Inner City Press

Inner City Press -- Investigative Reporting From the Inner City to Wall Street to the United Nations

These reports are usually available through Google News and on Lexis-Nexis

Google
  Search innercitypress.com Search WWW (censored?)

In Other Media-eg Nigeria, Zim, Georgia, Nepal, Somalia, Azerbaijan, Gambia Click here to contact us     .

,



Home -

These reports are usually available through Google News and on Lexis-Nexis

Follow us on TWITTER

CONTRIBUTE

Subscribe to RSS feed

BloggingHeads.tv

March 1, 2011: Libya

Video (new)

Reuters AlertNet 8/17/07

Reuters AlertNet 7/14/07

Support this work by buying this book

in

Click on cover for secure site orders

also includes "Toxic Credit in the Global Inner City"
 

 

 


Community
Reinvestment

Bank Beat

Freedom of Information
 

How to Contact Us



On Syria, Germany Speaks of UN Resolution As Security Incident Shifts Meeting

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, August 1, updated -- An hour before its emergency Syria meeting, the UN Security Council got cleared out. The Press was told to move back to the elevator, then all the way to the General Assembly basement. The meeting was moved to Conference Room 6 in the North Lawn building.

   There, as the meeting began, Germany's Deputy Permanent Representative stopped and spoke of the March resolution circulated by the Security Council's European members.. Inner City Press asked if it's still the same one still. Updated, he said.

  Twenty minutes before the scheduled 5 pm start, Inner City Press found US Ambassador Susan Rice waiting in front of smaller Conference Room C. Word was she was looking for the pre-meeting with the Europeans, who sponsored the Syria resolution. But they did not show up there.
 
  Rice went downstairs and told the media
, "We're talking about a resolution, we support that very strongly. We want to understand why other don't do the same, particularly given what's happened over the last couple days."
 
   Asked about the argument that NATO's use of Resolution 1973 on Libya has need to inaction on Syria, Rice said, "That's a canard, an excuse by those who don't want to confront what is happening in Syria."

(Separately, Inner City Press wanted to know and began to ask why Rice, the UK's Lyall Grant and Russia's Vitaly Churkin met together with Ban Ki-moon earlier on Monday. "Nothing to do with the Security Council," Churkin told Inner City Press.)

Russia's Churkin said that if the Europeans put forward the same resolution as before, it was a non starter. But he noted a new tone in Moscow's statement earlier in the day, on the violence in Syria.


Outside CR6, Prez Hardeep Singh Puri arrives in new venue

A well placed political coordinator said that it would not be possible for Lebanon to conveniently not attend, so that a press or presidential statement could be adopted. And Inner City Press saw a Lebanese representative enter Conference Room 6.

The buzz was of a request for consultations at the highest Permanent Representative level on Tuesday, on a resolution. But would Russia or China veto? Would India, Brazil and South Africa go along? Watch this site.

* * *

At UN in Run-Up to Meeting on Syria, Brazil Says Could Agree to Statement

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, August 1 -- With deaths in Syria mounting, on July 31 outgoing UN Security Council president Germany asked its successor for August, India, to convene an emergency for August 1 on Syria. At 9 am on Monday, a spokesman of the German Mission to the UN told the press that the request was granted, and the meeting would be at 5 pm.

  In front of the Security Council on Monday morning, Inner City Press asked Brazilian Permanent Representative Maria Viotti what Brazil expected from the 5 pm meeting. After meeting with the Indian presidency she said Brazil could agree to a Press Statement or Presidential Statement on Syria, but not a resolution.

  Inner City Press has exclusively reported that Brazil, India and South Africa say their deputy ministers will travel to Damascus soon -- "in the coming days," Viotti said Monday -- to "engage" with the Assad resolution. Western members of the Security Council have been dismissive of this trip.

  When France's Deputy Permanent Representative exited the Security Council after meeting with the Indian presidency, Inner City Press asked him if France had joined in Germany's request for the meeting -- "yes" was the answer -- and told him what Viotti had said.

"That's news to me," he said. So news it is. Watch this site.

Footnote: Given the position Lebanon is in, it remains more than possible that it would block any press or presidential statement of the Council, which requires unanimity. Or, Lebanon could "disassociate" itself. We'll see.

Update of 11:24 am -- the Portuguese, when the emerged, said that for a Presidential or Press Statement, Lebanon could be a problem. But they pointed to a precedent from the 1956 Suez crisis, a statement can be adopted without all members present. Watch this site.

Click for July 7, 11 BloggingHeads.tv re Sudan, Libya, Syria, flotilla

Click for Mar 1, '11 BloggingHeads.tv re Libya, Sri Lanka, UN Corruption

Click here for Inner City Press' March 27 UN debate

Click here for Inner City Press March 12 UN (and AIG bailout) debate

Click here for Inner City Press' Feb 26 UN debate

Click here for Feb. 12 debate on Sri Lanka http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/17772?in=11:33&out=32:56

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

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

UN Office: S-453A, UN, NY 10017 USA Tel: 212-963-1439

Reporter's mobile (and weekends): 718-716-3540

Google
  Search innercitypress.com  Search WWW (censored?)

Other, earlier Inner City Press are listed here, and some are available in the ProQuest service, and now on Lexis-Nexis.

            Copyright 2006-08 Inner City Press, Inc. To request reprint or other permission, e-contact Editorial [at] innercitypress.com -