At
NYC City Hall, de
Blasio Talks Lisbon
& SDGs With Guterres,
Mark-Viverito
on Columbus
By Matthew
Russell Lee,
Photos
UNITED NATIONS,
August 24 – After UN Secretary
General Antonio Guterres'
spokesman met New York City's
incumbent / candidate for
Mayor Bill de Blasio for half
an hour on August 24, there
was a three-minute photo
opportunity at which de Blasio
spoke twice. Photos on Alamy,
here.
Both mentioned climate change;
de Blasio noted that Guterres'
wife is the deputy mayor of
Lisbon. Afterward in the
parking lot, City Council
Speak Melissa Mark-Viverito
was asked about the idea of
removing the Colombus statue
from 59th Street (she said,
ask my press office.)
As one Free UN
Coalition for
Access wag
noted, the UN
has at least
two portraits
on its walls
of Kurt
Waldheim. The
subway from
Grand Central
to City Hall
was,
predictably,
delayed by a
stalled train.
At
the UN noon briefing, Inner
City Press asked what seemed
an obvious question. Will
Guterres be meeting or at
least reaching out to de Blasio's
debate opponent of the night
before, Sal Albanese? The
spokesman, Stephane Dujarric,
said no. Apparently like in Kenya,
Guterres' UN sides with
incumbents whether during or
just after contested campaigns,
with dubious results. More on
this to follow. With the UN
being asked to take action to
ban killer robots, Inner City
Press on August 23 asked the
UN for Secretary General
Antonio Guterres' view of
killer robots. Video here,
UN transcript here:
Inner City Press: Elon Musk
and other high-profile,
high-tech people have written
an open letter to the UN
saying that the, what's called
killer robots, automated
killing machines for the use
in war, should be prohibited
in some way by the UN.
Does the Secretary-General
have any view on the
appropriateness of killer
robots? Spokesman: I
think it would be easy to say
that killer robots are not
appropriate, but I think, on,
on a broader point, and I
think our head of disarmament
made that point in a recent
speech, is that it's clear
that the regulatory framework
that exists, the global
regulatory framework on
weapons, has not caught up
with the technology as it
exists today. And it's a
discussion that needs to be
had at an international,
within a multilateral setting.
Inner City Press: And, just
finally, there was a, there
was a swearing in of three
officials this morning,
including an
Under-Secretary-General of
DESA. And, previously,
those type of events have been
open for… have been photo ops
for non-UN photo press.
Today, it wasn't. What
changed between July 11th when
an identical… Spokesman:
If you are in need of photos,
we can provide them free of
charge.
Inner City
Press:
But what happened? Are we
going backwards in terms of
access? Spokesman: We're
always going forward.
Really?
When Guterres took five media
questions on August 16 after a
two week vacation, Inner City
Press tried to ask him about
the UN bribery verdict against
Ng Lap Seng rendered by a jury
in lower Manhattan just before
he left. Guterres heard the
question, but did not answer.
Video
here.
Instead, his
deputy spokesman Farhan Haq
handpicked five questioners,
two on U.S. President Donald
Trump and the first on
Venezuela, in response to
which Guterres read from
notes. Reuters was called on
second, asked two questions
then later began a third. The
UN Correspondents Association
president invited Guterres to
distinguish himself from
Trump, which Guterres coyly
did and didn't do.
Then when Inner
City Press asked about the Ng
Lap Seng guilty verdict,
Guterres swept the question
away with his and and left
with Maher Nasser the acting
chief of his Department of
Public Information, which
without due
process evicted and
still restricts Inner City
Press for pursuing the Ng Lap
Seng bribery scandal in the UN
Press Briefing Room.
Guterres and his
deputy Amina J. Mohammed have
both received a petition
with over 2,000 signatures to
end the restrictions on the
Press, particularly after the
Ng Lap Seng UN bribery guilty
verdicts.
But there is
silence, invisibility, then
pre-screened questions. Even
among those, nothing on Syria,
Yemen,
or Libya
where Guterres' envoy has
praised the Italian Navy's
cooperation with the Libyan
coast guard, or Kenya
where a recent UN official has
been banned from travel in
connection with electoral
irregularities, much less Burundian
refugees and abuses by Cameroon.
On Western
Sahara, moments after
Guterres' stakeout, Horst
Kohler was belatedly named to
the long empty envoy position.
We'll have more on this.
***
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