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On Lebanon, a UN Council Trip Could Help, Williams Says, Blue Line in NY

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, March 29 -- After the UN's envoy on Lebanon Michael Williams briefed the Security Council on Tuesday, Inner City Press asked him if he thinks that a Security Council trip to that country and the region would be helpful.

  After saying it's “for them to decide,” Williams noted that it “has been a very long time... decades.” He said that Security Council trips are a “tried and tested” method, used recently in Sudan -- Inner City Press accompanied and covered that trip, to Juba, Darfur and Khartoum -- and before that in Afghanistan.

  In context, Williams' response was in favor of such a trip. Only the United States is opposing it. Just before vetoing the resolution in Israeli settlements earlier this year, US Ambassador Susan Rice offered a package including the trip (as well as a Presidential Statement rather than a Council resolution).

Once “forced” to veto, Rice for the Obama administration withdrew the offer of the trip. Inner City Press asked her why, on a press conference call, and she referred to the package nature of the offer. But if the trip was a good idea then, why not now, especially with the UN's envoy explicitly supporting it?


Blue Line in Lebanon, Williams & 2d Avenue not shown

Inner City Press also asked Williams about Israeli overflights of Lebanon, with military planes and drones. Williams said that these do occur, “almost daily,” and represent a violation of Lebanon's sovereignty. He recounted that before the Council, he made a “slip of the tongue” about not Lebanon but Belgium finally forming a government. This is UN humor.

Footnote: This too: on 45th Street and Second Avenue near the UN, there are now dueling felafel places: one Lebanese, the Prince Grill west of Second Avenue, and the other, Green Olive on the UN side of Second Avenue, more closely aligned with the overfliers.

Second Avenue, for this purpose, may be seen as a Blue Line. While the Lebanese place wraps its sandwiches better, the additional of a seemingly seldom deployed garlic sauce led to some stomach upset, not reflected in the health grade given by the Bloomberg administration. Green Olive, meanwhile, has lentil soup and roasted eggplant and peppers. You be the judge.

* * *

At UN on Libya, Clash on Arming Rebels, Dutch In, Malta Stopped Greek Ship

By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive

UNITED NATIONS, March 29 -- Libya sanctions and arms embargo were the topics on Tuesday morning outside the Security Council, even as the meeting inside concerned Lebanon. The Netherlands has formally written in under Resolution 1973 to join the coalition, a well placed Council source exclusively told Inner City Press.

  An explanation of Malta's query to the Libya Sanctions Committee was finally gleaned, as another Inner City Press exclusive: Malta stopped a Greek ship from delivering petroleum products to a subsidiary of the Libyan national oil company.

  The subsidiary is not on the UN sanctions list. But it is on the European Union list. Malta 1, Greek ship 0.

Other battles are not so clear. Inner City Press asked India's Permanent Representative Hardeep Singh Puri for India's position on if arming the Libyan rebels is permitted. No, he said, adding, and you can quote me. 

  Inner City Press asked Russian Permanent Representitive Vitaly Churkin, is arming the rebels permissible under Resolution 1973? No, he said, shaking his head. He noted that it had been the Americans themselves who asked for the arms embargo.

  While no answer was gleaned from US Permanent Representative Susan Rice despite a question proffered at 10:16 am as she entered the Council and 11:10 am when she left, it is understood that the US dispute an account of the negotiation of Paragraph 4 of Resolution 1973 in which Ambassador Rice said that the “notwithstanding” phrase was needed in case the US had to go in with weapons to save a downed pilot.


Susan Rice, Obama and Clinton, negotiation of Paragraph 4 and new position not shown

  The US, it is understood, says that referred to only precluding an occupation and not an intervention. But with Libyan Sanctions Committee chair Cabral now twice issuing an interpretation that arming the rebels is not permissible, Russia and India on the record and others with the same view, including China Inner City Press can report, could the US “just do it,” in the Nike phrase?

  Another member of the “Coalition” tells Inner City Press that while the “notwithstanding” phrase is somehow clear, his country believes that enforcing the no fly zone is the way to go.

  If somehow the no fly zone weren't being enforced, perhaps giving air defense equipment to the rebels could construed as protecting civilians. But to give offensive weapons? Even the non-US coalition member said no.

  But again: might the US “just do it,” in the Nike phrase?

Footnote: for President Obama's visit today to the UN, or the US Mission across First Avenue from the UN, press access has been limited to a “pool” from the White House press corps, as well as Mission selected journalists from the UN press corps.

  There's some grumbling, the substance of which is that a White House based reporter might miss some UN relevant details, including regarding which diplomats are invited. We'll have more on this.

* * *

UN Envoy Al Khatib Is On Board of Jordan Ahli Bank, Links With Libya Central Bank

By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive

UNITED NATIONS, March 8 -- In selecting Abdul Ilah al Khatib as the UN's envoy on Libya, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon moved quickly -- maybe too quickly.

 Since serving as the foreign minister of Jordan, describe even some close to Ban as an autocracy, al Khatib has served on the boards of director not only of Lafarge Jordan Cement Company but also of Jordan Ahli Bank.

Jordan Ahli Bank is active beyond that country's borders. A sample connection: along with Libyan Foreign Bank, a fully owned subsidiary of the Central Bank of Libya, Jordan Ahli Bank is a top 20 shareholder of Union de Banques Arabes et Francaises.

   Could there be conflicts of interest? Did the UN's Ban administration even consider these?

   Ban previously claimed that 99% of his officials have made public financial disclosure. But when Inner City Press showed this is not true -- even Ban's close ally Choi Young-jin, his envoy in Cote d'Ivoire, declined to make public financial disclosure -- Ban's spokesman Martin Nesirky said Ban's statement had been “metaphorical.”

Now Ban names and injects al Khatib into a struggle about democracy and free press, when as Inner City Press noted yesterday

"Foreign Minister Abd al-Ilah al-Khatib in January initiated a criminal defamation suit against weekly newspaper al-Hilal's editor-in-chief Nasir Qamash and journalist Ahmad Salama. He [al-Khatib] objected to the content of a January article, and said his tribe had threatened to beat up Salama if he failed to take action. The case remains in the courts at this writing."

  By what process was al-Khatib vetted and selected? Watch this site.

Click for Mar 1, '11 BloggingHeads.tv re Libya, Sri Lanka, UN Corruption

 Click here for an Inner City Press YouTube channel video, mostly UN Headquarters footage, about civilian deaths in Sri Lanka.

Click here for Inner City Press' March 27 UN debate

Click here for Inner City Press March 12 UN (and AIG bailout) debate

Click here for Inner City Press' Feb 26 UN debate

Click here for Feb. 12 debate on Sri Lanka http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/17772?in=11:33&out=32:56

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

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

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