At
UN
on Syria, "No
Vote Tuesday,"
S. Africa
Says, On AU
Post, Ban's
Bilats
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
January 30 --
As the UN
Security
Council
convened
Monday morning
about South
Sudan, most of
the talk by
Ambassadors at
the stakeout
was on Syria.
The
outgoing
President of
the Council
Baso Sangqu of
South Africa
told Inner
City Press
that the
agreement last
week was to
have a meeting
this afternoon
at the
experts' level
on the draft
resolution(s),
then to have
Permanent
Representatives
meet on
Wednesday.
So there's no
way a vote on
Tuesday, he
said.
Tuesday
afternoon's
session, he
also said,
will be open:
briefings by
Arab League
Secretary
General
Al-Arabi and
"the Qatari
minister" HBJ,
statements by
Syria and then
the Council's
15 members.
"It will be
open" to the
press, he
said, but
closed as to
other
countries
speaking.
Asked
which
countries'
ministers
would be
coming to
what's billed
as a
ministerial
meeting, he
listed the US,
UK and
Portugal. The
French Mission
to the UN has
already
announced
Alain Juppe
will come, and
speak to the
media.
One wag has
already dubbed
it the
Council's
"Syria
Superbowl."
Media crush
& reach
for UK Lyall
Grant Jan
27, by
UN Photo
Germany's
foreign
minister, it's
said, is
traveling in
the Middle
East, as will
be UN
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon after
his stops in
Davos and at
the African
Union summit
in Davos.
Regarding
the vote(s)
for AU
Commission,
Sangqu told
Inner City
Press that it
was a "no
confidence
vote in Jean
Ping," and
that Ping must
now step down
in April, "the
deputy can run
it" until the
summer
meeting, as
which South
African
candidate Ms.
Nkosazana
Dlamini-Zuma
might run.
Other reports
from Addis
Ababa are less
clear on what
happened next.
Watch this
site.
Footnotes:
While
Ban Ki-moon's
spokesperson's
office refused
to answer
simple factual
questions the
Press asked on
Friday, it
pumped out a
stream of read
outs of Ban's
meetings. He
met with
Equatorial
Guinea's
strongman
Obiang; the
read out
doesn't
mention human
rights.
Meanwhile alleged war
criminal
Shavendra
Silva of Sri
Lanka is going
on Ban's
Senior Advisor
Group on
Peackeeping
Operations.
Ban
congratulated
Chad's Idriss
Deby; Ban's
and the AU's
envoy to
Darfur Ibrahim
Gambari went
to a reception
for Deby's
wedding to the
daughter of
janjaweed
militia leader
Musa Hilal and
there greeted
Omar al Bashir,
indicted by
the
International
Criminal Court
for genocide
in Darfur.
Ban
met with the
Prime Minister
of
Guinea-Bissau
and talked
drug
trafficking:
days after his UN belated
admitted
finding and
quickly
ejecting 14
kilograms of
cocaine from
the UN mail
room such that
no one can
know who might
have come to
pick it up.
Ban's
Department of
Safety &
Security
denies knowing
about a
previous drug
arrest in the
UN mail room,
despite a
public 2006
indictment.
And so it goes
at the UN.
, 
