On Cameroon UN Refuses Inner City Press Questions Charade With HuffPost Who Admits Never Wrote About Biya

By Matthew Russell Lee, CJR Goot PFT NYP

UNITED NATIONS GATE, December 30 --After Paul Biya who has ruled Cameroon for 36 years lied that Transparency International was observing his re-coronation, and burned village after village in the Anglophone regions while hiring lobbyists to seek and get support from UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, on October 22 he claimed to win over 71% of the vote and even that 16% of those eligible voted in the Anglophone North-West and South-West regions. None of this is credible. Nor is Guterres' spokesman and censorStephane Dujarric, refusing to answer dozens of Cameroon questions from banned Inner City Press, servicing only those he allows in his briefing room including the self described Huffington Post contributor who earlier cracked, "The Anglophone have been doing some shooting." Video here. Designated or self-styled patsie, producing nothing, elbowing out others, classic UN. Here is the video. The money (literally) quote is that Guterres is "in touch with the government." YouTube here. On December 29, weeks after Inner City Press published on this, astute Anglophones revisited it, referring to HuffPost - drawing this telling response or admission: "I never wrote about Cameroon and have not contributd to HuffPost in over a year. Your tweet is unreadable." Photo here. Wait a minute - the correspondent the UN has used during its 179 day barring of Inner City Press to claim it is still answering about Cameroon, if only from a Biya perspective, now admits she "never wrote about Cameroon"? So the asking was just a scam? And why is her profile "Huffington Post"? To this the UN of Alison Smale and Guterres gives a free UN office and full access, while roughing up and banning Inner City Press which has published hundreds of stories, dozens of exclusives about abuses in Cameroon and elsewhere? We'll have more on this - the UN's ban must be immediately and long belatedly reversed.  Inner City Press before Dujarric's December 17 briefing asked: "December 17-4: On Cameroon, on which you have been refusing Inner City Press' questions, what is the SG's comment and action on Paul Biya's government's use of the charge of “fake news” to not only insult but lock up journalists covering Biya's army's killing there? Again Francois Fall describes “Gender Desks” in police stations but an Inner City Press reader today called the Kumba police station and they'd never heard of it. What was the basis of Mr. Fall's statement?" During his December 17 briefing, Dujarric joked about "une cuisine interne" - an internal cooking that Guterres and he and Alison Smale have turned the UN into. And still no answers. Also not credible are parts of this UN World Food Program pitch, which leads with "NSAG" violence in a way it would not in, say, Syria: "In November 2018, 21,748 people (10,439 men, 11,309 women) from the North West and South West (NW/SW) regions residing in the Littoral region received food assistance.
WFP Cameroon urgently requires US$ 24 million in the next 6 months to provide food assistance through general food distribution to 400,000 vulnerable displaced and local host populations affected by the NW/SW crisis.
 Since June 2018, non-state armed groups (NSAG) have intensified their operations, notably around Kumba, Buea, Mamfé and Bamenda. While attacks were previously confined to rural areas and the Nigerian border, main town centres and peripheries are increasingly affected by the violence. On the other hand, security forces have intensified operations against NSAGs in the SW in October, and NW in November. Between March and October 2018, a drastic increase in the number of IDPs was recorded, going from 40,000 to a total of 440,000.
 Through joint efforts, WFP continues to coordinate with other agencies to assess the security situation and ensure favourable conditions on the ground for distributions (particularly in Kumba). A recent mission organized jointly with OCHA, UNDSS and the Logistics Cluster confirmed roads and access to markets have been significantly affected, as well as access to transport and warehouse facilities. Strengthened coordination on the ground is in place.
In an effort to respond to the growing needs of IDPs, WFP is scaling up its support to reach approximately 400,000 IDPs and local host populations affected by the NW/SW crisis who are in dire need of food assistance in the North West, South West, West and Littoral regions by April 2019. If the food security situation in NW/SW improves, WFP will gradually scale down its intervention after the lean season from July 2019, transitioning into recovery activities for the extremely vulnerable."  We'll have more on this. Also not credible is the new report by Guterres' failed envoy Francois Lounceny Fall, nor Fall's presentation to the Council, entry to cover which Guterres is corruptly barring Inner City Press on December 13, for the 162nd day. After Fall's pitch, and dubious claims of concern from countries which are withholding all documents about Cameroon which Inner City Press has requested from them under Freedom of Information laws like the Dutch WOB, on December 13 and 14 Inner City Press asked the UN: "December 14-6: On Cameroon, on which you have been refusing Inner City Press' questions, now that Francois Fall has said he visited in November and met Government officials, state with whom else he met. He describes “Gender Desks” in police stations but an Inner City Press reader today called the Kumba police station and they'd never heard of it. What is the basis of Mr. Fall's statement?" Hours after the December 14 UN noon briefing at which those allowed in asked not a single question about anything in Africa, much less Cameroon, Guterres' deputy spokesman Farhan Haq sent this: "Regarding question December 14-6, we have provided Mr. Fall’s briefing to the Security Council, in which he details his concerns about Cameroon and his work there." And the Gender Desks?

