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Some Gaza Victim Swept UNder the
Rug, UN Date Bars Not in Data Base
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED
NATIONS, January 30 -- The
range of responses to the Gaza crisis from different UN agencies, even
within
particular agencies, shows a wavering relationship with truth and
member states.
In the face of reports
of a particular Palestinian teenage girl, needing an
operation in France but denied the right to exit the Gaza Strip at
the Rafah
crossing to Egypt, apparently upon the orders of Fatah's Palestinian
Authority
health ministry in Ramallah, UN humanitarian spokesman Chris Gunness
wrote:
"I do not have any information on this case. I suggest [Inner City
Press]
contact [its] stringer in Gaza or approach the Ministry of Health."
But shouldn't the UN be concerned by the report? The
story had already
been in the Emirati
press, and on Arabic satellite TV. It seems unlikely the UN
wouldn't know of it. And even if Inner City Press' written query was
the first
they heard of it, shouldn't one expect the UN to look into such
a report?
The explanation,
it seems, is that the UN like the EU want only to deal
with Fatah's Palestinian Authority, and not Hamas. Therefore anything
wrong
done by the PA is swept UNder the rug.
The victim, in Gaza's Shifa hospital, (c) The
National, UNRWA spokesman not shown
On the controversy of the BBC refusing to carry a
Gaza appeal, Inner
City Press on January 29 asked UNRWA's Karen AbuZayd what she thought
of it.
"It's up to the BBC," she said and walked away. Meanwhile her
putative deputy, John Ging, on January 30 began by saying he didn't
want to
tell the BBC what to do, but went on to say, we need aid here. The
implication
was, the appeal should have been run.
On January 29, the World
Food Program's chief for the Middle East
bragged about the date bars WFP delivers to the Gaza Strip. Inner City
Press
asked him if the date bars are donated by Egypt's government, or
whether WFP
buys them. Video here.
He referred in his answer to
the private sector, which means that they are bought. But date bars do
not
appear in the recent months on the WFP's procurement data base. WFP
and the
World Bank, it emerges, made loans to Egypt to build up a date bar
sector.
We'll have more on this.
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
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