After UK Charges David Miranda As Terrorist, UN Tells Inner City Press To "Ask UNESCO" - Who's Misused?

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, November 4 -- Even after a National Security Agency document leaked by whistleblower Edward Snowden showed that UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's talking points for meeting President Barack Obama this year were spied on, Ban's spokesperson Farhan Haq had no new comment on Monday.

  Inner City Press asked spokesperson Haq if Ban or the UN have any comment on the United Kingdom charging David Miranda with "terrorism" for transporting encrypted NSA documents.

  Haq said the UN hasn't seen the basis of the charge. But it is online:

"Additionally the disclosure, or threat of disclosure, is designed to influence a government and is made for the purpose of promoting a political or ideological cause. This therefore falls within the definition of terrorism..."

Inner City Press read this out loud to Haq at Monday's UN noon briefing. He still had no specific comment, beyond a generic statement that journalists should be able to work their work, suggesting that Inner City Press should "ask UNESCO."

Ban has previously said that Snowden misused information and his position -- then claimed this was in a "private" meeting with Icelandic parliamentarians. Inner City Press has asked: who's misused?

It's worth noting that, at least as to Ethiopia, the UN system's Navi Pillay has previously criticized the use of anti-terrorism laws against journalists. Will the UN say that when the United Kingdom, with its Permanent seat on the Security Council, does it? Watch this site.

   

As Reuters Calls Glenn Greenwald An Activist, And Ban Ki-moon Said Snowden Misused, Reuters Spies FOR the UN

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, September 8 -- Some were surprised when Reuters, reporting on US spying on Petrobras, said Globo's information came from "Glenn Greenwald, an American activist who has worked with fugitive former NSA analyst Edward Snowden." 

 Isn't Snowden a whistleblower, and Greenwald a journalist?

  But this is NOT surprising from Reuters. Its bureau at the UN has repeatedly tried to get the investigative Press thrown out, going so far as to spy for the UN to do it. 

  Reuters bureau chief Louis Charbonneau gave UN accreditation official Stephane Dujarric an internal document of the UN Correspondents Association, three minutes after promising not to do so. Story here, audio here, document here.

  So not only is Reuters amenable to the US' spying -- it does spying itself, for the UN.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Snowden "misused" information and his position, then insisted what he said was in a "private" meeting with the Iceland parliament.

  Reuters' Charbonneau and Michelle Nichols, not surprisingly, are routinely spoon-fed information by the UN and missions, particularly UN Peacekeeping as run by its fourth Frenchman in a row, Herve Ladsous. 

   And when challenged or scrutinized as it was by Inner City Press last week on Syria, Reuters UN bureau expands its anonymous trolling, now through at least two counterfeit Inner City Press social media accounts.

  This has been documented this year to Reuters' big shots ranging from Stephen J. Adler, Editor in Chief, Paul Ingrassia, Deputy Editor in Chief, and Walden Siew, Top News to its former social media editor; nothing was done. 

  It's Reuters which is an activist -- but in these cases, just an activist or assistant to power. And Power. Watch this site.

   

Al Jazeera America's Hour One Mirrors Qatar on Egypt, Upbeat from the Bay Area, Even Asks ICP for Video of UN on Miranda Detention

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, August 20 -- Al Jazeera America launched today with an hour of news from 4 to 5 pm, New York time. It was heavy with news from Egypt, largely mirroring the foreign policy of Qatar, AJAM's funder. But the word Qatar was not used.

  The domestic US stories ranged from guns in schools to wild fires in Idaho, with a correspondent already on the scene. The profile of US firefighters was upbeat, consonant with the testimonial of the channel's American employees in the one hour promotional video that ran before the news.

  To Inner City Press, which previously covered Joe Kennedy's Bronx television commercials for CITGO, there was something of an echo: the US seen from a perspective from, or funded by, outside. An outsider perspective can be fresh.

  Monday's first hour was cautious, largely siding with Bay Area officials on the safety of their new bridge in Melissa Chan's piece, for example. Will AJAM uncover municipal corruption? Will it cover the New York City electoral races, like CNN with Bill de Blasio and MSNBC with Bill Thompson tonight?

Inner City Press and the Free UN Coalition for Access on August 19 repeated asked the UN to make sure Al Jazeera America would be on the UN's in-house television network, since it's no longer streaming on the Internet. 

  It was put where Al Jazeera Arabic used to be, though the sound quality in the UN was bad. While a FUNCA question on media access Tuesday has so far been ignored, we give them credit for getting AJAM on.

  Watching from the UN, Inner City Press tweet-critiquedthat AJAM's piece on the UK's detention of journalist Glenn Greenwald's partner David Miranda was heavy with day-old footage and did not include, for example, the UN's answer to the Press earlier on Tuesday that Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has "no" comment on Miranda's detention.

