In
NYC,
While
Snow Is Plowed This Time, Summons Strike Is Revealed
By
Matthew
Russell
Lee
NEW
YORK
CITY,
January 27 -- With a snow day declared in NYC on Thursday,
the plowing performance of Michael Bloomberg's administration was put
to the test.
In late
December streets went unplowed for days. Many
said that Sanitation Department managers ordered a slow down to
protest job cuts and demotions.
While
Thursday
found
that most streets were better plowed, some were not. In The
Bronx, bus service was entirely suspended. Queens' 40th Avenue, for
example, remained covered in a foot of snow.
When Inner
City Press
inquired, the Sanitation Department blamed it on a taxi company
parking its vehicles in the street and said they could be towed.
A
Sanitation
Department worker confided that the protest of Bloomberg's job cuts
had been refusing to write any summons for the month of December,
denying the City revenue. “It was a Christmas present,” he said.
The
taxi
company
on 40th Avenue is in a section of Long Island City sometimes called
Dutch Kills. It was re-zoned to allow for the construction of a
number of seemingly out of place hotels.
Inner City
Press checked out
the Holiday Inn on 39th Avenue and found it virtually empty. Still,
no one but guests is allowed to use the pool. Chunks of ice fell off
the building into the largely empty parking lot.
On
the
other side
of 40th Avenue are the two large holes dug by the MTA to extend the
Long Island Railroad to Grand Central Station. Some work proceeded
despite the declared snow day.
On the other
side, a scrap metal
company from Pennsylvania had a truck full of large pipes, behind the
old Pam-Am Building, now a Department of Education facility mostly
empty for the day.
It
was
to the
Astoria section of Long Island City that Bloomberg came after the
small intervening snow storm, to nosh on lemony Greek soup in a Ditmars
deli with Peter
Vallone.
40th Ave in LIC, afternoon of Jan 27, plowing not
shown, (c)MRLee
While that end
of Long Island City was quickly plowed this
time, 40th Avenue remains unplowed as well as misplanned. It is
urban archeology that may explain it - and even provide some solution.
Forward
looking
footnotes:
the location of the old Queensboro Arena, venue of
boxing announced by Harry Balogh, remains in the haze of Dutch Kills'
history. There are numerous dormant construction site in the area
now, of builders who threw down foundations to purportedly get
grandfathered into the rights to build more hotels to sit empty.
We'll see.
* * *
After
NYC
Blizzard,
Jail
Bus Stuck in Snow, Unplowed Outer Borough Blame
Game
By
Matthew
Russell
Lee
NEW
YORK
CITY,
December
28 -- In the aftermath of the NYC blizzard of
2010, the streets left unplowed included Baxter Street, directly
behind the Manhattan courthouses and detention facilities.
At
dusk on
December 27, as Inner City Press was on its way to the courthouse, it
came upon an NYC Corrections Department bus stuck in the snow.
Exclusive video here.
As
several City
workers and machines tried to extricate the bus, two police cars were
behind the bus with their sirens on. A passerby wondered at the
possibility of a jail break.
On
42nd Street and
Fifth Avenue in front of the Public Library, already the snow was
turning to ponds of slush in every crosswalk.
In
the outer
boroughs, even in the following days, many streets had not yet been
plowed. Click here
for Inner City Press footage of a street
in
Astoria, Queens, unplowed two day after the blizzard.
Corrections Dept bus stuck in snow, Dec. 27, 2010 (c) MRLee
Astoria
councilman Peter Vallone fils denounced the lack of plowing,
saying that emergency services vehicles could not get through and not
enough planning had been done.
Astute
Astorians
have
noticed
the rundown signs on Vallone's Councilmanic and law office,
as well as his name on the City's green garbage cans, taking credit
for them.
Bronx
state
senator
Ruben
Diaz pere sent out pictures of buses stuck in the snow,
noting that none including Mayor Mike Bloomberg had suggested they put
chains over their tires.
Those
impacted
include,
for
example, a young worker at the A-Wah restaurant on
Catherine Street in Chinatown, unable take the subway home to Sunset
Park in Brooklyn and so sleeping in the store. The Beijing duck
sandwiches and salt chicken are good, but so is
a good night's sleep.
There
will
be
a
continued blame game until and even after the snow melts. Watch this
site.
* * *
Susan
Rice
Denies
Being
Told
Sudan's
Bashir Stashed $9B, Despite
WikiLeak
By
Matthew
Russell
Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
December
20
--
Contrary
to
a cable
released
by Wikileaks
describing Susan Rice the US Permanent Representative to the UN being
told by International Criminal Court prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo
about Sudan's Omar al Bashir “stashing” $9 billion in “illegal
accounts,” Ambassador Rice on December 20 told Inner City Pres that
“I don't have a recollection of that being told to me directly.”
Video here,
from
Minute
4:18.
Inner
City
Press
asked
Ambassador
Rice
about
the cable and what she and the US Mission
to the UN had done after Moreno Ocampo told her and her then Deputy
Alejandro Wolff being told about Bashir's $9 billion.
