A lot of attention but little news
October 26, 2005
Detlev Mehlis handing his report on the investigation into the murder of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri to Secretary-General Kofi Annan in New York, October 20, 2005.
I was at the BBC World studios during the Security Council meeting with Detlev Mehlis today, spending my time off the air switching between numerous channels on the desk, first following the Reuters feed, and then surfing between the main news channels to see what they found worth captioning. Someone who assumed (wrongly) I was interested advised me to regularly check the live feed from the Foreign Office, where a press conference with Jack Straw and Saad Hariri was expected.
It would have never occurred to me that one of the TV channels, namely Al Arabiya, would actually find Hariri's appearance to be more newsworthy than the session at the UN, cutting to live coverage from London! That it happened exactly when the Syrian ambassador, Faisal Meqdad, was delivering his statement will add to Syrian paranoia; is that justified, or was it purely a coincidence? Al Arabiya also saw it fit to bring a commentator right after Hariri's appearance, before turning its attention once more to New York. You may be pleased to know that Hariri is eventually going back home: ("I think I am going back to the Lebanon because I have to go back to the Lebanon. It is a risk we take and as we work in politics in Lebanon there is a risk to take and I am willing to take it. So I will go back to be among the people who voted for me." Wow. (Does anyone know, by the way, why Rafik Hariri's son speaks English and French relatively badly?)
Mehlis's disclosure that credible threats had been received by the commission, and the way his eyebrows shot up when Syrian Ambassador Faisal Meqdad complained about the report's allegations of misleading statements from the Syrian Foreign Ministry were the only points of real interest today, in addition to Mehlis's suggestion that Syria should conduct its own investigation to fill the gaps. (I can't see much good coming out of this, and I'm cringing in advance at the OJ-style jokes and cartoons that may be coming.) When you recall how the media argued with Mehlis (in fact even attacked him, rather than questioned him) during his press conference on Friday, you can only imagine what the Syrian investigator will face.
If you haven't seen it yet, go to The Guardian and read Brian Whitaker's well written answer to his own question: Could Syria have been so stupid?
On a lighter side, while I take it no Syrians will be naming their newborn sons Detlev any time soon, a Lebanese friend informed me today that this may become quite the rage - at least in Sidon (Hariri's hometown), where he's heard it has already happened. I still don't know whether to believe him.
