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Inner City Press
NYC Report - February 7, 2006
Live from Gracie Mansion:
Mayor Bloomberg’s Media Fest Sounds Far Away From The Bronx
NEW YORK, Feb. 7 -- There were jokes but
little self-deprecation at New York mayor Mike Bloomberg’s annual fete
for the press corps. To the television press, Bloomberg mock-presented a
long boomed-mike, saying that the next time Bill Clinton comes to speak
with Freddy Ferrer, “you won’t have to miss the action” (a reference to
the lack of sound or planning at a Bronx event in Ferrer’s fated
campaign). As for having skipped the debate held at the Apollo Theater
in Harlem, Bloomberg sniped, “you see how much difference that made.”
Nor, he pointed out, had he ended up needing an endorsement from “Babies
for Bloomberg” (for which he’d had a t-shirt made). He said that the
gifts that he gave could be returned to Wal-Mart… in Hamilton, Bermuda.
The press corps, mostly in suits,
mostly clapped when Bloomberg introduced, as “the Banking
Superintendent,” Diana Taylor. The night previous, Bloomberg eschewed an
invitation to the White House and instead spoke to homeowners in Throggs
Neck in The Bronx. The tabloid press – a widening category – related
this to the Bush administration’s withdrawal of Ms. Taylor’s name from
consideration to chair the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (which,
coincidentally or not, is consideration an application for insurance and
a bank charter by
Wal-Mart).
Lest the choice of Throggs Neck be
seen as genuine outer borough affirmation, to a reporter Bloomberg
joked, “How’d you like it last night in Throggs Neck?” contrasting it
with well-dressed “Williamsburgh hip.” While this gentrified hot-spot is
in Brooklyn, one left the mayor’s press event as if from the hearty
hearth of a manor house surrounded by wastelands. Five minutes north on
the M15 bus, 125th Street and First Avenue was desolate. The
jokes about Bermuda and the National Rifle Association seemed far, far
away.
Across the Willis Avenue Bridge,
recently put on sale for one dollar, the housing project canyons
glittered with the lights of pizza and liquor stores. They say that The
Bronx will be saved by new shopping malls, and by converting park land
to a replacement Yankee Stadium. But the jobs created at the most
recent uptown mall, the Target by 225th Street and Broadway,
have turned out to be barely minimum wage, and mostly part time (two
days a week, following Christmas). How can rents of even six to eight
hundred dollars be paid with such wages? The question hung in the
seasonably cold air on 149th Street, a mile and a universe
away from Gracie Mansion.
A previous
report from last week:
Post-Tsunami Human Rights Abuses, including by UNDP in the Maldives
Byline:
Matthew Russell Lee, Inner City Press U.N. Correspondent
NEW YORK, Feb. 1 -- In the aftermath of the
December 2004 tsunami, human rights are being violated, including in at
least one instance with funding from the World Bank and the United
Nations Development Programme.
In a
report
released February 1 at the United Nations in New York, three
non-governmental organizations identify land-grabs, loss of livelihood
and forced relocations. While Sri Lanka’s shifting proposals for “buffer
zones” prohibiting rebuilding on the short are the subject of some
controversy (and reporting), less known is the UNDP-funded “safe
islands” initiative in the Maldives. At the Feb. 1 report-launch
briefing, a video was shown of the Hulhumale refugee came for people
displaced from the islands of Villifushi, Madifushi and Kadholhudhoo.
The camp consists of tin long houses with faulty plumbing that become so
hot it is impossible to sleep, according to residents.
Both during and after the
briefing, Miloon Kothari, the Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing to
the UN Commission on Human Rights, was asked by Inner City Press whether
this UNDP-funded program in the Maldives runs afoul of application human
right standards, including the Commission’s 1988 Guiding Principles on
Internal Displacement, which state that “Every human being shall have
the right to be protected against being arbitrarily displaced from his
or her home or place of habitual residence… Displacement shall last no
longer than required by the circumstances.” During the brief, Mr.
Kothari replied that “human rights standards apply to everyone,
including UN agencies.” He said that the report has been sent to “Bill
Clinton’s office” (the UN Office of the Special Envoy for Tsunami
Recovery). After the briefing, Mr. Kothari added that the issue will be
raised directly to UNDP.
On the other side of
Manhattan island – after a 4 p.m. fire drill cleared the UN Secretariat
– the Outreach Officer for the UN Office of the Special Envoy for
Tsunami Recovery, Annie Maxwell, gave a
lecture about
the Office’s work, noting that while all are in favor of coordination,
no one wants to be coordinated. When asked about the report, and the
UNDP-funded displacement project in the Maldives, Ms. Maxwell replied
that the report is “in her inbox,” and that she will look into it.
She spoke movingly about accountability to the beneficiaries of aid.
Outside, the lights of the condos of the Upper West Side twinkles. It’s
a long way, from Manhattan to the Maldives…
Some previous reports:
Halliburton
Repays $9 Million, While Iraq’s Oil Remains Unmetered
Darfur on the
Margins: Slovenia’s President Drnovsek’s Quixotic Call for Action
Ignored
Who Pays for the
Global Bird Flu Fight? Not the Corporations, So Far - UN
Royal Bank of
Scotland Has Repeatedly Been Linked to Terrorist Finance and Money
Laundering, Not Only in the Current Brooklyn Case
From Appalachia
to Wall Street: Behind the Mining Tragedy, UBS and Lehman Brothers
Iraqis Absent
from Oil Oversight Meeting on Development Fund for Iraq, Purportedly Due
to Visa Problems
Watching the
Detectives: Oversight of the Development Fund for Iraq Will be Discussed
at the UN on December 28, 2005
From the UN
Budget, Transit Strike, to the USA Patriot Act, 2005 Ends with
Extensions
Some previous
highlights and special reports:
Citigroup
Dissembles at United Nations Environmental Conference
The United
Nations' Year of Microcredit: Questions & No Answers
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