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At UN, Prodi's Job Search on the Terrace, the Specter of Mugabe While the Dirty Deals Continue

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Muse

UNITED NATIONS, April 16 -- Like a diplomatic mating ritual, Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi was led out onto a terrace over the East River, surrounded by security guards. Signals were made, and soon an equally-large contingent from Cote d'Ivoire joined the Italians by the river. President Laurent Gbagbo stepped forward toward Prodi. Though the glass of the UN Delegates Lounge not a word could be heard.

            Prodi's real work, sources say, may be the search for a diplomatic posting. The UN has been handing out jobs these days, most recently the Lebanon envoy gig to Belgium's outgoing Ambassador Johan Verbeke. So what might Prodi get? System-wide coherence, some said. Or perhaps not the UN at all, but rather the EU's Bosnia post. Diplomats are people too. This we learned on Wednesday.

            In the half-light outside the Council, Somalia's transitional President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed walked slowly by, looking quite ill. He has in the past had a liver transplant, and more recently bronchitis.  But he has proved to be resilient, asking reporters, "do you remember how many times journalists, who are liars, told to the whole world I was already dead? Three times I watch television, news came - the president of Somalia Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, already died." he is slated for a photo-op with Ban Ki-moon at 11 on April 17.

Laurent Gbagbo and Mr. Ban, Prodi job-search not shown

            Congolese president Joseph Kabila came down from Ban Ki-moon's with an entourage of dozens. Two reporters tried to ask about the meeting. Kabila raised his hand: no. He had official state media with him, to film this hallway strut. During the wait, one of Kabila's official reporters asked for money for a soda.

            Inside the Council, money was the topic. The AU needs more funds. Indonesia made a pitch for ASEAN. For the West, however, it was all about Zimbabwe. Britain's Browns, Gordon and Mark Malloch, sounded the theme in a private press conference. Mbeki held his own presser, in public, but not all the questions were allowed. For example this one:

In terms of the UN's peacekeeping in Africa, questions have been raised by the General Assembly about the DPKO's procurement being skewed toward developed world contractors. In part this springs from bilateral funding, such as the U.S. paying U.S. based Lockheed martin for the AMIS camps in Darfur. The UN took over this contract, given Lockheed another 250 million on a no bid basis. Do you think the UN's procure is diverse enough, and might this be addressed by Ban Ki-moon's UN-AU panel, to begin within three months?

            What would have been the answer? Will there be any follow-up? Watch this site.

Footnote: Gordon Brown, after his Brit-press only briefing in a UN basement room and a lunch in City Hall, met bankers in his suite in Waldorf=Astoria Towers, including Bear bailer-out Jaime Dimon and Chuck Prince's successor Vikram Pandit. Afterwards, there were some 35 unaccounted for minutes upstairs. A lone AP photographer staked out Brown and then left. Meanwhile, the much larger South Korean mission was repeatedly stopped for ID by those protecting the reclusive Gordon Brown.  "But our president is here," one protested, flashing a Blue House i.d.. But Gordo's missing half-hour: could it be another private press conference?

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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

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