Monday, October 24, 2011

Who said Obama is not interested in transparency at the United Nations, should bite their tongues: Torsella becomes Ban Ki-moon's new headache @UN

US Ambassador on UN Reform, Joseph Torsella is the first in USUN history to ask for 5th Committee meetings to be televised.

In a letter to Kiyotaka Akasaka he writes:

In an effort to make the United Nations budgeting process more transparent to member states and individuals around the world who benefit ffrom the United Nations programs, we are requesting that Fifth Committee formal meetings be made public via live webcast or on-demand through a link on the Fifth Committee homepage and other General Assembly sessions.


But there is a catch in Torsella's historic call for transparency:

"we are requesting that Fifth Committee formal meetings be made public via live webcast"
at the United Nations there are at least 200 INFORMAL meetings at 5th Committee, in which FORMAL decision and voting takes place. There are only two or maximum three FORMAL meetings where participants (UN member states) agree on what was previously "negotiated and agreed in INFORMAL gatherings".

We are certain that UN will not say NO to Torsella, it would be like saying NO to Obama. But from now onward - we bet UN will have even less FORMAL gatherings and call for more INFORMAL meetings, most probably at the homes of various member states representatives.

NICE TRY...AT LEAST IS A BEGINNING!

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