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, Censorship Alliance Demands First Question, To Praise & Promote Events and Hashtag, FUNCA Objects

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, March 6 -- In today's UN, the first questions at press briefings are given out automatically so that the briefer can be praised and their events promoted. But it is journalism?

   On March 5 the spokesperson of the President of the General Assembly described an event featuring the PGA then mentioned that Pamela Falk of CBS would be the moderator. Then she gave the first "question" to Falk herself, as president of the United Nations Correspondents Association -- whose question was to ask about the Twitter hashtag for the event. Video here, from Minute 6:20. Is this journalism or promotion?

  On March 6, Falk again took the first question, thanking the noon briefing guest, on behalf of UNCA, for their leadership "in these events." Video here, from Minute 8:35. Is this journalism or promotion?

  Earlier on March 6, Falk's seeming deputy whom on March 4 actively cut off a question, as previously with Bolivian president Evo Morales, again just grabbed the first question by speaking first - but forgot to turn on the microphone, leaving silence on the UN Webcast. Video here from Minute 14.

  On March 4 with the "World Urban Campaign" the subject of a briefingat the UN, UN HABITAT's spokesperson called on Inner City Press to ask the first question.

   But Falk's deputy cut in and demanded to be given the first question, citing UNCA. It is an organization, Evelyn Leopold formerly of Reuters said, and you are not. UN Video here from Minute 20:10, YouTube here, embedded below.

   Her reference was to the new Free UN Coalition for Access. Not that it should matter, but @FUNCA_info has 810 followers, all over the world including for example actual defense of journalists in Somaliland, versus UNCA which has 125 followers and has tried to get journalists thrown out of the UN. 

  Leopold and UNCA have done this before, for example with Bolivia's president Evo Morales in February 2013, click here and here for that (on which we will have more).

  While the UN Secretariat has essentially broken the Staff Union by refusing to recognize the slate that got the most votes in the election held in December, citing procedural violations, today another more obvious procedural breech is scheduled by the UN Secretariat's partner, the United Nations Correspondents Association.

   That group, which in 2012 tried openly and by stealth to get the investigative Press thrown out of the UN and became the UN's Censorship Alliance, is required by its own online "Constitution" to hold its general meeting and financial report in the first half of January. 

    Under 2013-14 president Pamela Falk it never happened; it was twice postponed. More than six weeks late, it was held on March 4 at 4 pm -- at the same time as the World Urban Campaign event at the Ford Foundation that was the subject of the briefing at which Leopold demanded the first question. 

   But the UN Secretariat and Spokesperson's Office, unlike the approach to breaking the Staff Union which actually at times challenges them, says nothing. 

   In fact, a question and answer session was held last month by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the 15 members of UNCA's Executive Committee the transcript or tape of which was never given to other journalists, even UNCA members not among the fifteen.

  Inner City Press on behalf of the new Free UN Coalition for Accessasked Ban's outgoing spokesperson Martin Nesirky for a transcript and was told "get over it," video here.

   Nesirky confirmed that the UNCA executive committee members did not even bring up Ukraine and the disrepute the UN was brought into by the leak that former US official Jeffrey Feltman "got" Ban to send Robert Serry to Ukraine to, in the now-famous phrase, "F*** the EU."

