Monday March 17, St Patrick's Day

OK  I totally give up with the counting thing. I was still wrong so from noew on it will be the date.

St Patrick's Day is a big deal in New York City. A huge and I mean huge parade, everyone in green, green beer etc etc.  I managed to stay clear of the celebrations as getting about was apparently difficult.

It has turned cold again here, warmer than Fenelon but below 0C in the morning. I was late to chalep this morning because I could not stop coughing for a bit, Got there about 15 minutes late. The Anglican Consultative Council did worship today and the preacher from Africa I think, did a wonderful job talking about maternal child health and MDG (Millenium Development Goal) number 3. My roomy , Caitlin did the prayers of the people and I discovered that she has a wonderful singing voice.

The briefing from the UN this morning was attended again by the Chair of the Commission who spoke at length about procedure, There were no negotiations today, Instead the Commission received oral statements from NGOs and negotiated behind closed doors. Another member of the commission also spoke briefly. This is new to me - usually the briefings are done by UN Women and / or the NGO/NYC .This Commission is trying very hard to be more open.

Following the briefing I met with some Soroptimists for a while and the back to my room for a tea before I headed out to once again make the trek to meet the Canadian negotiators in the UN building - about a 1/2 walk for slow old me. Suzanne was the govt rep today and her news was some good and some bad. The good is that a new compilation text is due out today. The bad is that there are some "coalitions:" in the negotiations who are trying to hold a hard line against previously accepted language. The Commission operates on consensus rather than majority and so even one dissenting vote can stop the conclusions.The contentious wording falls in the areas of  "family" "gender", "sexual and reproductive rights and education"
"sovereignty" mostly. Some of this language was accepted back in 1949 and some just last year, but there are strong feelings around these subjects.

At about 3 the new text came out - only 28 pages this time with 2 paragraphs already accepted (only).
Frantically, groups called meetings to review the text because tomorrow is yje beginning of the final round of negotiations and it is harder to influence the negotiations from outside the rooms and almost none of us get to go inside. Soroptimists met upstairs in my hotal and other groups too.

At 6:15 there was a North America/Europe caucus meeting that went on for 2 hours. 

More tomorrow

Blessings Judy