Showing posts with label singapore. Show all posts
Showing posts with label singapore. Show all posts

Wednesday, June 13, 2018

After North Korea Deal Inner City Press Asks Russia PR If It's Freeze For Freeze, Seems So


By Matthew Russell Lee, VideoScope
UNITED NATIONS, June 13 – Before the North Korea - US summit, US President Donald Trump on June 1 said, "you people are going to have to travel because you'll be in Singapore on June 12th." And on that day, after a 38 minute tete a tete (with interpreters) and wider meetings and a lunch, Trump held up the four point document and after that took questions, see below.  On June 13 Inner City Press asked this month's President of the UN Security Council Vassily Nebenzia if his country, Russia, thinks the Singapore deal is essentially "freeze for freeze." Nebenzia replied, "There are elements of freeze for freeze, that is clear." Video here.
Inner City Press also asked the chair of the UN Security Council's 1718 Committee if the blanket sanctions exemptions were time bound and are now over. Seems so - Periscope video here, at end.  On June 12 Trump said the war games will not be resumed in North Korea complies, calling them provocative and expensive. A Japanese reporter asked about abductions, adding, when will Trump do interview with Japanese TV? Trump said abductions will be worked on, it's not in the document. Trump said that to verify - the word not in the document - there'll be a lot of people there. There was no mention of the UN or IAEA. Hours later UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres put out a canned statement "
reiterat[ing] his readiness to fully support the ongoing process," below, after leaving problems at the IAEA unaddressed, taking few and onlyl handpicked questions, restricting the Press. On June 11 in New York with the UN effectively marginalized, its Secretary General Antonio Guterres wanly offered, "Relevant parts of the United Nations system stand ready to support this process. The International Atomic Energy Agency has a mandate to apply safeguards on all nuclear material in peaceful use, including all material removed from military programs." He took three pre-picked questions but has not answered on the IAEA portion of the UN system's cover up of sexual harassment charges under his watch. As Inner City Press has exclusively reported: "An abrupt resignation at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, of Tero Varjoranta, was by some like Reuters linked to Trump's pull out from the Iran JCPOA deal. Varjoranta was linked to the JCPOA - but his resignation, multiple whistleblowers tell Inner City Press, was more tied to a sexualharassment incident witnessed by many staff. Inner City Press' sources, understandably afraid of retaliation in Guterres' UN (which continues to restrict Inner CityPress) now exclusively provide Inner City Pressit was a retreat held in October 2017 by one division within the Department of Safeguards, see below. On May 23, before the UN barred Inner City Press from the premises from 7-7:55 pm then had it escorted out, Inner City Press asked Guterres' spokesman Stephane Dujarric, UN transcript here." More here.With that entirely unaddress and the Press that exclusively reported and asked still restricted by Guterres, the UN put out this on June 12: "The Secretary-General welcomes the holding of the Summit between the leaders of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the United States as an important  milestone in the advancement of sustainable peace and the complete and verifiable denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula. As the Secretary-General noted in letters to both leaders before the Summit, the road ahead requires cooperation, compromise and a common cause.  