On Friday, July 1, Germany assumed the month long rotating presidency of the United Nations Security Council.

Also on July 1, the German mission was scheduled to hold an off the record briefing at the German Mission to the UN for selected journalists about its views on the important issues facing the Security Council.‘

I was not on the list of journalists invited to this background meeting at the German Mission to the UN. On Thursday, I heard about the meeting and sent an email asking to attend. Early on Friday I received a response from the press secretary, Alexander Eberl, telling me that the press list for Friday’s meeting with the Ambassador was closed but that the press secretary would speak with me on the phone after the meeting.

As a resident correspondent at the UN with a blog with articles about the UN at taz.de, the website of die tageszeitung, one of the national daily newspapers in Germany, I would have expected to have been included in the list of journalists invited to the German Mission press briefings. The press secretary didn’t explain the criteria for selection of who was included, but said that he would make a note that I had asked to attend and if the list is revised in the future, he would consider including me.
Also he said since the German Mission press briefing was a background briefing that was off the record, I would not be able to report on the content of the meeting. I explained, however, that by being excluded from the off the record background briefings where one can get insight into what is being done, it becomes all the harder to report on the official statements and actions.

The press secretary promised to call me at 3 pm on Friday afternoon to talk to me for 10-15 minutes about what was brought up at the press conference.

He did not call at 3 pm as he promised. I waited a little while and tried to call him but only got his message machine. He did finally call at 4 pm. After having waited the additional hour for his call, however, it became even clearer that excluding journalists from the German Mission’s briefing was a serious problem. Those not welcome are excluded from the presentation of issues the German mission believes to be important.
Also such a practice allows the Ambassador to limit the range of questions he will be asked to respond to, and this in turn limits his perception of the range of views on an issue to a more narrow range than what may actually exists.

This experience with the German Mission led me to feel it was all the more important to look at what issues the selected journalists may be less likely to ask about, but which are likely to be crucial issues at the UN during this month-long German presidency of the UN Security Council.

There are several such issues, but the most important recent one, one that is rarely discussed in the open around the UN is the issue of the subordination of the UN to NATO via the Security Council passing Resolution 1973 against Libya. This is an issue that seems to be receiving little attention in the mainstream media that covers the United Nations, but there is significant discussion and analysis of this situation in blogs and other online media.

The UN charter provides for the recognition of the sovereignty of nations. There is no provision in the charter that I know of providing a mandate for the UN to authorize the bombing of a country under the guise of the so called “protection of civilians.” Yet this is what was done on March 17, when the Security Council passed Resolution 1973.

Germany abstained from voting for the resolution. It is a credit to the German record at the UN that it abstained rather than voting in favor of Resolution 1973, which NATO has used to legitimize its aggression against Libya. The German Mission, however, has not appeared to be concerned to find a way to limit or stop the NATO aggression against Libya.

Another important issue that is unlikely to get much attention this month is the continuing Israeli blockade of Gaza in violation of UN Resolution 1860.

I am working on a longer 2 part article about the implications for the UN of what has happened with the Security Council in authorizing the bombing of a UN member nation, of Libya. I hope to finish the article in a week or two.

I have been on a trip to South Korea and China this past month and also hope to be posting some articles in the coming weeks about the developments I saw on the trip.