Inner City Press -- Investigative Reporting From the United Nations to Wall Street to the Inner City

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, September 15 -- At the UN when President of the General Assembly John Ashe held his last press conference and GA session on September 15, Inner City Press asked him about transparency and about Security Council reform.

  On the latter he recited the work done during his year, but opined we are not any closer to reform than we were before.

  Inner City Press went to watch his concluding GA session, in the renovated General Assembly Hall, from a photographers' booth smelling of fresh paint but without any chairs or translation of speeches.
 
 Amid the bureaucratic ritual of deferring items to the next session, over which Sam Kutesa of Uganda will preside, the United States and then European Union objected to Item 64 being deferred, report of the UN Human Rights Council.

  A source in the PGA's office told Inner City Press that “the letter was received late and if it hadn't been deferred, others would have been angry.” Perhaps we'll hear more from the US or EU on this.

   At the end of the proceeding, Ashe invited his successor Sam Kutesa up to take the gavel. Inner City Press -- and the Free UN Coalition for Access -- have been communicating about this coming era with Jean Victor Nkolo, who was also spokesman for the president of the Sixty-Fifth session of the GA, Joseph Deiss. With him, there were questions of who was funding what -- all the more reason for a Freedom of Information Act for the UN, as FUNCA is pressing for. Watch this site.