  From Washington, Al Jazeera's Rosiland Jordan asked if Inner City Press had fresher video, that AJAM would run it. So citation was provided to the UN's footage of its noon briefing. (Video here, from Minute 16:50.) So we'll see.

  Anchor Tony Harris bantered about J.C. Penney with Aly Velshi, who'll do his own show from West 33rd Street. John Terrett who in full disclosure was on a UN Security Council trip in Khartoum with Inner City Press, and stood up strongly to the handlers, covered Kodak with word play. There was a sports segment on A-Rod, featuring Gary Sheffield prominently featuring his own book. There was that constant, like death and taxes: weather.

  On Al Jazeera and the UN, this sad news cannot go unreported: Al Jazeera cameraman Glenn Gabel, also a fan of motorcycles, tragically died on Friday on his bike, just days before this launch. Among the UN press corps and in many other places, not least by his partner Kristen, and their two young sons, Sawyer and Jax, Glenn will be sorely missed. Rest in Peace.

   

UN Has No Comment on UK Detaining Miranda and Seizing Laptops, Banning Investigative Journalism, Including in Somalia?

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, August 20 -- After the UK detained David Miranda, the partner of journalist Glenn Greenwald, for nine hours and seized his computer and files there has been criticism worldwide.

Inner City Press on Tuesday asked UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesperson Martin Nesirky if Ban or the UN have any comment on the detention, on the use of supposedly anti-terrorism legislation to hinder journalistic reporting on government surveillance.

"No," Nesirky said. Video here and embedded below.

Previously Ban Ki-moon was quoted by Icelandic parliamentarians who met with him as saying that whistleblower Edward Snowden "misused" his position and information. (Ban has said it was a private meeting.)

Still, the terse "no" was at odds even with another answer Nesirky gave Inner City Press in the same noon briefing. When Inner City Press asked about recent treatment in Egypt of journalists, Nesirky said they should be allowed to work without harassment. The nine hour detention and seizing of laptops is not harassment?

  But as Inner City Press covered yesterday, old-style groups like the Committee to Protect Journalists urge more coverage of Egypt than of the Miranda case. Click here for that. 

  CPJ has its own blindspots, including at the UN support of a UK-linked wire service shown to be engage in spying FOR the UN. That's how the UN likes to work, spying where it can, spoon-feeding information to favored scribes when it can.

On that, Inner City Press also asked Nesirky on Tuesday about a story it was first to report, a whistleblower's complaint from Mogadishu to the head of UN Peacekeeping Herve Ladsous. Inner City Press wrote and published it on June 22, and asked the UN at the June 24 noon briefing. After providing no answer, Ladsous' spokesperson Kieran Dwyer gave it to another media.

Now the whistleblower has complained that media held back under pressure from the UN, and that the intervening UN probe was a scam. Inner City Press on Tuesday asked Nesirky if the probe is finished, and if the subject David Bax has been removed from Mogadishu or not. Nesirky said he would check. Watch this site.

   

On Syria, Of Aid Access & Nusra Estimates, UN Hot & Cold on Press Harassment in Egypt & UK As It Shrinks Access

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, August 20, updated -- When the Middle East consultations of the UN Security Council broke up Tuesday early afternoon, no one came to speak before the UNTV camera at the stakeout.

  Inner City Press asked a range of attendees of the closed door meeting and learned that when Council member South Korea asked UN briefer Oscar Fernandez-Taranco how many foreign An Nusra fighters there are in Syria, he answered with a range: for six thousand to forty thousand. Quite a range, that.

  There was talk of Australia, next month's Council president, and Luxembourg proposing a draft resolution on humanitarian issues, the wish-list grandly presented by Baroness Valerie Amos the head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

  Still, the journalists penned into the Security Council stakeout wanted and needed more. At the day's UN noon briefing, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesperson Martin Nesirky seemed defensive about questions why UN representative Lakhdar Brahimi is NOT attending the Russian and US talks in The Hague. The key word is "bilateral," he said.

  Inner City Press asked Nesirky about the arrest in Egypt of the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohamed Badie, a seemingly civil case against Mohamed Al Baradei, and attacks on journalists. Nesirky said he didn't have anything on the case against Al Baradei -- reported in Al Ahram this morning -- and that those arrested should be released or tried transparently.

  On Egypt, Nesirky told Inner City Press that the UN and Secretary General believe journalists should not be harassed. Then Inner City Press asked if the Secretary General or UN had any comment on the controversial detention by the UK of journalist Glenn Greenwald's partner David Miranda.

  "No," Nesirky said.

