At
UN
on Wikileaks, Downer & Ging Dodge, Candor at UK Party, Kerim
in the Wings
By
Matthew
Russell Lee, News Muse
UNITED
NATIONS,
November 30 -- While Wikileaks
was not discussed in the UN
Security Council on the last day of the UK presidency, the leaks were
a major topic elsewhere in the UN during the day, and at the UK's End
of Presidency reception Tuesday evening.
During
the day,
Inner City Press asked the Gaza chief of the UNRWA mission John Ging
what he thought of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's directive
to US diplomats to determine if UNRWA is connected to Hamas or
Hezbollah.
Ging
immediately
replied that UNRWA welcomes scrutiny, that such connections to do not
exist. Inner City Press clarified that it was seeking Ging's view of
U.S. intelligence gathering, given his critique of disclosures that
his staff has been allowed four sub-machine guns for his personal
protection.
If
nothing else a
loyal UN system staffer, Ging said that the (deputy) Spokesman had
commented on Wikileaks the day before, and that he would not add to
it.
Likewise,
when
Inner City Press asked UN Cyprus envoy Alexander Downer to comment
not only on the leaks from his own (“good”) office but on the
Wikileaks released cable saying that he is “frustrated” by the
stalling of Cyprus negotiations, Downer portrayed the cables as
second hand.
It
brought to mind South Korea diplomat's spin to the US
that China is ok with a united Korean peninsula under Seoul's
leadership. Dream on.
Things
got more
honest over drinks at the UK's end of presidency reception over Park
Avenue Tuesday night. Reference was made to Iran's piecing together
and publication of memos in the US Embassy in Tehran in 1979, and to
memoirs by former UK ambassadors in Washington and Uzbekistan. We
still need to write, we can't stop, a European diplomat said.
A diplomat
from a non Permanent Security Council member told Inner City Press that
that US Mission personnel had "definitely" spied on this country's
political coordinator.
The
outing of
Yemen's president came up, in the context of Yemen having refused to
have the meeting of the Group of Friends on Yemen inside the UN in
September.
Most
intriguingly,
Inner City Press was told by an informed source that former President
of the General Assembly Srgjan Kerim now schemes to replace Asha Rose
Migro as UN Deputy Secretary General, claiming that Ban Ki-moon has
promised him the job. Watch this site.
* * *
At
UN,
Diplomats Marvel at Wikileaks, Yemen Betrayal & Gaddafi
Companion
By
Matthew
Russell Lee, News Muse
UNITED
NATIONS,
November 29 -- Wikileaks
was the topic at the UN Monday
evening, whether at an event about Gaza or an African alliance
against malaria.
US
Ambassador
Susan Rice earlier in the day had tried to sidestep the memo, signed
by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, directing US Ambassadors to
collect computer passwords and even frequent
flyer miles account
numbers of other Security Council members and UN bureaucrats and
force commanders.
But
in the
Delegates' Dining Room some eight hours later, several African
Ambassadors asked Inner City Press how the US could have allowed this
to happen.
“Did you see
what they did to Yemen's President?” one
of them asked, referring to the cable by then US ambassador Stephen
Seche which quotes President Ali Abdullah Saleh telling US General
David Petraeus, "We'll continue saying the bombs are ours, not
yours.”
“The whiskey
thing is not going to help him,” said another, at an end with an
open bar with Jack Daniels and Finlandia vodka. After several drinks
talk turns to Libya's Gaddafi and his Ukrainian companion, whom the
US turned back from the General Debate in New York in September. That
the leaked US cable has her talking to Ukrainian diplomats might
end the relationship right there, one predicted.
Over
in the
General Assembly lobby at the Gaza event there was no liquor, only
lamb chops and raw tuna on crackers. Inner City Press tried to follow
a diplomat from Belgium, the country which both hosts US nuclear
weapons and was offered “low cost” prestige if it took those
released from Guantanamo Bay.
But
he disappeared
into the crowd, to which Permanent Observer Riyad Mansour gave a
speech as UNRWA's John Ging beamed. The cables predict that Abbas
will not long hold his post.
Gaddafi & UN Ban: one travels in style, the
other out of town when news breaks
Most
of the
countries whose Permanent Representatives Inner City Press managed to
speak with were most surprised that anyone other than at the highest
levels of the Obama administration would have had access to this
breadth of information.
Some
speculated,
as is common at the UN, that Israel is behind it, since the cable
point the finger at Iran. One even noted that the timing lifts some
pressure on North Korea. That UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is
again out of town when news hits was not viewed as surprising. Nor
was the implication that the US expects another candidate to emerge
in 2012. Watch this site.
S
E
C
R E T SECTION 01 OF 24 STATE 080163
NOFORN,
SIPDIS,
E.O.
12958: DECL: 07/31/2034
TAGS:
PINR
KSPR
ECON KPKO KUNR
SUBJECT:
(S)
REPORTING
AND COLLECTION NEEDS: THE UNITED NATIONS REF:
STATE 048489
Classified
By:
MICHAEL
OWENS, ACTING DIR, INR/OPS. REASON: 1.4(C).
¶1.
(S/NF)
This
cable provides the full text of the new National HUMINT
Collection Directive (NHCD) on the United Nations (paragraph 3-end)
as well as a request for continued DOS reporting of biographic
information relating to the United Nations (paragraph 2).
...Reporting
officers
should include as much of the following information as
possible when they have information relating to... credit card
account numbers; frequent flyer account numbers; work schedules, and
other relevant biographical information.
...Information
about
current and future use of communications systems
and technologies by officials or organizations, including cellular
phone networks, mobile satellite phones, very small aperture
terminals (VSAT), trunked and mobile radios, pagers, prepaid calling
cards, firewalls, encryption, international connectivity, use of
electronic data interchange, Voice-over-Internet protocol (VoIP),
Worldwide interoperability for microwave access (Wi-Max), and cable
and fiber networks.
CLINTON
