After Hillary Clinton's UN Security Council Stakeout About E-mails, UN Admits to Inner City Press No "Tradition" of 1st Question to UNCA, On Approvals and Fabric

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, March 11 -- When Hillary Clinton spoke about her privatized e-mails for 20 minutes in front of the UN Security Council on March 10, the venue seemed noteworthy and not entirely appropriate. 

  The first question seemed fishy, with its praise of Clinton and invitation to blame the controversy on sexism.

  The UN moved the flags of the 15 members of the Security Council but left up a sheet emblazoned "Security Council" in English and French.  UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told Inner City Press on March 11 that "the fabric is unmovable, it is tied to the wall."

  Previously it has been said that only member states and their representatives may speak on UNTV camera at the UN Security Council stakeout. Inner City Press on March 11 asked Spokesman Dujarric to explain, in light for example of the Frente Polisario of Western Sahara, parties to UN-mediated talks on what's called the last colony in Africa, has been banned from speaking. Video here.

  Dujarric said that the US Mission to the UN asked on Hillary Clinton's behalf for the venue, and checked with this month's Security Council presidency: France. 

 But, Inner City Press asked, since Polisario was blocked by a single member's opposition, was the request circulated to all members? This, Dujarric did not answer.

  Many have now noted that the set-aside first question to Hillary Clinton at the UN Security Council stakeout position on March 10 was a softball, beginning with “it's wonderful to see you” and ending with an invitation to blame the inquiry into privatized State Department email on sexism.

  To defend the setting-aside of this question, it has been falsely claimed to the Washington Post and repeated by others that there is a “tradition” of the UN Correspondents Association getting the first question in such setting. 

  Inner City Press on March 11 asked Dujarric, who before being spokesman worked in the UN Department of Public Information in charge of UNTV, if there is any such tradition as to the Security Council stakeout.

  No, was the UN Spokesman's on-camera answer, here.

  In fact, as noted, a simple review on the UN Television online archivesof the last ten, or twenty, or one hundred question and answer sessions at the Security Council stakeout position where Hillary Clinton spoke shows there is no such tradition. So why was this "tradition" invented and invoked?

  Dujarric on March 11 told Inner City Press that the choice of first question was made by Mrs Clinton's spokesperson.

  (He said there is a tradition to set aside the first question for UN in the Press Briefing Room -- but this did not happen, for example, on March 11, nor when Chad had a press conference as Security Council president for December 2014. For the reasons below the "tradition" of the UN Secretariat calling first on what's become the UN Censorship Alliance is contested. But it does NOT apply to the UNSC stakeout where Hillary Clinton spoke.)

  There's more. The head of UNCA Giampioli Pioli, to whom it's said the first question was to be given, is a Democratic campaign contributor. To the tune of at least $800. 

  This too is online, here -- and has been raised, along with other conflicts of interest, but UNCA has not adopted any policy against it. This is why the new Free UN Coalition for Access opposes privileges for and use of UNCA, for softball questions at the UN.

   The Washington Post's Al Kamen In the Loop reported:

“by tradition, the first question at a U.N. news conferences is asked by the president of the U.N. Correspondents Association. But UNCA president Giampaolo Pioli, of the Italian paper Quotidiano Nazionale (National Daily) wasn’t in town Tuesday. We reached him in the Central African Republic and he said protocol would dictate that one of the other UNCA officers would do the honors. They did indeed follow protocol and the next officer in line,  UNCA first vice president Kahraman Haliscelik, the New York correspondent for the Turkish Radio & TV network, opened the questioning”

  And here was the question: "Madam Secretary, on behalf of the U.N. correspondents association, thank you very much for your remarks andit's wonderful to see you here again.  Madam Secretary, why did you opt out using two devices at the time? Obviously, if this hadn't come out, it probably would not have been an issue. And my second follow up question is, if you are a man today, would all this fuss be made?"

  The question... speaks for itself.  The pretext for setting aside this first question doesn't hold up. Again, a simple search of UNTV's online videos of the last week or month or year of question and answer sessions at the Security Council stakeout where Hillary Clinton spoke shows there is no such tradition, whatever UNCA and perhaps others claim.

  But this Pioli, flying along with Security Council members for quick visits to the Central African Republic and Burundi, about which Pioli has never asked the UN a question nor apparently written any articles (unlike US politics), is a Democratic campaign contributor. Whatever one's political affiliation, is this appropriate? Watch this site.