  Back at the stakeout, journalist were not been allowed into space previously allocated to and used by then, between the Security Council entrance steps and the so-called Turkish Lounge. With a UN Security guard standing in the space, Inner City Press on behalf of the new Free UN Coalition for Access asked for a ruling. The response came back from the head of the UN Media Accreditation and Liaison Unit: no, you cannot enter.

  So the question was sent through @FUNCA_info to MALU's supervisor Stephane Dujarric, then by e-mail above and below him in the UN Department of Public Information. Watch this site.

   

At UN, Only Brazil, Canada & Slovakia Raise Egypt, Bolivia on Spying, Debate on Terrorism and Killer Robots

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, August 19 -- With over 50 speakers in the UN Security Council Monday on the "Protection of Civilians," less than a week after hundreds of unarmed civilians were killed in Egypt, how many countries would raise it?

Only three, it seems. When Egypt's Permanent Representative Mootaz Ahmadein Khalil, who on August 15 told Inner City Press of the UN's Jeffrey Feltman's trip, spoke past 5 pm he criticized "three delegations" for raising Egypt in their speeches. (Inner City Press is putting his prepared speech, which did not specify the number of delegations, online here.)

  One of these, Canada, did so to focus on "unconscionable attacks on Coptic Orthodox and Anglican churches and on Baptist and Franciscan institutions," through its Permanent Representative Guillermo Rishchynski.

  Another, Slovakia, mentioned it -- but was confused with Slovenia by more than one other delegation.

  Deputy Permanent Representative Regina Dunlop of Brazil, expert in Responsibility While Protecting, said that "the escalation of-violence against civilians demonstrating in Egypt is a source of grave concern... We call for dialogue and conciliation so that the legitimate aspirations of the Egyptian people for freedom, democracy and prosperity be achieved without violence, with respect for human rights and with the full return of the democratic order."

  It was not Brazil that brought up the UK's nine-hour detention of Brazilian citizen David Miranda, partner of Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald -- it was Bolivia's Permanent Representative Sacha Llorenti who did. 

   But the UK did not offer any right of reply at the end: this was left to Israel, disagreeing with Navil Pillay about Gaza, and then Syria, which cited the occupied Golan.

  Namibia expressed its opposition to the use of robots to protect civilians.

  The philosophical stand-off or loophole was captured by Turkey, which argued that counter-terrorism is not "armed conflict." 

  But who gets to define it? Egypt says, emblazoned on its state TV, that it is fighting terrorism, as does Syria pointing at Al Nusra and ISIS. Sri Lanka said it did what it did in the north as counter-terrorism. The Democratic Republic of Congo called the M23 rebels terrorists. This is the UN. Watch this site.

   

As Pamela Falk's UN Censorship Alliance Trolls Gets Personal, Reuters' Charbonneau's False Ads & Spying for UN, DPI Questions

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, August 19 -- With Reuters UN bureau having been shown with documents to be spoon-fed spies for the UN, and with UN Correspondents Association president Pamela Falk of CBS News being sycophant for the UN, her UNCA trolls started up again on Monday with personal anti-Press social media posts.

  Meanwhile in the briefing room Monday for UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's four-question press "encounter," the UN gave UNCA Executive Committee members the first two question, the first of which was widely ridiculed afterward. This is the UN's Alliance for so many things.

  Monday at the UN Security Council stakeout virtually none of the UNCA Executive Committee members came, as in the Security Council the killings in Egypt and detention of journalist Glenn Greenwald's partner David Miranda by the UK were debated. (Click here for Inner City Press' story.)

  Lou Charbonneau of Reuters, now a mere pass-through for the UK mission, has been shown to spy for the UN, handing them internal anti-Press UNCA documents three minutes after saying he wouldn't. Story here, audio here, document here.

  Because of the anonymous trolling, we note this, on the record: while Charbonneau's feed of corporate robot-tweets was dropped on August 13 from the Foreign Policy magazine "Twitterati 100," he maintains the claim on his twitter profile. 

  Word to Reuters, including heretofore stonewalling Stephen J. Adler, Greg McCune, Paul Ingrassia and Walden Siew, isn't that false advertising? And what of the Reuter-ites' trolling? And spying for the UN? How is this acceptable? 

The UN Department of Public Information, which said months ago it would curb this personal trolling by its exclusive (censorship) partner has apparently done nothing. Instead, on June 20 DPI told Inner City Press it reserves the right to suspend or withdraw its accreditation for hanging a sign of the alternative Free UN Coalition for Access on the door of its shared office. 

  Meanwhile UNCA has five signs, and has had what was supposed to be a UN journalists club locked up and dark for weeks.

