Inner City Press





In Other Media-eg New Statesman, AJE, FP, Georgia, NYTAzerbaijan, CSM Click here to contact us     .



These reports are usually available through Google News and on Lexis-Nexis
,



Share |   

Follow on TWITTER

Your support means a lot. As little as $5 a month helps keep us going and grants you access to exclusive bonus material on our Patreon page. Click here to become a patron. 

MRL on Patreon

Home -

These reports are usually available through Google News and on Lexis-Nexis

CONTRIBUTE

(FP Twitterati 100, 2013)

ICP on YouTube

More: InnerCityPro

BloggingHeads.tv
Sept 24, 2013

UN: Sri Lanka

VoA: NYCLU

FOIA Finds  

Google, Asked at UN About Censorship, Moved to Censor the Questioner, Sources Say, Blaming UN - Update - Editorial

Support this work by buying this book

Click on cover for secure site orders

also includes "Toxic Credit in the Global Inner City"
 

 

 


Community
Reinvestment

Bank Beat

Freedom of Information
 

How to Contact Us



At UN, Somalia's Lost Voting Rights, ICP Runs Photo of National Bank of Pakistan Inquiry

By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive Series

UNITED NATIONS, September 22 – While the UN purports to care about Somalia, the country's voting rights in the General Assembly have been suspended. Inner City Press first reported this (and tweeted the photo, here), then asked the spokesmen for the UN Secretary General and for the President of the General Assembly, who confirmed the suspension of voting rights. (More on this below). Inner City Press has obtained documents showing Somalia's debt to landlord(s) in New York, and inquiries about their account at the National Bank of Pakistan. Now we have tweeted a photo of one of the National Bank of Pakistan documents, when the Permanent Representative and his Deputy opened the account, here. At the noon briefing, Inner City Press asked UN Spokesman Stephane Dujarric, UN transcript here: Inner City Press: On Somalia, they’ve lost their voting rights in the General Assembly.  But beyond that, they seem to have sent documents showing, like, they’re behind on their rent of the Mission, just basically kind of total chaos and disarray.  And given that the Secretary-General hasn’t had a meeting about Somalia, and there’s all this expressed support for Somalia, does the Secretary-General think that, number one, they should be given an extension and allowed to… to vote in the General Assembly? And… and… and isn’t that the simplest form of… of… Spokesman:  Obviously, Somalia is a country that is in need of international support… continuing need of international support as it rebuilds.  The issue of voting rights and the waivers given to some countries who are not able to pay is obviously one for the General Assembly and the Member States to decide. Inner City Press:  I’ll ask Brenden about that." Inner City Press did, and Brenda Varma wrote to it:  "Your question today on Somalia: One of the first issues that the 5th Committee considers during its main session is to permit countries falling under Article 19 (arrears in assessments)  to vote if it's deemed that inability to pay is due to conditions beyond the control of the Member State. The Committee on Contributions in its most recent report (A/72/11) recommends that Somalia (as well as Comoros, Guinea-Bissau, Sao Tome and Principe) be permitted to vote despite its arrears. The Fifth Committee is likely to follow this recommendation and as soon as that decision is adopted in General Assembly plenary, Somalia can vote again." Sources exclusively tell Inner City Press that “because of tribal linkages, they don't want us event to talk to the Prime Minister to bring him up to speed about the recent record of the Mission” to the UN - and that the former Permanent Representative of Somalia SUED the government seeking to keep getting paid. We hear that the Mission former First Secretary Omar Jamal is also preparing to sue. We'll have more on this. When a Yemen meeting during the UN General Assembly week was held at 8 am on September 22, new UN Relief Chief Mark Lowcock introduced as speakers the foreign ministers of Sweden and the Netherlands, representatives of Japan and the UAE, and the UN's dubious envoy Ismael Ould Cheikh Ahmed. While billed as a humanitarian meeting, the UAE spoke without irony about outside interference. (Yemen's representative spoke in Arabic; Inner City Press streamed Periscope video). To get to the meeting, held in UN Conference Room 5, Inner City Press unlike other no-show reporters like Egypt's Akhbar al Yom was required to get a UN escort or minder, who told Inner City Press it could not ask questions or speak with anyone. This despite UN OCHA telling Inner City Press it could wait outside and speak to people as they left. So the UN's retaliatory eviction of Inner City Press for covering UN corruption now results in it, unlike the Saudi and pro-Saudi media in the meeting, being unable to speak to the participants. This is today's UN. While Canada joins The Netherlands at the UN in Geneva in calling for an investigation of possible war crimes in Yemen including the Saudi-led coalition's killing of civilians, Canada has continued a $15 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia. When Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau held a press conference at the UN on September 21, Inner City Press went early, intending to ask him to explain this incongruity or seeming hypocrisy. Trudeau's spokesman announced that the questioners had been “pre-determined,” but did not explain how. So in a lull after what the spokesman called the last question - would Trudeau be a mediator on Venezuela - Inner City Press asked about Canadian arms sales to Saudi while calling for a probe. At first Trudeau said he was happy to answer the question. Then he said no, he would not reward “bad behavior,” and instead reached out for question in French about day care. (Inner City Press notes that pre-determining questioners is bad behavior. Apparently the CBC journalist who was given the first question agreed to it; the organization only the day before sent an Egyptian state media correspondent as the lone “pooler” in Secretary General Antonio Guterres' meeting with General Sisi.) Eearlier on September 21 when UK minister Alistair Burt came in front of the UN Security Council to speak about accountability for Daesh in Iraq, Inner City Press deferred to a timely question about the referendum in Kurdistan. Then during  lull - identical to that in which it put its question to Trudeau - Inner City Press asked Burt about his quote, about accountability for the bombing of civilians in Yemen by the Saudi-led Coalition with UK bombs, that "Our view is that it is for the Coalition itself, in the first instance, to conduct such investigations. They have the best insight into their own military procedures and will be able to conduct the most thorough and conclusive investigations.” Inner City Press asked how he can say this, given that the Saudis have investigated less than five percent of the killings. Video here. Burt's answer focused on the peace process - what peace process? At least Burt answered, and did not like Trudeau try to call merely asking the question in a lull "bad behavior" - we'll have more on this.

***

Your support means a lot. As little as $5 a month helps keep us going and grants you access to exclusive bonus material on our Patreon page. Click here to become a patron.

Feedback: Editorial [at] innercitypress.com

Past (and future?) UN Office: S-303, UN, NY 10017 USA
For now: Box 20047, Dag Hammarskjold Station NY NY 10017

Reporter's mobile (and weekends): 718-716-3540



Other, earlier Inner City Press are listed here, and some are available in the ProQuest service, and now on Lexis-Nexis.

 Copyright 2006-2017 Inner City Press, Inc. To request reprint or other permission, e-contact Editorial [at] innercitypress.com for