   

For Softball Question to Hillary, First Chance Given to UN Correspondents Association, Whose President Is a Campaign Contributor

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, March 11 -- Many have now noted that the set-aside first question to Hillary Clinton at the UN Security Council stakeout position on March 10 was a softball, beginning with “it's wonderful to see you” and ending with an invitation to blame the inquiry into privatized State Department email on sexism.

  But there's more. 

  To defend the setting-aside of this question, it has been falsely claimed that there is a “tradition” of the UN Correspondents Association getting the first question in such setting. 

 A simple review on the UN Television online archives of the last ten, or twenty, or one hundred question and answer sessions at the Security Council stakeout position where Hillary Clinton spoke shows there is no such tradition. So why was this "tradition" invented and invoked?

  And now, there's more. The head of UNCA Giampioli Pioli, to whom it's said the first question was to be given, is a Democratic campaign contributor. To the tune of at least $800. 

  This too is online, here -- and has been raised, along withother conflicts of interest, but UNCA has not adopted any policy against it. This is why the new Free UN Coalition for Access opposes privileges for and use of UNCA, for softball questions at the UN.

   The Washington Post's Al Kamen In the Loop reported:

“by tradition, the first question at a U.N. news conferences is asked by the president of the U.N. Correspondents Association. But UNCA president Giampaolo Pioli, of the Italian paper Quotidiano Nazionale (National Daily) wasn’t in town Tuesday. We reached him in the Central African Republic and he said protocol would dictate that one of the other UNCA officers would do the honors. They did indeed follow protocol and the next officer in line,  UNCA first vice president Kahraman Haliscelik, the New York correspondent for the Turkish Radio & TV network, opened the questioning”

  And here was the question: "Madam Secretary, on behalf of the U.N. correspondents association, thank you very much for your remarks and it's wonderful to see you here again.  Madam Secretary, why did you opt out using two devices at the time? Obviously, if this hadn't come out, it probably would not have been an issue. And my second follow up question is, if you are a man today, would all this fuss be made?"

  The question... speaks for itself. The pretext for setting aside this first question doesn't hold up. Again, a simple search of UNTV's online videos of the last week or month or year of question and answer sessions at the Security Council stakeout where Hillary Clinton spoke shows there is no such tradition, whatever UNCA and perhaps others claim.

  But this Pioli, flying along with Security Council members for quick visits to the Central African Republic and Burundi, about which Pioli has never asked the UN a question nor apparently written any articles (unlike US politics), is a Democratic campaign contributor. Whatever one's political affiliation, is this appropriate? Watch this site.

   

As UN Correspondents Association Helm Reclaimed by Giampaolo Pioli, Of Real Estate, Sri Lanka War Crimes & Threats, UN in Decay

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, December 3 -- When Ban Ki-moon was selected as UN Secretary General in 2006 it was an untransparent process, with secret ballots in the Security Council.  But at least there was competition, including for example Shashi Tharoor now snarking at the process. Now reportedly the top spot at the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs may be given without competition.

  This trend at the UN under Ban, including for example UN Peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous, has been enabled and concealed by what has become the UN's Censorship Alliance, formally the United Nations Correspondents Association.

  On November 14 this organization in decline formally announced a slate of six officers -- all without any competition at all. 

   These six have been "elected" today, December 3.

 It's been a pure rubber stamp. The top post has been handed (back) to Giampaolo Pioli, who engaged in outright censorship while last using the position. Since then he was rarely seen at the UN; even when back, pressuring people to vote for him, he did not ask questions in any noon briefing or stakeout (though he did appear in evening wear with his ubiquitous glass of wine, winning the title Party-Boy Pioli.)

  But there is nothing funny about it. Pioli, who had rented one of his Manhattan apartments to Palitha Kohona, Sri Lanka's ambassador, unilaterally granted Kohona's request to use UNCA to screen inside the UN a government film denying war crimes, and sat on a panel with only Kohona and his deputy Shavendra Silva, who is still in the news. From the December 3 UN noon briefing transcript:

Inner City Press: I'm going to ask really fast on Sri Lanka.  You mentioned the Rights up Front initiative.  So I wanted to ask, there has recently been published in a Sri Lankan publication, previously been censored or blocked by the Government, Lanka eNews, the detailed testimony of somebody saying in the final stage of the conflict, the presidential brother, Defense Minister Gotabya Rajapaksa, told Shavendra Silva, who was on the Secretary-General’s senior advisory group, to kill all surrenderees.  That's now been published.  He said they're willing to put it into the thing in Geneva.  What I wonder is, given the UN's role at that time in assuring people that were surrendering that they would be treated in compliance with international and humanitarian law, is the UN aware of this?  What now is the response to it?

