UN
GA Schedule
Has Iran,
Chavez &
Sri Lanka,
Syria on Last
Day, Qatar on
1st
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
August 14 --
After next
month's UN
General
Assembly is
kicked off on
the morning of
Tuesday,
September 25
by Brazil's
Dilma
Rousseff and
US President
Barack Obama,
then things
get
interesting.
Inner City
Press is
putting the
Provisional
List of
Speakers
online
here.
The
next day,
Iran's head of
state Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad is
scheduled to
speak in the
morning. Sri
Lanka's
Mahinda
Rajapaksa
starts that
afternoon's
session, which
includes
Zimbabwe's
Robert Mugabe.
Also
on the
afternoon of
September 26
is Rwanda's
President Paul
Kagame,
followed the
next morning
by Joseph
Kabila of the
Democratic
Republic
of the Congo,
with the
so-called M23
mutineers
probably still
on the agenda.
But
another
son-of-a-leader,
Syria's Bashar
al-Assad, is
not scheduled
to
come. Syria is
related to
what some call
"garbage time"
the
next week and
even month. On
Monday,
October 1,
Syria is
penciled in
at only the
Ministerial
level.
The
same is true
of the world's
most populous
democracy,
India: only a
minister will
come, on
October 1.
Ethiopia,
perhaps not
surprisingly,
plans to send
its Deputy
Prime
Minister, on
Friday,
September 28
--
the same day
Venezuela's
Head of State
-- Hugo
Chavez? -- is
scheduled to
speak.
Evo
Morales of
Bolivia is the
last speaker
on September
26, perhaps
ready
with the coca
leaf he's
waved before.
Palestine is
the last
speaker
on the morning
of September
27 -- will
another
announcement
be made?
Turkey,
which
roughed up UN
Security
during Mahmoud
Abbas'
presentation
last
year, is
set this year
for the first
day, but not
in the premium
time
between Barack
Obama and,
well, France's
new president
Francois
Hollande.
In
that Tuesday
morning space
is Qatar,
armer of
rebels
everywhere,
and
Serbia
whose Vuk
Jeremic will
have taken
over the
presidency of
the
the General
Assembly from
Qatar.
Morocco is in
there, in the
midst of
its supposed
dispute with
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon about
his
Western Sahara
envoy
Christopher
Ross.
Also
Tuesday
morning there
is Cyprus,
which holds
the presidency
of the
European Union
(whose own
spot comes on
the next
afternooon),
Georgia,
Indonesia and
Bulgaria,
sure to talk
about this
summer's
terrorist
attack.
Tuesday
afternoon,
beyond Turkey,
has Finland
(which is running
for a
Security
Council seat
against
Australia
-- confined to
Thursday --
and
Luxembourg).
There are also
Argentina sure
to talk about
the
Malvinas,
and Myanmar,
unlikely to
meaningfully
address the
abused
Rohingyas.
What
will have
happened with
the Rohingyas,
with Assad and
M23,
by this
debate in late
September?
Watch this
site.
, 
