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As UN Buzzes for Rice, Taste
Tester Kornblau Said To Be in Wings, Congo Questions Boil
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED
NATIONS, January 27 -- The
UN press corps was buzzing Monday for the arrival of Susan Rice, the
Obama
Administration's choice for Ambassador to the UN. In the jostle at the
Security
Council stakeout while Ms. Rice met with Ban Ki-moon, journalists tried
questions on each other. "Given your role in the genocide in Rwanda,
what
will you do about Darfur?" suggested one boyish reporter. "Since you
fiddled while Rwanda burned," added another.
Arrangements were made for
who would ask the first question -- there was no agreement among the
media, but
the US Mission even suggested that Gaza would be a good one. And Gaza
was in
fact asked, twice, like Darfur and Iran.
Ms. Rice declined however to answer a shouted
question about Somalia,
which she told Congress is not ready for a peacekeeping mission,
complex or
not. And the three questioners she called on did not raise the
slaughter in the
Congo, nor what should happen with captured rebel Laurent Nkunda.
Inner City Press was asked, who will the new US
spokesperson be? Word on
the street, which the US Mission on Tuesday declined to confirm or to
deny, is
that the choice is zeroing in on one Mark Kornblau, currently employed
by Zagat's
as, among
other things, a taste tester as well as Director
of Communications.
Susan Rice and UN's Ban, Somalia solution not shown
Kornblau has previously been a spokesman for
candidates John
Edwards in
2007 (click here
for his quote for Edwards on health care) and John
Kerry in 2004, for Senators Evan Bayh
and Debbie Stabenow, and a certain Congressman Wu. The significance,
sources
say, is that he does not come from within the State Department. And at
the UN there
are near-nightly diplomatic receptions, most recently for Sudan, to
please a
taste tester's buds.
The US Mission to its credit has finally provided a
copy of the initial
complain by Algeria against the Arab Commission for Human Rights, and
takes
issue with Inner
City Press' initial report that they were not transparent.
Duly noted; how Susan Rice deals with UN reform remains to be seen.
Watch this
site.
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
Click here for Inner City
Press Nov. 7 debate on the war in Congo
Watch this site, and this Oct. 2 debate, on
UN, bailout, MDGs
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
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Other,
earlier Inner City Press are listed here, and some are available
in the ProQuest service, and now on Lexis-Nexis.
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