Spokesman Dujarric:  I have not seen that report.  But I will take a look into it. 

  Seven hours later, nothing. Already, the issue of Sri Lanka is covered up in the UN. Will Pioli be able, as he tried before, to cover it up or white wash it more?

   When Inner City Press reported, after his screening panel with Silva and Kohona, that Kohona has been his tenants in the past, Pioli demanded that reporting of these facts must be removed from the Internet (compilation of audio here) or he would use UNCA to try to get Inner City Press thrown out of the UN. There followed a kangaroo court proceeding, which has resulted in Inner City Press receiving death threats from Sinhalese extremists in Sri Lanka. 

 Voice of America, then on the UNCA Executive Board, wrote a letter to the UN asking that Inner City Press' accreditation be reviewed; a Freedom of Information Act request showed that VOA said it had the support of Agence France Presse and Reuters (which they tried to censor its anti-Press complaint to the UN by claiming it is copyrighted, here.)

  Now for 2015 Pioli returns. Reuters has on the board its current correspondent though no longer its retired UN bureau chief. Agence France Presse, which had been off the UNCA Executive Committee after having used it to complain about Press reporting on Herve Ladsous, sought to return but was not able. 

 Only News Agency of Nigeria, which ran in 2013, did not run this time: its UN office space was taken away in 2014, ostensibly due to scarcity when UNCA is given a big room that sits empty and locked most of the time. This is the UN's Censorship Alliance -- now again with a chieftain with a documented history of demanding censorship. 

  This is the face of UN decay, sanitized if at all by the desire of some to go to parties and balls, free lunch, or a backdoor way into the UN, like Kohona requested and got unilaterally from his former landlord, without written polling of other board members, to screen inside the UN a government rebuttal to a firm that was not shown in the UN. And then a campaign for censorship, triggering death threats. This is the face of UN decay: unsanitizable.

Silva, Pioli and his former tenant, Kohona, censorship demand not shown (but sample audio links here)


Ready for censorship, raised wine glass not shown

As to the Secretary General's race, a November reform letter's signatories include Avaaz, Amnesty International, CIVICUS, Equality Now, FEMNET, Forum-Asia, Global Policy Forum, Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy, Social Watch, Third World Network, Women’s Environment and Development Organization, the World Federalist Movement-Institute for Global Policy and the World Federation of United Nations Associations.

The new Free UN Coalition for Access, formed in response to the decline in media access and transparency generally under Ban Ki-moon, heartily agrees with the need to reform and improve the Secretary General selection process. 

 Candidates so far including Helen Clark of UNDP, who virtually never takes press questions while in New York, the headquarters of UNDP, amiduntransparent layoffs, and Irina Bokova, the Director General of UNESCO, an agency which on November 3 led an event about journalists at which not a single question from a journalist was taken. There's also among others, in this SG race we will closely cover, a Latina trio, Kristalina Georgieva, Miroslav Lajcak, Kevin Rudd, Dalia Grybauskaite, Vuk Jeremic, Danilo Turk, Jan Kubis - that is, unlike the UN's Censorship Alliance, at least there is some competition.

Tellingly, after September's General Assembly debate week, UNCA's“complaints” to Ban's Secretariat are to ask for fewer events, for a private wi-fi network for in-house UN journalist and not those who cover to cover the week, and a booklet co-signed with Ban.

UN Censorship Alliance lunch, Feb 11, 2014 including Pam Falk and continuing Kahraman Haliscelik, Sylviane Zehil, Erol Avdovic, Bouchra Benyoussef, Seana Magee, Nabil Abi Saab, Evelyn Leopold, Talal Al-Haj, Melissa Kent, Michelle Nichols, Sangwon Yoon, Valeria Robecco, Sherwin Bryce-Pease, Zhenqiu Gu UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe

Meanwhile, UNCA makes no mention of restrictions of access that week such as the French mission ordering all non-French journalists out of the UN's Press Briefing Room, and UN Peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous physically blocking the Press' camera, Vine here.

  The new Free UN Coalition for Access has raised these issues, publicly, in fliers and in the UN's Press Briefing Room. Tellingly, the UN Secretariat appears ready to limit its "interlocutors" on media access to the very insiders at UNCA who have overseen and promoted the decline in access. 

 Pioli, while strong-arming in his fashion for votes, said no one could simultaneously be a member of the Free UN Coalition for Access and "his" UNCA. Meanwhile, while UNCA tries to demand that it always gets the first question at press conferences, that this is somehow a precedent, at the December 2, 2014, Program of Work press conference by the Chadian UN Security Council President, the first question explicitly went to the Free UN Coalition for Access. That's it: no precedent, no more, particularly with the return of the Censor in chief.

