As
Egypt
Ambassador Dismissing Web Crackdown, His UN Job Search Continues, Yemen
& Tunisia Perm Reps Compete?
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
February 8 -- Amid continuing protests and crackdowns on
media in Egypt, the Mubarak
government's Permanent Representative to
the UN Maged A. Abdelaziz spoke to the Press on Tuesday. Inner City
Press asked him about the blocking of the Internet and social
networks and whether these attacks on freedom of expression would
continue.
“I'm sure you
know better than that,” Abdelaziz said. “Now everything is
working -- social networks, Internet, Twitters... you have contact
with your people back there, you see everything.”
But
the fact that
television networks can work around restrictions and threats does not
answer the question. Abdelaziz said that as Ambassador to the UN in
New York, there were questions he could not answer.
Earlier
on
Tuesday, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was asked about complaints
by Abdelaziz, first to Ban's chief of staff Vijay Nambiar, about
comments about Mubarak stepping down. Ban said
“I
think that there was some misunderstanding about my statement. I hope
that there will not be much misunderstanding on that. What I said was
that the Government leaders should listen more attentively to the
genuine aspirations of the people and there should be a transition,
and the sooner the better. And the future of their country and
transition process should be something which should be decided by the
people.”
Less
than an
hour later, Abdelaziz seemed pleased when he said that what Ban
Ki-moon had just said “is the UN position.” Abdelaziz met with
Ban on Monday.
Maged
Abdelaziz makes point to
Ban: UN job offer not yet shown
Abdelaziz'
and
the Egyptian Mission's spokeswoman commented to Inner City Press on
Tuesday about its reporting
that Abdelaziz is seeking a job. She
denied he is seeking an IMF job -- which Inner City Press never
reported. But there are many sources for his UN job search.
Also,
the Permanent
Representatives of Yemen and Tunisia are said to be seeking UN jobs
-- one effect of what's sweeping the region. But it is like musical
chairs. Watch this site.
* * *
As
Egypt's
IMF
Rep Quits, Its Ambassador Wants UN Job Like Choi
- & Kouchner?
By
Matthew
Russell
Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
February
6 -- With Egypt's Permanent Representative to the
UN Maged A. Abdelaziz set to meet on Monday with the returned
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, there's been scant reporting of a
topic the two have discussed for some time now: a top UN job for
Maged.
For
many months
the UN Secretariat has been abuzz with Maged's demands for a UN job.
When the number two post at the UN Development Program opened up,
Maged tried to become the African Group's candidate. This lead to a
split; the job was awarded to a candidate from Costa Rica.
Since
then,
a
senior UN official repeated to Inner City Press on February 4, Maged
has continued to press for a UN posting, even as his name circulated
in the pre-January 25 days as a possible foreign minister. “Now
that chance is off the table,” the UN official told Inner City
Press. “So Maged will just have to push the UN harder.”
Meanwhile
Egypt's
now
deposed finance minister Youssef Boutros-Ghali resigned as head
of the Monetary and Finance Committee of the International Monetary
Fund. He could have tried to stay on, but didn't. A lesson for
Mubarak?
The
UN in recent years has handed
top posts to a number of former Ambassadors, for example giving its
Somalia post to Augustine Mahiga after he was Tanzania's Permanent
Representative to the UN. The UN's envoy to Cote d'Ivoire, Choi
Young-jin, was South Korea's Ambassador to the UN, along with
masterminding Ban Ki-moon's campaign to become Secretary General.
Now
the buzz is
that deposed French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner wants to become
the head of the UN Mission in Haiti, MINUSTAH. Not only NGOs and many
Haitians, but even other UN officials, think it would be a “terrible
decision,” given France's history with Haiti. But this is Ban
Ki-moon's UN. Watch this site.
, 
