By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive
UNITED NATIONS, February 18 -- Beyond the most recent Somalia Eritrea Monitoring Group report, which Inner City Press is today putting online in full, the dysfunction of the Somali Mission and foreign service has reached levels not before seen.
In 2010 Inner City Press covered disputes in which Idd Beddel Mohamed tried to get into the Somali Mission on 61st Street only to be confronted by police in an incident Inner City Press dubbed "Mogadishu in Manhattan."
Days after that, Inner City Press asked then Somali Minister of Information, Post and Telecommunications Abdulkareem Jama about Idd Beddel Mohamed; Jama said that wasn't decided yet.
Jama went up to become chief of staff to (now former) President Sharif. Now, Inner City Press exclusively publishes this letter from Raiffesen Bank, concerning a failed electronic transfer of $4.5 million by Abdulkareem Hassan Jama. Click here to view.
Somali sources tell Inner City Press that in a continuation of Mogadishu in Manhattan (that is, IV) Idd Beddel Mohamed went and tried to retrieve the funds but was again rebuffed.
Meanwhile there's foreclosure of the Somali government's condominium on 61st Street in Manhattan, following the demolition of its ill-kept house in suburban New Rochelle. (Click here for Rep. Nita Lowey's press release about the demolition.)
These things are not talked about but should be. Likewise, reports like that of the Somalia Eritrea Monitoring Group are selectively quoted but not as here published in full -- in this case, by Reuters which left a more readily available UN report that the Free Syrian Army uses child soldiers unreported on for five days until the last round of Geneva talks were over.
At the same time, Reuters UN bureau chief has moved to censor leaked copies of his own anti-Press complaint to the UN, mis-using the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act to get his "for the record" complaint to the UN banned from Google's Search. That's censorship in Manhattan -- but this is Mogadishu in Manhattan IV. Watch this site.