“I'm not
going to comment on cables,” she began. After denying any
recollection of being told “directly” about Bashir's billions,
she said “I don't know if it was said to anyone else.”
The
cable
begins
that ICC “Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo told Ambassadors Rice and
Wolff on March 20 [2009] that Sudanese President Bashir needed to be
isolated. Ocampo suggested if Bashir's stash of money were disclosed
(he put the figure at possibly $9 billion), it would change Sudanese
public opinion from him being a 'crusader' to that of a thief. Ocampo
reported Lloyd's Bank in London might be holding or knowledgeable of
the whereabouts of his money.”
Susan Rice & Wolff & UK's Lyall Grant, Bashir's "$9B in Lloyds"
not shown
As
Inner
City
Press
reported
earlier
on December 20, “in January 2009 US
authorities fined Lloyds $350 million for concealing the origins of
wire transfers from Sudan, Iran and Libya in violation of US
sanctions against the countries... Lloyds' so recent fine, for
concealing the source of money from Sudan, would have given Rice and
the Obama Administration leverage to get Bashir's accounts confirmed
or denied by Lloyds at that time. At issue is not only corruption by
a leader indicted for war crimes and genocide: under the
Comprehensive Peace Agreement, oil profits were to be split between
North and Southern Sudan. Southerns have alleged that the Bashir
government had improperly kept and hid revenue. Could this have been
the money? What did the US Mission to the UN, State Department and
Obama administration do to find out?”
Expecting
to
receive
some
sort
of
answer
to this question, Inner City Press later
on December 20 asked Susan Rice, as transcribed
by
the
US
Mission
to
the
UN:
Inner
City
Press:
there's
a
report
that
Ocampo of the ICC told the U.S.
Mission or yourself that Bashir had $9 billion taken from Sudan and
put in London, Lloyd's of London, is what he mentioned. And I just
wondered, it's one of these cables, I don't want to talk about the
cable aspect of it, but I just wanted to know what do you think of
that? Is that something Ocampo met with you and Ambassador Wolff and
said, and if case, what did the U.S. do to find out if it's true?
Ambassador
Rice:
I'm
not
going
to
comment
on cables. I don't have a
recollection of that being told to me directly, and I don't know if
it was said to anybody else.
But
see the cable:
Tuesday,
24
March
2009,
22:17
C
O
N
F
I
D
E
N T I A L USUN NEW YORK 000306 EO 12958 DECL: 03/23/2019
TAGS
PGOV,
PREL,
UNSC,
PHUM,
SU,
XW">XW
SUBJECT:
(C)
ICC'S
OCAMPO
ON
SUDAN:
GO
AFTER BASHIR'S MONEY AND CALL FOR HIS
ARREST; REASSURE CHINA
Classified
By:
Ambassador
Alejandro
D.
Wolff,
for
reasons 1.4 b/d
1.
(C)
International
Criminal
Court
Prosecutor
Luis
Moreno-Ocampo told
Ambassadors Rice and Wolff on March 20 that Sudanese President Bashir
needed to be isolated. Ocampo suggested if Bashir's stash of money
were disclosed (he put the figure at possibly $9 billion), it would
change Sudanese public opinion from him being a "crusader"
to that of a thief. Ocampo reported Lloyd's Bank in London might be
holding or knowledgeable of the whereabouts of his money. Ocampo
suggested simply exposing that Bashir had illegal accounts would be
enough to turn the Sudanese against him, "as with Pinochet."
2.
(C)
Ocampo
said
Bashir
invents
conflict
to create a better
negotiating position, and thought Bashir was using the expulsion of
the NGOs to divert attention away from his arrest warrant. Ocampo
suggested the U.S. and the international community also needed to
push for Bashir's arrest to isolate him. Ocampo likened Bashir's
situation to "a bleeding shark being surrounded by other
sharks," with no loyalty, only greed, motivating those competing
for power. By promoting the possibility of Bashir's arrest, Bashir
would be further marginalized within Sudan's ruling elite, Ocampo
thought.
3.
(C)
Ocampo
suggested
it
would
be
beneficial to reassure China that
its access to oil would not be jeopardized. If China believed Bashir
was becoming a destabilizing influence, Ocampo said China might be
more open to his removal as long as his replacement would guarantee
support for China's economic interests.
Wolff
Lloyds'
January
2009
fine
of
$350
million,
for concealing the source of money from
Sudan, would have given Susan Rice and the Obama Administration
leverage to get Bashir's accounts confirmed or denied by Lloyds at
that time.
From
the ICC in the Hague on December 19, Moreno
Ocampo
issued
a
statement
that
he did and does have information about
the $9 billion. The unprosecutorial briefing of Rice and Wolff
described in the cable may cause Moreno Ocampo some problems at the ICC.
But in
light of his December 18 statement, on top of the cable, Ambassador
Rice and those above her may wish to provide some further explanation.
Watch this site.
, 
