For
UN General Assembly Week, List
Here, UN Both UNprepared and
UNfair
By Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS,
September 9 –
The UN is both unprepared and
unfair in the run-up to the
72nd General Assembly high
level week, which the UN brags
will include 90 heads of
state, five vice presidents,
36 heads of government, 3
deputy prime ministers and 55
ministers.
At a background
briefing on September 8, a UN
Department of Public
Information official told
Inner City Press that the
current nearly-useless wifi
Internet “should” be fixed in
time, and that “there will be
a secondary pass for RC to go
to basement area, 1B, limited
to resident correspondents” -
a group of less than 200 of
the several thousand
journalist the UN says are
coming.
Inner City Press
asked, Why are these passes
limited in that way? The UN
official said, “That's the
arrangement with Security and
with the UNCA [UN
Correspondents Association]
because we have to find some
distinction.”
So the UN let a
group of at most 200 insiders
limit the access of thousands
of other journalists, with no
transparency. This Department
of Public Information has been
headless since April 1; New
York Times journalist Alison
Smale was named by Secretary
General Antonio Guterres as
replacement but has apparently
not arrived: she has not
answered e-mailed questions
about these elitist
“distinctions.” Actually, the
200 UNCA insiders include
numerous rarely seen state
media, for example Akhbar al
Yom from Sisi's Egypt, making
the “distinction” all the more
telling.
Similarly, when
Inner City Press was for
assurance that at least the UN
Press Briefing Room would be
open to all journalists, the
UN official said while
missions are told that, there
is no guarantee, the Media
Accreditation office does not
make the bookings. Those are
done by the UN Spokesman,
Stephane Dujarric, who has a
history as noted by the Free
UN Coalition for Access
of "lending" the UN Press
Briefing Room to the president
of his native France, and to
UNCA, evicting
the Press which tried to cover
the event with Periscope.
The UN is closing
in on itself, while bragging
about all the important people
coming to see it. The reformed
needed at the UN go well
beyond those alluded to in the
pre-signed outcome document of
the September 18 event. That
reform event, tellingly, is
not even mentioned on the UN's
list so far of UNGA72 events:
12 September:
Opening of the 72nd Session of
the General Assembly
(Preliminary list of items in
the provisional agenda);
18 September:
High-Level Meeting on the
Prevention of Sexual
Exploitation and Abuse;
19-25 September:
General Debate of the General
Assembly 72nd Session;
20 September:
Signing Ceremony of the Treaty
for the Prohibition of Nuclear
Weapons;
20 September:
Security Council High Level
Meeting: Reform of UN
peacekeeping, implementation
and follow-up;
26 September:
High-level plenary meeting to
promote and commemorate the
International Day for the
Total Elimination of Nuclear
Weapons;
27-28 September:
High -level meeting of the
General Assembly on the
appraisal of the United
Nations Global Plan of Action
to Combat Trafficking in
Persons (resolution 71/287).
Watch this site.
***
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