In
UN's August,
of Korean Seas
& African
"Nothing,"
Olympics &
Police
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
August 6 -- As
August settles
in at the UN,
with France in
charge of the
Security
Council,
schedules are
mostly loose
and the
buildings put
to other use.
On
Monday August
6, what passed
for news was a
speech in the
North Lawn
denouncing
Japan's use of
the term "Sea
of Japan,"
delivered by
South Korea's
Ambassador at
Large for
Geographic
Names,
Mr. Chang
Dong-hee.
His
prepared
remarks
described
meetings in
which "Japan
sticked
[sic] to its
existing
position and
showed no
flexibility to
consider
any other
option than
the sole and
exclusive use
of 'Sea of
Japan.'
This has
prevented the
two countries
from having
meaningful
discussions on
this matter."
Also,
Canada once
against
denounced
Palestine's
participation
and how it
described
itself. (Click
here for
Inner City
Press' exclusive
report
last week on
Palestine
getting seated).
Elsewhere
in
the North Lawn
there was a
scheduled
meeting of the
"Special
Advisory
Committee on
Central
Africa,"
slated to
start at 3 pm.
Inner City
Press staked
it out
expectantly.
But by 3:07 pm
mid-level
representatives
of only four
member states
had entered.
One of them,
when Inner
City Press
asked "what is
the meeting
about?"
said "nothing,
absolutely
nothing. It's
Central
Africa."
A
meeting that
was listed on
the blue sign
as "DESA" was
separately
labeled as
"International
Police
Executive
Symposium."
Inside a Power
Point slide
long on the
screen
talking about
mapping sexual
violence.
Across
the hall was
another non-UN
event, "GYLC,"
the Global
Youth
Leadership
Conference.
Secretary
General
Ban Ki-moon is
setting sail
on Friday, to
the Expo in
his
native Korea
and them to
Timor L'este.
He will be out
of town as the
UN mission in
Syria is, by
all accounts,
allowed to
expire.
Despite the
stated focus
on Syria,
there were
tubbleweeds
blowing
through the UN
on Monday,
figuratively
and almost
literally, as
wrappers from
the Policy
Symposium's
free lunch
accumulated on
the North Lawn
Building's
cement floor.
When
a European
spokesman came
into the
Vienna Cafe,
even this was
not for
news, at least
not UN news.
The London
Olympics are
being shown
live on
two big screen
TVs by the
Vienna Cafe;
it has to be
serviced, and
NBC's
tape-delay
defeated. And
so it goes at
the UN.
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