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At UN, of Somalia and Sandwiches,
Susan Rice at France's Shindig
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: News Muse
UNITED
NATIONS, January 30 -- A
week after Sudan's
mission to the UN invited hundreds of guests to a river-view
reception to celebrate its take-over of the Group of 77 UN voting
bloc, France's
mission held a relatively smaller and more exclusive shindig, to mark
the end
of its Security Council presidency. Sudan's event was inside UN
headquarters,
catered by Aramark in the Delegates' Dining Room, complete with lobster
tails
and a Sudanese flag made of ice. France
invited Council Ambassadors and select bureaucrats and journalists to
its 44th
floor office a block from the UN in 1 Dag Hammarskjold Plaza.
"This is from the best caterer in New York," French
Ambassador
Jean-Maurice Ripert said, gesturing at the macaroons and chiding a
reporter who
confused them with meringue. Waiters, one of them German, circulated
with
champagne. The buzz of the evening was the wait for Susan Rice. We have to tell her, Ripert said, that most
Ambassadors leave after the first hour.
Hour three of the reception approached when Susan
Rice showed up.
Jounalists quickly swarmed around her. Her staff had promised Q&A
outside
the Council in the morning, which then never took place. But now the
questions
were personal. One reporter asked if her husband worked at NBC. Ms.
Rice shook
her head. ABC, she said, with George Stephanopoulos.
She noted that she is the only female Permanent Representative on the
Council.
Inner City Press
asked about Somalia, the incongruity of the Obama administration being
less
willing to vote to send UN peacekeepers to that country that Bush in
his final
days.
Ms. Rice asked, why
incongruous? The US has a history in Somalia. And so
does Susan Rice.
Susan Rice with UN's Asha Rose Migiro, UN
peacekeepers to Somalia not shown
When Inner City Press asked about the Somali Transitional
Federal Government's loss of control of Baidoa, Rice said, what is
this, a press conference? She's yet to hold one. We hope to explore
these issue on the record at the stakeout, and not
then at receptions. At this one, Rice jokingly asked for canape
recommendations; Inner
City Press noted again that Zagat's Mark
Kornblau is said to be the pick for the US Mission's spokesman, as
memorialized
for now in this one and only report.
To that
we can add this tidbit from a
source inside the mission: the Zagats are big donors to the Democratic
Party.
Rice's deputy Alejandro Wolff, who also attended
last week's Sudan
event, chatted with UK Permanent Representative John Sawers, then with
Ripert
in French about the wonders of Los Angeles. Ripert said that during
France's
six months atop the European Union, there were 650 meetings of internal
coordination. "C'est un travail de
fou," he said: it's work for a crazy man. The UN's head of
management
Angela Kane came and went. Outside the city lights swirled. It felt
like a new
era.
Click here for Inner City Press' Jan.
16, 2009 debate about Gaza
Click here for Inner City Press'
review-of-2008 UN Top Ten debate
Click here for Inner
City Press' December 24 debate on UN budget, Niger
Click here from Inner City Press'
December 12 debate on UN double standards
Click here for Inner
City Press' November 25 debate on Somalia, politics
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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2006-08 Inner City Press, Inc. To request
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