Implementing today’s and previous agreements reached, in accordance with relevant Security Council resolutions, will require patience and support from the global community. The Secretary-General urges all concerned parties to seize this momentous opportunity and reiterates his readiness to fully support the ongoing process." At the UN on June 5, Inner City Press asked the chair of the UN's North Korea Sanctions Committee, Dutch Ambassador Karel van Oosterom, how many sanctions exemptions have been given for the talks. After not answering this question the last few times Inner City Press asked, on June 5 he said, "One," a blanket exemption. Inner City Press followed up, asking if and when North Korea will provide information like the names of those traveling: before the 12th or after the 12? Van Oosterom, walking away, said it's an open exemption. UN video here. What does this say about sanctions? Trump on May 29 tweeted, "Meetings are currently taking place concerning Summit, and more. Kim Young Chol, the Vice Chairman of North Korea, heading now to New York." On May 30 just before 7 pm Kim Yong Chol and security, as well as at least one staffer from the US Mission to the UN, exited the Millennium Hilton hotel on 44th Street across from the UN and piled into a series of black cars, pursued by media. See 2 minutes and 20 seconds of Inner City Press' Periscope feed, here. They drove to 330 East 38th Street, the Corinthian Condominium where many war crimes linked diplomats have lived and the US leases a condo for its deputy ambassador; they dined for 1 hour and 26 minutes on "American beef." On May 31 after a two and a half hour meeting at the Corinthian, Pompeo held a short press conference at the Lotte Palace Hotel at 2:15 pm. Inner City Press arrived as required at 1:15 pm; there was a full stand up by Fox then another cut short by someone's ring tone. Periscope video here. Pompeo took four questions (Bloomberg, WSJ, ABC and Fox) and was upbeat but declined to entirely confirm the June 12 talks are on. Why could he, if another statement like those on Bolton and Pence could get it called off again? Looks like it's a go. Will UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres (again out of town until May 31, when he canceled the press Q&A he had scheduled) try to make himself relevant? Seems not. On travel ban exemptions, the UN Security Council website as Inner City Press exclusivelyreported is to be run by the "self employed" husband of the chief of staff of the Department of Political Affairs. The Dutch have a role in this website, DPA whistleblowers tell Inner City Press. We'll have more on this. Back on May 24 Trump wrote to Kim Jong Un, "based on the tremendous anger and open hostility displayed in your most recent statement, I feel it is inappropriate, at this time, to have this long-planned meeting." Simultaneously, UN Secretary General put out a statement - praising North Korea for destruction of an already played out testing site. The UN under Guterres remains out of date, irrelevant and worse. But on the morning of Saturday May 26, Trump's spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders said, "The White House pre-advance team for Singapore will leave as scheduled in order to prepare should the summit take place." And just before 9 pm on May 26, in a White House event marking the release of a Utahan from Venezuela, Trump said:
We're doing well on summit with North Korea.. there's a lot of good will... if we can be successful in de-nuclearization of the Korean peninsula. We're looking at June 12 in Singapore, that hasn't changed.”
But the UN remains a place of untransparency. At 3 pm on May 24 Inner City Press asked the Dutch chair of the UN's 1718 DPRK sanctions committee if the exemptions granted will be rescinded. He said he would answer later - but was gone when the UN Spokesman's Office announced the afternoon's consultations were over. The Committee's website lists exempted correspondent banks but not travel ban exemptions; the UN Security Council website as Inner City Press exclusively reported is to be run by the "self employed" husband of the chief of staff of the Department of Political Affairs. The Dutch have a role in this website, DPA whistleblowers tell Inner City Press. Dutch Ambassador Karel van Oosterom pointedly declined to answer Inner City Press' question(s) on May 30, here. We'll have more on this. Watch this site. Ealier in the day at the UN Security Council stakeout, the Dutch deputy ambassador repeated that it would be a bumpy road; Sweden's ambassador said he had just seen the news. The French Ambassador Francois Delattre refused to stop or answer any questions, as has become more and more routine. Trump on May 10 had tweeted "The highly anticipated meeting between Kim Jong Un and myself will take place in Singapore on June 12th." On May 22 North Korea state media Minju Joson laid down this line: "If the U.S. and the South Korean authorities persist in the confrontation policy and war moves against the DPRK, oblivious of this fact, they will be held wholly accountable for all the ensuing consequences. Dialogue and saber rattling can never go together.”