  After not asking that critical UN question, now UNCA as representated by Falk repeats or retweets news about Ukraine, cc-ing UN_Spokesperson. Despite all this, and the fact that when deputy spokesperson Eduardo Del Buey left, his farewell was (appropriately) in the Spokesperson's large office, the March 7 farewell was scheduled in the big room the UN gives UNCA, with its own kitchenette: the UN's Censorship Alliance.

  The censorship goes beyond trying to get the investigative Press -- and others -- thrown out. Inner City Press was ordered to remove from the Internet a story about Sri Lanka and seeming conflict of interest within UNCA's leadership, and was browbeaten about an article about UN Peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous.

  While neither article was removed, one of the "for the record" complaints to the UN Accreditation official now slated to become Ban Ki-moon's new spokesperson on March 10 has been banned from Google's search following a bogus Digital Millennium Copyright Act filing, click here to view: outright censorship.

  (Ironically on February 28 when Inner City Press asked about the banning of a website by the Sri Lankan government, Ban Ki-moon's spokesperson said Ban is committed to free access to the Internet. What about this?)

 To the same UN official, an explicitly internal UNCA document was provided, with the notation "you didn't get this from me," three minutes after the pass-through committed that the document would remain within UNCA: click here for that.

  Under Falk, has UNCA even attempted reforms such as a commitment against censorship, not to spy for the UN or seek to get other journalists thrown out of the UN, or ban things from the Internet? No.

  While UNCA's "leadership" parties, some long time journalists have been thrown out of the UN; others are losing work space and working conditions at the stakeout have declined. The new Free UN Coalition for Access is taking this on. 

  Tellingly, when a petition for at least a journalists' work table at the Security Council stakeout was submitted, the response was to browbeat those who'd signed and ask them why they'd signed. This is the UN. Watch this site.

   

At UN, Censorship Alliance Demands 1st Question, As With Bolivia's Evo Morales, FUNCA

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, March 4 -- With the "World Urban Campaign" the subject of a briefing at the UN on March 4, UN HABITAT's spokesperson called on Inner City Press to ask the first question.

   But another attendee cut in and demanded to be given the first question, citing the United Nations Correspondents Association. It is an organization, Evelyn Leopold formerly of Reuters said, and you are not.UN Vdeo here from Minute 20:10, YouTube here, embedded below.

   Her reference was to the new Free UN Coalition for Access. Not that it should matter, but @FUNCA_info has 797 followers, all over the world including for example actual defense of journalists in Somaliland, versus UNCA which has less than 125 followers and has tried to get journalists thrown out of the UN. 

  Leopold and UNCA have done this before, for example with Bolivia's president Evo Morales in February 2013, click here and here for that (on which we will have more).

  While the UN Secretariat has essentially broken the Staff Union by refusing to recognize the slate that got the most votes in the election held in December, citing procedural violations, today another more obvious procedural breech is scheduled by the UN Secretariat's partner, the United Nations Correspondents Association.

   That group, which in 2012 tried openly and by stealth to get the investigative Press thrown out of the UN and became the UN's Censorship Alliance, is required by its own online "Constitution" to hold its general meeting and financial report in the first half of January. 

    Under 2013-14 president Pamela Falk it never happened; it has twice been postponed. Now it is more than six weeks late, scheduled for today at 4 pm -- at the same time as the World Urban Campaign event at the Ford Foundation that was the subject of the briefing at which Leopold demanded the first question. 

   But the UN Secretariat and Spokesperson's Office, unlike the approach to breaking the Staff Union which actually at times challenges them, says nothing. 

   In fact, a question and answer session was held this month by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the 15 members of UNCA's Executive Committee the transcript or tape of which was never given to other journalists, even UNCA members not among the fifteen.

  Inner City Press on behalf of the new Free UN Coalition for Access asked Ban's outgoing spokesperson Martin Nesirky for a transcript and was told "get over it," video here.

   Nesirky confirmed that the UNCA executive committee members did not even bring up Ukraine and the disrepute the UN was brought into by the leak that former US official Jeffrey Feltman "got" Ban to send Robert Serry to Ukraine to, in the now-famous phrase, "F*** the EU."

