By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UN
System,
January 15 --
With the Syria
"Geneva Two"
talks still
set for
January 22,
albeit in
Montreux,
today in
Kuwait UN
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon
pitched for
aid to Syrians
inside and
mostly outside
the country.
Some praised
$60 million
pledges by Saudi
Arabia and
Qatar without
comparing it
to funding for
combat coming
from within
each country.
Ban was
previously
foreign
minister of
South Korea,
but its
contribution
is less than
five percent
of what even
those calling
Saudi Arabia a
"good actor"
say should be
expected of
it.
Back on
January 7
Inner City
Press asked UN
spokesperson
Farhan Haq
what the UN
thought of the
Syrian
information
minister
saying
whatever is
agreed there
would be
subject to a
referendum in
Syria. Video
here and
embedded
below.
The
UN's Haq
declined,
twice, to
comment on the
idea of a
referendum,
saying that
such review
would itself
be subject to
the
negotiations
in
Switzerland,
to which
thirty
countries (not
including
Iran) and
three
organizations
beyond the UN
have been
invited.
At the
US State
Department on
January 6,
deputy
spokesperson
Marie Harf was
asked if Iran
might have
some
"associate"
role at the
talks -- it
sounded like a
side table for
children.
On
January 7, the
UN sent
reporters its
rules for
accreditation
to cover the
talks,
including that
media must be
"formally
registered as
a media
organization
in a country
recognized by
the United
Nations
General
Assembly" and
that the UN "reserves
the right to
deny or
withdraw
accreditation
of journalists
from media
organizations
whose
activities run
counter to the
principles of
the Charter of
the United
Nations."
(It was
immediately joked
that this
clearly didn't
apply to the
PARTICIPANTS
in Geneva II).
The
Free UN
Coalition for
Access has
been
critiquing and
opposing these
type of vague
UN rules,
which invite
double
standards and
hypocrisy,
such as is
demonstrated
by the January
7 visit
to the UN of
Google's "Head
of Free
Expression"
Ross
LaJeunesse
after Google
censored from
its Search a leaked
e-mail to the
UN from
Reuters'
bureau chief,
who sought to
get the
investigative
Press thrown
out of the UN.
Do the
principles of
the UN include
freedom of
expression?
Democracy?
Watch this
site.
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