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As Spain Uses Aid Funds For Stalactite Ceiling at
UN, Ban's Travels Seen from LA and Europe
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS,
November 13 -- As European
countries, caught in the global financial crisis, cut their aid
budgets, Spain
has dipped into one such fund not for example to address the
humanitarian
crisis in the Congo but rather to pay a Spanish artist to complete a
stalactites-draped
room at the United Nations in the name of human rights.
For a cost
of $25 million, Miquel Barcelo has employed a team in Geneva included a
chef to
cook up this ceiling he compares
to the Sistine Chapel. Spain brags that
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon will be on hand on November 18 to
inaugurate the
ceiling and room. If so, he should be asked in light of his call on
developed
countries not to cut their aid budgets if this is an appropriate use of
at
least 500,000 euros meant for development aid.
The
Spanish government says yes, calling the ceiling a selling point (or "a
new way of doing diplomacy and foreign policy")
for them. They need it, following their General Diaz unceremoniously
fleeing
his post with the UN in the Congo just as rebel general Laurent Nkunda
began
his march on Goma. Despite
Despite Spanish
deputy Prime Minister, Maria Teresa
Fernandez de la Vega's belated call for disclosure, this controversial
use of
aid along with Diaz's retreat leads to increased calls to cancel her
other plan
with Ban, for a UN
Peacekeeping information techology hub in Valencia. That proposal,
still not approved, should also be addressed on November 18. There
has to be a ceiling to abuses.
Ban might
also be asked for his reaction to Iceland's announcement that, despite
commitments it made in exchange for votes in its failed attempt to get
a seat
on the UN Security Council, it is now cutting
its aid budget. Inner City Press
had asked Iceland's foreign minister Ingibjorg Solrun Gisladottir about
the
issue; she complained then about broken promises, and about the UK's
freezing
Iceland's assets here in London. Video here.
UN's Ban in Spain, aid use for $25 million UN ceiling not shown
During an
earlier trip to Europe, Ban inappropriately touted the bid of Iceland's
ultimately
victorious competitor Austria. Does that, along of course with the
global
financial crisis and having assets frozen by the UK under and
anti-terror law,
explain Iceland's new status as what's called an Indian giver?
Ban had
been expected at the University of California in Los Angeles today, but
cancelled on 24 hours notice seemingly at the request of the Saudi
king, who
held a surreal "culture of peace" event in the UN on that day. UCLA
was apparently told that Ban cancelled not for Saudi Arabia --
hardly an
applause line in LA -- but rather for a separate trip to Washington to
tag
along to George Bush's lame duck meeting on the global financial
crisis. Click
here
for that.
The UN flew
out to LA an expert on Sudan, who may have spoken better, or at least
clearer,
than his ultimate boss. But did he explain Ban's seemingly vacillating
position
on distancing himself from Sudan's president Omar al-Bashir, while
praising a
ceasefire announcement that France has already denounced? Watch this
site.
Click here for Inner City
Press Nov. 7 debate on the war in Congo
Watch this site, and this Oct. 2 debate, on
UN, bailout, MDGs
and this October 17 debate, on
Security Council and Obama and the UN.
* * *
These
reports are
usually also available through Google
News and on Lexis-Nexis.
Click
here
for a Reuters
AlertNet piece by this correspondent
about Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army. Click
here
for an earlier Reuters AlertNet piece about the Somali
National
Reconciliation Congress, and the UN's $200,000 contribution from an
undefined trust fund. Video
Analysis here
Feedback: Editorial
[at] innercitypress.com
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earlier Inner City Press are listed here, and some are available
in the ProQuest service, and now on Lexis-Nexis.
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