos of other journalists' laptop live-tweeting, what else, photos. Whatever happens it will be documented.

 Back on the last day of the UN General Debate, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesperson Martin Nesirkypostponed the day's noon briefing in deference to Israel's Bibi Netanyahu's speech. 

 Then he started it up right over Iran's right of reply. When Inner City Press asked why, he said that all "hard news" reporters understood, and that he'd been a journalist for a quarter of a century. Oh. Video here.

   On Monday in the UN Legal Committee in New York, Iran trashed the threat of use of force without UN permission. The US on the other hand said dryly that a study of the third state impact of sanctions is no longer needed.

  With the US government shutdown ongoing, the State Department is maintaining a virtual Twitter strike. While this was presented as the reason for US UN Ambassador Samantha Power's radio silence during the Security Council's recent Africa trip -- misreported by Reuters -- the US Mission to the UN did Tweet some news when she returned. Then stopped.

  And so the field is open for the new Iranian administration and its social media skills, including back pain on Facebook. Bring it on! Watch this site.

   

In State Department Shutdown Spin, Was Samantha Power in Africa Too Cheap to Tweet? HRC Review of US Postponed

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, October 11 -- How much does it cost for a US government employee to tweet?

  A claim has been made today that Ambassador Samantha Power and the US Mission to the UN stopped tweeting on October 2 as part of making difficult choices during the government shutdown.

  But we must note: from October 3 to 9, Ambassador Power was on a French-led UN Security Council trip in Africa. She was working, and one assumes that France didn't pick up ALL the bills. So government funds are being spent. How much does it cost to tweet?

  Not noted by sycophants is the controversy, or fact, that Samantha Power does not send her own tweets. She is a thinker and author, of course, there is no question she can write. But at the 92nd Street Y just before the UN General Debate, she acknowledged that she did not even know her own Twitter handle.

  After Inner City Press reported that, it was explained that her tweets are processed and proofread by others, and Inner City Press immediately added it to the story. But it put her non-tweeting while on a trip in Africa without (all) her staff in a context the sycophants should have noted (as well as @USUN's post-trip tweet sent hours before publication of the spin.)

  This, too: the US has postponed the review of its record by the UN Human Rights Council until at earliest March 2014, citing the shutdown. The Obama administration and Ambassador Donahoe in Geneva have said a lot about the HRC. To ask for this kind of deferral, while it has been said that State Department can operate more or less unchanged, is strange.

  At a rally on Capitol Hill on October 10, Bob Silverman of American Foreign Service Assoc said shutdown hurts -- but cites only the Commerce Department, not the State Department. 

 We'd like to know more about this, but timely questions Inner City Press sent to the US Mission about a credited exclusive story it wrote about the Security Council's (and Power's) Africa trip while having been excluded from it by France have yet to be answered. Maybe it's the shutdown. Watch this site.

   

Proposed New UN Building by East River Not Vetted for Disaster Risk by UN Expert; Of FEMA (and UN HRC) Politics

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, October 10 -- The UN's building east of First Avenue, north of 42nd Street was full of talk of Disaster Risk Reduction on Thursday. 

When the UN's expert on the topic, Margareta Wahlstrom, came to take media questions, the Free UN Coalition for Access thanked her -- and asked of any risk assessment for the UN's proposed new building just south of 42nd Street, next to the East River. Video here, from Minute 11:41.

Wahlstrom replied, "I must confess, I don't know." She said that after Hurricane Sandy, which dealt a "blow" to the current UN, risk assessment should be done. But has it been?

Back on October 4, Inner City Press for FUNCA thanked UN HABITAT's Joan Clos and asked him about UN proposing to take over Robert Moses Playground, given Clos' preaching about open space. Clos said Habitat only gives advice "when asked."

  So the UN or the UN Development Corporation did not ask UN HABITAT's advice before proposing to take over a playground, and did not ask the UN's Disaster Risk Reduction expert Wahlstrom before proposing building a new building next to the East River, after flooding a year ago. Great planning.

  The Free UN Coalition for Access began asking about this on October 1, in terms of whether the proposed new building would be accessible. Spokesperson Martin Nesirky replied that the building on Robert Moses Playground is only one proposal -- but it has already started the New York City Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, ULURP.

  Something's wrong there.