  So the odds now change daily, and the UN remains marginal at best. While North Korea said it was inviting to witness its destruction of nuclear testing site at Punggye-ri from May 23 to 25 media from South Korea, the United States, China, Russia and the UK, it gave no response to South Korea's transmission of the names of journalists. Hope springs eternal: the South Korean journalists nevertheless took off for Beijing, intent in re-transmitting their names. From there a Unification Ministry official said, "We tried to convey the list through the Panmunjom communication channel at 9 a.m. today, but the North declined to accept it."  The South Korean journalists were left behind in Beijing by the others, then themselves left. Now this, from South Korea's Unificatin Ministry: We delivered a list of eight reporters from two outlets to the North today, and the North accepted it." Watch this site.Marginal UN's Secretary General Antonio Guterres, refusing on the record, had a lunch with his favored correspondents on May 21, with wine; nothing emerged and Guterres was reportedly not not asked about UN corruption, the China Energy Fund Committee bribery case, sexual harassment cover ups at UNAIDS, UNESCO and as is relevant here the IAEA or his continuing restriction on the Press which reports on them. Meanwhile Japanese media reach out to Inner City Press about its UN corruption exclusives, while slowest and most right wing Sankei Shimbun writes derivativesly about Santa Fe, Texas. Second tier. On US talk show Fox News Sunday, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham said “If they don't show up, it means diplomacy is over. If they do show up and try to play Trump, it means military conflict is the other way forward... One way or the other it's going to be over by 2020.” On May 18, Inner City Press asked the Chair of the UN Security Council's 1718 DPRK (North Korea) sanctions committee Karel van Oosterom if his Committee has received ay request for sanctions exemptions or waivers for the June 12 talks; he indicated No: "the members of the Committee have not received such a request." Vine video here. This was in a loud press gaggle after the Committee met with the UK's Ambassador to Pyongyang, after a similar meeting with Russia's ambassador there. (The UN is using a little known Russian correspondent bank, which self reportedly had the wrong people negotiate the arrangement, as Inner City Press exclusively reported). Those covering the meeting nearly entirely worked for Japanese media, see below. Inner City Press previously asked UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres' spokesman Stephane Dujarric if it would play any role - no answer - and on May 9 asked him if the UN had played any role at all in the release of the three American hostages by North Korea earlier in the day. No, Dujarric said, before laughing after a Press question about hindered humanitarian aid and calling Inner City Press "self-centered." Video here. On May 16, North Korea's first vice minister for foreign affairs Kim Kye Gwan issued a statement further calling the talks into question. Guterres, holding a press encounter in Brussels as he rarely does in New York, said he hopes common sense prevails. Inner City Press asked his deputy spokesman Farhan Haq, video here, UN transcript here: Inner City Press:  does he believe, it seems like the snags are based on a couple of things, one having to do with this Max Thunder military exercise, and that's the basis on which North Korea said the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] cancelled the meeting with South Korea and more recently they focused on some comments by the new [United States] National Security Advisor analogizing North Korea to Libya.  So, I'm just wondering, particularly as to the military exercises, does he think this is the right time?  Does he think there should be some meeting halfway or is he just hoping that it works out?