  After not asking that critical UN question, now UNCA as representated by Falk repeats or retweets news about Ukraine, cc-ing UN_Spokesperson. Despite all this, and the fact that when deputy spokesperson Eduardo Del Buey left, his farewell was (appropriately) in the Spokesperson's large office, the farewell as week from now will be in the big room the UN gives UNCA, with its own kitchenette: the UN's Censorship Alliance.

  The censorship goes beyond trying to get the investigative Press -- and others -- thrown out. Inner City Press was ordered to remove from the Internet a story about Sri Lanka and seeming conflict of interest within UNCA's leadership, and was browbeaten about an article about UN Peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous.

  While neither article was removed, one of the "for the record" complaints to the UN Accreditation official now slated to become Ban Ki-moon's new spokesperson on March 10 has been banned from Google's search following abogus Digital Millennium Copyright Act filing, click here to view: outright censorship.

  (Ironically on February 28 when Inner City Press asked about the banning of a website by the Sri Lankan government, Ban Ki-moon's spokesperson said Ban is committed to free access to the Internet. What about this?)

 To the same UN official, an explicitly internal UNCA document was provided, with the notation "you didn't get this from me," three minutes after the pass-through committed that the document would remain within UNCA:click here for that.

  Under Falk, has UNCA even attempted reforms such as a commitment against censorship, not to spy for the UN or seek to get other journalists thrown out of the UN, or ban things from the Internet? No.

  While UNCA's "leadership" parties, some long time journalists have been thrown out of the UN; others are losing work space and working conditions at the stakeout have declined. The new Free UN Coalition for Access is taking this on. 

  Tellingly, when a petition for at least a journalists' work table at the Security Council stakeout was submitted, the response was to browbeat those who'd signed and ask them why they'd signed. This is the UN. Watch this site.

   

As Arms Trade Treaty Failed, New Low by UN Cowardice Association UNCA

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, March 29 -- While diplomats milled around UN Conference Room 1 waiting to learn how theirlack of consensus on the Arms Trade Treaty would be phrased, what were the leaders of the UN Cowardice Association up to?

  Using their anonymous social media accounts to try to claim a victory for their role in the UN's raid of Inner City Press' office on March 18, at which UNCA president Pamela Falk of CBS took photographs. 

  Then anonymous UNCA leader “Concerned UN Reporter” passed photographs including of Inner City Press' bookshelf to BuzzFeed. This is UNCA: the UN's Censorship Alliance.

  Their new anonymous social media accounts are associated with most members of the UNCA Executive Committee: Louis Charbonneau of Reuters, Tim Witcher of Agence France Press, Melissa Kent of CBC, Syliane Zehil of L'Oriente Le Jour, even Barbara Plett of the BBC and others pictured below.

  There's also former Executive Committee member Margaret Besheer of Voice of America, and former former Evelyn Leopold. But absentee president Falk, after screaming on February 22 that she didn't know which of her board members were behind the accounts, has done nothing to find out. Is she resigning?

Ban's UNCA Lunch of the Lost, Feb 7, 2013, credit Evan Schneider, UNPhoto. From left: OSSG's Del Buey; Denis Fitzgerald of Saudi Press Agency; OSSG's Nesirky; Melissa Kent of CBC; Sylviane Zehil of L'Orient le Jour; Tim Witcher of AFP; Ali Barada of An-Nahar; Ban Ki-moon, Kahraman Halicelik of Turkish Radio & TV; Pamela S. Falk of CBS; Lou Charbonneau of Reuters; Bouchra Benyoussef of Maghreb Arab Press; Yasuomi Sawa of Kyodo News; Masood Haider of Dawn; Unknown; Zhenqiu Gu of Xinhua; Stephane Dujarric of UN DPI

  Falk has only issued a legal threat to Inner City Press, from her CBSNews.com e-mail account, not to question why she took photos of the March 18 raid by the UN Department of Public Information.

  DPI is aware of the fake social media accounts and claimed to take them seriously. DPI's Stephane Dujarric is followed by a recently created one. But so what? Watch this site.