In the halls of the United Nations, where decorum and diplomacy usually reign, something decidedly more surly happened on Friday: a shoving match.
This video report by The Associated Press contains footage of that scuffle, which pitted United Nations security guards against Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey and his security detail. In it, frantic onlookers rush toward the melee as someone is thrown to the ground.
As my colleague Neil MacFarquhar reported Tuesday, details on what happened are fuzzy, but it appears that Mr. Erdogan was having a private meeting with President Jalal Talabani of Iraq when he heard that the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, was about to make his speech demanding full United Nations membership for a state of Palestine.
Mr. Erdogan rushed toward the hall where Mr. Abbas was to speak, but the prime minister found himself at an entrance to a crowded visitors gallery, and United Nations guards refused to let him in. He tried to enter anyway and, by most accounts, Mr. MacFarquhar reported, a guard pushed him.
The ensuing fight sent one guard to the hospital with a rib injury, and there were unconfirmed reports of bloodstains on the floor.
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon apologized — quickly and profusely, it seems — and suspended half a dozen security guards.
Spaceweather:
Geomagnetic Storm in Progress
21 days of no electricity is possible if D.Daughtrey's vision was of Planet Mercury Teleconference September 29th 2011.
God Bless,
gail