Deputy Spokesman:  We believe that the parties involved know what their concerns are.  And, like the Secretary-General said, he believes that common sense will prevail.  He does regret that the inter-Korean meeting was cancelled, but he hopes the discussion will resume." The UN under Guterres is becoming ever more marginal.  On May 15, Kim's state media KCNA cited the joint US - South Korea military exercised somewhat absurdly called Max Thunder as an “exercise targeting us, which is being carried out across South Korea, is a flagrant challenge to the Panmunjom Declaration and an intentional military provocation running counter to the positive political development on the Korean Peninsula.The United States will also have to undertake careful deliberations about the fate of the planned North Korea-U.S. summit in light of this provocative military ruckus jointly conducted with the South Korean authorities.” At the UN Security Council stakeout on the afternoon of May 15, Sweden's Permanent Representative Olof B. Skoog said had yet to hear of this development; the Dutch chair of the Council's North Korea 1718 sanctions committee went into the Council's meetings, on Somalia and Abyei, without stopping to spek with the press. Back on May 12, KCNA announced that North Korea's "Nuclear Weapon Institute and other concerned institutions are taking technical measures for dismantling the northern nuclear test ground ... in order to ensure transparency of discontinuance of the nuclear test." Media from five countries - including the UK but not Japan - were invited. Japan's right wing Sankei Shimbun, which routinely misses North Korea news at the UN in favor of problematic fluff about Kanye West and its reporter Mayu Uetsuka's laundry and jogging in the park, snarked that "
The dismantling of the nuclear test site may just be another theatrical performance to the outside world... It seems that North Korea wants foreign currency under the premise of inviting foreign media." But now an expert opines that "only four media (two US TV, one ROK TV, one ROK text) 100% confirmed going to North Korea to observe demolition of Pyungye-ri. Many media invited have had invites rescinded with no real reason given." So does Sankei stand by its statement this is all about getting foreign currency? Trump back on May 8 while withdrawing from the Iran Deal announced that Mike Pompeo was on his way to North Korea and would be there in an hour's time. Trump said he was hopeful the US hostages would be released and that withdrawal from the Iran Deal would make America safer. Meanwhile Kim Jong Un has flown to the Chinese city of Dalian and met Xi Jiping. Along with a seaside walk, the talk was of synchronized and mutual steps with the US, probably not what Trump wants to hear. South Korea's Yonhap and Chosun have both reported the talks will take place in Singapore in the June, most probably the third week in June. It is noted that Trump often reverses course - it could be earlier, in the DMZ in Panmunjom, or even not at all, depending on how the meeting is pre-spun. Either way, it seems the UN remains on the sidelines, despite intermittent claims of relevance from UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and his yet to be seen new head of the Department of Political Affairs. Inner City Press, which previously shared a UN officewith Chosun Ilbo prior to being evicted for exposing the UN's bribery by Ng Lap Seng and now Patrick Ho, was told she'd start on May 1. Also as the Trump - Kim talks approach, the constellation of those opposing or seeking to undercut them extends from self-styled diplomatic experts in Washington to decadent and ill-informed pro-Abe Japanese scribes in New York. The former include politicians who while first claiming diplomacy was being killed now say it it moving too fast. The latter published, in Sankei Shimbun alone, two separate stories about the May 3 event at the UN in which as Inner City Press reported amid other news a professor from Tufts University said Japan's colonial rule of Korea was better than that of the Kims. Of this, Sankei's Mayu Uetsuka who was not even there wrote that “Mr. Kaichiro Iizuka (41), the eldest son of Mr. Yaeko Taguchi (62) = Same (22) =, said the mother was one year old when she was kidnapped, "I have no memory of touching my mother ". While attention is being paid to nuclear and missile issues, he said, 'Do not forget the abduction issue that human beings are being threatened, human lives should not be lighter than nuclear weapons and missiles.'” Meanwhile the same Uetsuka, unconcerned with human lives other than her own, braggedabout renting an apartment on the Upper West Side there is no washing machine in the room. At first I was looking for a property with "washing machine" at the rental site, but I could not find it in the desired area in the budget. New York has many old buildings, so there are no washing machines only about 30% of the property. Piping around the water is not in place, it is also difficult to purchase and install a washing machine yourself. There is a laundry room in the building and it will be shared with neighbors. From friends, I heard that there are some Americans who are washing shoes and they snatch, but they will have to get used to it. In the life of the United States, insensitive dullness which does not care a little is trained. The room I live in is also puzzled by the appearance of the next apartment from the window, but it gradually ceased to matter. Let's start a jog at Central Park for a diet.” No, it's time to be replaced, putting out for old reports, throwing away real information for a self-promoting bartender typist, on June 5 typing slews of quotes about the new President of the General Assembly seemingly not to be used: Kevin Pinner, claiming he “named products, generated slogans and ideas for marketing campaigns” for Chinavision. Oh for the days of Jun Kurosawa, who at least pursued the attempted censorship of Mr Tatsuya Kato (and Gaza). These days Pinner sits elsewhere in the bullpen, ordered to type information that Sankei will never publish, on May 24 on Burundi and Lebanon; Mayu Uetsuka recently tried to promote New York ads for Hitachi, Panasonic, Shimizu Corporation, and Daikin Industries; now derivative on Facebook and GDPR. She was not present on May 17; no question about Sankei's dubious story about South Korean ship to ship transfers with DPRK ships was asked. Tellingly, even after sitting on the ground at the stakeout, Sankei's Gaza articles were by Mina Mina (or Mina Mitsui), Takao Sato in Jerusalem and in DC, Hiroyuki Kano still running interviews which while interesting are from April: more than two months before. To complain about media critique? Neither was even present at Guterres' North Korea stakeout on June 11. On June 13 the two were together - trying to figure out what happened on Gaza. Hey, ask Jun Kurosawa. Like the Sankei "foreign pool" reports for Abe's visit, this is failure. We will have more on all this.