  An analogy that some have now made: it's one thing that Kurt Waldheim was UN Secretary General once. But what would it say about the UN if he were to return, after a haitus, for more time atop the organization? We'll see.

  Ban Ki-moon, meanwhile, is appearing in polls as running for president of his native South Korea in 2017. Inner City Press asked Ban's deputy spokesperson about it, who said Ban is “currently” focused on his current job. This has been repeated in South Korea, here. The UN is being used; the UN is in further decline; there are moves afoot to stem the tide of decay. Watch this site.

   

At UN, Staff Union Office Space Dispute, Wiring in Censors' Club, 2014 Banifesto of the Free UN Coalition for Access

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, January 5 -- While the UN preaches democracy and even lack of censorship around the world, in two elections held last month inside the UN, disputes and decay were the rule.

  In the UN Staff Union election, in which an incumbent sought to stay on despite term limits, there were charges of illegal polling, and an attempt to stop paying the Elections Services Company.

  Now the incumbent - no longer in power - has implicitly asked the UN Secretariat to take back the Staff Union office, see below.

  When the results came out, and were posted on the UN's i-Seek intranet site, the losing ticket wrote December 20 that it intended to simply take over the Staff Union office. 

  Back on December 20, Inner City Press asked the UN's acting deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq:

Inner City Press: On the staff union election that just took place, given that it’s budget crunch time, according to the Secretariat, who is its interlocutor? Who is the head of the staff union, the previous incumbent or the team that was announced as the winner on iSeek?

Acting Deputy Spokesperson Haq: Regarding the staff representatives, it’s ultimately up to them members of the staff to determine who their leadership is. It would not, you know, I don’t think it’s appropriate for this Office to intervene in their affairs.

Inner City Press: So, who do you speak to now? If you had to talk to the staff union, which of the two would you call?

Acting Deputy Spokesperson Haq: They will have, like I said, they’ll have to resolve it. I’m not going to say anything prejudicial to their process, nor do I think that they would appreciate that.

Then the losing ticket said it would just occupy the (UN given) office on January 6. So the now out of power incumbent wrote on the UN snow day on January 3, hoping that

"our Administration colleagues decide to fully dirty their hands and mandate in writing that the Union premises are vacated (it hasn't happened yet and I am not sure if it will since the 44th Staff Council authorized and paid in advance for a legal case to be brought to UNDT and such an action by the Administration would be the legal icing on the cake)."

  On December 17 Inner City Press published the results,putting the document online here:

Winner with 430 votes: Ticket 1 [They have thanked voters]

President Stephen Kisambira (DESA/PD)

First Vice-President Emad Hassanin (DGACM/MPD/PS)

Second Vice-President Leonid Dolgopolov (DSS/DSSS/SSS)

2d place with 231 votes: Ticket 2

President Nadir A. Dirar Bashir (DGACM/MPD/PS/DTPU)...

  We will cover that showdown, which is at least competitive. Even more decayed is the UN's Censorship Alliance, which while not even asking the UN to hold a briefing or answer questions about the crisis in South Sudan, re-emerged on December 22 through once and future president Pamela Falk of CBS hyping fashion photographs of herself with Ban Ki-moon.

 
  The "premises" the UN gives them saw the installation of wiring by the UN on December 31, even as Falk on January 2 used the UN noon briefing to deny ever accepting a donated Samsung TV through the South Korea mission and the UN,despite her own November 25 minutes, and the UN's December 10 answer to Inner City Press. See the 2014 "Banifesto" of the new Free UN Coalition for Access,@FUNCA_info, here.

   Technically they're called the United Nations Correspondents Association, and in 2012 its leaders tried to get the investigative Press thrown out of the UN, pointing at a factual article Inner City Press published about Sri Lanka, the UN and conflicts of interest.

  Ban's Secretariat now admits on Sri Lanka a "systemic failure" - his Deputy Jan Eliasson repeatedly says that -- but UNCA, which still has no rules against trying to throw journalists out of the UN, nor apparently any conflict of interest rules, makes no admission, no reforms.

  It demands the first question at press conferences even if it has nothing to ask, or the answers will never be published.

  Not surprisingly it is in decay. Even as to its annual overly expensive ball, its draw Richard Roth of CNN was replaced by BBC's Laura Trevelyan who during a 2009 trip to Sri Lanka with Ban Ki-moon and UK humanitarian chief Sir John Holmes not only didn't report Holmes on the record comment that he deleted all complaining emails from Tamils -- she said the Press reporting this "ruined" relations with Holmes for her and, for example, Reuters. 

