01 Oct State Department Sets Up a General Assembly Blog (Sort Of)
I didn’t notice this until just now, but U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs Kristen Silverberg set up a sort of mini-blog reviewing her activities at the U.N. General Assembly meetings in New York last week. It is actually a good idea (and Silverberg cuts a far more appealing figure than one of her predecessors, John Bolton), but, in my judgment, the sorta-blog was poorly executed. The problem is not Silverberg. It is that government officials are usually not allowed to say anything interesting, and her efforts to come off as chatty and real don’t quite make up for that. Here is her most recent (and maybe last) post, which reveals pretty much nothing about her or U.S. policy. She needs a better ghost-blogger.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
United Nations – What a busy day! I’m exhausted! The Secretary was in Washington opening the Major Economies Meeting on Energy Security and Climate Change, which brought together countries representing 85 percent of the global economy and 80 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions. I stayed in New York.
With the situation in Burma weighing heavily on our minds, I used meetings with my Chinese and Indian counterparts to encourage them to support the aspirations of the Burmese people and condemn the violent acts of the Burmese junta. I also met with the Director General of the International Labor Organization (ILO) to discuss their efforts to create change in Burma, where child labor and forced labor are major problems. President Bush made a strong statement on Burma this morning, and we were also pleased to see a good statement from ASEAN – that’s the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. The Burmese Foreign Minister was at the Thursday meeting of ASEAN, so I hope he heard our message and that of Burma’s neighbors loud and clear.
I also met with Dr. Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO). Dr. Chan and I talked about ways to strengthen the WHO’s work around the globe. We strongly support WHO initiatives to combat diseases such as HIV/AIDS and to prevent pandemics.
One of my other important missions while in New York is to let people around the world know how the United States works through the United Nations. So today I did media interviews with RTL television from Germany, Kyodo News from Japan, and Al-Jazeera’s English service. If you’re from any of the countries covered by these outlets, I invite you to visit their websites to see what I talked about.
I’ll keep you updated from New York!
The UK’s Foreign Minister, David Milbrand, did the same, here. Also pretty half-baked.