Thursday, February 26, 2015

North Korea Sanctions Report Named Ethiopia & DR Congo But Reuters Censored, Dennis Rodman Text Here


By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, February 26 -- When the new UN North Korean sanctions report was “obtained” by Reuters, then nearly immediately by other Western wire services, some wondered why it was released in this choreographed way.
  Reuters did not put the report online, instead making its own choices of which nations to list: “countries such as Brazil, China, Egypt, Greece, Japan, Malaysia, Peru, Russia, Singapore and Thailand.”
   But tellingly, there's more. 
  For example the report at Paragraphs 92-93 says that North Korean ammunition was shipped to the Democratic Republic of the Congo in early 2009. 
   Why didn't Reuters, which as Inner City Press has noted has (mis) reported that the UN “paused” support to a DRC Army action against the Hutu FDLR militia which had not then even begun, report on this part of the document (which it also didn't put online)?
 Similarly, the new DPRK report says that 
“88. The Panel continued to investigate a possible connection between an Ethiopian entity (Homicho Ammunition Engineering Industry) and a DPRK entity (Korea Mineral Trading General Corporation) that may have been in violation of the arms embargo. Ethiopian authorities informed the Panel that a “Korea Mineral Trading General Corporation” has been removed from the list of suppliers on the Homicho Ammunition Engineering Industry website. The Panel awaits further information from Ethiopia.”
   As Inner City Press noted, when an ex-Reuters reporter who then went on the UN's Group of Experts of the Somalia Eritrea Monitoring Group and wrote a “regime change” letter on SEMG letter head was exclusively exposed by Inner City Press and resigned, Reuters never reported on it.
 
   This is how the UN -- and Reuters -- work.
   Equally comically, the DPRK report says, of “Gifts given by Dennis Rodman and Paddy Power,” that
“Despite the lack of informaiton from Dennis Rodman, the Panel was able to confirm some of the gifts he presented. The Irish company, Paddy Power, which accompanied Mr Rodman on the December 2013 trip, valued the gifts at around $3,000. (Paddy Power's gifts include a bottle of Jameson whiskey, a decanter and glass set, baby clothing and a Mulberry handbag.)
“The US informed the Panel that appropriate measures were taken in response. In addition, it said that it lacked sufficient information at that time to determine whether there was a violation of the luxury goods embargo but that some of the items were “likely to be considered luxury goods...  15 CFR Part 746.
“Ireland informed the Panel that the total value of the good was low and it it constitute a one-off arranged and could not be considered commercial trade. Paddy Power explained that it was unaware that its activities could violate sanctions. Ireland decided not to pursue the case.”
  So the US reported to the UN Panel about Dennis Rodman. Inner City Press had asked previous chair of the UN's 1718 Committee, Sylvie Lucas of Luxembourg, about it, here
   On February 26, 2015, the new chair from Spain declined a press gaggle's request for a briefing, how ever bland. He might want to check with Lucas, or her predecessor Ambassador Cabral of Portugal -- such briefings have become expected, and to cancel them would be a step backward, the new Free UN Coalition for Accesssays. We'll have more on this, too.

 
  

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

On World Toilet Day, ICP Asks UN of Cholera in Haiti, Water SDG, Blue Wash


By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, November 19 -- On World Toilet Day, Inner City Press asked UN Deputy Secretary General Jan Eliasson about sanitation in Haiti, where UN Peacekeeping is accused of negligently bringing cholera.
Eliasson talks about Secretary General Ban Ki-moon visit to Haiti and work with the government. He thanked Inner City Press for not asking (directly) about the legal issues. As former UN official Stephen Lewis has publicly said, it appears that UN officials have been told to refer questions about Haiti and cholera, at least legal ones, to the Executive Office of the Secretary General. Click here for that.
Singapore's Permanent Representative Karen Tan, when Inner City Press asked of the place of toilets in the Post-2015 development agenda, pointed to Sustainable Development Goal 6, specifically 6.2 with its direct reference to ending open defecation.
 Michel Jarraud, Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization and Chair of UN-Water,spoke of public - private partnerships. Unilever was praised, leading some to wonder if this might be Blue-washing the toilet.  We'll have more on this.

 
  

Friday, November 29, 2013

As US Kerry Brags of Cut In Iran Oil Sales, Reuters Omits Sri Lanka, Of Voice of America False Claims on Geneva Talks Spread


By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, November 29 -- On the afternoon of Black Friday, the US White House sent out an announcement from Secretary of State John Kerry bragging about enforcement of sanctions on Iran's sale of crude oil, even during the next six months.

