By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
October 29 --
As the East
Jerusalem
meeting of the
UN Security
Council
started up on
Thursday
afternoon, a noteworthy
small moment
occurred at
the Council's
press
stakeout.
Palestine's
Riyad Mansour
was telling a
half-dozen
reporters that
Security
Council
members should
shoulder their
responsibility
-- and just
then, UK
Permanent
Representative
Mark
Lyall Grant
walked by.
"Hello,
Mark,”
Mansour said,
and Lyall
Grant, a
flower on his
label, laughed
and continued
on. Recently
the House of
Commons voted,
with many
abstentions,
to recognize
the state of
Palestine.
Other Council
sources told
Inner City
Press it
may have
“softened” the
UK's or Lyall
Grant's
approach to
the issue.
Perhaps these
questions are
answered
elsewhere.
Others
have asked,
what about
Lyall Grant
moving on from
the Council?
The answer is
yes, but not
until April
15, 2015. His
replacement is
Matthew
Rycroft, most
recently the
“chief
operating
officer” of
the UK Foreign
and
Commonwealth
Office.
(Rycroft's
replacement
Deborah
Bronnert,
already
interviewed as
such, has said
all British
diplomats
should be on
Twitter, with
Lyall Grant
had no problem
with.)
And so
to Lyall
Grant, even
with five and
a half months
to go, this
insider-football
joke: what
team is made
up of two
things ISIS or
Da'esh hates?
West
Ham.
Meanwhile,
while
France's
Gerard Araud
was replaced
by Francois
Delattre and
Inner City
Press and the
Free
UN Coalition
for Access
taken a break
from writing
about press
freedom issues
that arose
with the
French
mission, from
French-only
sessions in
the UN Press
Briefing Room
to Araud
calling a
Lebanese
correspondent
not a
journalist but
“an agent,”
still little
has been heard
from Delattre
(for now we
keep an open
mind).
Some say it's
because he
came to the UN
not during the
summer but
right in
September.
Will Rycroft
start
shadowing
Lyall Grant
and Peter
Wilson between
now and April
15?
Rycroft
it
is clear has
recently
toured the DR
Congo. What
are his views
on the UN not
suspending any
support to the
Congolese Army
after their
130 rapes in
Minova for
which only two
soldiers were
convicted? By
April 2015,
will the FDLR
militia have
actually been
neutralized,
as the M23 was
by the UN and
its Force
Intervention
Brigade?
What
about the UN
Secretariat,
on Darfur,
only giving
Security
Council
members the
executive
summary of its
(whitewash)
report
into
covering-up
attacks on
civilians, and
not the whole
report?
That'll be for
Lyall Grant to
address -- and
some others on
the Council.
Watch this
site.
, 
