At
UN, $1850 Fee for Tips on "Revenue Generation," N. Korea Talks Not
Covered
Byline:
Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Muse
UNITED
NATIONS, June 8 -- There is a two day event held in the UN's basement
for which $1850 is being charged. It is called Incentive2Innovate. At
the UN's June 8 noon media briefing, UN Associate Spokesman Farhan
Haq plugged the event, implying it was about how to achieve the
Millennium Development Goals. Video here,
from Minute 12:01.
Inner City Press asked why it costs $1850, and
where the money goes. Faq said he wasn't aware of the charge. Video here,
from Minute 18:54. But it
is right on the online registration form, click here.
To
learn more, Inner City Press went down to the basement and stood in
the back while a panel of five, including Marthin de Beer from Cisco
and Filippo Passerini from Procter & Gamble, Arianna
Huffington
and a gold miner spoke, in essence, about how to make more money.
In
the brochure, they call it "revenue generation." There is scant mention
of any of the MDGs, unlike in the UN News Services' plug for the
conference under the Millennium Development Goals rubric. In the
Updated Conference Program, the only Millennium of any kind mentioned
is the Millennium Plaza Hotel, where breakfast will be served on June
9. One wag said, it better be caviar."
Again
the question: why is this being held at the UN? As one wag put it,
they are people seeking to make more money -- but it is at the UN, it
has the veneer of public spiritedness. Keynote speaker and Wikinomist
Don Tapscott, after screening two television ads for Doritos corn
chips, praised a financial services firm, VenCorps, in which to his
credit he disclosed he has a stake.
The
only UN department that links to the event is the UN Office of
Partnerships, set up with money from another innovator, Ted Turner.
Its one page in the inches of material given out or sold at the
conference quotes Secretary General Ban Ki-moon that in "addressing
global challenges... through partnerships... we increase our chances
of success."
But will the UN partner with just anyone? What
other than $1850 are the criteria? Other companies listed in the
brochure range from WellPoint to the BT Group, insurance companies to
Google, which is sponsoring a prize for a team that lands a robot on
the moon. It's part of the X-Prize Foundation, a sponsor of the
event.
They call
it, "the confererence you cannot afford to miss this year!". But
for most, they can't afford the $1850 conference at all.
While Don Tapscott took some questions, he only called on those sitting
in the front of Conference Room 2, with name plates in front of them.
Perhaps that was part of the $1850 charge -- the name plate, and the
ability to ask questions.
Another "Innovation" conference, i2i mood
captured, MDGs not shown
Perhaps
a more productive question, with these executives in the House, would
be how these innovative "Web 2.0 ideas" might be applied to
the UN itself, or at least to the Security Council, where for
example the Permanent Five members along with Japan and South Korea
have for two weeks like dinosaurs been negotiating a response to
North Korea's second underground test of nuclear bomb.
On
June 5,
Inner City Press obtained and put online the most recent
draft resolution, for all the world to see. This seemed very Web
2.0.
Since then, Inner City Press has received push back from various
quarters. Certain Western P-5 Permanent Representatives are described
as being incensed, starting a witch hunt to find who, from what
Mission to the UN, leaked the draft to the Press.
Even
one non-Permanent Five member of the Council opined what it would
have been better, as he said, to described the draft without actually
uploading it. He considered this too graphic.
Might one call it
diplomatic pornography? But why as an Internet publication would one
describe a document without putting it online, as PDF or otherwise?
"By now, you'll be believed that you have it if you say you have
it," the Ambassador said. But still: why not put it online?
A
Permanent Five Ambassador explained that once the actual draft is
out, it is hard for the negotiating countries to go backwards. So
"you are slowing things down," was the accusation. But that
can't be the Press' criterion to publish or upload such a document.
Trust the people -- what's what they were teaching down in the
basement of the UN, for $1850 a pop. There will be a reception -
perhaps partially explaining the hefty cover charge -- and a second
day, including "breakout discussions" on "creating an
innovative culture in your company" and X-Prize CEO Peter H.
Diamandis. To be continued.
* * *
At
UN, Near Final Draft on North Korea Leaked to Inner City
Press, Arms Export Ban and Cargo Inspection Added
Byline:
Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press: Exclusive-Must Credit
UNITED
NATIONS, June 5 -- Thirteen days after North Korea conducted an
underground nuclear test, a near-final
draft resolution emerged
behind closed doors at the UN Security Council.
The
six-page
draft, a copy of which Inner City Press obtained and puts
online here as a must-credit exclusive, has more than thirty
operative paragraphs, compared to the mere 14 paragraphs of the
three-page
draft Inner City Press similarly obtained and published on
May 28. (AP, Japanese and other media appropriately credited Inner
City Press).