Kerry's statement said

"I am pleased to announce that, based on additional significant reductions in the volume of their purchases of Iranian crude oil, China, India, the Republic of Korea, Turkey, and Taiwan have again qualified for an exception to sanctions outlined in Section 1245 of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2012. These additional reductions were determined based on an analysis of these economies’ purchasing activity over the previous six months. Additionally, Malaysia, South Africa, Singapore, and Sri Lanka have also qualified again for the NDAA exception because they no longer purchase crude oil from Iran."

  Reuters, which sent five reporters to the Geneva talks but missed the William Burns story reported by AP and AI Monitor, turned Kerry's Iran statement into a 142-word articlewhich mentioned by name only China, India and South Korea.
  Was this just because these were the first three listed by the State Department? What about "Turkey and Taiwan" -- sure to make China (UN) happy? What about Malaysia, South Africa, Singapore, and Sri Lanka -- praised by the US even as it resists accountability for its mass atrocities in 2009 and since?
The Iran nuclear deal, and claims of continuing punishment including by "de-SWIFT-ing" Iran's banks, constitute a pinata for these media, easy pickings. But why be incomplete and inaccurate? Watch this site.

 
  

Monday, October 7, 2013

Exclusive: At UN, As Ban Ki-moon's Five Year Rule Is Violated at ESCAP in Bangkok, Ladsous Wants to Push Haq There, UNreformed


By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive
UNITED NATIONS, October 7 -- There should be no more than five years at any one UN position, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon announced.

  But Inner City Press notes, for example, that the head of the Bangkok-based Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), Noeleen Heyzer of Singapore, has been in place more than SIX years now. She was put into the position in August 2007, and it is now October 2013.

  But there's more to this than just another example of the UN not living up to its stated principles, as with its Human Rights Due Diligence Policy with continued aid to the two Congolese Army units implicated in the 135 rapes in Minova in November 2012.
Inner City Press is not the only one who noticed that Heyzer's Under Secretary General position at ESCAP could be freed up. 

  Well placed sources exclusively tell Inner City Press that the head of UN Peacekeeping Herve Ladsous, the fourth Frenchman in a row to hold THAT position, wants to push out his co-equal Under Secretary General for the Department of Field Support, Ameerah Haq.

  While an earlier Ban Ki-moon reform involved splitting Peacekeeping into two separate components, DPKO and DFS, now Ladsous wants to dominate both of them, by pushing Haq out of DFS and installing a person of his own choosing. (More on that in a future story.)

  Singapore is a serious UN country, so another USG post would have to be identified and given to Heyzer or another Singaporean. But Ladsous, or better said France, has this kind of control in the UN system.

  Beyond this abuse of Ban's supposed five year rule, it brings up the need for a more meaningful reform: no COUNTRY should be able to control a UN department for more than five years. France has held onto Peacekeeping, even since demanding it in exchange for not vetoing Kofi Annan becoming Secretary General. Here they are:

Secrétaires généraux adjoints des Nations Unis aux Opérations de Maintien de la Paix :

Kofi Annan : de mars 1993 à décembre 1996
Bernard Miyet : de janvier 1997 à octobre 2000
Jean-Marie Guéhenno : d'octobre 2000 à juillet 2008
Alain Le Roy : du 30 juin 2008 au 2 septembre 2011
Hervé Ladsous : à compter du 2 septembre 2011

This is UNacceptable: over 16 years, 9 months. It should end.

  At the other end of the UN spectrum, it's every UN department for itself. The Publishing Unit faces a zeroing out of jobs, from 150 position not long ago. To save some posts, in order to scan old documents in the basement of the UN library, sources exclusively tell Inner City Press that the UN is turning to its new Daddy Warbucks: Qatar.

  Warbucks because while the UN pleads for Qatar's money, that country's royal family funds war in Syria. But the UN says nothing. At least, then, the UN should create a bidding war to save more staffers' jobs. We are against lay-offs, but also against the UN becoming beholden to particular states, creating under Ban Ki-moon a UN "a la carte," to use another French phrase like faux (but not Pho).

