On
Syria,
From Fabius Fumble,
Action Shifts
to Geneva,
Qatar Aid
Games
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
September 30
-- From the UN
Security
Council Friday
night,
where after a
15-0 vote on
the Syria
chemical
weapons
resolution
French
foreign
minister
Laurent Fabius
spun his
propping up
of
Saudi-sponsored
rebel boss
Jarba, the
Syria action
moved Monday
to
Geneva.
The
UN's refugee
agency held a
morning of
speeches.
Lebanon said
that
those fleeing
Syria have
brought
prostitution
with them -- lacking
in
class, as one
wag noted.
Qatar bragging
about the aid
it is giving,
without
mentioning
that its
arming of
extremist
rebels has
played a
role in the
refugee flows.
UNHCR
allowed
Germany to
jump the line
of speakers
because of a
need to
catch a
flight. Donor
status has its
benefits,
apparently. It
got the UN
three names:
William Joseph
Burns.
Norway's
outgoing
foreign
minister Espen
Barth Eide,
whom Inner
City Press
observed
Friday night
at the
Security
Council
stakeout in
New York,
was there in
Geneva.
(Fabius,
meanwhile,
followed up
his Friday
night fumble
with "French
Morning" on
Saturday, a
food festival
to which he
brought his
own pack of
scribes.)
Back
in the
Security
Council, there
is a draft
Presidential
Statement on
humanitarian
access. Qatar
in Geneva
thundered that
access must be
unconditional,
and without
discrimination
-- ironic,
given its
policies. The
EU's
Kristalina
Georgieva
called it a
"resolution;"
this
sloppiness is
not limited to
her.
Agence
France Presse,
which like any
good state
media would
never mention
Fabius'
meltdown
Friday in New
York, couldn't
even keep its
calendar
straight,
reporting that
Australia
hands over the
presidency of
the
Security
Council to
Azerbaijan on
Wednesday.
No, that would
be
Tuesday
October 1.
But facts were
never AFP's
strong suit -
witness
its coverage,
past and upcoming,
of the
Democratic
Republic of
the
Congo and
Rwanda.
The
international
machinery was
never
mobilized in
this way for
that crisis,
much less for
Sri Lanka in
2009. We'll
have more on
this. Watch
this site.
, 