 Though over 2000 journalists are accredited at the UN, in December 2013 only 111 even tried to vote in the three days of polling -- and door to door demands to vote for -- the United Nations Correspondents Association. Seven of these ballots failed. The incumbent Pamela Falk of CBS, running unopposed, still managed to not get 26 of the 104 votes cast.

  But as a result of UNCA's "Ball" with Ban, she got herfashion photo in the NYT Styles section and made sure to hype it up, online and in the briefing room before being handed, only to waste, the first of four questions on the South Sudan crisis on December 23.

  Falk's vote total of 78 was lower than the 85 obtained in December 2011 by her predecessor, who was the one who first demanded that Inner City Press remove an article about Sri Lanka from the Internet, click here for that.

 The article UNCA "leaders" tries to censor reported on the previous financial relationship of Sri Lanka's Permanent Representative with UNCA's then president, in the context of this president screening in the UN the Sri Lankan government's war crimes denial film, without asking or the consent of Inner City Press then on the Executive Committee of UNCA.

  No reforms in UNCA were ever instituted after this.

  Now as Inner City Press exclusively reported on December 16, picked up in Sri Lanka in English and Tamil, Sri Lanka's defense secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa was in New York. Some in Sri Lanka hasked: would he attend UNCA's $250 a plate event with Ban Ki-moon?

 Will the leaders of UNCA, an association of correspondents, make public who attended their ball, who paid and how much?

(Inner City Press after withstanding a kangaroo court UNCA proceeding quit the organization and co-founded the newFree UN Coalition for Access, @FUNCA_info, to actually defend the right of free press and free inquiry in and about the UN system.)

   UNCA is an organization in continued decline. In 2012 many of its "leaders" tried to get the investigative Press thrown out of the UN, as documented by documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. Voice of America asked the UN to "review" Inner City Press' accreditation; VOA said it had the support of Agence France Presse and Reuters, click here for that.

The Reuters first vice president of UNCA spied for the UN, giving them an internal anti Press UNCA document three minutes after promising not to (story here, document here,audio here). 

 While he has stepped off, the Reuters reporter he supervised (and who also tried to get the investigative Press thrown out of the UN) campaigned to get on UNCA's board, demanding in Friday's noon briefing to all present, "Have you voted?" It's as if Reuters has a Permanent seat on UNCA's 15-member Executive Committee, like the P5 in the Security Council.

Here are the December 2103 results, compared to votes in December 2011 for the "candidate" or their predecessor

Dec '13 Dec '11

Prez: * 78 [85] Pamela Falk, CBS News TV and Radio

1st VP * 74 [79] Kahraman Haliscelik, TRT Turkish Radio & TV

2d VP * 48 71 Masood Haider, Dawn, Pakistan

* 48 [71] Sylviane Zehil, L’Orient Le Jour

3d VP * 55 [62] Erol Avdovic, Webpublicapress

38 Ali Barada, An-Nahar/France 24

Trez * 81 [71] Bouchra Benyoussef, Maghreb Arab Press

Sect * 79 [81] Seana Magee, Kyodo News

Members at Large (9)

* 57  Nabil Abi Saab , Alhurra TV

* 57  Talal Al-Haj ,Al-Arabiya News channel

22  George Baumgarten , Jewish Newspapers, Nation Media

* 50 Sherwin Bryce-Pease, South African Broadcasting (SABC)

* 51  Zhenqiu Gu, Xinhua News Agency

* 69  Melissa Kent, CBC/Radio Canada

* 56  Evelyn Leopold, Huffington Post Contributor

49 J. Tuyet Nguyen, German Press Agency DPA

* 67  Michelle Nichols, Reuters

41  Edwin Nwanchukwu, News Agency of Nigeria

27  Cia Pak, Scannews

*54  Valeria Robecco, ANSA

* 54  Sangwon Yoon , Bloomberg

  Some of the elected are new and their positions on UNCA Executive Committee members trying to get other (investigative) media thrown out of the UN, and the need to preclude this and UNCA leaders' anonymous social media trolling, are not yet known. (Some not elected were among the better / more diverse candidates.)

 They honored Ban Ki-moon, whose spokesperson's office squawked on December 13, immediately after a briefing on Syria chemical weapons, that wine would be served in the UNCA room and that election results were out: to UN, newsworthy.

When the UN Correspondents Association leaders tried stealthy to get the investigative Press thrown out of the UN, and have failed to institute any reform since, it became the UN's Censorship Alliance. Party on. Watch this site.