  Meanwhile in the Department of Safety and Security, more security has been gained, commitments from acting Under Secretary General Kevin Kennedy. This emerged at the best "End of General Debate" party of the season, under the (broken) satellite dish over the East River Friday night. Compared to the faux ceremony of the UN Correspondents Association Executive Committee, which after spying for the UN through its first vice president had to beg interns to come via a rare flyer, DSS had steak and an open bar and plenty of good vibes.

  UNCA is given its clubhouse, in which it held a faux UN briefing by Gulf-supported Syria rebel boos Jarba (a/k/a Jarbucks), by the UN Department of Public Information, regarding which we have received a detailed recruitment complaint, regarding which we have publicly requested an explanation. The new Free UN Coalition for Access holds, if the explanation makes sense, it's fine. But to not respond, or to only selectively respond, is not. More on this to follow. Watch this site.

 
  

Thursday, March 14, 2013

As Ban Ki-moon Launches Book with Tom Plate, Kim Sook's Missile Joke, Sri Lanka in the Princeton Club: How the UN Works



By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, March 12 -- The UN's story should be better told. That was the stated goal when the idea for Tom Plate's “Conversations with Ban Ki-moon” was born, in 2010, at Singapore's Mission to the UN.

   Plate had profiled Lee Kuan Yew as his first “Giant of Asia” and let it be known that he saw Ban as a future Giant in his series.

   Fifteen hours of interviewing later, a smallish 236-page book was belatedly launched Tuesday night at the Princeton Club in Manhattan. 

  The crowd included some press, some students from Loyola Marymount where Plate has taught for the last three years, and Permanent Representatives from the UK, Sri Lanka, New Zealand, Kazakhstan and South Korea. 

  Ambassador Kim Sook, saying he's known Ban for thirty years, joked that he prefers book launches to missile launches. The word armistice, however, was not used.

  Ban said when he read the first draft of the book, it seemed to him too light hearted, like EZ-Listening music. But, he said, it might work in letting people know how the UN works.

  And how does the UN work? Earlier on Tuesday, Ban met for more than two hours with the Group of 77, mostly about “post-2015 development” but also his delayed plan for mobility, which has been opposed by staff, at least in New York. 

  Ban used the word “selfish” in referring to some of this opposition; this was followed by a Staff Union vote of No Confidence. This was not mentioned Tuesday night. But Ban's Under Secretary General for Management, Yukio Takasu of Japan, was in attendance.

   How does the UN work? Also present was the Ambassador of Sri Lanka, Palitha Kohona. The UN's failure to speak and act while 40,000 civilians were killed in Sri Lanka in 2009 is one of the UN's biggest failures under Ban, among with its unexplained dismissal of claims for bringing cholera into Haiti.

  The anti-Tamil impulse of Sri Lanka's ruling family was in fact raised by Lee Kuan Yew in Plate's first Giant of Asia book.

   But what's been done since? Ban recently accepted what's called a “whitewash” report about Sri Lanka from Japan's Ambassador Nishida, along with Bangadesh's Ambassador Monem, Kohona, the Permanent Representative of Romania and the Deputy Permanent Representative of Nigeria.

   The UN didn't release the report, which Ban went on to praise when asked in Geneva about Sri Lanka. And Ambassador Nishida, when Inner City Press asked for the report, said it would first be given to all member states.

   Kohona on Tuesday in the Princeton Club's lobby told Inner City Press this hand-over took place last week, but not in the UN -- in the Japanese mission. It seems timed to counteract the belated talk of accountability at the Human Rights Council in Geneva. This is how the UN works: Giants of Asia, indeed.

   Hardly mentioned Tuesday night was Africa, where most of the UN's work is. On March 5 Inner City Press asked Ban, at the Security Council stakeout, about inaction on 126 rapes in Minova by the Congolese Army, which the UN supports.

  After the rapes, under Ban's stated Human Rights Due Diligence Policy, the UN support was to have stopped. But it still hasn't.

   Two days later his Department of Peacekeeping Operations, led for the fourth time in a row by a Frenchman -- this is how the UN works -- offered belated spin to friendlier journalists about threatening two unidentified units of the Congolese Army with loss of support if they don't prosecute by an unspecified deadline.

  So has Ban allowed his Human Rights Due Diligence Policy to be less than meaningful, under France's Under Secretary General for Peacekeeping Herve Ladsous?

