By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
November 27 --
Sustainable
Energy for All
will be UN
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon's
topic today
when he speaks
to the press
along with
World Bank
president Jim
Kim.
There
will be
another bank
in the mix:
Bank of
America,
implicated not
only in the
predatory
lending
meltdown of
2008 but also
in funding
mountain top
removal coal
mining.
Ban put Bank
of America
chairman Chad
Halliday is
charge of
"operational
oversight" of
Sustainable
Energy for
All.
Ban
Ki-moon's
response on
including coal
industry
lobbyists, for
example in the
recent climate
change talks
in Warsaw, is
that "We must
work together
so that
everyone can
be part of the
solution. Of
course we
recognize the
importance of
coal and
fossil fuels
in many
economies at
this time."
But
Bank of
America's
presence is
part of a
growing trends
of
commercialization
at and of the
United
Nations. On
November 26
for example,
alongside
singer
Mohammed Assaf
was his
corporate
promoter from
Dubai-based
MBC media
group,
permitted to
use the UN
press
conference as
an
advertisement
for MBC.
Inner
City Press wrote
about it,
and others
have picked
it up, saying
for example
that the
"corporate
storyteller"
of MBC "was
there to
essentially
use Assaf's
appearance at
the UN as an
advertisement
for MBC, which
is wrong."
But at the UN,
the corporate
infiltration
continues.
Earlier
this
same week, a fine
play about
violence
against women
was sponsored
by the Italian
oil company
ENI, which
also openly
advertises
with and
sponsors the pseudo
press advocacy
group Ban
partners with.
One point is,
these
partnerships
hurt the
United Nations
or what it is
supposed to
be.
The UN
decided to
cancel,
preempted by
Ban's and
Kim's press
encounter on
SE4ALL, its
normal noon
briefing, at
which
questions for
example about
the Haitian refugees
drowned off
the Bahamas
and bombings
in Sudan could
be asked. So
Inner City
Press will
cover the
Sustainable
Energy for All
event. Watch
this site.
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