  Inner City Press for FUNCA asked about that locked clubhouse, when UNCA used it for some in the Syrian opposition, publicizing it only to those which pay it money. The UN never explained if the events there are UN events, or why it remains locked. Nor when while threatening journalists it gave a non-journalist UNCA intern a "P" Press pass and let him into the briefing room and stakeout.

Watch this site.

Footnote: we have previously named him as the recipient of Charbonneau's "leak" on an internal UNCA anti-Press document, but tonight in fairness note that the UN's Stephane Dujarric did after week answer a question from the Free UN Coalition for Access (Inner City Press re-tweeted the answer, about Al Jazeera, here). We'll have more on this.

Before UK Detained Greenwald's Partner, Dodged Spying Critique at UN on August 6, of TIME's Grunwald & Big Media Games

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, August 18 -- The UK detailed journalist Glenn Greenwald's partner David Miranda for nine hours in Heathrow Airport, citing schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000.

  At the UN, we noted that when on August 6 numerous countries criticized the global espionage that whistleblower Edward Snowden has exposed through Greenwald, Laura Poitras and others, UK Permanent Representative Mark Lyall Grant in his statements did not even mention espionage, focusing on the Falklands or Malvinas Islands: here, here and here.

  The Guardian's piece today says Miranda was returning from Berlin. This Sunday's New York Times Magazine in a lengthy piece on the exposure of the spying places Poitras in Berlin editing her documentary. Is this the chilling premise the UK was operating on? So far they haven't said.

  The NYT Magazine piece, strangely, does not mention Barton Gellman of the Washington Post, who has written that he was contacted first by Snowden but declined to commit to publishing all of the slides. Is that true? Why did the NYT piece's author Peter Maass not address it?

  Greenwald on August 17 highlighted a tweet by TIME's Mike Grunwald that "I can't wait to write a defense of the drone strike that takes out Julian Assange." Grunwald later deleted the tweet, and has gone silent on Sunday. (TIME has said the tweet does not represent its views). 

  So what is the relation between media mega-corporations'correspondents' on record and anonymous trolling tweets and the corporations?

 Finally for now on the UN: could one expect the UN of Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to speak against this intimidation of a journalists, through the detention of his significant other? 

 Hardly - not only does Ban Ki-moon not criticize Permanent Five members of the Security Council (unlike his predecessor), Ban has also said, as quoted by Icelandic parliamentary from a meeting Ban calls "private," that Snowden "misused" information and his position. What a position. Watch this site.

   

At UN, NBC's Richard Engel Tells Inner City Press He Doesn't "Know Enough about Glenn Greenwald,” AP Silent on Spying

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, July 17 -- When NBC's Richard Engel exited the UN Security Council on Wednesday after advising Council members to distinguish between journalists who deserve their protection and activists, “Tweeters” and state broadcasters who don't, Inner City Press asked him a question.

  Referring to whistleblower Edward Snowden's disclosure of surveillance programs to the Guardian as well as Washington Post, Inner City Press asked Engel, “Glenn Greenwald, is he a journalist or not a journalist?”

  "I don't know enough about Glenn Greenwald,” Engel said. “Somebody has to make a judgment call someday of when you stop being a journalist and and when you are fully an activist.”

  And then Engel was gone, as Security Council members continued “debating” the matter. South Korea and Australia urged more protection for bloggers, for example.

  But another of the initial speakers, Kathleen Carroll of Associated Press, neglected to make an obvious point: that the US government, which holds the UN Security Council presidency for July and scheduled this debate, spied on AP. 

  Doesn't this bring up another form of protection that journalists need?

  Engel said that state broadcasters were not journalists, given the example of state TV in Syria. When asked about Voice of America he said that is somehow different. Inner City Press has recently covered that debate, here -- but note that Voice of America's editor Steve Redisch wrote to the UN asking it to “review” the accreditation of Inner City Press.

  Documents begrudgingly obtained by Inner City Press under the US Freedom of Information Act -- since VOA is a state broadcaster -- show that VOA said it had support for this request from Reuters, Agence France Presse(represented Wednesday in the Council) and even the UN Correspondents Association, click here for more on that.

  French Ambassador Gerard Araud scheduled and then un-scheduled a question and answer session at 11:30; the new Free UN Coalition for Access (FUNCA) asked his missionwhat France has done on the case of Chadian blogger Makaila, so far without answer.

 FUNCA was established to protect journalists, defined more broadly than Richard Engel proposed, from these type of attacks. The UN's response? To threaten to suspend or withdraw the accreditation of Inner City Press for merely hanging a FUNCA sign on the door of Room S-303, a story up from the Security Council.

  One form of protection of journalists was discussed in the UN Security Council Wednesday morning. But many other forms were not. Watch this site.