This time, Inner City Press is
told by its sources that the draft was circulated to the capitals of
the Permanent Five Plus Two -- these last are Japan and South Korea
-- with the deadline for comments on June 5 at 10 a.m. New York
Time.
The provision allowing North Korea to import light weapons, in
Paragraph 10, is attributable to Russia, according to a well placed
Inner City Press source who calls it the Kalishnikof or AK-47 clause.
Beyond the cargo ban, other provisions are weaker than
the proponents wanted. Paragraph
19, for example, merely calls
on "member states and international
financial and credit institutions not to enter into new
commitments... except for humanitarian and developmental purposes."
Paragraph 17 prohibits "bunkering services, such as provision of
fuel or supplies" to vessels. Paragraph 22 calls for reports
within 45 days.
At UN, media chases news of draft now published by Inner City Press
While
the draft resolution seems unlikely to change North Korea's course,
it has been the subject of intense journalistic interest for nearly
two weeks now at the UN in New York, particularly by Japanese media,
who have remained camped out in front of the Security Council during
meetings on Somalia, Bosnia and Tribunals and on June 5, Sudan and
Sri Lanka.
Non-permanent members of the Security Council complained to the Press
that they were kept in the dark throughout the days of negotiation.
On
the morning of June 5, Inner City Press obtained the draft
resolution
that, as a must-credit exclusive, it puts online here. Watch this
site.
* * *
Sri
Lanka Denies IDP Reduction Reported by Inner City Press, Raises to
UN
Byline:
Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED
NATIONS, June 5 -- The Sri Lankan government has denounced a story
about "missing" internally displaced people which Inner
City Press, based on discrepancies in UN documents and statements
from UN sources, published this week.
Beyond denying that any IDPs
have been removed from the UN-funded camps in Vavuniya, which Inner
City Press visited on May 23, the government has said
that it is
raising the matter with the UN. "Minister of Human Rights and
Disaster Management, Mahinda Samarasinghe is expected to take up the
issue with United Nations," according to a pro-government web
site.
On
June 2, Ban Ki-moon's Spokesperson publicly denounced Inner City Press
for its reporting, but denied
she had discussed "complaining to Google
News" about it, presumably to stop its distribution or censor it.
The next
day she recanted, click here. Click here
for Inner City Press (on NYTimes.com) on tensions in Sri Lanka.
Inner
City Press' story noted that even the UN, in a May 30 report,
acknowledged that its number of IDPs in the camps decreased by over
13,000.
While the public report by UN OCHA ascribed this sudden drop
-- from May 27 -- to "double counting," local UN sources,
on condition of anonymity due to fear of retaliation not only by the
Sri Lankan government but also by the UN, told Inner City Press that
as with the satellite photos of the conflict zone and casualty
figures, some in the UN were seeking to downplay this potentially
troubling information.
In Vavuniya IDP camp, UN's Ban on government's banner
OCHA's
May 30 report states that "276,785 persons crossed to the
Government controlled areas from the conflict zone. This represents a
decrease of 13,130 IDPs since the last report (Sitrep No.18) on 27
May 2009. The decrease is associated with double counting. Additional
verification is required."
But earlier,
OCHA had praised the "improved, systematic registration
being undertaken in the camps."
The
article
continued that UN
sources in Colombo tell Inner City Press that senior UN officials
above them, Sri Lankan nationals who are Sinhalese, are downplaying
the 13,000 "missing" IDPs, which would otherwise be of much
concern given the reports of disappearances from the camps, the
seizing of teenage males for detention and females for other
purposes, as UK Channel 4 asserted with on camera interviews
Shouldn't the UN look into this more closely, given
multiple and credible reports of people being "disappeared"
from the UN-funded IDP camps? The UN so far has done nothing in this
regard.
To expedite matters, one hopes, Inner City Press now
publishes a list of some of the places where the UN -- or perhaps a
less compromised body -- should look for missing people:
Pallekelle
near Kandy; Ambepussa, Boosa and, it is said, the Army training camp
at Diya-talawwa.
On June 2, Ban Ki-moon's Spokesperson while again publicly denouncing
Inner City Press for its reporting, denied
she had discussed "complaining to Google News" about it, presumably to
stop its distribution or censor it.
The next day, Ms. Montas
confirmed
that both legal action and "complaining to Google News" were
discussed at a meeting she had with four top UN officials,
including
Mr Ban's speech writer, who also traveled to Sri Lanka on May 23, the
UN's top lawyer Patricia O'Brien, Angela Kane and the head of UN
"Public Information," Kiyotaka Akasaka, previously of the
Japanese foreign ministry.