   Inner City Press' critique of this has given rise to a formal but undisclosed complaint against it, in a Kafka-esque system without rules. The head of the Ban's Department of Public Information was in attendance Tuesday night, and quite polite. 

  But despite requests, including from New York Civil Liberties Union then the new Free UN Coalition for Access, there are still no due process rules for journalists at the UN. We will have more on this, how the UN does not work.

   We will also have more about the book, about mobility, Sri Lanka, Africa, Asia and Haiti. Watch this site.

Saturday, December 22, 2012

On Budget, US Puts a Ham-Hand on Scale, Oman Rejects, Jane Holl Lute in Hall



By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive

UNITED NATIONS, December 21 -- With US President Obama flying to Hawaii as the fiscal cliff approaches, at the UN in New York US representative Joe Torsella is described by multiple sources as playing ham-handed fiscal hardball with Oman on the UN's scales of assessment.

  Much earlier today Inner City Press reported on "some attempts by the United States to split the Group of 77 irritated the Group of 77 and made progress stop."

  Now we can report more. A finely tuned proposal was on the table, balancing a 7.5% discount in the peacekeeping scales of assessment and the change of category of Oman (like the change of Bahrain two years ago)/ Oman agreed to forgo a one-time windfall, and the deal seemed ready to seal.

  But then US ambassador for management Torsella, the sources say, gave a so called "non paper" to Oman's representative. This document argued clumsily that the coordinator of the proposal Singapore would be making Oman pay more. This was shown to countries including Singapore, not a source for this, and was rejected by Oman.

  Then Torsella compounded matters by demanding to know why Oman had shared his "non-paper." It's called transparency, Joe, said one close observer.

  Another well placed Fifth Committee source told Inner City Press that Torsella's "attempt with Oman threw things off and [angered] both EU and Oman. Oman got so angry it almost made G77 take its proposal off the table, and EU then made effort to finalize quick before things spiralled out of control." The genial chairman had no comment. Ah, diplomacy.

  As noted, Torsella was at Morocco's End of Security Council Presidency reception in the UN Tent Thursday night, just behind the North Lawn building where the talks are talking place. Man's got to eat. But how will re-costing play out? 

  The General Assembly hall was been booked for 10 am on Monday, Christmas Eve. Still time for seven fishes? (Click here for that story from last year). We jibe because he can more than take it.

   Thinner skinned, on Lockheed Martin, spotted at the UN on Friday by Inner City Press sources was Jane Holl Lute, previously an Assistant Secretary General for Peacekeeping and now a top official in the US Department of Homeland Security. 

  Why was she at the UN? 

   Sources exclusively tell Inner City Press it is in connection with the Under Secretary General for Safety and Security position being vacated by fellow American Gregg Starr. Click here for Inner City Press' exit Q&A with Starr.

 On the upside, if she looked beyond DSS, Holl Lute could do more to make the UN Human Rights Due Diligence Policy credible after the 126 FARDC raped in Minova than has USG Ladsous, click here for that.

Footnote: Inner City Press also report that on a $8.7 million budget proposal to "implement Rio+20," on Thursday the European Union and Japan proposed to cut that budget to zero. This gave rise to howls among the Group of 77 and China, and accusations that the EU and Japan are hypocrites on sustainable development and the environment.

Inner City Press went to Friday's noon briefing and asked, "given how important sustainable development is to the Secretary-General and his statements, it’s been proposed by Japan and the European Union to cut funding for the implementation of Rio+20 to zero. This was a proposal made by the two, by Japan and the EU, yesterday and it seems to me… what is… does the Secretariat think about no implementation of Rio+20?"

Deputy Spokesperson Eduardo Del Buey: Well, Matthew, I am not going to get into a budget discussion until we find out what the General Assembly decides.

Inner City Press: But can you say that there will be a Secretariat statement on the budget when it comes up?

Deputy Spokesperson: If the Secretariat believes that the… that a statement is warranted, one may be issued, but I can’t promise you anything on that.

  Now we can report that they also proposed that, not to be "absorbed" like Rio+20, the budget should including $40,000 for a consultant on the arms trade treaty. More screams of hypocrisy. And so it goes at the UN.