At
India's Republic Day at UN,
Short Speech & Dance, Talk
of UNSC & UN Language
Games
By Matthew
Russell Lee, Photos,
Periscope
UNITED NATIONS,
January 26 – When India celebrated
its Republic Day at the UN on
January 26, there was
essentially no speeches beyond a
greeting by Ambassador Syed
Akbaruddin following by an Indian
dance performance with the
lights of Long Island City
glittering out across the East
River from the UN Delegates
Dining Room. The room was
jammed, with P5 Ambassadors from
France and Russia for example,
and Permanent Representatives ranging
from Rwanda and Hungary to Pakistan
and Afghanistan and new UN
Security Council member the Netherlands.
The group with the small
electric lamps in the front had
UN officials from Deputy
Secretary General Amina
J. Mohammed to President
of the General Assembly Miroslav
Lajcak, the UN's top lawyer and
India's top official Atul Khare
of the Department of Field
Support (which may be a life
support, under Secretary General
Antonio Guterres' proposal
reforms). Before taking photographs
and Periscope video
of the short speech and dance,
Inner City Press heard from a major
African country how its story
about Alison Smale's Department
of Public Information's chicanery
with Kiswahili posts will give
rise, next week, to a stern vote
verbale to Guterres. On this
issue of language, India is a
major countries with major
language(s), but for now it
cannot get at the UN the same
treatment of Portuguese or
Kiswahili. On January 3, Inner
City Press asked Lusophone
Antonio Guterres' deputy
spokesman why, UN transcript here: Inner
City Press: there's a debate in
India about trying to make
Hindi, they say, an official
language of the United Nations,
but I think maybe they… in a… I
guess I wanted to ask you, what…
what are the steps?
There's a… there's a statement
in question hour by the Foreign
Minister of India that it
requires a two-thirds vote and
that… and that all Member States
would bear the costs. But
I definitely saw in the budget
that there's Portuguese and
Kiswahili, for example, are…
they're a part of the budget,
but I'm just wondering, are any
of the expenses of the… where
the UN does things in eight
languages, like in social media
accounts, are any of these borne
by the countries themselves who
put the language forward or
they're all… is all language,
even beyond the six, done by the
entire membership and… and what
is the status of Hindi as a
possible language in the UN?
Deputy Spokesman: The cost
of language services are part of
the operating costs of the UN,
and so they're borne by the
Member States as it becomes part
of the regular budget. But
that budget needs to be
approved, as you know, by the
Member States. So whenever
they approve posts for
multilingualism, the Member
States are approving the budget
for those posts. Inner City
Press: So, how would a country
like India go about proposing to
have their language made,
similar to Portuguese or
Swahili…Deputy Spokesman:
That's really something they
need to take up with the Member
States. Have a good
afternoon." We'll see.
Unreported during the recent
International Court of Justice
battle in which India's Dalveer
Bhandari bested the UK's
Christopher Greenwood, in the
General Assembly and then
overall when Greenwood withdrew,
is the scandal of moonlighting
ICJ judges. While the Statute of
the ICJ bans judges from
engaging “in any other
occupation of a professional
nature," seven sitting judges
have been paid for private
investor - state dispute
settlement cases. IISD reports
that "Greenwood worked as an
arbitrator in at least nine
investment arbitration cases
during his tenure at the ICJ. He
was paid more than USD 400,000
in fees in two of those nine
cases. It did not identify any
cases in which Bhandari worked
as an arbitrator during his
tenure." Inner City Press is
informed that Bhandari, in fact,
doesn't do this type of investor
- state
dispute
settlement
arbitration
work, as a
conscious
choice. But
others do -
we've reported
on this in the
past, here
and here,
and will stay
on the
beat. In
other news, on November 3 Inner
City Press asked Guterres'
spokesman Stephane Dujarric, who
had just cut short Inner City
Press' questions about Guterres'
inaction on the killings by the
Cameroon government, these
questions: "is the Secretary
General having a one-on-one
lunch on 38th floor today? is it
with a journalist / editor? is
it on or off the record? why
isn't this lunch on the SG's
public schedule? is it with
Gillian Tett?" Dujarric's and
the UN's answer on this: "I have
nothing to say to the SG’s
schedule that’s not public." Now
Tett's FT interview
belatedly came out, with no
mention of Guterres and his
Deputy's involvement in
corruption scandals, it led with
Guterres complaining about the
quality of his private chef and
wine cellar. Even UN supporters
told Inner City Press it was
distasteful. The interview,
tellingly, had little Africa
where Guterres took 42-year
ruler Paul Biya's golden statue;
he said he is not a professional
tweeter. So who is sending that
pablum out? And why did the FT
go so soft? We'll have more on
this.
***
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