Following a failure by these officials to respond to requests that they
explain how the strategy they discussed comports with the free press
Article 19 of the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Inner City
Press has asked for action from UN High Commissioner for Human
Rights Navi Pillay, click here.
Footnotes:
During this week's back and forth about the UN threatening legal
action against the Press, and to complain to Google News about Inner
City Press' coverage, a high UN official, again anonymous due to
fear of retaliation even at his level, approached Inner City Press to
say that the attempt at censorship or expulsion was being pushed by
what he diplomatically called "a member state." Asked if
this meant Sri Lanka, he nodded.
Meanwhile,
in a show of retaliation, the UN has taken the step of seizing and
checking the UN e-mail of staff members who they believe have been
sources for Inner City Press. Some say that when the UN went to Sri
Lanka, rather than seek to hold the government to a high standard of
human rights, the effect was to make the UN
(even) more like the
administration of the Rajapaksas...
Guard
in Manik Farm camp, (c) M. Lee May 23, 2009
The
article below quoting that "Minister of Human Rights and
Disaster Management, Mahinda Samarasinghe is expected to take up the
issue with United Nations" takes issue with Inner City Press
quoting that
"UN
sources in Colombo tell Inner City Press that senior UN officials
above them, Sri Lankan nationals who are Sinhalese, are downplaying
the 13,000 "missing" IDPs, which would otherwise be of much
concern given the reports of disappearances from the camps, the
seizing of teenage males for detention and females for other
purposes, [as] UK Channel 4 asserted with on camera interviews."
Contrary
to the (intentional?) misinterpretation below, Inner City Press was
not saying that all Sri Lankan nationals are Sinhalese -- rather,
that within the UN's staff in Sri Lanka, those who are of the
majority Sinhalese group are seen by their Tamil colleagues as in
some cases using their positions in the UN to advance, as some phrase
it, "the Sinhalese Buddhist nationalist cause." Inner City
Press did not invent these divisions, and the article's and
minister's statement that all is now well in Sri Lanka is, at best,
wishful thinking. Within the UN, some recall the way in Rwanda a Hutu
staff member named Callixte Mbarushimana was allowed to use his UN
position and materiel to further the Hutu extremist cause which has
since been acknowledged as genocide. The UN continued employing and
paying Callixte Mbarushimana for many years. Some wonder, will that
happen with the UN in Sri Lanka?
On
June 5 outside the UN Security Council, Inner City Press asked the
Special Adviser of the Secretary General on the Prevention of
Genocide, Francis Deng, if his Office will do any work on Sri Lanka.
"We try to follow what is going on, the post-conflict
developments," he said. "It's been going on for twenty five
years, you don't just...." His voice trailed off. "One
phase ended, presumably, but....". And his voice trailed off
again. Of course, it's been "going on" for far longer than
25 years.
The
article:
Sri
Lanka rejects ICP report on IDP disappearance
Fri,
2009-06-05 18:06
By
our Colombo Correspondent
Colombo,
05 June, (Asiantribune.com): The Sri Lankan government today totally
rejected a claim in a Inner City Press (ICP) quoted by a pro LTTE
website, that 13,000 people from Internally Displaced camps have
disappeared, and described it as a malicious attempt to discredit the
Colombo government.
Highly
placed government sources said that the Tamil Diaspora overseas
working for the LTTE were now engaged in a disinformation campaign to
discredit the Government unable to bear the crushing defeat of the
LTTE and its' terrorism.
Rehabilitation
Ministry sources expressed anger and surprise over the pro-LTTE
canard that is being spread through internet websites misquoting
figures of the number of displaced persons.
They
said the ICP report was aimed at creating a rift between communities
now living peacefully as one people of one country." That is why
they have quoted Sinhalese as Sri Lankan nationals knowing well that
Sri Lanka is a multi-ethnic country", they added.
Explaining
further about the contents of the ICP report quoted by a pro-LTTE
website, a ministry source said that if Sri Lanka nationals were only
Sinhalese as claimed, there could be no Tamil displaced persons in
the country.
Meanwhile,
the Minister of Human Rights and Disaster Management,Mahinda
Samarasinghe is expected to take up the issue with United Nations as
the ICP report from the pro-LTTE website had quoted unnamed UN
sources in Colombo to claim such disappearance of a large number of
displaced persons, which, the Sri Lankan government has totally
rejected.
Watch
this site.
, 
