By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, November 29 -- On the afternoon of Black Friday, the US White House sent out an announcement from Secretary of State John Kerry bragging about enforcement of sanctions on Iran's sale of crude oil, even during the next six months.
Kerry's statement said
"I am pleased to announce that, based on additional significant reductions in the volume of their purchases of Iranian crude oil, China, India, the Republic of Korea, Turkey, and Taiwan have again qualified for an exception to sanctions outlined in Section 1245 of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2012. These additional reductions were determined based on an analysis of these economies’ purchasing activity over the previous six months. Additionally, Malaysia, South Africa, Singapore, and Sri Lanka have also qualified again for the NDAA exception because they no longer purchase crude oil from Iran."
Reuters, which sent five reporters to the Geneva talks but missed the William Burns story reported by AP and AI Monitor, turned Kerry's Iran statement into a 142-word articlewhich mentioned by name only China, India and South Korea.
Was this just because these were the first three listed by the State Department? What about "Turkey and Taiwan" -- sure to make China (UN) happy? What about Malaysia, South Africa, Singapore, and Sri Lanka -- praised by the US even as it resists accountability for its mass atrocities in 2009 and since?
Reuters doesn't report that part of Sri Lanka's record, click here for that. And here. And the US State Department's own media, Voice of America, not only was scooped about Bill Burns -- it bragged inaccurately about its reporting of the deal in Geneva into Iran, when BBC had it first there too.
The Iran nuclear deal, and claims of continuing punishment including by "de-SWIFT-ing" Iran's banks, constitute a pinata for these media, easy pickings. But why be incomplete and inaccurate? Watch this site.
