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UNGA
Adopts $5.4B
Budget With
Public Balcony
Empty, Media
Booths Locked
By Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
December 23 --
When the UN
General
Assembly
approved a
$5.4 billion
two-year
budget on the
evening on
December 23,
there were a
lot of late
nights in the
basement's
Conference
Rooms 5, 6, 7
and 8 were
behind it.
Inner City
Press
periodically covered
that basement
action, on
Twitter
and Periscope
- but for the
final
approval, the
Press was
absent or shut
out.
Inner City
Press went to
cover the
approval
session but
found the door
to media
booths locked,
and no one to
open them.
Through a circuitous
route,
Inner City
Press arrived
at the public
balcony -
which was
entirely
empty. A
supervisor
from UN
Security -
which this
week told
Inner City
Press to
be quiet as it
spoke about
corruption
by former
President of
the GA John
Ashe -- said
he would not
open the media
booths.
So Inner
City Press observed
from the
otherwise
empty balcony.
Some
Periscope
video here.
(The new Free
UN Coalition
for Access,
FUNCA, will be
pursuing
this.)
There
was some
drama: Cuba
called a point
of order that
left new PGA
Mogens
Lykketoft
flummoxed,
conferring
with Catherine
Pollard.
Turkey, El
Salvador and
others took
the floor to
say they are
not party to
the Law of the
Sea Treaty.
Iran
criticized the
politicization
of this year's
Syria human
rights
resolution.
Ironically,
Canada and EU
and US spoke
at length
about
transparency,
even as the
public balcony
was empty and
the media
booths locked.
Worse,
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon said
“openness
benefits
everyone,”
though he has
presided over
the closing,
and refused
Inner City
Press questions
on Burundi, then
on any topic
including the
UN
corruption
scandals at
his end of the
year press
conference. He
left Wednesday
without taking
questions. Periscope video here.
By
contrast,
India's
outgoing
Ambassador
Asoke Mukerji
congratulated
his Nepali
counterpart on
a job well
done; others
congratuled
South Africa
as chair of
the Group of
77. There was
a lot of hard
work done in
the Committee
and it should
be praised. In
2016, however,
the UN must do
better. Watch
this site.
* * *
These
reports
are
usually also available through Google
News and on Lexis-Nexis.
Click here
for Sept 26, 2011 New Yorker on Inner City
Press at UN
Click
for
BloggingHeads.tv re Libya, Sri Lanka, UN
Corruption
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