  Inner City Press also asked Wahlstrom about the Obama administration deeming Federal Emergency Management Agency FEMA workers to be non-essential - could this be politicization? Video here from minute 12:22.

  Wallstrom said emergency management is of course essential. So, like with closing the war veteran memorials, is this politicization? What about asking for a delay in 2014 of the review of the US in the Human Rights Council? 

  It was said the State Department remains functional. Just not on human rights? Or is it that Republicans, many of whom opposed the HRC, won't complain about this delay? Watch this site.

   

With US Coy on Egypt Aid, At UN Egypt Meeting US Absence Blamed on Shutdown

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, October 8 -- Amid the murk of how much aid to Egypt the Obama administration might cut, and why, Inner City Press noted that at the UN on Tuesday the US did NOT attend an Egypt-sponsored event about a Nuclear Free Middle East. 

  And that this was blamed, from the floor, on the US government "shutdown." Click here for Inner City Press story of Tuesday afternoon.

  This of course even then seemed dubious. The US State Department is continuing to function; the decision not to attend or speak at the Nuclear Free Middle East event, held in a too-small room and not televised by the UN, had explanations entirely beyond the shutdown.

  But in the Nuclear Free Middle East meeting, Egypt played to the standing room only gallery, saying a meeting by itself means nothing without results, saying it has in the past been at the table but still been on the menu, chiding Israel for not attending or at least not speaking.

  Egypt at this meeting did NOT criticize the US. Rather, from the floor a Frankfurt-based NGO offered excuses for the US' invisibility, blaming it on the government shutdown.

  As to WHY the Egypt sponsored "open" meeting at the UN on Tuesday was not televised like other meeting at the UN, the Free UN Coalition for Access @FUNCA_info repeatedly asked the UN.

    Past 9 pm, UN official Stephane Dujarric replied to FUNCA that "regarding, the Egypt sponsored meeting on the nuclear free-zone. I am not aware of any request by the organizers to have the meeting webcast or televised."

  This immediately raises questions: if a request to televise an open meeting at the UN is required, who requested televising Ban Ki-moon in a "closed" September meeting denouncing Syria's Assad? Click here.

   On Tuesday, Iran took shots at Israel, just as earlier in the day Israel wrote to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon protesting Iran being rapporteur of the Disarmament Committee of the UN General Assembly of UNGA

On that, this was what the White House sent out at 8:42 pm:

Dear journalist colleagues: Many of you have been asking about news reports on U.S. assistance to Egypt. Below is a comment you may use on the record, attributable to NSC Spokesperson Caitlin Hayden:

The reports that we are halting all military assistance to Egypt are false. We will announce the future of our assistance relationship with Egypt in the coming days, but as the President made clear at UNGA, that assistance relationship will continue.

What else did Obama "make clear at UNGA"? Watch this site.

   

Shut-Down US Government Compared to Lebanon, Feltman's DPA Pitches Maldives, Not Sri Lanka: Report Still Withheld?

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, October 4 -- During this week's shutdown (or slim-down) of the US government, analogies to various other countries and failed states have been made.

  Now former US State Department official Jeffrey Feltman, whom Inner City Press has covered this week in meetings with Iran's Hassan Rouhani and Lebanon's caretaker prime minister Najib Mikati, has brought the analogy home.

  Feltman is quoted as texting Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri that he moved on from the US government when it became too much like... Lebanon.

  At the UN, Feltman's Department of Political Affairs is sometimes kept from the biggest ticket items by the big-footing of the Permanent Five members of the Security Council, but it is active on other issues. 

  When on October 2, just before the Security Council's Great Lakes trip which Inner City Press has so far covered here and here took off, DPA at its own request briefed the Security Council about the Constitutional crisis in the Maldives.

  While the UK said that its Commonwealth has already expressed concern at delay in second round of Presidential elections, it should be noted that this Commonwealth still plans to go to Sri Lanka in November for its Heads of Government Meeting.

  Are the UK's concerns consistent? Are Ban Ki-moon's and Feltman's DPA's? Under Ban Ki-moon, did DPA ever ask for a Security Council meeting? Or was it only the British chief of Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes? And what did that come to? And where is Ban Ki-moon's report on the UN's inaction in 2009? Watch this site.