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At UN, Bland
Draft and Blood on Beach, Ministers Squired by Staff to Speak
Byline:
Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED
NATIONS,
May 11, updated -- Amidst
carnage in Sri Lanka, foreign ministers meet Monday
at the UN in New York on a bland Presidential Statement on the Middle
East. As the text was negotiated last week, references to settlements
and terrorism were dropped from the draft, the “blue” version
of
which Inner City Press is putting online here. The 15 member states
will speak, and then Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will hold
a press conference at 12:30.
Lavrov emerged
at 9:40 from the Security Council accompanied by the highest Russian
UN official in New York, Dmitri Titov. They entered an elevator to go
meet with Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. Inner City Press' reporting
in recent weeks finds that Lavrov has twice urged Ban to hire more
Russian, particularly in top envoy posts like the Niger mission of
Robert Fowler, which ended in kidnapping and prisoner swap.
To some, the
open involvement of UN official like Titov in the visit to the UN of
a dignitary of “his” country is questionable. It would be like
Sir John Holmes, the UN's top humanitarian, openly squiring UK
minister David Miliband around, or top peacekeeper Alain Le Roy
accompanying Bernard Kouchner. A Security Council staffer told Inner
City Press that with Le Roy and Susana Malcorra out of town, Titov
was by coincidence the peacekeeping Officer in Charge. Did he go up
to speak of Georgia?
Russia's Lavrov with UN's Ban before, Sri Lanka not shown
The
foreign
ministers attending, in the order they will speak, include Austria's
Michael Spindelegger, Burkina Faso's Bedouma Alain Yoda, Turkey's
Ahmet Davutoglu, France's Bernard Kouchner, Mexico's Patricia
Espinosa Cantellana, the UK's David Miliband, Costa Rica's Bruno
Stagno and Russia's Sergey Lavrov.
Kouchner swept
up the escalator with Jean-Maurice Ripert; Miliband with John Sawers.
Both are slated to speak at 1 p.m. about the situation in Sri Lanka,
where hundreds were killed over the weekend. Watch this space.
Update of 10:26
a.m. -- walking into the Security Council at 10:25 was Titov's
boss,
Alain Le Roy. Inner City Press asked him, staff said you were away,
and Titov standing in for you. No, Le Roy said, Titov was not in the
meeting with Ban. So he squired Lavrov to and into the elevator?
Update of 11:41 a.m. -- click here
for Sri Lanka story, Inner City Press' questions to UK's Miliband. On
the Middle East, a prominent OIC Ambassador told Inner City Press that
Russia's PRST is very weak, it would have been better to pass nothing,
it is intended to publicize a Moscow event "that will never happen."
Click here
for a new YouTube video, mostly UN Headquarters footage, about civilian
deaths
in Sri Lanka.
Click here for Inner City
Press' March 27 UN debate
Click here for Inner City
Press March 12 UN (and AIG
bailout) debate
Click here for Inner City
Press' Feb 26 UN debate
Click
here
for Feb.
12 debate on Sri Lanka http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/17772?in=11:33&out=32:56
Click here for Inner City Press' Jan.
16, 2009 debate about Gaza
Click here for Inner City Press'
review-of-2008 UN Top Ten debate
Click here for Inner
City Press' December 24 debate on UN budget, Niger
Click here from Inner City Press'
December 12 debate on UN double standards
Click here for Inner
City Press' November 25 debate on Somalia, politics
and this October 17 debate, on
Security Council and Obama and the UN.
* * *
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
Feedback: Editorial
[at] innercitypress.com
UN
Office: S-453A, UN, NY 10017
USA
Tel: 212-963-1439
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
2006-08 Inner City Press, Inc. To request
reprint or other permission, e-contact Editorial [at]
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